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winterarmyy · 1 year ago

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Welcome Home... Soldat? | Part III

That time when Bucky accidentally relapsed into the Winter Soldier.

Navigation: Part I || Part II* || Part III (end) || Extra

Words: 5.2k++ (sorry y'all)

Pairing: winter soldier!bucky x female!reader

Warnings: implied 18+ content, implied smut, fluffy stuff, tiny sprinkle of angst, soldat is heartbreakingly adorable until the very end, bucky not being very communicative, self-loathing, confusion, conflicted feelings between guilt and need, two idiots in love who are lost in a miscommunication, excessive use of the word 'fuck', and... what else? I'm not sure either lol.

P/S: This has been truly a journey. Thank you so much for the support y'all have been giving me. I really do appreciate all the comments and dms about my work regardless which one of them. Just wanna remind you that I won't be here without you; that's the degree of importance that you possess. Anyway, enjoy your reading.

Read my other works here: Masterlist

It's only been eight in the morning and the soldat had Y/N trapped between his arms as she focused on sifting the flour for the pancake batter. There were barely any space between them; not when he made sure that her soft plushy butt rests right against his crotch, while his fingers subtly move along her hips.

Those gentle trailings didn't last too long for comfort as he slipped his left hand under her sweatshirt. The soldat let his instinct took control as the metal of his touch draws invisible circles all across her bare stomach, while his lips peppered endless amount of butterfly kisses on the marks from last night; each one was now hidden under layers of color correcter and concealer.

"Wow." A raw sound of astonisment naturally slipped from Sam's lips as he found himself frozen in his spot at the corridor leading to the entrance of the kitchen.

Look at them. Acting like newlyweds on their honeymoon.

For a moment he forgot that the huge cuddly hunk in front of him was the winter soldier and not his fellow comrade.

But then again, it might as well made sense that it was not the Bucky he knew, because that man would've been a puddle of mess if he got the chance to touch Y/N like this.

Sam still remember that night when they had a Harry Potter movie marathon and Y/N ended up falling asleep on Bucky's shoulder. Even in the room that was scarce from light, Sam could clearly see the redness on Bucky's cheeks and ears.

It was an understatement to say that Sam had the best time of his life teasing the shit out of Bucky that night, knowing he can't do anything about it without waking Y/N from her comfy slumber.

"Soldat, please. I need to move around, you know?" Y/N's amused giggle pulled the soldat from his dreamy trance.

He shakes his head in the crook of her neck, snuggling deeper as he took a deep breath of her sweet scent, "No, you don't. You just need to stay here." The soldat huffed as he pouted and tighten his hold on her.

Y/N chuckled at his child-like antics, "You do know that you're not gonna get any breakfast any time soon if you keep doing this, right?"

Sometimes, she couldn't help but wondered if this is how it would feel like to have Bucky doting on her.

"Родная (darling), I'll gladly have you for breakfast. I'm sure I'd have a feast on that sweet little pussy of yours." He whispered seductively into her ears, as he sensed Sam's presence approaching the kitchen.

Y/N briefly fluttered her eyes shut as he purred in her ears, before slightly peel herself off from him, "Soldat." Her voice was stern and her eyes narrowed into a frown.

The soldat gaze down at her with a hazy grin on his lips, "Родная (darling)."

Unknowingly, the one-sided glaring battle began when Y/N refused to break their intense eye contact; each opponent uses a very contrasting approach, where one has a deep frown and a pair of blazing eyes while the other has the softest, droopy stare and literal hearts in his steel blues.

"Move." Y/N instructed as if it was a warning.

The brunnette let out a defeated laugh as he loosen his hold on her, "Okay, okay. Anything for you, sweet one."

"Thank you." She sighed. "Finally" she thought. She was worried that they gonna have breakfast for lunch if he refuses to let her go.

On the other hand, the soldat was unable to sit still on his own, so he continue to follow her around, like a hungry cat rubbing their forehead up their human's leg, mewling for attention.

"Morning, y/n and... her shadow." Sam finally make himself known as he greeted while naturally went to pour himself a cup of coffee.

"Good morning, Sam." she greeted back while the soldat swiftly put himself in between them like a barrier. He shot a menancing glare at Sam as the man was standing 'too close to Y/N' for the soldat's comfort.

Obviously offended, "Dude, calm down. I was just greeting her good morning." His voice raised as he defended himself for his rights, "Tell him y/n" he continued to tattle tail.

In which Y/N responded by patting the back of the soldat's shoulder as a reassurance before asking him to move away.

Let's just say that he begrudgingly agreed to just because it was Y/N's request.

"Unbeliveable." Sam rolled his eyes, "This your friend?" He asked as Steve entered the scene, greeting everyone a good morning before he quirked, "What?"

"Look at him." Sam accusingly pointed as the soldat, "He's hogging y/n." He continued to explain while purposely reach his hand to touch her. The soldat wordlessly pulled her away before he could reach any further, "See?" Sam pointed again.

Steve didn't defend anyone this time as he only laughed it off before finding his seat. His eyes sparkled with delight to the amount of pancake made by Y/N and the multiple choice of topping and sides; from the sickening sweet stuff to the oddly savoury ones.

He glanced over at his best friend, who was unsubtly trying to hog Y/N away from Sam and his baby blues soften as he thought maybe Shuri was right. Maybe Bucky was always present somewhere in this soldat's persona.

It was such a typical Bucky behaviour to be possessive as the soldat was being. Steve noticed that Bucky would always get a bit agitated when someone touch his girl, even if he doesn't actively show it as much. In the 40's he might've been able to hide it behind his charming smile and witty jokes, but nowdays anyone can see it on his ever-present frown and unintelligible grunts.

That applies for both Bucky and the soldat.

Y/N rolled her eyes at Sam as she pulled the soldat by the hand, "Ignore him, soldat. Now, come have breakfast with me." She sat him on one of the stool by the kitchen isle as she prepared his plate.

Perplexed by the lack response, Sam admitted his defeat for once and joined the isle to have his bite of the morning.

As soon as she settled on her own seat next to him, the soldat took her hand into his, briefly kissing her the back of it. "Thank you, darling." He whispered before placing their locked hands on his lap as they ate, casually rubbing his thumb on her for comfort.

If you thought Y/N was the only one who was blushing at the domestic show of affection, well you'd think again when you see the shade of red on the tip of his ears or the way Sam purposely looked away.

The morning went by with mostly three of them having a pleasant conversation and the soldat silently distract himself by playing with her hand, apparently enthralled by the size difference and how fragile looking hers was.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team came by the kitchen on their own time since some of them prefer to sleep off the pain from the previous mission.

Half an hour later, she felt as if she was caught in a dejavu when she found herself in the same position as before. She laughed softly as she washed dishes, while the soldat stuck himself to her like a oversize koala to a tiny tree.

"I smell pancakes." Tony spoke as he made a bee line towards the kitchen, looking like he just survived a bio hazard in the lab.

"I made extra. Help yourself." Y/N announced, not even trying to look back at them, especially when the soldat had her trapped in his tight embrace.

Tony peeked to the side, trying to catch a glimpse of Y/N, "Did you see her? I didn't even know she was here until she spoke." He asked, though he sounded more like he was teasing her.

Before Tony could reach out for his plate, Shuri stormed to the kitchen, catching everyone's attention, "Pancakes can wait, Tony." She stopped him which only cause him to whine dramatically.

It felt as if Y/N's heart completely dropped out of her body when Shuri nodded knowingly, "It's time."

There was a quick briefing of the process with everyone involved while they prep the soldat in the other side of the glassed section of the lab. Y/N tried to focus on watching the simple simulation video that was prepared by Tony.

And she heard every single words of Shuri's but all she could think was if the soldat knew what they were doing. If he felt like he was being thrown, being disposed of like some kind of object.

By the time they the explanation ended, Y/N didn't think twice as she marched towards the soldat. The team didn't questioned her motive as they can see the determination in her eyes.

She stopped on her tracks, right at the entrance when a thought ran across her mind.

Of course, she wanted Bucky back but why does this feel so wrong?

"How are you feeling, soldat?" She prompted as she walked over to him, passing the lab employee who scurried away leaving the couple to have some privacy.

The soldat brightened in her presence as he reached out to her with grabby hands, triggering a soft giggle from Y/N. She let her hands gravitate towards his, intertwining her fingers in his hold as he replied, "Much better now." He sighed in contentment the moment he felt her skin against his own.

There was a comforting silence in the room, but Y/N's mind was the complete opposite. There was only chaos of questions that felt so sinful and immoral to utter out loud.

The soldat grip tightens with tenderness, as if he could hear the loud havoc in her head. Moments later, he decided to break the silence with an honest confession.

"I know that I'm not welcomed here." He glanced at the other side of the glass, watching the team pacing around. "I know that you're trying to get rid of me." His ocean blues changed its tides to gaze up at her; the smile on his lips was soft and pure.

"You know, I have been many things in this life..." the soldat looked down where his hands were entangled with hers, "...a killer, a weapon, a monster, you name it." there was a hint of grudge in his voice but mostly it was woven with regret.

"But, worst of all, I have been a thief." It felt as if he has been holding his breath as he avowed.

"I have stolen decades worth of his life, robbed him of his freedom for so many years, every single happiness and hope he could ever experienced had been stripped away right before his eyes," the soldat chuckled ironically before looking up to meet her teary eyes, "...yet I'm still greedy for more days with you."

Y/N found herself unable to speak, afraid that her words would do nothing to coax him; or maybe she just couldn't trust that her voice won't crack in the middle of her sentence especially when she was damn sure that her heart was already cracking for him.

The soldat's eyes softens when he reached his hand to her face, "I never knew that I was capable to feel these futile emotions such as joy and love, until I felt it when he looks at you." Y/N didn't even notice she was crying until he wiped them away with the gentle caresses of his thumb.

"Everything I felt towards you were his to begin with." He confessed as he felt the guilt of stealing yet another precious thing from him again, "That's why, I don't deserve this." The said as he recalled every moment he got to spend with her, "I don't deserve you."

The soldat knows that very well, but that didn't stop the natural curiosity that resides from within him, "And I can't help but to wonder..." he hesitated as he tried to construct the most raw and truthful question to sum up whatever this emotion he was currently feeling.

"Will you remember me?" His voice was small and quiet, almost afraid of the answer that might come his way.

More tears were spilling out as she unhesitantly replied, "How could I not?" Her hands raised to his face, cupping his scruffy cheeks in her palms.

The soldat's eyes sightly wobbled when he asked again, "Will you miss me?" At that time, he didn't know that the feeling he felt was called 'heartache', yet he was handling it like he had been experiencing it all his life.

Y/N leaned as she pressed the most tender kiss on his forehead, "More than you know." Her answer made the soldat smile as he purred in her hold.

He peeled one away from his face and pressed a kiss of his own on the delicate palm of her hand. The same ones that had showed him nothing but so much love and kindness.

When Shuri came into the scene, they know it was time to say goodbye. But, both refused to say anything remotely close to it. So, they wordlessly walked out towards the cylinder shaped glass pod, located right in the middle of the lab.

Until the very end, Y/N stood by his side as he lay on the tight space of the pod. And just as the door was about the close, the soldat smiled lovingly at his precious person, as he called for her nickname one last time.

"So long, Родная (darling)."

Three weeks later. At Avenger's private gym.

Steve re-adjusted his stance as he took cautious step backwards, "Why are you avoiding her?" He asked straightforwardly.

Bucky huffed a heavy breath as he lunged forward for a strike, "What are you talking about?" He missed when Steve easily swerved away and countered back, "Don't play dumb, Buck. I'm not in a mood for that."

The brunette blocked his punch with his left forearm but Steve uses that as an opportunity to grab him and pushed him on the floor. Bucky groaned as he landed flat on his chest, left hand on his back.

"Well, I'm not in a mood to talk about it either." He growled as he swing his leg backwards, toppling Steve on his back and pushed his metal arm against his neck, choking him out of his breath, "So, drop it." He warned.

Steve tapped the floor as a sign of defeat and Bucky released his hold while retreat his arm away. Both of them was out of breath but for entirely different reason; Steve was literally choked, so that's fair, but Bucky was breathing heavily as soon as Y/N stepped into the gym.

He stood there with an intense frown on his face, glaring at the woman of his dreams. Literal dreams, or memories of the soldat that was left behind for Bucky after what happened with the winter soldier situation.

Thankfully the method worked, Shuri and Tony managed to bring Bucky back but just like before, he don't have any clear recollection what happened.

While Y/N made the team swore to never speak to Bucky about what he did when he relapsed, while Bucky himself also hides the fact that, much like his previous experience where the memories comes in a form of unsightly nightmares, his memories of those few days were also coming back in a form of dreams.

Though they were never linear. There was no way of knowing the actual flow of his memories.

It came more like snippets of certain moments, sometimes repetitive, sometimes glitchy but they were mostly such good dreams, beautiful even, however they didn't last very long.

At least, not according to Bucky.

Y/N stopped on her tracks as she saw Bucky, who blatantly throwing daggers at her through his eyes. She didn't know why but she didn't want to think of the worst, so she went towards him in hopes of proving her own mind that the negative instincts that she had was wrong.

But the moment she got close, "Hi Buck--" Bucky walked passed her as if she wasn't there in the first place. And she had to admit that, that shit was painful to go through.

And he had been acting like this for two weeks now. Avoiding her like a fucking plague. And she doesn't know why.

He was acting normal during the first week of his awakening, or maybe a little bit more reserved that he usually would be.

She doesn't know how else to explain it but he seemed to act really shy whenever Y/N accidently touched him.

Did someone told him about what happened? Is that why he's mad? She doesn't get it, and she wants to know why.

So before Bucky managed to walk further pass her, Y/N turned on her heels and tugged him by his right arm to stop him. Little did she knew, that might just be the one thing she shouldn't do.

It was like a pre-programmed reaction, when Bucky's body move on his own, as he harshly ripped himself from her grasps, almost dropping her to the ground.

Steve was second away from reaching out to catch her but luckily she found her balance back on her own.

Bucky leered down at her as he spoke, "Don't touch me." His voice came out much more venomous than he intended, making Y/N flinched to his command.

But if that what he needs to do to chase her away from him then so be it, "Just stay the fuck away from me." Bucky spat a cold warning before marching his way out.

Not only leaving Y/N in utter confusion, but with her heart torn to bled dry.

"No... soldat." She whimpered in his ears as his finger drew slow circles on her clit, his mouth latched on her shoulder.

Salty tears started to blur her vision when she sniffled them back.

"Look at you. Look how well you're taking me. My darling is such a good girl, isn't she?" The soldat sounds sickeningly sweet when he murmured in her ears.

"Don't." she whispered quietly.

"p-please soldat, ahh." She mewled, scratching the metal of his arm.

"That's it darling, cum for your soldat. give it to me,, aahhh" He motioned, forming an 'O' with his mouth as she clamp down on his fingers; with his wide eyes looking down at her exposed pussy.

Bucky's eyes snapped open, ripping him out of the distorted memories only to leave him gasping in the darkness. He woke up swimming in his bed, drowning in the flood of sheets with his heart pounding as if it was desperate to tear out of his chest.

He looked around suspiciously as if he didn't recognized his own room, until strain of his crotch distracted him. His eyes pried downwards to see his cock struggling to fit in his pants and the images of his lucid dream flashes again.

Bucky shuts his eyes tightly, hoping the torture would stop reminding him of his sins, "You sick fuck." A deep frown formed as he muttered curses to himself.

After hours and hours of free falling tears in her room, letting herself drown in a sorrow that she never knew she would ever experience, she let herself wonder back to those lovely moments of her with the soldat.

She found it ironic that somehow the memories of his touch was also the cure to the wounds left by cruelty of his words.

It's hours passed midnight and her tears finally stopped, at least until her body was able physically form more tears in her glands, she took the time as a chance for her to rest.

Y/N laid on her back, letting the remaining tears to fall into her ears.

Worst part of all of this was not knowing why, and being left in the dark, yet he managed to effortlessly left her heart broken into shatters.

"Don't touch me."

"Just stay the fuck away from me."

Bucky's words had been circling her mind like a raging tornado. It felt like the spitefulness of his voice was mocking the flaws of her fragmented heart, toying with what's left behind after the storm.

Y/N didn't even realized when did she started to make her way towards the kitchen, but it was as if her body knew its own limit when her feet walked her out of the confinement of her room and her mind remind her to hydrate herself.

As she entered the kitchen area, she wasn't expecting to see Bucky standing in the middle of it, leaning forward towards the counter tops.

Even with the little source of light from the corridor, Y/N could see the tiredness in his face as he stare blankly into nothing. But, his expression soon changed when he saw her.

She didn't know what she had done to make him so agitated whenever he laid his eyes on her.

The silence between them was so loud that Y/N couldn't help but to approach him.

"I..." She truly didn't know what to say but it felt like it was her fault. She did take advantage of him when the soldat took over; endless use of his body, hands, lips and not to mention what happened that night. "I'm sorry."

Bucky was truly appalled to her words, even though he didn't show it on his expression. Why does she had to apologize to him when he was clearly the problem, "Why are you apologizing?" his anger naturally slipped through as he spoke.

But Y/N didn't know that he was frustrated at himself, and not at her, so the tone that he used stung her as much as it did prior, "I don't know." She simply said.

Lies.

She knew exactly why apologized but she wasn't sure if Bucky knew what happened when he blacked-out. "I just... I don't want to stay away from you. I don't like it."

She can't; not when her yearning for him had grew stronger than ever before.

"Well, you better get used to it because it won't change any time soon." Bucky spat harshly.

Y/N felt her own rage started to bubble from within.

Why is he being so hot-headed and stubborn like a sulking child? Can't he just act like a fucking adult and talk it out?

Her brows crunched into a frown as she held back her tone, "Why?"

Bucky let out a frustrated as he tried to walk away, shooting a demanding glare as he was passing her, "Just do as you're told, y/n"

"Oh no, you're not gonna run away from this."

She grabbed him by his arms and pulled him back into the conversation. "That's not fair, Bucky."

"Not fair?" His eyes narrowed, as he looked down at the smaller.

She puffed out an angry breath as she glared up, "No, it is not fair! It's not entirely your choice to make." She can feel the flames started to spread, "Especially when you refused to tell me why." She yelled accusingly as she shoved her finger to his chest.

Blood roaring in Bucky's ears as his heart pounded hard, pouring the concealed frustration out like a broken dam as he explodes, "He almost raped you, y/n!!"

There was a few milliseconds of non-movements as both them let those few words sink into their processing brain, "I... almost raped you." His voice shook in both anguish and anger, leaving Y/N frozen in a speechless shock.

"Or maybe I already did and I don't even fucking remember." His hands roughly tugged his long hair back as if he tried to go through the pieces of shattered memories in his wrecked mind.

"And if that is not a fucking sign for you stay away from me, I don't know what else I should do to make you see that." Bucky was breathing heavily that his breaths echoed through the silenced space.

Y/N's mind was running wild as everything slowly clicked. Did he thought that he... No. She blinked several times before she could form actual words, "Bucky, what are you saying? It's okay, it's okay. Just please calm down first and--" she tried to reach for him but that only made Bucky retorted, physically and mentally.

"It's okay? No, it's fucking not. Are you even listening to yourself? Can't you see? I'm dangerous y/n." He sounded as desperate as he was for air. "Especially to you. And if my messed up past was not enough to prove it, then what happened between us when I relapsed certainly did."

His heart rate increase rapidly, and his lungs seemed to work double time. Yet, he refused to let her see how badly he needed comfort.

"Bucky, please breathe. And just.. listen to me--" Y/N was hopeless trying to pull him out of the chaos of his mind but he just wouldn't listen.

Bucky's voice started to waver as the dark revelation continued to cloud him, "He assault you, y/n. I fucking assault you. And I can't let that happened again. So, just please, stay awa--"

"It was my choice!" Y/N snapped as she grabbed Bucky by his shoulder, forcing him to focus on her. "Bucky, I let him touch me. I could stop him if I want to, but I didn't."

Bucky didn't understand, "W-why?"

"Because I know he wouldn't hurt me. You wouldn't hurt me." Y/N tried to lay it out for him slowly but then she realized that maybe he didn't need that right now.

"Fuck, Bucky! I'm not a saint." She cursed after a few short moments of hesitation, "I have a lot of feelings I need to deal with like every other human being. Lust, love, you name it. And he..."

In a brief moment, she thought of the soldat, "He gave me the opportunity to feel the love that I always wanted from you. He showed me what we could've been." There was a sense of longing in her eyes, "It started small, soft touches and loving kisses." She smiled to the memories of it.

"And the moment that I thought that it could've been you who's kissing me, touching me. I knew it was over." She didn't know how many times she almost slipped out his name whenever she calls for the soldat; the name 'Bucky' was always at the tip of her tongue but never out.

"One thing led to another and we... I didn't mean to let it stray too far." She confessed, "Bucky, I admit it was wrong for me to take advatange of you, of the soldat, and I know there's no excuse to my behaviour than my own inability to control my feelings for you."

If the soldat thought that he was being greedy, then that makes the two of them.

"I understand if you want me to stay away from you, but just let me say this out loud." Her hands slid down to find his, thankfully he didn't repulsed this time, "Bucky... I love you." She finally spilled the truth as her soften gaze trained on his eyes, "I have loved you for a long time."

Afraid that this could be the end, she refused to look away. She didn't care if Bucky would plunge daggers to her through his words, she want him to know that her feelings for him was unconditional.

And Bucky really tried his best to let all her words sink in, even though most of them were somehow redacted and lost in his head.

But, thankfully the most important ones was so loud and clear for him to draw a simple conclusion that would ease his relentless worries, "You...I.. I didn't force it on you?"

Y/N didn't know why she wasn't expecting him to believe her but she was glad that he did, "No" she replied simply.

Bucky's voice strangled while his hand gripping tighter in her hold, "I didn't hurt you?" His teary eyes pleaded for the truth.

"Not a even close." She smiled kindly.

Bucky felt as the unbearable burden on his shoulders was lifted off completely just by those few simple words that Y/N just uttered. The tears he was desperately holding back broke freely as they stream down his face, his shoulders trembled with the force of his emotions running through his veins.

He whispered, "You don't hate me for it?" He pulled her hands closer to his face, fluttering his eyes shut as he kissed the knuckles of her fingers.

"Never." Y/N reassured, as she cupped his face; stroking her thumbs on his scruffy cheeks, wiping the warm, salty tears away.

Bucky sighed to her touch, it seemed that his body remembered her more than his mind did, "And you love me?" He blinked as he placed his hand on top of her.

Y/N nodded with a loving curve on her lips, "Always have."

Bucky didn't know how she does it but she really did managed to mend and melt his heart all at the same time. It was magic. Or, maybe it was sorcery. But even if she ended up leaving a curse behind, Bucky would still be glad that he let her bewitched him.

Bucky stared down at her, admiring her the kindness in her eyes despite the swolleness of them. He felt bad for breaking her heart, making her cry. It tore his heart just thinking about it.

His tongue darted out for a brief second as his metal hand fell, wrapping around her body.

Y/N maintained to lock her eyes on his as her hand slid down, and pressed on his chest. Despite being comfortable with his touches, and with the amount of kisses the soldat had generously gave her, she shouldn't be nervous anymore but she was.

After all, the soldat never kisses her on the lips and Bucky had his eyes on hers since the beginning.

She wanted his too.

Seeing the anticipation in her eyes, Bucky leaned in to press a kiss on her lips, his flesh hand came up to tilt her chin up, then gently cupped her face as he pulled her closer.

Her lips was so soft against his, that Bucky was sure that he will crave to this every single day.

He briefly pulled away from the kiss to whisper a soft, "I love you too, y/n." Before coming down for another chaste, "More than you could ever fucking imagine." He almost growled as he dipped for more.

Their innocent kiss soon turned into something deeper. They kissed passionately, lost in the bubble of time and space, ignoring the silenced ambiance as they were fixated on the sound of their beating hearts.

And when they pulled away for air, Y/N giggled as a silly thought went through her mind, "Well, I kinda see the glimpse of it in those few days with the soldat, so I think I got the gist of it."

That caused Bucky to let out a genuinely hearty laugh before humming playfully, "Hmm, do you now?" He went in for another kiss, knowing full well that he was already addicted to the taste of her lips.

He just can't get enough of it.

Y/N answered briefly in between his kisses, "Yes."

Bucky smirked as he smoothly guided her backwards, until the back of her waist met with the cold tile of the kitchen isle, "Three times, was it?" his eyes glint with mischieve when he leaned again to steal another kiss.

"What is?" Y/N titled her head to the side, unknowingly giving access for Bucky to lead his kisses from her soft cheek down to her exposed neck.

His lips trailed along the crook of it as he whispered, "Was it three times that he made you cum?" If his goal was to seduce her; well it was safe to say that he did it rather flawlessly.

Y/N thanked god that the kitchen was dim-litted, because the redness on her cheek was rather embarrassing, "I-I'm not sure."

She lied. But, Bucky didn't need to know that.

Bucky chuckled lowly as he murmured, "It's okay, babydoll. We have all the time in the world to beat that record." his naughty hands had already made their way toward her ass before she even have the time to register what he suggested.

Lust decorated the blues in his eyes as he whispered, "Starting now."

End.

<< Part II || Extra >>

Read my other works here: Masterlist

A/N: Yeay, we have reached the end but I might have more of the couple in the future. Though I don't know when will it happen but I have hopes for it. Meanwhile, why don't you tell me what you think of the series and checkout my other work!

#winterarmyyfics #welcome home soldat au #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #winter soldier x you #winter soldier x reader #winter soldier!bucky

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hotyanderedaddies · 1 year ago

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Spending the Night with Your Yandere Vampire Boyfriend

[Yandere! Vampire x Human! GN Reader]

·゜·:.。..。.:·☆·゜·:.。..。.:·☆

You've been with your new boyfriend for a few weeks by now, and things were developing really quickly. Much faster than any of your previous relationships.

Your new boyfriend, whom you playfully call Daddy, recently revealed to you that he's a vampire which was a total shock to you.

Well, maybe you should've caught on when he'd only come around at night when the sun was down, you never saw him eat any food, he seemed to avoid garlic at all costs, and he was super pale... and he had vampire fangs.

A total surprise.

Either way, you weren't too scared when Daddy revealed his "secret" to you.

Daddy is perfect boyfriend, honestly.

Daddy knows all of your likes and dislikes, and even loves all of your hobbies. The two of you share the same interests in books, movies, video games-- everything!

And you better since he spent such a long time following you around, studying your every move. Watching. Waiting.

Daddy is a pure gentleman, always treating you with the upmost respect. He virtually worships the ground you walk on, treating you like you're his precious treasure.

Because you are his. All his. And only his.

Daddy really seemed to walk straight out of a daydream, rescuing you from such a dreary life of working retail and attending boring college classes. He really helped to lift you up, especially after so many of your personal relationships seemed to have tapered off once you'd started college.

He only got rid of those who would try to take you away from him. Honest. He did it all for your relationship.

So when the two of you were on one of your dates at Daddy's house, he suggested that you stay the night (well, the morning). He had some sleep aid that he could give you to help you fall asleep during the day; although, dating a vampire was kind of throwing your sleep schedule out of whack.

At first, you were a little nervous since the two of you hadn't done anything past making out, but with one look at the eager face Daddy had, you melted.

"Sure, Daddy," you smiled.

Daddy's smile stretched out his handsome face, and his vampire fangs even poked out.

He grabbed you by the hand, his cool fingers interlocking with yours, as he led you up the stairs to the bedroom. You've never been up to his bedroom since the two of you almost never made it past the couch, so you were a little excited--

The bedroom door swung open and in the middle of the room was the "bed".

"A c-coffin?" you stuttered, your stomach falling to the floor.

"Of course, Darling," Daddy chuckled, dragging you closer to the coffin. "I'm a vampire after all. What did you think I slept in?"

"A bed...?"

"But then how would I keep the sunlight off me?"

...oh.

The coffin seemed to be standard-sized (you've been to one or two funerals, so they weren't completely unfamiliar to you), and it was lined with a clean, white satin that looked incredibly soft to the touch.

But it was a coffin!

And your frantic human brain couldn't help but associate it with death! Hell no, you weren't getting in that thing!

"Um, Daddy?" you mumbled, uncertainty drenching your small voice. "M-maybe we could rush to my apartment to use my bed and I'll put up some curtains?"

Daddy's smile disappeared, quickly being replaced with a deep frown. He narrowed his red eyes in your direction, tightening the grip he had on your hand.

"We won't make it before the sun rises," he growled, his voice deep and curt. "Now, get in our coffin."

When you hesitated, Daddy lost his patience, wrapping both of his steel arms around you. The vampire was much stronger than you are, so he had absolutely no problem forcing you into the tight confines of the small coffin.

Daddy crawled inside right after you, grabbing the lid and slamming it down with a bang. An audible click sounded out, and you were trapped in the dark coffin.

You couldn't see a thing thanks to how dark it was.

The coffin was so compact that you could feel multiple sides-- the back pressed against you and was rather soft, but you could also feel the one of the sides and the top touching you. It was enclosed all around you, trapping you, leaving almost no room for you to even move or wiggle around.

You could barely move.

You could barely breathe.

But there was a cold, hard feature inside the coffin with you, and it snaked both of its large arms around you and roughly yanked you into it.

Daddy buried his nose in your air and moaned loudly as he inhaled your scent.

"Calm down, Darling," he cooed. "Daddy's here. Daddy's got you."

Your heart raced in your chest and you felt dizzy from your panicked hyperventilating.

"It's okay, my sweet darling," Daddy continued to whisper into your ear, keeping you trapped against him. "I know it's a bit of an adjustment, but it'll be worth it, I promise."

He pressed his cool lips against your forehead.

You tried to squirm away, but he was tight against your front and the side of the coffin was tight against your back.

There was no room to move away.

At all.

You're trapped.

"Get some sleep, Darling," Daddy yawned. "I love you."

#yandere boyfriend #yandere boy #yandere daddy #yandere x reader #yandere x you #obsessive love #possessive boyfriend #Yandere vampire #Vampire x reader #possessive love #vampire #vampire boyfriend

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delirious-donna · 7 months ago

Text

Dangerous Games [Hoshina Soshiro]

an: the Vice-Captain may be your boyfriend, but that doesn’t mean you’re immune to the wicked games he likes to play… now, sit pretty.

pairing: Hoshina Soshiro x female reader

warnings: cockwarming, dangerous liaisons, semi-exhibitionism (I guess?), Soshiro is a wicked boy but he adores you truly

Masterlist

If you tried to recall what possessed you to think this was a good idea, you were left with absolutely nothing in mind. It was a dangerous game, one you never thought Soshiro would be up for playing, but here you were, sat on the Vice-Captain’s lap surrounded by comrades and the likes in the communal movie room.

Yes, you were more than one of the operatives charged with ensuring the safety of the division’s officers, far more. You were the girlfriend of Vice Captain Hoshina and whilst it still made you giddy when you thought about it, it was no secret. Soshiro wasn’t the type to be too overly affectionate with others around, but he didn’t shy away from touching you when the opportunity struck. A hand on the small of your back, a lightning-fast kiss pressed to the top of your head, a cheeky grope of your behind when he was certain no one was looking. But this? This was something altogether new…

The room was dark with the only light being emitted from the projector shining a movie onto the wall with vivid colour. It felt hot, of course it did, the sticky feeling of being smothered by too many layers itched down your spine and you wondered if the others felt it too. There were far more faces in here than you had predicted when you first fell into Soshiro’s little game—it felt more like a trap now—and you burned with the knowledge that they could discover the depths of your depravity at any moment.

In sheer desperation to distract your wayward mind and the reactions of your body, you tried to remember the plot of the movie. To at least try and follow along with what was happening but it was impossible when the man beneath you was doing his damnedest to ruin you so completely.

The spread of wet kisses started innocently enough at your cheek. They moved lower to your jaw, long clever fingers angling your head so he could suck little marks at your pulse and the delicate bone at your clavicle. A curtain of silky amethyst hair hid his face from you, obscuring the area of his next attack which he disguised as showering you in affection. You were no fool. You could feel his smile against your clammy skin, and it only worsened the predicament.

You rutted your hips, barely an inch but it was enough for the almost silent groan to echo from the depths of his chest. A strong, capable chest that was pressed flush against your back, a hand at your waist to hold you steady in his lap. Immediately you stilled, breath caught fast in your throat, but it was too late for that.

Soshiro’s teeth latched on your ear, tugging the lobe between those perfectly sharp incisors before a strained and quiet voice flowed inside. Despite the strain, he sounded amused—almost manic.

“That was naughty, little flower. Do you want to get caught?” he asked, and the very idea of one of your friends or colleagues turning their attention to the couch that only you two occupied made your cunt clench.

It was all the answer he needed.

His sharp inhale of breath was more audible this time, and you fought the urge to squirm against the hold that was tightening with every passing second. His arm was like a steel band around your waist, the voice that of a devil that was exhilarated by the circumstances he’d found himself in.

“Oh… it’s like that, is it? If only your colleagues knew how filthy you were being right now. Tsk tsk.” His tongue clicked softly against his teeth, a feigned admonishment that left your head falling back to his shoulder and your face pressed into his neck.

You inhaled the scent of skin, the salt mixed with something light and almost floral from his body wash. The temptation to lick a long strip from below his ear to the swell of his Adam’s apple was interrupted by his cock massaging against your front wall. The engorged tissue of your pleasure spot lit up your veins like fireworks, and only turned up the dial on the neediness pooling both in the pit of your stomach and between your sticky thighs.

He knew exactly how to make you melt, the merest flick of his wrist and the right intonation would see you putty in his hand. It should be annoying to be so easily read, but honestly, you appreciated the efforts he had gone to to learn you so intimately. Soshiro was a dedicated man, to his job and to you, it was heartwarming to feel so cared for, even when you found yourself in promiscuous situations such as these.

You knew that, had you been alone in here, you would be riding him to completion and to hell with the consequences. He knew it too and that only tightened your jaw, your molars grinding together as you tried your very best not to move another inch. The Vice-Captain might not be laughing but one quick peek into his eyes told you that he was barely holding back from doing just that.

Hushed conversation from your friends stole your -attention away from the shining humour in his violet eyes, cheeks burning hot as you glanced around the room but didn’t dare to meet anyone’s eye. The moment passed, action returning to the screen, and you exhaled a long-held sigh of relief.

Instead of smacking his chest like you wanted to do, you worked on steadying your breathing, grateful of the breathing techniques taught by the very organisation you worked for. You tried to ignore how every minuscule movement was ticking you closer to yelling to hell with it and bouncing on his dick until your eyes crossed and the band of tension in your belly snapped. You ignored the wet arousal that drooled from your cunt, clenching around his length behind your modest skirt, and you definitely didn’t think about the stains you were likely leaving on the front of his pants…

His fingers splayed beneath the hem of said skirt, rucking the fabric closer to your knee until his hand could disappear beneath. You grabbed up a cushion and pressed to your lap to hide whatever his intent was whilst your eyes squeezed shut in anticipation. You almost moaned aloud at the grazing touch of his nail against your puffy lips, followed by the circular motion of his fingertips teasing your swollen clit. It was enough to make you bite your lip until the iron tang of blood hit your tongue.

Warm breath fanned your cheek, his lips so close to your ear that the sensation tickled down your spine.

“Make it through the movie, sweet girl. Then I promise I’ll fuck you until you can’t walk straight, okay?”

All you could do was nod. There were no words in your head, and quite frankly, you didn’t trust your voice not to give the game away completely. It was imperative you last, that you make it through this mission and receive your reward.

Soshiro smiled against your pulse, nipping playfully at the wildly erratic rhythm beneath the skin. God, he adored you so much.

“That’s it, sit still for me.”

#delirious writes #soshiro hoshina #hoshina x reader #soshiro x reader #soshiro hoshina x reader #soshiro smut #hoshina smut #kn8 x reader #kn8 smut #hoshina soshiro #kaiju no. 8 smut #kaiju no. 8 x reader

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scarletttries · 8 months ago

Text

When Fallout Characters Fall In Love... (Fallout Show Request)

Pairings: Cooper Howard/The Ghoul x Reader, Maximus x Reader, Norm x Reader

Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who has sent in a request for the Fallout show, please keep them coming as this is definitely the show that I'm thinking about the most at the moment! Also let me know if you want a part two of these headcanons or something similar :)

The Ghoul:

- Cooper Howard couldn't put his finger on exactly when he had accepted that the life he now led would be one devoid of love, but it was a hollow feeling he carried in his chest wherever the wasteland took him. Maybe it was in the decades he'd spent wandering and gaining a reputation as a heartless cowboy without an ounce of mercy. Or the fact that he hadn't met anyone that had stirred up a single emotion inside him, fearing the aching betrayal of his wife would haunt him even as lifetimes passed. Maybe it came to him in the way he flinched each time he caught his reflection in the few unbroken windows he passed, flesh slowly forming caverns and creases where once there were only the faintest of lines that showed endless signs of life. The wasteland was no place for love. That's what he had decided.

- But even in the fall of civilization there's room for a surprise, and you were certainly one of those..

- He heard rumour of you before your bounty crossed his desk, a runaway scientist from a mysterious body known only as The Institute, a target to everyone for the sheer volume of classified knowledge you might possess.

- A life on the run was no easy one, and Cooper knew that better than anyone, so it didn't take long for him to track you down to a small town just on the outskirts of the radiation's no man's land. His gun was cocked as he strutted towards the half open door of the rundown house he'd narrowed your location down to, glancing at the poster in his hand one last time before he burst inside. Even from the poorly illustrated version of you, he could see your eyes were kind, almost hopeful, like you still believed science could make right what had gone so wrong in the last 200 years. He almost felt a tinge of guilt as he steeled himself for a fight, saying a silent prayer that you wouldn't be behind the walls in front of him.

- Stepping in carefully he expected traps, or an army of robots to jump to arms, but instead he found you travelling alone, a small satchel of papers clutched in your arms as you stared him down with a calm resolve that caught him more off guard than any weapon.

"Do you still believe there's hope for this world Mr Howard?" Your voice was soft, not the trembling fear he was so used to hearing. You stared up at him without a trace of disgust in your expression, your eyes locked on his as he considered your question, and then lowered his weapon.

"And what if I do?" His heart ached at the question, so hardened by years of cynicism that even the idea of hope and goodness were almost too heavy to bear. He felt more human than he had in years as you slowly inched towards him, the creaking floorboards beneath you cutting through a tense silence that had The Ghoul feeling like he was back on a movie set, everything so perfectly orchestrated to have his stomach in knots. And then you extended your hand to him and gave him the most genuine smile he could remember receiving in this whole sorry chapter of his after-life,

"Then I think we could really make a difference. Together." Your pip-boy screeched as his irradiated hand stretched out to reach yours, but you didn't flinch, gently squeezing the twisted flesh as you shook on what you bought felt in the depths of your souls was going to be a meaningful partnership.

- It would be a straight forward life trying to use your research to get the world back on track for there to be joy and peace again. But with The Ghoul by your side you can expect; a personal bodyguard who cares more about your safety than his own by far, a gleaming look of pride in his eyes any time you tell him which Cooper Howard film was your favourite, the slow and steady acceptance that he is still worthy of love even in his new twisted form, and Cooper being endlessly grateful that you are the person who wants to give that love to him.

Maximus:

- All Maximus had ever wanted was to be a knight of the Brotherhood. He wakes up every morning and does his best every day just to try and earn his spot in this family of welded metal and unflinching loyalty. It wasn't until you arrived on the base that he started to realise there were other ways he might form a family.

- A nearby village had been half destroyed by raiders until the Brotherhood stepped in, clearing out the violent scavengers and bringing anyone with skills they could utilise back to base for assessment. Maximus was sitting alone, nursing the most recent wounds inflicted by his so-called brothers when he watched you march in alongside two soldiers, the final evacuee of your faded community, a distance in your eyes that he felt akin with from his own home's destruction. You could feel his eyes on you before you spotted him, a rag damp with blood pressed to his nose as he sat huddled against a corrugated iron shack.

- Despite the sheer joylessness of the situation, Max couldn't stop himself from sporting a smile, waving at you like you had locked eyes across the schoolyard not some barren military base. Whatever he hoped for in that moment seemed to pay off as you waved back, a small laugh escaping your lips at the absurdity of his blood soaked grin. He watched as the knights around you escorted you to the medical tent for a check up, waiting until they left their guard posts beside you to sneak behind the off-white fabric, following some unknown instinct he'd never felt call to him before. You bolted upright where you perched on one of the medical beds as he appeared, visibly relaxing when you recognised him from outside and once again waving in his direction. His mouth worked faster than his brain in that moment, heart hammering in his chest as the words gushed out with his new found affections,

"I used to live in Shady Sands. I know what it's like to have your home destroyed, your family hurt, everything changing all at once. But you're safe here with the Brotherhood, and even if it doesn't feel like it today, things are going to be okay eventually. Also I'm Maximus and if you ever need to talk to someone, I'm, like, around all the time, and no one else really wants to talk to me so I'm probably going to be available... " He trailed off as he tried to recover what had ended up a far more embarrassing sentence than he'd hoped, his lungs burning as he realised he'd forgotten to take a breath through his whole winding spiel. But when you smiled at him any shame seemed to float away, and as you patted the bed and nodded for him to take a seat beside you, the once lonely squire suddenly felt much closer to finding a family than he had surrounded by his brothers.

- As you settle into life on the base, you and Maximus only grow closer. Expect; late nights of sneaking out of your dorm so you and Max can stare up the stars and plot your escape from this life, fantasising about what a life beyond these walls and this world could be like for the two of you, someone who has your back no matter how bad things get and how low you feel, and truly some of the most god awful flirting you will ever hear.

Norm:

- Growing up in the Vault, Norm had always been told the value of belonging to a community, and how everyone in the vault was just a big happy family. But none of that stopped Norm feeling like an outsider, like he didn't quite operate on the same wavelength as the rest of the cheerful strangers he shared his deep underground walls with. After a few of the annual exchanges between vaults, he had all but given up on hoping to meet anyone he felt he could actually feel close to.

- When his overseer father had finally decided it was his turn to continue the vault's legacy and be part of what Norm considered an archaic tradition of arranged marriages between the linked vaults, Norm couldn't have been more resistant. He pleaded for the council to reject his nomination, begging them not to force some young hopeful to be subjected to his notable lack of enthusiasm for the rest of their life in this dutiful swap, but with limited options of eligible young men, he soon found himself staring down the doors of your vault. The suit previously used by his fellow bachelors had been tailored to within an inch of its life to try and fit his slight frame, the shoulders still feeling like they hung off him, threatening to swallow him up along with ground as he watched the round door slowly start to roll open.

- He thought this whole thing was stupid and outdated, and he knew there was no way he could actually find someone to love and love him in return behind those doors, so why was his stomach so full of butterflies as slowly your face started to appear in the artificial light of Vault 33. He waited to see you throw him a false smile, going through the motions as much as he had planned to, or even a look of disappointment that he was not the man you had been picturing as the door crept open. Instead he really thought he saw sincerity in your eyes, a thoughtful understanding as he choked out his name, his stammering not going unnoticed by his sister who quietly chuckled behind him.

"It's really nice to meet you, Norm." You spoke each word with intention, like it wasn't just a rehearsed greeting but an honest confession that sent sparks flying in the air between you.

- Suddenly the pressure of matrimony didn't feel so all consuming. And maybe this system was more advanced than he had appreciated. And there might be a small chance that he wasn't destined to spend his life feeling like he was on the outside, that he might finally have someone that could take him as he is, darkness and light, for better or for worse.

- Whether you stay in the vaults, or make your move to the surface world, with Norm by your side you can expect: Sarcastic comments muttered under his breath at inopportune moments just to see the way you fail to contain your laughter, being the sounding board for all of each other's thoughts and feelings no matter how serious or silly they might be, Norm clinging to your side through everything knowing that he only feels himself when he's stood in your light, and being the one person Norm would do absolutely anything for, bringing out the bravery and intelligence that was always just below the surface of this sweet man.

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neon-kazoo · 5 months ago

Note

Villains I dont see very often; mute. Mute villains are the best, nothing can convince me otherwise.

One idea thats been on my mind is a mute villain confessing to the hero, either through sign language, or a perfectly executed scheme. You’re choice :))

Not sure if this counts, but I ran with it. Might try this again after I gather some ASL knowledge. Hope you enjoy :)

A Silent Movie

It wasn’t exactly easy to get Hero sat in front of the cinema screen. In fact, the planning for this trap had taken over sixth months. Not to mention the money it took to buy this building off foreclosure, and the multitude of investments into Hero-proofing the location.

It was even harder to get said hero to stop yelling long enough to pay attention to the image being projected from the back of the room. Not that their sense of hearing was needed for this experience, but Villain imagined Hero would appreciate the lack of noise-based distractions, including sounds they themselves were making.

The theater was notably large, probably the most expensive showing room of its day. That is to say, the upholstery was a little outdated. The popcorn had been swept off the floor, the swirling carpet surprisingly clean. The velvet of the seats did not appear stained, and the cupholders were absent of any discarded snacks or tickets.

The glow of the emergency exit lights were the only thing illuminating the room, and they revealed a dim image of the hero situated in the center of the third row, which was optimal seating in the villain’s opinion.

Clearly, Hero did not agree, considering how hard they were pulling at the restraints to try and exit their carefully selected theater chair.

It was futile, of course, and the hero finally stopped straining when the villain appeared a row below them, quiet as a mouse, standing with a finger pressed to their lips.

Villain retreated when the hero quieted, letting their attention shift to the screen and this special showing. Images flicked past, and Hero became engrossed in the story unfolding on the screen.

Shown was a news reel Hero recognized as the time Villain had crashed their Election Day speech. A zoomed out map of the city, marking City Hall with a red square. Grainy footage of two figures dancing around next to a dumpster. Once again the map appeared, now with two squares pasted on top. The pattern continued, and Hero was amazed.

It was an agglomeration of every moment they had spent together, every public battle, every nighttime-shady-alley encounter.

There was only one reason to collect these momentos, these reminders. It had all meant something to the villain.

The complete lack of kernels on the carpet certainly pointed to a level of dedication and commitment to this scheme.

Maybe, they were hoping it meant something to the hero, too.

Another scene zoomed out a final time, revealing all the markers spread across the city. Only, now, Hero noticed, a rather distinct pattern had formed.

Villain moved like a phantom, appearing again, this time at the hero’s side. The ropes at their wrists fell away like magic while Hero gazed at the awkwardly hovering villain. They presented the hero with a glittering object hung from a chain held loose around their fingers. It was a large ruby gem, expertly cut into the shape of a 3-D heart.

Stolen, no doubt, Hero suspected possibly from the large jewelry exhibition that had just entered town.

The screen flashed bright, and lit up the hero’s face as it contorted in surprise. They processed the scene as fast as they could.

A heart of red markers, a heart of ruby, a heart fluttering in their chest, a heart laid open in front of them.

“Oh,” Hero breathed, “Oh.”

Villain sucked in a breath.

This was it, this was the moment they got rejected because they couldn’t-

“I had no idea.”

Of course they didn’t know, it’s not like Villain had ever spoken about it.

Preparing automatically for the rejection, Villain started to withdraw their hand, cold-as-steel demeanor returning to them with all the familiarity of a security blanket.

It was so stupid of them to think that they deserved any kind of reciprocation, so stupid to think that the hero could possibly-

The hero snatched the charm from their fingers before they fully withdrew.

“I didn’t say no,” they spoke softly, and the villain’s heart skipped a beat.

They reached out their other hand, wrapping their fingers over the still-outstretched hand of the villain. Instead of elaborating, Hero pulled the frozen criminal closer, connecting their lips in a gentle proclamation.

Actions spoke louder than words anyway.

#hero x villain #EW ROMANCE #hero #villain #hero/villain #mute villain #hero x villain community #wrote this instead of studying the IPA #kinda ironic actually #request #writing #heroes and villains #hero/villain snippet #if this is bad blame my beta reader #she got a life #nvm #she still made time for me 🩷

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godmadeaterribleerror · 1 month ago

Text

Chapter 30 - Every Demon Wants His Pound of Flesh

Series Masterlist

Author's Note: I'm dedicating this chapter to Becca Butcher, who never did anything wrong in her life. This one's for you.

Chapter Title from Shake it Out by Florence and the Machine.

Word Count: 26.5k

Chapter Summary/Warnings: You bring Ryan to safety, and Ben prepares for the final showdown. Usual warnings, plus extra violence.

Tags: Soldier Boy/Supe!Female Reader, canon divergence, enemies to friends to lovers, canon divergence, fluff, angst, violence, established relationship

Read on A03!

Chapter 29 - Chapter 31

Ben found Her in the attic. Curled in a corner, perfect features cast in the shifting light of a lone window, and reading an old, leather-bound book.

It looked almost fucking magical. Like some sort of painting he’d see in a study or museum, with all her beauty just as permanent and timeless as the sunlight leaking into the room. The dust glowed, hovering in the air and swirling with Her every breath and shift, and Ben paused to just look at Her So goddamn peaceful, so far from the tense shouts and movements of their team downstairs and on the grounds. Setting up weapons and traps and steeling themselves to fight.

Steeling themselves for Homelander.

It was why She was up here. She wasn’t fighting with them, but she still had an hour until she and Ryan left, so she’d grabbed Ben’s arm and whispered in his ear that she was going to go rest. Ben had grunted, kissed the side of her head, and held onto Her heartbeat as she walked away. He couldn’t feel Her—She’d taken the fucking suppressant again, to trick Sage, and now Ben couldn’t fucking feel Her—so he’d kept half of his attention on Her heart every second she was away. He’d marched around the grounds, going over plan after stupid fucking plan with MM, Butcher, and Annie, listened to Frenchie explain the drill a million goddamn times, and given Ryan a hug every time he started to look sad and pointlessly guilty, all without ever letting go of Her heart.

And now, as everything began to settle and it became a game of nerves—of knowing what was coming and never fucking flinching—Ben followed Her heart until he ended up here. Dropping to his knees before Her, letting her look up at him with a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes, and pulling her into his chest. He’d brought her coffee and a bagel, but they got discarded and forgotten on the dusty floor as Ben’s whole existence remained about Her. Just fucking holding Her, hopefully until there would be some sort of goddamn imprint of Her on his skin he could carry with him into battle.

Ben didn’t want Her to go. Not now, not when he couldn’t fucking sense any part of her but what was in his hands. It wasn’t that it wasn’t enough—soft skin and nails digging into his chest and hair he could tangle between his fingers—but he couldn’t fucking sense Her. Ben wouldn’t be able to know that She was safe, that Ryan was safe, that the only two people he cared about hadn’t figured out how to get themselves goddamn killed when he was supposed to protect them.

She’d tell him that it wasn’this job to protect them. That his job was to be there, and love them, and keep them safe with a feeling, but right now Ben didn’t give a fuck. If he lost them here, at the goddamn finish line, he wouldn’t have a lifetime to make them feel safe. To do whatever the fuck families that loved each other did. To make a million stupid breakfasts and watch every movie ever fucking made, to show Ryan how to shave and raise him so he’d earn a woman half as good as She was. To hold Her like this forever and kiss her until she melted into his body.

To let the instinct of Her return, so Ben could fucking feel all Her love and adoration and joy. Because She’d be safe, really fucking safe, living in a world without Homelander or some sort of fucked up game to play, or any war to fight. She’d clean up messes they made, together. In the kitchen and on the stairs and between the sheets of their shared bed. A bed that would belong to them, and nobody would ever try to take away.

But Ben still had to keep Her. He had to not fucking falter here, and remind himself that she did have to go. They couldn’t delay Homelander, Ben had been the one who’d insisted She and Ryan stay away from the fight, and this would help him focus. All he’d have to do is finish the fucking job, and know that he’d feel Her again when it was over. Ben had to keep reminding himself that it was for Her own fucking safety, and he’d see Her again. He’d always fucking see Her again. He’d kill Homelander, their pigeon shit would come back, and he’d go find Her.

Ben was more than goddamn ready to kill Homelander. To spill the pussy’s fucking blood over the grass and turn him into the fucking worm he was. Buried in the dirt, never seeing the goddamn sun again, and sparing it any thought of having to give someone as fucking worthless as Homelander a shred of his demanded light.

“Three hours.” Her words are muffled against Ben’s chest, her head tilting back to watch him. Her eyes are glossy and her expression tired, but She’s still beautiful. Still fucking perfect, and still looking at Ben like she loves him. And it’s all he can goddamn ask for, so he lets a hand drift to her face, tracing the lines and slopes of Her features until he gets a soft smile, and can drag his thumb over the curve of her lips.

“Two hours.” Ben corrects, following his own internal timer. “And fifty-seven minutes.”

She gives him a flat look. “That’s only three minutes, I rounded-“

“It’s three minutes less. Four now, the longer you get all fucking smart with me-“

“You like it when I get smart with you,” Her smile grows to something more real, and it makes Ben feel fucking alive. “It turns you on, you horny old cunt.”

“I’m your horny old cunt. You’re fucking stuck with me,” Ben moves Her hand up between their bodies, and says Her name like it should be said. Like it some sort of perfect, sacred secret that he gets to keep.

She hums, examining the ring, and Ben knows that on any other day She’d have teased him. She’d have stuck her tongue out, pretended to pull the ring off, and giggled when Ben caught her hand and pushed her to the ground, kissing her until she was a moaning, writhing mess under him. But today is a walking fucking nightmare—or a strange space before it, where you know the nightmare is inevitable, and you’re fucking exhausted, so you can’t do anything but wait to pass out and let it take over—so She just leans back into Ben’s body, propping her head on his shoulder, and looks past him to the window.

“I think it’s going to rain.” Her words are only a breath in Ben’s ear, and he lets his hand wander over Her back, moving her further up his body. “We don’t have floodlights, and it’s probably too late to get them. Annie could be the light, but you’ll probably want her for the combat-“

Ben tugged on Her hair, just enough to get her attention and pull her drawn, worried face to his. To kiss Her long and soft and gentle, and stop the machine that was Her brain from sending her into overdrive.

“Not your job to worry about that shit.” He muttered against Her lips. “We’ve got it.”

“But-“

“No.” Ben dropped his brow to Her’s, and held her quiet, painfully fucking tragic gaze with the most goddamn certain one he could manage. His voice had to be strict and firm, because Ben was going to kill Homelander, and She wasn’t going to need to lift a goddamn finger to find it washed in blood. “We’ve fucking got it. You’re going to go with Ryan, and not goddamn worry, because we’ve got it. Read some books, stay away from the TV, and wait to feel me. Then I’ll come get you, and we’ll get fucking married-“

“Right after?” She giggled, and it was like fucking music because—even if it was quiet and soft—it meant She was a little bit happier. “Are we having a shotgun wedding?” She made a mock gasp, leaning fully back with a glimmering, wide-eyed expression. “Am I pregnant? Is it yours?”

Ben snorted, shaking his head. “Don’t joke about that shit, it’s not fucking funny-“

“You laughed.“ She gave him a pretty, fake pout, fingers tapping at his chest, and She was so fucking beautiful and hilarious and perfect that Ben had laughed.

And he still did not want to entertain that line of thought at fucking all. The very damn possibility that Ben was about to leave Her, and she could be pregnant, and it would be his because who the hell else would have made that happen, and fuck, Ben was not going to leave Her if-

“I’m not pregnant,” Her hands moved to hold his face as she spoke, her expression falling into one of worry. “It was a joke, my love.”

“I fucking cum in you-“

“I’m aware, Benjamin.” She drawled, and sighed at the scowl that Ben could feel over his face, running her fingers through his beard. “It’s, I know I can, Homelander made the scientists check, but I’m not. I think it’s part of the V. The healing.”

“The V.”

“I mean, my healing factor sort of like a stasis, right? It’s why I can’t get sick, or be poisoned, and I only get my period once a year. And, um, I think if I don’t want to be, I won’t.”

Ben started at Her for a long, silent moment before grunting, “What the fuck are you talking about.”

“If I’m not ready, if my body isn’t ready, that won’t happen.” She sighed, dropping her head into Ben’s shoulder. “I mean, we fuck all the time, and, um, Homelander wasn’t really all about protection-“

“Fine.” Ben cut it off there. He understood now, he fucking believed Her—she was a whole lot smarter than he was, and always fucking right, so there was no damn need for doubt—and had almost negative fucking desire to think about Homelander right now. Doing that, or touching Her, or trying to fucking hurt her in any goddamn way. Just the damn thought made his grip on Her tighten, because nothing should hurt Her. Nothing would hurt Her, and she needed to damn know that. “You’re okay.”

She nodded slowly against his body. “I’m okay. I’m,” she let out a long breath, and her arms wrapped around his neck. “I’m tired.”

“You’ll rest-“

“I won’t.”

Ben frowned, angling her chin up with a careful hand to find Her smiling at him in a way that wasn’t making it any fucking easier to think about leaving her. All love and want, searching over his face like She was trying to memorize it. He grunted Her name, and she sat a little higher, holding herself at his eye level.

“I’m not going to rest, Ben. I’m going to worry about you. I’m,” She smile grew, and it was only made of fucking exhaustion and love and an ache that Ben could feel around his ribs. “I love you. And if you die, I’ll fucking kill you.”

“I’m not going to fucking die-“

“And I can’t die.” She gave him a pointed look. “But you’re going to worry about me.”

“That’s not the same-“

“Yeah, it is-“

“It’s fucking not.” Ben snapped. “I die, you’ve still got Ryan. You’ve still got all the pussy fuckers downstairs and your family. You die, I’m done. I’ll be a graveyard coke snorter, Sunshine, and no one will even give me any goddamn coke-“

She leaned up, kissing him in the soft, easy, shut up way he usually kissed Her, and Ben fucking hated this. He should be comforting Her. He was built for battle, for war, for blood and dirt and killing in Her name, and it was not her fucking job to kiss him like this right now-

“If you want coke,” She said against his lips, and a lot of the fight in his body fucking evaporated into radiant light at the look of adoration in Her eyes. “I’ll get you some coke, Pretty Boy. But if I die, which I won’t, you won’t be done. You’ll have Ryan-“

“If one of us is dying and leaving the other with Ryan, it should be me. He likes you more-“

She wrinkled her pretty nose, whacking his arm. “He likes you plenty, you dickhead. And neither of us are dying, so we don’t need to talk about this. We can talk about how I think Hughie was going to propose to Annie and you stole his thunder, or how I think A-Train and Ashley might be sleeping together, or our wedding, but no planning our estate or trying to figure out who’s going to die. Got it?”

Ben felt something loosen around his lungs, and he grinned, dropping to nip and suck at Her neck. “It’s real fucking hot when you yell at me-“

“I know, that’s why I do it.” Her voice was an airy, happy breath, and Ben didn’t think it was possible to be in real pain when they were like this. Her legs around his torso, his mouth attached to her skin, everything fucking good.

“Brat.” He muttered, pulling back to search Her wide, slightly flushed, perfect fucking face. “We should do it now.”

“Do-“

“Get married. Right fucking now. MM’s probably a minister or some shit, he seems like the type, we can just do it-“

She shook her head, and Ben fell silent on pure fucking instinct as Her hands glided over his face. “Not now, Ben. I don’t even have a dress-“

“You don’t need a dress, beautiful, we can-“

“I want to do a real wedding,” She said, her eyes almost pleading. “I want to have a stupid, normal, insanely fucking expensive wedding, where I throw flowers and you have to pretend you like talking to people, and I get to see you in a suit, and you,” she pressed a small, innocent kiss to Ben’s cheek before moving to whisper in his ear. “Get to do the garter thing. Behind closed doors, because there’s not a chance you don’t start eating me out the moment you get there.”

Ben loved her so fucking much. “Fine. But if we’re not married by October, I’m-“

“Waiting very patiently? Because you’re a very good husband?” She kissed him in that same sweet way, and Ben rolled his eyes.

“You’re a fucking menace, Sunshine.” Ben bumped his nose with Her’s, she fucking giggled again, and he felt high. “And I am not getting married in November, it’s a dogshit fucking month, but-“

“How about December?” She tilted her head, words slow and careful. “I know we don’t love the winter, but it’ll be one year of us knowing each other. That feels symbolic-“

“I don’t give a fuck about that. I just want to get married. Soon.” He grumbled, and earned a wide, bright, toothy smile as She squirmed in his lap, her words soft and happy.

“I can live with that.”

“Good.”

“We can do it in August? Inside, so that the only sweaty and gross things are you and I after-“

“That’s fucking disgusting,” Ben said Her name with a smirk, and she hit his chest, sticking out her tongue.

“Fuck you, Benjamin, we both know you’re just marrying me for the amazing honeymoon sex we’re going to have, and maybe the opportunity to dress Butcher in a pretty dress for his flower girl role-“

“I am marrying you for a lot of reasons,” he muttered, kissing the space between her eyes and trying to inhale the easy, blissful sigh that left Her. “But our sex is always fucking amazing, we don’t need a fucking flower girl, and Butcher should count himself lucky he’s allowed to be there.”

“What about Ryan?”

“I am not making Ryan the fucking flower girl-“

“No, Benjamin, he should be the best man.”

Ben froze for a second, scanning Her soft, thoughtful expression with a furrowed brow. “Have you been fucking thinking about this?”

“Yeah.” She mumbled, turning her flushed face to press into Ben’s arm, her heart hitting an uneven, fluttering pace in her chest. “It’s been a good distraction. From, uh, everything.”

He nodded slowly, and started to draw slow, firm patterns on her skin. “What else have you thought about.”

“I think Kimiko would like to be the flower girl,” Her voice was muffled in his body, more uncertain than Ben liked, so he just hummed and kept listening. “She likes to do pretty, simple things, I think it helps her cope with the whole situation. I would like Annie to be on my side, but I really think you should take Hughie. He might get all panicky and red when you ask, but it will mean a lot to him. And I, I want MM there, but I’d understand if he doesn’t want to be-“

“He will.” Ben muttered. “He likes you a fuck ton more than he hates me.”

“I know, but I don’t want to make him uncomfortable-“

He drawled Her name, kissing the top of her head. “We’re well fucking past uncomfortable. He’s accepted that I’m not going a single goddamn place without you, that I fucking love you, and that you love me. He’ll be there.”

“I do love you.” She mumbled, kissing the base of Ben’s neck and curling her fingers in his hair. “You burn, I burn. No burning without me, Benjamin, or I’m serious. I’ll fucking kill you.”

He chuckled, squeezing the skin of her hips. “Deal, Sunshine. You burn, I burn.”

She smiled up at him, all sweet and adoration and love and fuck she was going to kill him. He couldn’t fucking do this, he couldn’t fucking move from this warm, impossibly fucking good moment, and he never wanted to let Her go.

Ben was vaguely aware that she had been right. It was raining, and the attic had dropped into a damp, heavy darkness Ben could feel over his skin and inside his lungs. He could hear thunder in the distance, hear the drumming of the rain on the roof above them, but Her heartbeat was more important—sacred and critical and all fucking Ben’s—so he held onto that. He held onto Her for as long as he was fucking allowed to, until her phone buzzed and she had to pry away from Ben’s grip to take the call.

“Where are you.” MM’s voice was static and muffled through the speaker, and she sighed, watching Ben as she answered.

“In the attic with Ben, why-“

“You’re rolling out now.” There was a sense of almost apologetic urgency in MM’s words, and Ben felt his hands tense as Her heart stuttered.

“Now? I thought we had another thirty-“

“This storm is looking heavy, and I don’t want you trying to drive in it if it gets worse. You’re packed?”

“Yeah. I did Ryan’s bag as well-“

“Where-“

“In our room. But, MM-“

“Look.” MM sighed through the phone, and She swallowed. “I don’t want to fucking cut it off early either, but we don’t know when Homelander will be here, and I’d rather get this over with and know we got you out safely. Is Soldier Boy-“

“I’m here.” Ben grunted, leaning forward as she held the phone between their bodies. “What.”

“Get her downstairs, then meet Butcher and Annie in the kitchen. We’re going over everything again. No errors.”

Ben nodded, and when he looked back to Her sad, open, slightly hollow expression, everything in him became steel. If fucking anything went right tonight, it would be that She was going to be safe. That nothing was ever going to fucking hurt Her again. “Got it. Did Frenchie-“

“Guns are in the dining room. See you soon, motherfucker.”

The phone line clicked dead, and She wasn’t fucking moving. She wasn’t falling into Ben, or pulling away from him, but she was just fucking frozen. Staring at him with glassy eyes and an open mouth, her heart uneven and her nails digging into Ben’s skin, rising with smoke.

Ben didn’t bother to speak, because words wouldn’t fucking help. He gave her a long, slow kiss, letting her part open for him at the first sweep of his tongue over her lips, and deepening it until her body was warm but not burning, and Her heart was fast but not erratic.

It was a promise. Neither of them were attempting to stand and leave, because this was a silent fucking oath that Ben would find Her. That She’d be safe with Ben still lingering on her lips and teeth, and Ben would fight with the taste of honey and chocolate on his tongue, the smell of flowers everywhere around him. He’d run his fingers through her hair again, and she’d hold his face in that way that told Ben she was seeing him. That She was touching him and wanting him and had no fucking intention of ever being anywhere else, because She wanted Ben to look at Her, and she loved looking at him.

And Ben fucking loved Her. And he’d be here again—with Her in his arms, but all her fucking love alight in his body—because there just wasn’t another fucking option. He’d finish this by the time the sun reappeared in the sky, and he’d feel Her again before that. Just two fucking hours, and Ben would be able to sense her again.

He’d made it a lifetime never feeling Her at all. He’d made it two months without feeling Her or knowing she loved him. He wasn’t a fucking pussy, he’d manage to survive less than three goddamn hours knowing she was safe, that she loved him, and then worship and tend to Her for a million goddamn years when this was done.

She let Ben carry Her downstairs, burying her face in his neck and still clinging to him when they reached the kitchen and he lowered her to the ground. Ben looped his arm around her waist, holding Her as steady as he could, and neither of them spoke as he guided her outside. Into the rain, cold and stinging on his skin, her body against his the only real thing in the whole fucking universe.

They were taking the car She and Ben had stolen in Boston, and most everyone was already there. Ashley and A-Train were squished into the back with Zoe, Neuman was twisted around in shotgun to hold her daughter’s hand and whisper soothing words, and MM was standing on the driver’s side as they approached, tall and unflinching in the downpour as he gave them a curt nod of greeting and tossed Her the keys.

Ben snatched them out air with a scowl, his eyes narrowing at MM. “She is not fucking driving-“

“Shut up, Benjamin-“

“No. You’re a goddamn threat to your own safety when you drive-“

“When it’s just us,” She snapped, and tried to jump up to grab the keys from Ben’s hand, held high over her head. “I’m not going to be reckless with two kids in the car-“

“And she’s the only one I trust to drive, you asshole.” MM crossed his arms, scowling at Ben. “So unless you want Neuman to drive your wife and son around in the middle of this shit, give her the fucking keys.”

Ben did not appreciate that use of wife and son, because MM knew exactly what the fuck he was pulling with it. He’d backed Ben into a corner where She now had to have the keys, because Ben didn’t fucking trust Neuman, and she wouldn’t be reckless with Ryan in the car, but Christ. He mostly just didn’t want Her to go. Ben knew She’d be careful, that when she’d went she’d be safe, but if he kept the keys where she couldn’t get them—where nobody could get them, because Ben was a fuck ton stronger than all these pussies—he’ never have to say goodbye.

And She must have seen that on his face, because when Ben passed her the keys with a scowl, she kissed his cheek with a sad, loving smile and let Ben half pick her up off the ground as he deepened every part of this. It wasn’t a fucking goodbye, not by a damn mile, but Ben still gave Her fucking everything left he had to offer. His mouth and body fitting perfectly against every part of her, his touch on Her skin careful and deliberate, and the atomic light in his body that might be the bomb and might just fucking be his love for Her radiating into the air. Ben kissed Her and held her until they couldn’t fucking feel the rain, and her heart was beating in perfect time with his.

“I love you,” he said Her name down her throat, and she fucking knew that, and Ben was still never going to stop saying it. “I fucking love you, and I’ll find you. I’ll always fucking find you.”

“I know you will,” She mumbled, pulling away slowly, as if it was painful. It fucking was. “I trust you, Benjamin, my love. I know.”

Ben already had Her face memorized but he still stared. Still tried to look at Her enough that, when he closed his eyes, She’d be the only thing he saw. Listening closely enough that, between any explosion or sound of pain or splash of rain on gravel, he’d hear the perfect, musical sound of Her voice. He could live here, he decided. If all of time froze and Ben was trapped in this storm forever, it would be in a moment where She was looking at him, and he was holding Her, and everything ached but Ben still fucking had Her.

He wouldn’t lose Her. He’d repeated it to himself countless fucking times, and it had become some sort of oath between him and the universe, but right now it was a prayer. God wasn’t fucking real, the world was too cruel for that, but Ben still was asking for one last favor. He didn’t deserve it, but he still needed to look at Her and fucking plead that he would fucking find Her. That Ben could let go of Her and it wouldn’t be painful, because he had an hour and forty-four minutes left until he could feel Her, and when he did he’d only feel Her love. Only feel Her up and down his spine and wrapped around his skull, making everything in his vision glow and the drums pound of out his chest in an avenging beat of Her. She was fucking safe, and loved Ben, and now this was going to be fucking over.

So when Butcher and Ryan joined them—Butcher giving them a rough nod and Ryan running to give Ben a tight hug—all Ben could do was fucking pray.

“I don’t want to go,” Ryan muttered, looking up at Ben with wide eyes that he could fucking taste the fear in. “I can help-“

“It’s not your job to help, Ryan.” Ben knelt down, holding Ryan’s gaze with his own glare. “Your job is to go with her, and wait for me to come get you. I’ll take care of this, and you’re going to be fucking fine.”

“What if you lose-“

“I won’t.”

“But-“

“I won’t fucking lose, kid. I don’t lose.” That wasn’t really true anymore, but it made Ryan’s face relax slightly, so Ben said it anyway. “So don’t worry about me. I’ve got it.”

Ryan mumbled Her name, glancing to where She and Butcher were exchanging low words Ben couldn’t decipher over the pounding of the rain around him and the drums inside him. “Um, she said you lose. She said you’ve never beaten her at a card game, or won any of your fights.”

Ben snorted. “That’s because she’s a fucking genius, and nobody can beat her in a fight. That woman could talk circles around a hundred damn people at once. And,” he lowered his voice, leaning closer to Ryan with a grin. “I let her beat me at card games.”

“Why?” Ryan titled his head with a frown that was remarkably fucking uncanny to Her’s, and Ben’s smirk widened.

“Because she loves winning.”

“But it’s just a card game-

“I know that. And she really fucking loves winning. And I love her.” Ben shrugged, because in his head it was pretty goddamn simple. They played, he went out his way to lose, and she lit up like the goddamn sun after. Ben got extra ice cream, and extra sex, and She was all fucking bouncy and bright for the rest of the day, so he could lose a stupid fucking card game. “When you love someone, you let them have stupid shit that makes them happy.”

Ryan nodded slowly—it was an almost eerie imitation of Her slow nod, that told Ben they understood something, but were still thinking about it—and his frown became less strained on his face. “Okay. What does,” Ryan paused, closing his mouth once before continuing. “Does the card game, um, does it make her really happy?”

“It makes her fucking glow.” Ben looked over to where She was still talking to Butcher, and his grin became all teeth and raw fucking joy when She glanced at him, her whole face relaxed, and her smile became the one that told him Ben. Ben, I love you and adore you and want you. He turned his attention back to Ryan, dropping his voice to a mock whisper. “You ever want to get her in a good mood, lose a game of cards.”

Ryan nodded slowly, and Ben knew the kid probably wouldn’t use that tactic nearly as much as he did. Ben used it, or others like it, any time he saw her eyes grow fogged, heard her breathing become mechanical, or felt her nails dig into his arm. He’d lose a bet about who got to make dinner or chose the movie or let Her lead sex just to see her fucking smile. Ben could eat next to anything, and watch a million hours of fucking static, and have almost any damn form of sex as long as it was with Her.

And Ben wouldn’t be able to be with Her for this. He’d have to just fucking wait, and keep fucking praying. Praying that Her firm handshake with Butcher was because even that damn pussy was on board with what this was about.

Killing Homelander. Keeping Her and Ryan safe.

That’s all it had been about since the very fucking start, and Ben got that now. He’d get that for the rest of his fucking life, and his last prayer to the universe was that he’d been right. That this was some sort of fucked up heaven—where Ben got to have a real family, and be loved a perfect fucking woman, and repent for the rest of his goddamn life to earn that—and not the most twisted hell imaginable. That this wasn’t well-designed torture, where everyone had somehow forgiven him, and he felt loved for the first time in a hundred years—was happy for the first time in his fucking life—only have it all taken away. To have Her ripped away from him and, to lose. Lose this war, lose the only people that mattered in the entire goddamn universe, lose the love of his life and have no one to blame but himself.

She bumped past Butcher to return to Ben’s side, and pulled Ryan into a long, tight hug without a word. Ryan’s head buried in her chest, Her body over his to shield him from the rain, and Ben wanted to crawl up from where he’d found himself—kneeling in the mud, drenched in a downpour She’d probably call mythical or some shit—and fucking hold them.

Her eyes opened, meeting Ben’s, and her tiny nod was like a command over his whole body. He stood, almost launched across to the small space to where She and Ryan stood, and took all the rain like they were fucking bullets. Another way to repent, another way to prove his love, and another way to keep them safe.

“Can you,” Ryan’s voice was muffled between Her and Ben’s bodies, drowned out in the unrelenting pound of the rain, but Ben still heard them. Right now all he could fucking hear was the rain, Her heart, and Ryan’s unsure words. “Ben, can you come with us? Please?”

She tensed slightly, but looked to Ben for his answer.

She trusted Ben to handle this himself. That he’d say the right thing, not fuck Ryan up more than the poor kid already had been, and all She had to do was back up what he said.

“I can’t, kid.” He muttered, holding Ryan’s sad gaze and making his words a fucking promise. Something so certain Ryan wouldn’t even bother to worry. “I’ve got to stay here and fight. But she’s going to take good care of you, and I’ll find you both when it’s over.” Ben felt something impossibly fucking painful, overtake his body, and his words became rough. Edged with that same pain, lined with the knowledge that he could convince Ryan they’d be safe—he could convince his damn self they’d be safe—but he still couldn’t fucking feel Her, and they still had to go. “All you have to do is wait. You’ll get somewhere safe, survive this mythical storm, and just fucking wait.” He glanced up at Her, and this was the hardest thing he’d ever had to fucking say. “Take care of each other, and I swear on my fucking life I’ll find you. I’ll always fucking find you.”

“Okay.” Ryan squeezed Ben one last time, and looked to Her with an open, soft expression. “Can I-“

“Go wait in the car, Ry. I’ll be right there.” She pulled the kid back against her and let him stay there until he was ready to god. Until Ryan pried himself from Her body, and walked away with one last fearful look at Ben. Not fear of Ben—Ben knew what that fear looked like, and it was more terror than worry—but fear for him, and Ben was going to fucking roar louder than any rain or thunder or bomb.

“Mythical?” She whispered, moving Her gaze from Ryan to Ben with a sad adoring smile. “What’s a mythical storm?”

Ben rolled his eyes. “I don’t fucking know. What the hell would you have said-“

“Biblical? A biblical storm?”

“Smartass.”

“You love it.” She sighed, shuffling right into Ben’s chest and pulling his arms around Her as if they hadn’t been about to hold Her on pure fucking instinct. “You love me.”

“I do.” He ran his hands through her wet hair and pressing a kiss to the top of Her head, speaking against her skin. “I really fucking love you, Sunshine.”

“Good.” She hummed, her own arms wrapping over his torso and squeezing. “Because I really fucking love you too.”

Neither of them spoke after that—neither of them needed to speak—and when she pulled Ben’s face down to Her’s for an unhurried, sloppy kiss, he bit Her lower lip in a silent promise.

I’ll find you. When this is over, I’ll come get you, and I love you. I won’t ever lose you, because I love you, and if this does turn out to be hell, the Devil better run for the goddamn hills because I’ll burn the entire universe to get you home.

She didn’t hear the promise between their heads, or read it on his face, but she didn’t need to. Ben had told Her that in a million goddamn ways, and right now it was more of a warning to whatever might be listening. That the world better fucking pray that Ben didn’t lose Her, because he wouldn’t kill anything innocent in Her name—She’d hate that, and Ben loved Her—but he’d raze and maul and scorch anything that was guilty.

And the world must have heard him, because lightning cracked through the sky—lighting up Her every perfect feature and making Her look like some sort of forgotten, vital god that turned the world round and created all its beauty but still only looked at Ben—and Ben was forced to let Her go. To press his brow to Her’s, trace his hands over Her face to wipe any water that might be tears, and leave one long, gentle kiss to her lips before he had to watch her walk away. Meet Her eyes one last time, see that She loved him on every single part of Her beautiful face. Feel the world a little beyond himself, feel peaceful and infinite and warm in the chill of the rain, and know that Her sharp, adoring gaze would follow him, and the deep, unstoppable, consuming look in her eyes was love.

I love you, Benjamin.

There was iron wrapped over his lungs and throat, and a roaring rush of fury and blood in his chest, but it was all drowned out by Her. And it was easy to look at Her and nod, and Ben didn’t have to think to turn his face into an expression of his own pure, devout ardor and affection.

I love you too, Sunshine.

She nodded, and something in Ben became a heavy weight he was happy to carry as the car pulled away. She knew he loved her, and that was all that fucking mattered. His whole world was in that stupid fucking car, and he’d carry that piece of Her inside of him, the crucial and holy responsibility of loving Her, until he could feel her again. Ben would bear this on his shoulder and over his head until he could pull the universe back into his arms, and then he’d breathe. He’d crash into Her and spend the rest of time where he belonged, but until then he had a fucking job to do.

The next time Ben saw Her, he needed to be able to look Her in the eyes and tell her Homelander was dead.

They gathered in the kitchen, and Ben could barely fucking breathe. It wasn’t just the strain and mold on his heart leaking into his lungs, it was the very air in the goddamn room. Heavy and cold, but still humid and thin, wearing them down before the fight even began.

It was wrong without Her here. Wrong to listen to MM recite a plan She made without her listening, without her correcting or amending anything, without Ben having anything to hold but a gun in his hand, anything to touch but the splintered wooden table they sat around. It was wrong to not feel Her anywhere but in the empty space at his side, or hear Her heartbeat and voice in the static silence of a ceiling fan.

“Here’s the deal.” MM’s words were short as he scanned over the team, hands sorting the guns in a neat line on the table. “Everyone gets two guns. One regular, one drill. We got enough for one V bullet each, which means you do not take a shot unless you’re going to hit. Not you think you’re going to hit, you’re going to hit. A shot you’d have to be a real fucking idiot to miss. Understood?”

Everyone nodded, and Hughie raised a shaking hand in the air.

“What if, um, you’re just not good with a gun and don’t want to fuck anything up more than it already has been-“

“Everyone gets a gun, Lad.” Butcher snapped. “You got hands and eyes. Fuckin’ use them.”

Hughie gave a mumbled, sheepish agreement, and Frenchie cleared his throat.

“I did not, ah, account for the rain, but it should not be an issue. There are alarm triggers and traps all over the grounds, and, Petite Hughie-“

“Vicky was right,” Hughie tapped his computer on the table. “Edgar had the place wired. I’ve never see so many hidden tree cameras, I thought that was only a thing in movies-“

“Well, Edgar’s more of a paranoid asshole than most, and now we get the benefit.” MM crossed his arms, his expression grim. “Homelander won’t be able to take a piss in the woods without us knowing what leaf he uses to wipe. Hughie will keep eyes on the cams, and Frenchie’s alarms, and we can hope that the rain is in our favor. I’d imagine the overload of sound won’t help him-“

“It won’t.” Ben grunted, because the rain was starting fucking overwhelm him. It was all he could fucking hear, without Her heart there to latch onto, and it was going to drive him fucking insane. “He won’t be able to pull footsteps or random fucking heartbeats out of the noise. It’s an advantage, so fucking use it.” He moved his glare around the table. “If you can, shoot during thunder. He won’t hear the gun fire, and the pussy probably won’t bother to dodge anyway, but no risks. No fucking missing, and no going off on your own stupid little vengeance quest.” Ben’s attention moved to Butcher, and he made his words a threat. A promise of violence if Butcher screwed this up for him, for Her, for the entire goddamn world. “If Homelander isn’t fucking dead by tonight because you decided to go all scorched earth instead of sticking the goddamn plan, I’ll kill you.”

“I ain’t lookin to fuck you, Gov. Didn’t bring any protection, and I’m more damn scared of your wife than I am of you. Don’t want her findin out about our little affair and flayin me alive.”

Butcher’s words were casual and mocking, but Ben could hear the pussy’s heart over the rain—hammering at a fucking mile a minute—and see the almost imperceptible tick of his jaw, so he wasn’t fucking worried. Butcher understood that Ben would have his back, and if he got fucking stabbed in it, Butcher would die a nuclear, bloody, violent death.

MM coughed before continuing, giving Ben a short nod and starting to push the drills—along with small earpieces—out around the table. “One shot. No missing. Keep your coms on, and be fucking careful. Homelander’s got nothing left to lose, and he’s going to fight like it.”

“I still think I should be able to just, uh,” Hughie’s eyes widened as MM handed a gun to Annie, his voice growing higher with every damn word. “Watch the cameras without a gun? I’m not going to be out in the fight-“

“What if Homelander pushes through the door?” Frenchie suggests, loading up his own drill. “It is either boom, no more Hughie, or bang,” Frenchie made finger guns, shooting into the air. “No more Homelander.”

Hughie nodded, face bloodless. “Yeah, that’s. Okay. Shit. I’ll take a gun, please.”

“You’ll be okay, Hughie.” Annie gave a sweet, encouraging smile, and Hughie blushed. “You’re not a terrible shot.”

Ben grunted Her name, glowering at his own gun. “She had you fucking train her. And you didn’t do a total fucking pussyass job, before I took over. You’ll be fine.”

“Oh, um,” Hughie swallowed. “Thanks, Ben.”

Ben just shrugged, focusing on putting in his earpiece in and not breaking the weapon in his hands. Ben fucking hated this. He hated just waiting for Homelander to arrive instead of going and finding the asshole, fighting him,and finishing this without any sitting on their goddamn asses. He hated that She was the one who told them to wait, and she was always fucking right, and Ben knew that waiting was smarter, but he still fucking hated it. He goddamn despised that She was out there with Ryan, without him, and there was still a whole goddamn hour until he could feel Her again, until Ben could be goddamn certain that she was safe-

He saw the light first. Out the window there was a flash of yellow light in the distance, then, over the storm, the bang of an explosion.

Everyone fucking moved. Seats scraping on the floor as they were pushed away, guns aimed at the door and the stomping of feet to cover their every goddamn vulnerability point. Frenchie and MM patrolling the upper halls, Kimiko in the attic, Butcher in the living room, Annie in the kitchen, and Ben in the entrance hall. Gun raised at the door, the drums completely under his control and more than fucking ready to burst out of his chest. Every fraction of light and fury in Ben’s body was humming and golden over his bones, dug inside his muscles, and he wasn’t goingtomiss. If Homelander was enough of an idiot to try and walk right through the door, Ben’s finger was set on the trigger, and the pussy would die in the fucking mud as Ben blasted him backward and ended this.

But all Ben could hear was the wind and rain. Banging at the doors and falling everywhere around him, loud but not enough to cover up another explosion or the shout of a teammate for aid.

But neither of those things fucking came. And if Ben focused he could hear rapid, panicked heartbeats, but no bombs, and no blood.

Just the fucking wind.

“There’s,” Annie’s voice was quiet in Ben’s ear. “There’s nothing over here. No Homelander, no open fire. Nothing.” “Same here.” MM said, his voice a little firmer. “But stay alert, he could be playing some sort of game-“

Butcher cut over MM, a slight screeching sound cutting into Ben’s head that made him grimace. “Homelander don’t play games, Mate. Mighta just been a real bloody unlucky squirrel.”

“Non, the traps are calibrated to human weight.” Frenchie sighed over the coms. “Maybe a baby deer, though. I cannot be sure.”

“It’s pouring, a baby deer wouldn’t be outside, right? It would be-“

“It wasn’t a baby-” There was another static shriek as Hughie cut over Annie, and Ben could hear the chorus of groans through the house. “Shit, sorry guys. But it, um, it wasn’t a baby deer. I actually, I don’t see anything here. No dead animals, no people, no Homelander. Anywhere.”

MM hummed, and Ben could fucking hear his frown. “The motherfucker could be toying with us. Luring us outside while he waits in the sky-“

“I fuckin told you, MM.” Butcher didn’t apologize as the static cut in once more, and the next person who made that horrible fucking sound happen was getting their head ripped off. “Homelander don’t play with his food. Not when he’s real angry. He’s either gonna burst through the door and fuckin eat us, or he ain’t here and that was a squirrel.”

“It wasn’t a squirrel.” Hughie sounded urgent, and Ben could hear his fucking tapping at the laptop over the rain. “It was something, but not a squirrel.” There was another, softer, muffled voice through Hughie’s com before he continued. “Oh, uh, that’s a good idea. Thanks.”

Ben scowled. “What fucking idea.”

“Annie said to look for what bomb went off. It was the…” Hughie trailed off, the sound of his typing growing rapid, then, “Seventh bomb. Down by the creek.”

There was a long moment of silence, then Annie cleared her throat into the speakers.

“I think we should send a team. Just to make sure it’s really nothing.”

“Fine.” MM paused, and Ben jumped in.

“I’ll go. I’m invincible, and if it is Homelander, I’ll just fucking shoot him.”

“No,” MM muttered, and even though no one could see it, Ben scowled. “It could be a play to get you out. You’re the one he views as a threat, it might be a lure.”

“Nah, I’m with Soldier Boy.” Butcher said, and Ben wished he would shut the fuck up. Butcher backing up a plan was never a good thing. “We all got drills, and Homelander don’t got a goddamn clue. If it is a lure, he ain’t ready for us to be ready for him. I’ll go out with the old cunt, and if it’s nothing, we’ll be right back in shake of a cock’s ass.”

Ben rolled his eyes, and could almost fucking see the wrinkle of Her nose. Almost hear Her say there’s literally no way that’s a real phrase.

He couldn’t actually hear it—forty-five minutes—but he could imagine it.

“I can go too,” Annie added. “I can be a light source.”

MM still didn’t relent. “I don’t want to send two of my three supes out there. Not when we don’t know what the fuck that was.”

“Think of it like this,” Ben drawled, keeping his gaze on the door. “If it is Homelander, we can fight him. If it’s not, Butcher’s not a fucking idiot for once. He won’t be expecting you to have the guns, and you can shoot the stars and stripes pussy in his fucking mouth, I’ll come back, and he’ll die.”

There was a second of static, then MM’s grunt of, “Fine. But be fast, don’t be stupid, and keep on coms.”

“Aye fuckin aye, Mate. Lines on, be quick.” Butcher rounded the corner to the hall, winking at Ben. “Oi, Gov, you want anythin before we go out? Gonna put on your fuckin suit for the grand fight?”

“You want to eat my fucking asshole?” Ben snapped, because he’d very fucking purposefully traded his suit for normal, boring ass clothing. Homelander could wear a costume and fight like a fucking monster. Ben would dress like a goddamn person, and fight like an asshole who had something to lose, and people to fight for. Bloody and unforgiving, but still goddamn human. Not Soldier Boy, fighting for some sort of annoying fucking honor before. Ben was himself, and he was killing Homelander for Her.

She’d say there could be symbolism in killing Homelander while dressed as Soldier Boy, and having that be his final act in the suit. And Ben would listen to Her, then kiss the space between her eyes and mutter that he didn’t fucking care about symbolism. He cared that She was fucking safe, and Homelander was dead. Half of his uniform was at the bottom of the fucking ocean, and when this was over, Ben would burn his Soldier Boy suit and be done for good.

But right now—Annie and Butcher a pace behind him—Ben had to wander out into the darkness of rain and try to remain vigilant when he couldn’t tell up from down. It was so fucking loud, and he had to fucking focus but Christ, it was loud-

“Hey, Ben.” Annie jogged up to his side, and Ben glanced at her with a frown.

“What.”

Annie said Her name, and it was like it set something off in his body that roared with love and care and focus. “She, um, she told me more about Rome. And I wanted to thank you-“

Ben’s frown deepened, and his words became curt. “Why.”

“Because you really make her,and Ryan, actually, happy.” Annie sighed, scanning over Ben’s face in the dark of the storm. “And I’m not going to apologize for the tower last year, you were being a dick and I’d do it again, but I will say I don’t regret listening to her. When she told us to wake you up. I mean, I didn’t think this would happen, but I’m glad it did. And I’m glad she has you, even if you’re like, so gross together.”

“Good.” Ben grunted, and he didn’t know what the fuck to do with that. “Thanks.”

Annie nodded, moving to fall back another step, and Ben scowled.

“I’m glad she has you as well.” He added, and it was Annie’s turn to look like a fucking idiot. “She deserves a friend who can’t shut her up by fucking her stupid.”

“That’s what I mean.” Annie muttered, but there was something lighter in her tone. “That’s disgusting, who just says that-“

Ben said Her name, and couldn’t stop the grin on his face. “She’d say that shit. She’s a horny fucking problem, Annie, I don’t know how she tricked you pussies, but she was fucking begging to blow me in a bathroom last week-“

Annie made a face, and Butcher laughed from behind them.

“I knew the lady wasn’t all fucking prim and proper words. Good on you, Gov. That ain’t a shit job.”

Ben whipped around, stopping dead in his tracks to glower at Butcher. “Fucking watch it-“

“Calm your bloody tits.” Butcher raised his hands in mock surround, rolling his eyes. “That was what we call a compliment. That woman was abused and tortured, and she’s a piece of bloody work, but you somehow make her all fuckin ditzy and dumb just by smilin at her.”

Ben scanned over Butcher—the words seemed genuine, even if Butcher always said everything in a way that sounded rude—and grunted before turning and continuing their march to the creek.

“You’re going to be her bridesmaid,” he snapped to Annie, because every moment of silence in the noise of the storm was driving him fucking insane. “She told me. And I get Hughie.”

“Oh.” Annie gaped at him slightly, then shook her head clear and nodded. “Okay. I mean, maybe be careful when you ask Hughie, he might turn all red and get really nervous-“

“I know.” Ben grunted, scanning over the trees as they approached the rushing water. “The guys a fucking mess, but he’s kind. Patient.” Ben scowled at a strangely shaped tree. “Good man.”

Annie let out an almost dreamy sigh, and Ben wondered if he looked that fucking stupid when people talked about Her. If he did, he didn’t fucking care, but it did make him worry about his face when She was actually there.

“He really is. I love that weird Billy Joel nerd so much- What the fuck?!”

They’d halted at the edge of the water—the creek overflowing and rushing between their feet—and Annie’s eyes began to glow, the air humming and buzzing, as the Deep grinned at them from a high rock on the other side.

Ben frowned, scanning over the man’s tall, proud, over-fucking-dramatic hero pose. “What’s the fishfucker doing here.”

“I’m here to fight!” The Deep called over the rain, and even Ben could barely fucking hear him. “And defend America-“

“Speak up, you asshole!” Annie was half screaming, eyes growing brighter. “I can’t fucking hear you-“

“He said he’s here to fight and defend America.” Ben muttered to Annie, keeping careful attention on the Deep’s look of annoyance before raising his own voice to a shout. “Speak the fuck up, you pussy, we can’t hear you!”

The Deep nodded, looking slightly uncertain. “I, I am here to defend America from the terrorists, Annie January, William Butcher, and Ben. We, uh, we couldn’t find a last name for Soldier Boy-“

Annie’s eyes narrowed, and Ben could fucking taste the electricity through the rain. “Deep, get the fuck off my farm-“

“God, Annie, can you not be a bitch for five seconds so I can do my speech?” The Deep rolled his eyes at Ben, and Ben wondered if fish would find empty fucking eye sockets attractive. “She has been out to get me since the start, sabotaging me, trying to cancel me-“

“You assaulted me, you fucking-“

“What the hell are we stoppin-“ Butcher stomped up behind them, cutting himself with a groan. “Ah, bloody fuckin- The hell you doin here, Lad. I mean, ain’t gonna pass up the oppurtuiny to kill ya, but this,” he gestured around to the woods. “Ain’t your fight.”

“Wrong, Mr. Butcher, this is Homelander’s fight, and he’s my bro, so it’s my fight too. And-“

“As well.” Ben snapped, mostly on instinct, and the Deep frowned at him.

“As well as what-“

“Proper fucking grammar, you fish blowing pussy.” Ben raised his gun, aiming right for the Deep’s head. “It’s your fight as well, and you’re going to die in it.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever grandpa.” The Deep scoffed. “Can I get through my speech now? I am here to defend America from the terrorists Annie January, William Butcher, and Ben. You have committed high treason against Homelander-“

“You ain’t able to commit treason against a person, cunt!” Butcher called over the river. “Treason gotta be against your country-“

“Well bloody fucking hell, I don’t care, you British weirdo!” The Deep stood a little taller, starting over. “I am here to-“

Ben had been fucking seconds from shooting and putting an end to this bullshit, but the Deep stumbled, fucking yelped, and fell into the water.

“Well, fuckin shit.” Butcher leaned over the flooding river, frowning at the water. “Think he managed to kill himself for us?”

“He has gills, Butcher.” Annie’s voice was the harshest Ben had ever heard it, her hands and eyes still glowing. “And he’s like a fucking cancer. He’ll be back.”

Ben scanned over the river—crashing and rushing and so fucking loud—and didn’t see any evidence of the Deep. “Assfuck could’ve hit his head-“

“No. He doesn’t get to just fucking die like that, to have this be over-“

“Bloody hell, Starlight.” Butcher gave Annie a twisted smile. “Hughie know you’re so fuckin bloodthirsty and not just a pretty church girl?“

Annie flipped Butcher off, never looking away from the water. “Shut the fuck up, Butcher, you know exactly why I want him dead-“

“I ain’t mockin you, I appreciate it-“

“Well, don’t-“

Ben raised his hand, and Annie and Butcher fell silent.

“There.” He hissed, pointing to an odd rippling pattern in the water. “Fish-fucker is alive, stop arguing and fucking focus-“

The Deep burst from the water, splashing Ben in the goddamn face, and landed on the riverbank in an even stupider fucking hero pose than before.

“Ha!” He shouted. “Bet you thought you’d gotten me. Well, I don’t go down easy-“

“You slipped, Mate.” Butcher drawled, raising his gun. “We all fuckin saw it. Now walk your sorry octopus-blowin ass away, and maybe we might let you live.”

The Deep scoffed. “Oh, c’mon, you guys won’t kill me. I mean, you’re just like, a bad guy with a gun.”He gestured to Butcher. “Like, oh no, bullets! I mean, that’ll barely even tickle, you fucking idiot.”

Ben’s hand tensed on his own gun, and he saw Butcher’s scowl grow taut and violent as they realized the same thing. They couldn’t shoot this asshole with their guns. The bullets were either useless, or made of fucking V, and the Deep wasn’t Homelander. The V would goddamn help him, make him stronger.

But the pussy didn’t fucking know that yet. He was still monologuing, his attention turned to Ben.

“And you’re just off your leash. Where’s your whore fucking girlfriend, bro? I’d say you finally grew some balls and kicked her to the curb, but she’s got her claws sunk right into your dick-“

“Watch your fucking mouth,” Ben sneered, raising his gun higher as the radiant feeling in his body became hot and bloody. “Or I’ll-“

“What, kill me? That’s never worked for you guys before, and I don’t think your little slut would like that, Ben-“

Something atomic was going to explode out of Ben’s body, but Annie was right in the fucking path of it, so he did a warning shot instead. Aimed at a tree just past the Deep’s head, close enough to make him shout in fear and flinch.

“Do not fucking speak about my wife.” Ben hissed, taking a rough step forward. “Or I won’t kill you. I’ll make you wish I did.”

“Your wife?” The Deep shook his head with a tense, strange laugh. “Dude, you are way too fucking dope to be married to that manipulative ice queen bitch. I mean, I get it. I never got a blowjob from her, but Homelander told me they were good enough to fuck with his head. And like, I’m only a man, I’d probably have caved too. Fucking Annie over here gave me a shit one, and I still think about that-“

The whole world burst with light, and Ben couldn’t fucking see anything but white or hear anything but blood in his ears and a ringing in the air. It wasn’t golden light of the bomb—still held within Ben’s body—but a crackling and hissing white flash that made Ben’s hair stand on end and his skin hot and stinging. And when his vision cleared, Annie wasn’t blocking his shot at the Deep.

She was down in the mud of the river, punching the Deep’s face raw and bloody with glowing hands.

The rain was fucking wired with electricity, and that was the fucking sting. Every drop of water was filled with Annie’s power, humming through the air, but the Deep wasn’t fucking dead. He roared over the water, throwing Annie off his body and into a tree trunk.

Ben lurched forward, the bomb growing sore in his hands, aching to launch from his body and just fucking kill the pussy—smashing Annie’s head against the roots of the tree—but Butcher caught his arm.

“What the fuck-“

“Starlight’s got this,” Butcher muttered, his gaze not leaving Annie, who grabbed the Deep’s fist and kicked him in the gut as another blinding rush of light burst through the air. “She needs this, Gov. Let her fuckin handle it.”

Annie did fucking have it. She was pummeling into the Deep’s gut with tight, even hits, and every traded blow just fucking drove her on, until she’d backed the Deep towards the river, her eyes glowing as the rain crackled with energy. Butcher flinched slightly at the electric water—bu didn’t fall—and Ben was fucking impressed. He’d never see Annie look fucking feral like that, and it made him like her all the more. He could have a friend like that. It was still Annie—a little too fucking nice, a little too fucking moral—but she wasn’t above blood and grime and mud like he’d thought she was. This Annie was vengeful and fucking angry, and the Deep didn’t seem to stand a goddamn chance.

The pussy kept trying to talk to her—either to mock her or plead with her, Ben couldn’t tell and didn’t really fucking care to know—only to have Annie’s fist collide with his mouth and send him flying back. The Deep’s punches were growing weaker as Annie’s grew stronger, his nose was bleeding and his stand beginning to become unsteady, and Annie looked like she was being vindicated. Her expression was only focus, only fury, and when her body become blinding with light, Ben threw up a golden shield at the last fucking second.

A sound like thunder tore through the air around them as Annie exploded, and when Ben’s vision cleared the Deep was lying in the sizzling, electric mud.

“Woah, Annie, I, I got it, you win.” The fish pussy was crawling back as Annie advanced, twitching slightly as the rain continued to shock his skin. “Let’s talk about this, you’re not a killer, you’re like, a good person-“

“Maybe.” Annie kicked the Deep back, closer to the water. “But I’m not a saint. And I hate you.”

The Deep’s eyes widened, and he twisted to try and fall into the water and swim away like a fucking coward, but Annie was faster. Grabbing him by the neck, dropping on his back, and shoving his face into the creek.

Ben frowned, letting the barrier drop as the rain became just water once more—all of Annie’s focus and energy on keeping the Deep’s head in the flooding river—and didn’t look away from Annie as he muttered, “What the fuck is she doing.”

“Tryin to drown the cunt.” Butcher sounded fucking pleased, and Ben didn’t need to look to know he was smiling. “He breathes with fuckin gills on his torso, ain’t gonna be able to breathe if just his ugly fuckin mug is in the water.”

The Deep was pounding at the ground, trying to push Annie off, but he wasn’t faltering. His fists didn’t look strong, but they were firm. He wasn’t drowning.

Ben looked up to the darkened sky, then back to Annie and the Deep, and his fists curled. “The rain. Annie!” He shouted, and she glanced over at him with a frown. “The fucking rain! The fish fuck can breathe in the goddamn-“ Ben cut himself off with an eye roll and sigh, because Annie just looked confused. “Fuck it.”

He’d been practicing. In Rome with Her, waiting for Her and Sage’s meeting to be over, whenever he got a fucking opportunity, Ben had been trying to control the bomb. Move it through his body at will, let it glow and bang and roar in his body before focusing it and throwing it out on more than just fury and an instinct of protect.

It had paid the fuck off, because when he clenched his jaw and vaulted some of the nuclear energy built in his muscles through the air, Ben could narrow his eyes and hold it the fuck together in a way that was solid. It was the drums, tearing through his head and over his ribs, and not painful in the fucking slightest. Filling the air around them, all in a rhythm Ben could fucking control. The feeling was away from his body—golden and humming, holding Annie and the Deep in a bubble that blocked the rain—but still a part of him.

And the Deep started to flail. Scraping at the air and Ben’s gold, trying to just twist away from Annie’s hold, and growing weaker by the second.

Then he was only twitching, Annie pushed his head deeper into the river, and he stilled.

Annie looked up to Ben, nodded, and the shield dropped away as the Deep went limp under her body.

“I’m pushing him into the river.” Annie muttered as Ben and Butcher approached, and Ben nodded, because as far as he was concerned, it was Annie’s body to dispose of.

“Make sure the cunts really fuckin kicked the bucket-“

Annie pulled the Deep’s head from the water, turned his swollen, slack face for Ben and Butcher to see, and snapped his neck.

“Good enough for you, Butcher?”

Butcher shrugged, and Annie threw the Deep’s weak, small corpse into the water. He was swallowed in the rushing, tumbling river, and vanished without a trace.

Ben reached a hand up to ear to radio MM, and nothing fucking happened. “Fuck.”

Annie frowned. “What-“

“Coms are fried.” He grunted, pulling out his earpiece and tossing it back into the river. “We need to get back-“

Ben’s pants began to buzz, and he pulled out his phone, the air filling with the ringing of MM’s call.

He’d barely picked up when MM was shouting through the speaker.

“Where the fuck did you assholes go-“

Ben flinched, but didn’t pull the phone from his ear. MM’s anger was easier to focus on than the pounding of the rain. “We’re still at the creek. Our radios got fucked, but it was just the Deep-“

“We fucking know that, Hughie saw it on the cams-“

“Then what the fuck is your problem-“

“My problem.” MM hissed through the phone. “Is that we don’t have a fucking clue where Homelander is, and no one is responding to our texts.”

Something felt sick in Ben’s gut. “What.”

MM said Her name, and Ben heard the screen crack in his grip. “I texted her to check in, and I haven’t gotten a response.”

Annie approached Ben, her face drawn with worry. “What-“

Ben ripped the phone from his ear, putting it onto speaker. “MM.” He said, pushing the words through his teeth. “Where the fuck are they.”

Annie and Butcher froze, and MM’s labored sigh was almost muffled in a crack of thunder.

“I don’t know. And we don’t think Homelander’s coming.”

Butcher’s hand shot to his coat pocket, and his body went rigid as Ben heard his heart begin to fucking race. Butcher’s heart never fucking raced.

“Bloody fuckin,” Butcher tore off his jacket, turning it over and frantically shaking it. “Fuck. Where the fuckin hell-“

“Ben.” MM grunted through the phone, his voice urgent. “Hughie can’t track the car. You need to do that brain connection shit-“

“I can’t.” The words felt like fucking torture in Ben’s mouth. Like poison or bile, his whole body splitting open as everything in him became wrath, mauling his organs and spine, turning solid in his throat and making it painful to do anything. “She’s still on the fucking suppressant, I can’t fucking feel her-“

“How much longer until you can?” Annie’s question was a whisper as she glanced over at where Butcher had started to pull apart his drill. “Butcher, what are you-“

Butcher pulled out the bullet, pried it open with pure brute force, and dropped the shell to the ground as he took out the vial of V.

“Butcher.” Ben warned. They didn’t have fucking time for dramatics. “What the fuck-“

“My V’s missin.” Butcher snapped, angling the V’s needle over his forearm. “I’m improvisin.”

“Holy fuck, Butcher, no, that’s a terrible idea-“

Annie started to run, probably to try and knock the V out of Butcher’s hand, but Butcher stabbed the needle into his arm, pushed down, and the vial drained.

“Jesus-” Annie halted as Butcher dropped into the mud, his body convulsing. “Fuck! Why are you such a fucking idiot, you asshole?!” She looked at Ben, expression almost desperate as she gestured to Butcher on the ground. “What the fuck do we do with him now?”

“What did he-“

“Shot up with V.” Ben snapped into the phone, because he didn’t fucking care right now. Not when She was fucking missing, and they didn’t have a goddamn clue where Homelander was. “He’ll live, it was just the regular shit. MM, where the fuck is my wife.”

“We’re working on it, but until you can do the thing-“

“I don’t know when it’ll come back, and I am not fucking waiting.”

“It could be nothing,” Annie mumbled, still watching Butcher and not even sounding like she believed herself. “They could just be in a dead zone-“

“I don’t fucking care!” Ben roared, and his whole body was trying to strain in every fucking direction. To pull Ben back to Her, when he didn’t have a goddamn clue where she was. “We don’t fucking know when Homelander is, we don’t know where anyone is but the Deep, who’s dead in the fucking river-“

Butcher groaned from the dirt, and when he looked up to Ben and Annie, his eyes were glowing. “Gov, we’ve got this. She’s strong, it ain’t gonna be an issue and Homelander will be ‘ere-“

“Are you insane?” Annie snapped at Butcher, whose eyes were still flickering with light. “You are not allowed to make plans anymore, you just shot up V-“

“I ain’t playin this clean, Starlight, Homelander ain’t-“

“We needed that V, you asshole! To kill Homelander, which we don’t need powers for-“

“Easy for you to fuckin say, when you got powers-“

“Which I didn’t choose! Nobody made you do that-“

“Ben.” MM said through the speaker, and Ben held the broken screen back to his ear. “Get back to the house, and we’ll figure out where they are. But until we’ve got confirmation they’re in danger, no going rogue. Got it?”

He might have agreed. Ben might have swallowed the feeling of wrong in his body and just kept fucking moving, kept fucking praying that She was fine and that—when the connection lit back up, any fucking minute now—he’d feel nothing but tight nerves in his body that was Her fear and love for Ben. Not aimed at anything in particular, not mind-numbing and vulnerable, just worry. Ben might have marched back to the farmhouse, ignoring Annie and Butcher’s fight about the V, and steeled himself to just fucking kill Homelander. The pussy didn’t exactly have manners, he might just be fucking with them, or late.

No part of Ben thought Homelander was late, but he could try to pretend that was it. For Her, Ben could focus on stupid fucking teamwork and trusting that she was okay. That She’d find a way to call for him if she needed it. He’d even taken a step back from the creek, grumbled an agreement to MM, and been about to hang up the phone.

Then the world lit up. And as Ben’s looked to the skyline, dark and gray and clouded with rain just a second before, the whole fucking world ended.

Not that far in the distance, ripping throughout the world with heat and light, the sky was an almost neon blue. And for a horrible, long moment all Ben could see was fucking blue. Blue fucking fire.

Everything was fucking blue, and She needed Ben.

—————————

The first half hour of the drive is the longest of your life.

For one, nobody in the car is thrilled to be there. Neuman is rigid and silent at your side—her arms crossed and her mouth in a thin, tight line—while Ashley and A-Train frown in the back, exchanging looks between themselves, and Ryan and Zoe stay in a hushed conversation about either dinosaurs or dragons.

You’d check, or maybe dwell for even a second on how you’d manage to confuse yourself between the two, but you can’t focus on anything. Your body feels wrong—everything feels sick and slow and wrong—and you have to use all your energy to focus on driving. To get everyone to safety—or just anywhere Homelander isn’t—and not think about Ben. Not think about how he could be fighting Homelander now, how he’s going to win—he’s strong and immovable, so he will win—but it might still cost something.

You can’t think about how this might cost something. How Ben is unbreakable—sturdy and firm and made of pure fucking resolve that keeps you safe and warm and happy, your head on your shoulders and the world in focus—and Kimiko has a healing factor second only to your, but everyone else is mortal. It would be hard to hurt Annie, but it would still be possible. Butcher and MM wouldn’t go down without broken noses and bloodied fists, and Frenchie wouldn’t go down without explosions and rounds of bullets into Homelander’s unbreakable skin, but they can all still go down.

And Kimiko can still get hurt. She can lose Frenchie and go insane, the same way you know you won’t recover if you lose Ben.

You won’t lose Ben. Not you can’t, you won’t. You’re not even going to entertain the fucking idea, because it makes your blood cold and your whole body feel all the more ill. It makes the silence in your chest unbearable, gets you stuck on hollow and quiet and wide it is where Ben is supposed to be. How you might already be going mad, just because you can’t feel Ben. You can’t feel if he’s in pain, or angry, or focused or tired or relieved or triumphant. You can’t know if Homelander is dead or if the world is burning. You can’t do anything but try to drive through the storm and push down everything instinct in your body that’s tell you to turn around. That you don’t want to see blood, and the plan is solid and well-made—you made it—but you want to go back. You want to run to Ben and tell him to come with you and Ryan, or send Ryan off with Neuman and fight yourself. You could fight. There’s fire under your skin and blood in your body that’s alive and all yours, and you could destroy Homelander, but you don’t want to.

You just want Ben. And you can’t have him right now.

And the further away your drive, the more everything feels wrong. The more edged and wired and taut your whole body becomes, spiraling down into thoughts of blood and cold blue eyes before forcefully yanking your thoughts back to good things.

Ryan. Music. Stuffed Lions. Gardens. Ben.

You develop a routine. The time passes as if you’re wading through mud—any small shift in a seat, or cough, or bump of the car or too loud pound of the rain on the metal roof sends you closer to screaming—and all you can do is cling to small things to keep going, and waiting, and desperately thinking of anything but blood.

Ryan.

He’s safe. He’s in the car with you, still whispering with Zoe, and he’s not unburdened and really that happy, but he’s not crying or panicking or apologizing, so he’s okay. You’d packed his clothing, and his books—along with a few extras he’s never read, that you’d bought for him at the airport—and a deck of cards in the likely event that Ryan tore through his reading within the first few hours. He has you, and he has Zoe—which is good, he should have a friends that aren’t, his grumpy, amazing asshole of a grandfather, his grandfather’s immortal wife, his impossibly British step-father, or their cool, mute friend—and, when this is over, he’ll have Ben. Ben will find you both, and Ryan can be the best man at your wedding, because you’ll threaten to punch Ben if he’s not.

Music.

You have music. You’d put your phone on shuffle, and you had music. It filled the car with sounds that weren’t anxious and doubtful whispers or heavy breaths, and kept your attention within the world. You could tap your fingers on the wheel in time with every song, breathe in and out as if you were singing without any actual hums or vocalizations, and focus on that instead of anything else. You can pretend you’re dancing in strobing colorful lights during the songs with heavy bass and fast beats, and you can image that Ben’s arms are around your body during the slower ones. You start to skip the faster songs, just because anything that filled the air like honey or a warm, summer breeze means that you can pretend you’re pressed against Ben’s body and swaying in his hold, letting him guide you in a careful dance you could learn, but don’t really want to. You’ll spend a lifetime having Ben lead you in something so elegant and romantic and peaceful, and never want for anything ever again.

Stuffed Lions.

Ben’s was in your suitcase, right next to your white tiger. You’d give it back to him when he found you, and he’d scowl—even as you felt the glow consume his whole body—and you’d kiss him until he smiled then fall to your knees to just touch him. He’d place the lion carefully on the bed—if you told him you’d noticed he’d deny it, but he would—fist his hand in your hair, and guide your mouth up and down his cock. You’d show him how much you loved him, looking up though heavy lashes at how his throat bobbed and muscles flexed, growing wet frown every foul, vulgar praise that he offered you and every hissed groan of your name, and sit in the feeling of him everywhere. Big and strong and vengeful and all yours, cleaning you up when you were done, placing the stuffed lion on the dresser right next to your tiger, and refusing to ever let them be separated.

Gardens.

This one was harder, and easier. Right now you were driving through wilderness, and everything was green and overgrown, but it was also dark. The storm made the life around you hidden in the shadows and washed in almost too much water, made every flower and leaf hang down to the earth, made every warm patch of dirt become cold, thick mud. And so you thought of after, and that was the easiest thing to do in the world. To think of a garden after, that you’d grow in a yard that was all yours. That you’d sit in on sunnier days, and Ben would come up behind you and drop to your side, pulling you into his lap and kissing you until you were giggling, before touching you until you were moaning. He’d lay you down in the dirt, ignore your half-hearted protests of we’re outside, Benjamin, anyone could see us because he’d know that you didn’t really mean them—not when your every word after that would become either Ben or please—and then he’d touch you everywhere. Rough and long and slow and devout, before picking you up and carrying you to his part of the garden. And he’d refuse to call it his, but he’d also refuse to let you touch it, and it would be filled with butterflies he’d give threatening glares to never fucking land on him and flowers he’d pick and shove into your hands.

Ben.

It was never an effort to think about Ben, because he was everything, and therefore everywhere. Even when he wasn’t alive and humming at the top of your chest, you could still see and feel him in the whole world. He was in the headlights, leading you through the shadows of the storm. He was in the forest, filling the air with the smell of pine and your vision with green. Ben was on your tongue—his taste of strawberries and coffee still lingering from your kiss—and over your skin. Warm and rough, fitting right over you in a phantom touch that had sunken into your skin and would stay there like a tattoo. Ben was in every note of every song, and every slow and careful breath, and every dim glow of a golden streetlamp. He was every beat of your heart, and every single thought that ended up finding its way back to Ben.

You always found your way back to Ben, and so you didn’t need to be afraid. You’ll still worry, and when you hold him again you’ll probably cry, but you don’t need to be afraid.

You trust him. You trust your team.

And all you can do is drive.

Then, in a very cruel twist of fate—but more likely simply an oversight in the rush and panic of the morning—a little yellow light starts to flash on your dashboard, and you’re low on gas. You haven’t quite made it to the highway, and you’d passed a station a few minutes back, so you make a U-turn, mumble apology and explanation to the group, and drive about five minutes back to park the car at a pump and rush out into the rain. You can’t afford to linger—not for long, not when you’re still close to the farm—so you have to be quick and efficient. You’ll have to fill up the tank in the downpour, ignore how the rain is biting and cold on your skin, and go.

But the universe hates you. You must have wronged some sort of god in charge of luck, because yours is just so consistently shit. The’s a small sign taped to the gas pump with writing you can barely read—it’s a messy scrawl, and the bleeding on this ink isn’t doing anyone any favors—but still manage to decipher.

Pay inside.

You sigh, walk around the car, and rap on Neuman’s window.

She glares at you, and mouthing what and not moving from her seat.

“I’m going inside!” You over enunciate each word, pointing to the small, square connivence store. “The pump!” You point over the hood of the car. “Is fucking broken!” You make an X with your arms, Neuman just stares at you, and you sigh, yanking the door open.

“Hey!” Neuman leans back—away from the rain—with a glower. “What the fuck-“

“The pump is broken.” You glare around the car—not at Ryan and Zoe—as you make your words short and stern, mimicking Ben’s fucking listen, or I’ll feed you your balls voice. “I have to go inside to pay for gas. I’ll be back fast, don’t go anywhere.”

“Like you’d fucking let us go anywhere,” Ashely mutters, her eyes widening as your glower turns to her. “I don’t, uh, I’m-“

“Save it.” You sigh, turning your attention to Ryan. “I’ll be right back-“

“Can I, um,” Ryan’s pale, looking between you and the gas station with a frantic expression. “May I please come with you?”

“Yeah.” You give him a small smile and nod. “Let’s go.”

Ryan nods, wiggling past Zoe to the door, and you glance at Neuman.

“We’ll be back. Don’t try to drive away, because you don’t know where you’re going, and I’ll find you-“

“Yeah, you’ll track me down, we made a deal, whatever. We’ll stay here, now go.”

You swallow, draw back up, and close the door as you turn to Ryan.

“Christ, Ry.” You pull off your jacket—technically Ben’s jacket, so it’s big and warm and feels safer than any other jacket—and pull it over Ryan’s smaller, shivering frame, his hair already stuck to his forehead from the rain. “Let’s go inside, we’ll try to get you something warm-“

“I’m okay,” he mumbles as you steer him towards the station. “It’s just wet-“

“Yeah, I know, but that’s how colds get caught.” You push the door open, and go directly for the pre-made food station. “You can’t drink coffee, and that doesn’t look like reliable hot chocolate-“

You’re mostly talking to yourself, so when Ryan tugs on your sleeve you freeze, all your attention refocusing from the gas stations dogshit options to him.

“I, um,” Ryan clears his throat, and you move a little more hair away from his face on instinct more than anything else. “Am I allowed to ask where we’re going? When we get the gas?”

“You are,” you sigh, turning back to the counter and settling on hot water and very old looking tea bag. “But I can’t really give you an answer.”

Ryan’s face falls slightly. “Oh, I’m-“

“I don’t know where we’re going.” You cut him off with a gentle, warm smile. “MM just gave me directions, no final destination. He said the drive will be about six hours, so we could be going to Canada, Pennsylvania, or upstate New York, and I won’t know until we’re about halfway there. But,” you drop your voice to a whisper. “When I figure it out, you will be the first person I tell.”

“Okay.” Ryan nods, returning your smile with a nervous—but real—one of his own. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” You start for the checkout counter—keeping your head bowed, because you’re not alone in this gas station and you don’t need one of these random drivers realizing the Anomaly and Homelander’s son are buying tea and gas—and bump Ryan’s shoulder with your own. “You are my favorite.”

Ryan’s smile grows slightly at that, and he remains almost stuck to your side as you wait in line.

You reach into your hoodie pocket for the beaten wallet MM had passed to you before you left, and freeze as your hand brushes of the small, cold vial. You’ve been pretending it’s not there. That you’re not always away of the weight of it, that—even now—you can’t feel the label you know reads Project Anomaly, Trial 6 brush against your fingers.

You’re not proud of the fact that it’s there. Of how you’d stolen it from Butcher, how you’d swiped it from his stupid trench coat just like Ben had taught you to. Of how you’d gone back on your word, that it was Butcher’s to do what he please with.

And you know what he’d planned to do. You hadn’t been able to find it in your shared room with him, Ryan, and Ben because Butcher had been keeping it in a needle, on his body, for the entire day. You’d bet a small fortune that he’d been ready to shoot it up at any second, and that’s exactly why you’d taken it. Your final conversation with Sage had haunted you, and you weren’t sure you’d fully breathe again until the only V left in the world was that already flowing through bloodstreams.

You’ll have to burn the recipe. You should give it to Singer, or the UN, or some sort of authority figure, but you won’t. Because this isn’t just Homelander, it’s something rotting and brittle in the foundation, and this can’t be a power anyone ever gets to control or manufacture. It can’t be about being stronger or cleaner or better. It can’t be about winning anything, at all.

If Ryan grows up and has children, if you and Ben have children, there’s a chance they’ll be born with powers. You’re honestly not sure how Ben hasn’t managed to have a dozen kids—you love the man more than life, and he’s a whore—but you have a feeling it’s the V. The unstable, strange V that’s in both your bodies, that could be too much for a normal body to handle, and may be a breeding ground for what Butcher would call little fuckin Soldier Boy kiddies. And that would be different, you’ve decided, in a way that you know is bias. You’re well aware that taking the V you’d given Butcher—taking away his ability to become a supe because you don’t want anyone to give themselves or anyone else that power again—is deeply hypocritical when there’s a high chance you’ll turn around and create a child born with this same V ingrained into its DNA.

And you don’t care. You’ve earned being selfish, because you’re so fucking tired of all of this. You’ll look Butcher in the eyes when this is over and apologize—not caring if you really mean it—then fall right into Ben’s arms. You’ll burn all the V, and the formula, and there won’t be a second Homelander, or second Sage, or second anything. You’ll fix this past just killing Homelander, and no one will ever have to feel a pain like this again.

“Will the, um, place, will it have cards?”

You blink at Ryan, pulling out the wallet and forcing a smile onto your face. “I brought cards. They’re in the trunk.”

“Oh, okay.” Ryan studies your face carefully, his words slow and uncertain. “Um, I just wanted to know if you’d want to play go fish with me, or something-“ You raise your brows at Ryan’s nervous stuttering—he’s speaking like something very important is riding on this, when it’s just a game of cards—and find yourself unable to stop the real, peaceful smile from spreading over your face as you realize what’s happening.

“I’m okay, Ryan.”

He gapes at you slightly, shaking his head in an almost frenzied movement. “I, I know, I just wanted to know if you wanted to play go fish-“

“If you want to play go fish, I’ll play go fish. But,” you give him a pointed, warm look. “If you’re just trying to cheer me up, you don’t need to. It’s not your job to help me, Ry, it’s my job to help you.”

“I, I wasn’t-“

“Ben told you to play cards with me, right? To cheer me the fuck up, or something?”

“Was that, um, was it supposed to be a Ben impression-“

“Yeah, I know it’s terrible, but don’t tell him I said that. Did he?”

Ryan stares at you blankly. “Did he what?”

“Tell you to play cards to cheer me up?”

“I, um, I don’t-“

In an attempt to stop Ryan from making himself overload or pass out, you make your voice a gentle whisper. “Because I know he does that. All the time.”

“How?” Ryan blurts, looking a little panicked. “I didn’t tell you, he said it’s a secret-“

You laugh. “He’s literally never beaten me. In any game. He loses war, Ryan, every time, without fail. It’s a game of chance, that’s almost statistically impossible.” You let out a sigh that’s probably dreamy and stupid, smiling into the air, and Ryan frowns.

“Why don’t you tell him you know-“

“Because he’s a massive dumb dumb who loves us very much, and he’s always very, very proud of himself. He’s adorable, and makes me dinner without me asking, and after we watch one of his dumb documentaries, which he does not pay attention to, he-“ You cut yourself off with a flush , because you’re going to draw the line of your odd pseudo-parenting tactics with Ryan at telling him that, without fail, every time you beat Ben at cards he becomes feral in the bedroom. You think it’s some weird, primal monkey-brain part of him taking over—getting all smug and cocky with how happy you are, how he’s the one that made you happy—but you have no plans to analyze it, because why meddle with perfection.

Ben gets to glow with affection and love you can feel in your chest, looking like a wrathful angel who’s being rewarded with just you for his unrelenting devotion—strong and big and warm and Ben—and you get to scream and moan as he fucks you in a rough and unforgiving manner. Ad Ben turns you into a writhing, needy, pleading mess that only knows the word Ben, and uses it like a prayer. His lips bruise and bite every sensitive bit of your flesh, and his hands squeeze and rub your body until you’re just putty in his arms, and when you squirt over his cock he falls forward, and both of you get to rest in each other’s arms.

You clear your throat, pushing on, and hope Ryan didn’t notice your stumble and can’t hear how your heart is pounding. “He’s just, um, really happy, after. And that makes me happy, because I love him, and I love that he’d do that just to make me happy, and I love that he’s so bad at lying to me I realized what he was doing almost immediately, but he’s still so proud of himself every time I makes me even happier.”

Ryan nods as you take another step in the line, starts to say something that’s likely a sweet and nervous question, and your whole word shifts into cold.

It was just a flash. A shifting movement outside—barely visible through the rain—that caught your attention, a crude and hateful face in the shadows, and you can’t remember how to breathe, or hear, or think. You can’t hear Ryan, only a faint ringing and overwhelming, dreadful sound of your heart. You can’t take the next step forward in the line, but you can’t keep looking.

If you keep looking, Homelander will know you’ve seen him. And he’s far enough into the dark for you to know he doesn’t want to be seen.

It lasts a second—the pure terror and wild, arresting sense of no. Wrong and bad and dangerous, no—because you only have that one advantage. You’ve seen him, he doesn’t know it, and you can’t afford to be frozen in pain. Not when Ryan is at your side, and you can’t feel Ben, you only have yourself. You’re the only one that can do anything here, and you’ll find a way to get through this.

Whatever it takes.

“Ryan.” You place your hand on his shoulder, angling him away from the windows, and take a careful, measured pace forward to block him from view. “I need you to be quiet, please. You can nod, and whisper, or talking to me in Kimiko’s sign language, but you cannot speak.”

Ryan’s expression falls into something nervous and weak, and you know he’s worried you’re angry. You can’t relent your focus or how critical it is that he listen to you, but it becomes just as vital that Ryan knows you’re not mad. That he hadn’t invaded your life, or crossed an invisible and always moving line, or become something you have to deal with. That all the joy and comfort is drained from your face because you will not let Ryan get hurt, and Homelander is outside, and nothing fucking matters except making sure you get out. You don’t care to shed blood and guts or to flay alive, you only need to leave this place with Ryan at your side.

You drop your hand to hold his, squeezing gently, letting your voice raise slightly. “I’m not mad. You didn’t do anything wrong, or saying anything bad, and I am not angry at you. Squeeze my hand twice so I know you understand.”

Ryan nods slowly, and his grip on your hand might crack your bones, but you get two squeezes, and continue.

“Good. I have this under control, I promise but I need you to listen to me. Okay?”

Two squeezes, and you sigh, standing up a little taller as you reach the cashier, plastering a fake, bright smile on your face at their empty greeting. You’ll have to keep this vague, because you’ve lowered your voice, but the cashier is inside, and right in front of you. You’re taking the gamble that over the storm and through the glass, Homelander won’t be able to hear you. The cashier might, and you can’t afford any delays.

“Your dad,” you pull the card out of MM’s wallet with one hand, refusing to let go of Ryan’s. “Is waiting outside. We’re going to have to run out into the rain, because we don’t want to get wet before we drive home. Ben’s expecting us, and we should get there soon.”

Ryan swallows, his expression only a pure, wide fright of What about everyone else? He’s going to kill everyone else.

You know that. The people in the gas station are already dead—or as good as it—and it hurts to keep smiling at the cashier when you know that. Know that the last thing they’ll ever do is chew gum behind a counter, and you can’t save them. You want to, and you’re going to be haunted by their screams for rest of your life, but you can’t save them. Homelander won’t spare them—he may go out of his way to kill them, just to prove some sort of fucked up point that starts with superiority and ends with worms—and all this time is borrowed, and can’t be used to figure out an impossible solution where everyone makes it out alive.

You’ll have to pay for everything after. Funerals and debts and family support. Some sort of worthless apology for not saving them, for trading their lives for yours and Ryans.

But it’s still a trade you’re going to make. You’re going to do everything you can—in this finite moment—to save the people in the car, the people who’d directly trusted you with their safety, and the people who may have a chance. Homelander will want to confront you, but he hasn’t even bothered to look behind him. At the gas pump, where you pray Neuman or A-Train have noticed his drenched, hollow figure in the rain and keeping quiet. You can pray that Homelander remains so focused on you and Ryan that they escape his notice, and get out.

You can buy time. Take just a little more—to save the people that have a fighting chance, that you can tell them how to survive this and they’ll listen—and keep praying for it to be enough.

“Ry,” you glance down at Ryan’s face with your warmest, most-reassuring smile, and pray he can’t see your own fear rooted deep in your eyes. “Do you want some candy?” You put an urgency in your eyes to tell him I’ve got this, I just need a little help.

He mumbles a weak agreement, and shuffles off to the candy isle. You hold up the line—anyone who goes outside will die quicker, draw attention faster—and keep one careful eye on Ryan as you take out your phone and dial his number.

Ryan had left his brick cellphone in the car, and when Zoe Neuman’s soft voice greets you as she picks it up, you almost fall over in relief.

“Hi,” She whispers your name, her voice small and filled with fear, and you know they’ve seen Homelander.

“Hi, Zoe. Can you give me to your mom?”

There’s a brief shuffling sound, and then Neuman is hissing your name through the speaker.

“What the fuck is Homelander doing here-“

“I don’t know.” You keep your word low and curt, and don’t leave room for something useless like argument. “But he is here, and I need you to listen. I’ll take care of getting Ryan to Ben’s, you tell Ashley’s boyfriend to pick you guys up. I’ll talk to him while you wait for the ride, don’t worry about it.”

Your code is crude—you’re don’t even know what the hell is going on with A-Train and Ashley, and you’re not willing to lend it nuance right now—but effective. You’ve got Ryan, A-Train will get them out, and you’ll distract Homelander. Neuman mutters an understanding, her voice dropping to a whisper the microphone barely picks up.

“I’ll tell him. Are you,” there’s a pause, the static humming until Neuman speaks again. “You got this.”

It’s only half a question, but you understand why. You need to have this—you cannot falter or break or crack—and Neuman needs you to know that. She needs her daughter to survive this—the exact same way you need Ryan to—and she is telling you that it is crucial you think you can do this. That there may not be an option, but you are still smart enough, angry enough, and more than fucking strong enough to do this.

“I’ve got this,” you repeat the words, just to make them real. You’ve fucking got this, and Zoe will be safe. You can save Zoe, you can save Ryan, and once they won’t ever need to be strong again. “Neuman.”

She hums, and you sigh.

“Tell, uh, Ashley’s boyfriend, to be fast. That this is what I’m asking, it’s all I’m asking, and if he’s fast, we both get an after. Okay?’

There’s a moment of silence, then, “Okay.”

You nod, knowing Neuman can’t see it, and the line drops.

Ryan returns to your side, clutching a bag of gummy bears in a shaking hand, and you shove your phone back into your pocket, pulling off your ring and tucking it safely into Ryan’s jacket.

“Can you keep that safe for me?” You ask, and Ryan’s eyes widen.

“Yes, but I,” He mumbles your name, and you can hear the terror lining his every word. “I’m, I don’t, I’m not-“

“I know.” You sigh, pulling him carefully against your side and kissing the top of his head as his arms wrap around you. “I know. But we have to.”

Ryan nods against you, and you lean down, keeping your word low as the cashier scans the candy.

“Stay behind me, and don’t look at the car. You’re going to be okay, we all are, but you can’t draw attention to the car. Okay?”

“Okay.” Ryan’s voice is weak—even that one word is filled with fear—and it breaks your fucking heart.

“Ryan,” you cup his face in one hand, holding his nervous gaze on yours, and you’ve never seen him look more like a kid. He is a kid, it’s often forgotten in the chaos and blood and violence of your life, but Ryan’s just a kid. And he can be afraid all he wants—fuck, you’re terrified, your blood still cold and your stomach turning and boiling—but you won’t let Homelander hold that power of inevitable, unstoppable, deadly and without a cure over either of you. Ryan can’t think you’ve already lost, because you haven’t, and Homelander won’t win. “It’ll be okay. We’re going to be okay. He’s not going to hurt you, he’s not going to even touch you, and once everyone else is out we’re going to run. I’ll knock him back, we’ll get to the car, and we’ll go back to the farm. Ben will meet us there, and it’ll be okay. Yeah?”

There are countless flaws in your plan. No car is faster than Homelander, least of all your stolen Honda Civic, and you still can’t feel Ben. Still can’t warn him what’s coming, still can’t scream between your heads for him to help. That you’re strong enough to do this, but you don’t want to do it alone, and you need Ben here now.

It’ll be back soon. Thirty minutes, and Ben would find you anywhere. All you had to do was stall and run, and find thirty fucking minutes.

So when Ryan nods, still afraid and shaking—grabbing your hand and clinging to it like a frightened child, because that’s really all he needs to be right now—but taking deeper, more even breaths, you offer him a toothless, painful and sad smile, and hand him the gummy bears.

Neither of you speak as you walk to the door, and you put yourself a step ahead of Ryan as you push out into the rain. Wet and cold, small bombs of ice and water that hiss off your skin but focus you all the same. Your whole body is white-hot, but your fire is humming along the surface of your body and you’re not breaking. You’ve fucking got this.

Homelander’s waiting for you with a crude smile and his hands behind his back—white teeth still blinding in the dark, everything about his posture and walk and face and movement so simply wrong—but there’s patch of hair near his brow that’s missing, one of his eyes looks milkier than the other, and there are still a few burn scars twisting near one of his ears. Between that and the rain, there’s a higher chance he won’t notice any of A-Train’s movements, and you can feel a small, bright bloom of something that’s bloodied and tired and furious in your chest. It might be hope. It might be certainty that you can do this.

You don’t have another choice.

“Homelander.” Your voice is bored and casual, and you don’t recognize it. It doesn’t sound like you—doesn’t feel like how your whole existence is ending in this very moment—but you can’t afford to be you right now. You have to be the Anomaly. You have to be the cold, manipulative, ungrateful bitch Homelander believes you to be, just until you’re certain everyone is out of the car. Just to hold his attention.

It’s working. His whole face twitches at your pure uninterest, and you see something that makes your heart curl and wither in your chest flash in his eyes. He says your name, and it’s wrong, and you don’t fucking flinch. “Give me my son. Now.”

You raise your chin, holding his gaze and not allowing any of your terror into your expression. “No.”

Homelander scoffs, dismissing you with a hand. “C’mon, we both know how this will go! I’ll just keep killing everyone you love, you’ll beg me to spare them, and I’ll win. I always win, because that’s just how this works! I’m-“

“Better?” You raise your brows, and there’s a flash of moment in the background, and one person is out. Two to go. “You’re better?”

“Yes!” His hands move to his hips, and he looks mostly just annoyed now. “I am better. I mean, you idiots can’t even flee properly! I just saw you, walking in there,” he gestures to the station behind you. “With my son, and you didn’t even notice me! I’ll always win,” he says your name, his expression dropping into one of menace and a crazed short of rage he doesn’t seem to know how to hide. “Because you’re weak, and human, and I’m perfect.”

You hum, titling your head at Homelander as his eyes start to glow red. “You know, that’s almost exactly what Sage said. Right before I killed her.”

“You can’t kill me,” He hisses your name again, taking a slow step forward, his laugh making your skin crawl. “And I am tired with your games, you fucking slut. You did me a favor, though, with Sage. She was starting to outlive her use, so if you give me my son back now, maybe I won’t laser you in half.”

“No.” You let a crude, mocking smile that’s all teeth and hatred cross your face. “We might not be able to kill you, Homelander, but you can’t even hurt me, so you’re not getting to Ryan.”

Homelander laughs, and it makes your skin crawl. “Maybe I can’t physically hurt you, but I can make you cry like the weak little bitch you are when I kill all your friends. When I track down your family and fly them up to the atmosphere. Suffocate them like the breakable, useless worms they are, then go find your precious Ben and use Sage’s gas-“

“I’ll wake him up.” You shrug. The rain seems to be moving into your bones, and you’re so fucking cold, but there’s another rushed movement near the car so you raise your voice. Just one more. Just a little more time. “You knock him out, I’ll wake him up and fuck up your face even more.”

This scoff is less confident, but just as cruel. “You really think he’d be grateful? Letting some weak little bitch save him, like a damsel when he’s fucking Soldier Boy?” Homelander sneers your name. “He and I are strong, we’re fucking heroes, the epitome of human evolution-“

You snort. “You’re not evolution, you’re a product. You were designed, Homelander, like a fucking machine-“

“But I was chosen.” Homelander narrows his eyes at you, there’s another flash in the background, and you stand a little taller. This is almost over. “Just like my father, just like my son. Ryan,” Homelander tries to lean around you, and you move to block his view. “You’re strong. You’re not a pathetic fucking human like her or your mother, you belong with me-“

“You’re not touching him.” You hiss, holding Homelander’s glower. “You’re not touching anyone I love again.”

“What, like Soldier Boy-“

“Yes. You hurt Ben, I hurt you, and he won’t think it makes him weak. He’ll think it’s hot, and we’ll probably fuck after.” You’re taunting Homelander, but you need him to be so blinded by anger he doesn’t see your blow coming. “But you try to take him away from me with that stupid fucking gas, and I’ll destroy you.”

“I’ll throw him in the fucking ocean, I’ll separate you ungrateful traitors forever-“

“And I’ll find him.” Your grin becomes almost manic. “I’ll always find him.”

“Fine.” Homelander’s tone is flat and curt, and he gives a stiff shrug. “Be all fucking dramatic and annoying. Let’s see how long you can stick to your whole romance thing with my father,” he looks over you with disgust, his lip curling. “When I lock you back up and he never, ever sees you again.”

Before you can speak, or move, or do anything, red cuts through your vision, there’s a boom behind you, and everything is burning. It’s not your fire—starting to riot and grow painful under your skin—because your fire is warm. Your fire feels clean and holy, because it was born from something worse than hell, but you’ve made it yours.

This fire is hell. It’s made of screams and pleas for help, and there’s nothing you can do but try not to turn around. Force yourself not to look at the wreckage behind you—Homelander must have hit a generator, because you can feel the heat behind you and hear the building crumbling—that you should’ve tried harder to prevent. People are dying and you could’ve done more, could’ve been stronger, could’ve worked to save these people who have people that care about them, who cared about people, who had lives that are over because you weren’t strong enough-

“This is what you wanted,” Homelander calls your name over the storm and fire, and you can’t breathe. “Isn’t it? To fight? To be all high and mighty about love only to not have the fucking spine to kill me? I’d dare you to try,” he laughs, his face sadistic and amused and so cold. “But this isn’t David and Goliath. It’s Goliath and a fucking slut who thinks she’s more important than she is.”

Homelander takes a fast step forward, and you have to be stronger, but fuck, you can’t. You’re falling and breaking in barely a moment—a moment you’d fucking anticipated—and the rain is so cold, and you have to do this, but you can’t. You’re alone, and you’ve never wanted to be saved more, but you can’t feel Ben-

There’s a rush of air, almost knocking you backwards, and Homelander stumbles back as A-Train slams into him, pummeling into his stomach before speeding away again.

Homelander begins to roar, his eyes glowing, and he’s distracted. A-Train is zipping in and out of the burning parking lot, keeping Homelander’s focus on trying to kill him, and the wind jumpstarts your whole body.

You grab Ryan’s hand and run. Half carrying him to the car—refusing to look back at the ruins of the gas station or the fight—and throwing him into shotgun before sprinting around to the wheel. Fumbling with the keys before slamming them into the ignition, and just fucking going. The tires skid and squeak on the wet pavement, you’re flooring the gas and breaking countless traffic laws, but you can’t care. You have Ryan, you have time, and you need to get back to Ben.

It’s almost impossible to see where you’re going. The rain is heavy and blocking your vision, you have to use the headlights in small bursts to avoid being seen, and every tree you pass looks the same as the one before it, but you know where you’re going. It’s not a long drive from the station to the farm—not at the speed you’re going—and it’s relatively simple, so all you have to do is go and go and go until you see the turn onto the dirt road, and Ryan will be safe.

He’s silent in the seat next to you, shaking and hyperventilating, and when you offer him your hand, he takes it and squeezes his eyes shut. Like this is just a nightmare he can wake up from, it will all be okay in the morning.

“Ryan,” you whisper, even though it’s just you in the car and the rain drowns out almost every sound. “It’s, it’s okay-“

“Do you think he’s going to die?” Ryan mumbles, and you tense. You don’t need to ask to know he’s not talking about Homelander. “Just because he helped me-“

“No.” You shake your head, keeping your eyes on the road. “I mean, I don’t know what will happen, but none of it is your fault. A-Train made that choice himself, we all made our choices, and this is not your fault.”

“I could’ve tried to fight-“

“It’s not your job to fight him, Ry.” You sigh, risking one, soft comforting look at Ryan’s pale face. “And this really isn’t your fault. I promise.”

Ryan nods, and you’re so fucking close. All have to do is get to the farm, and-

You barely have a second to register it as it happens. You flip on the lights at the exact moment Homelander slams down on the road before you, and you can throw your arm over Ryan’s chest, but you can’t slam on the breaks. You can try and swerve around him, but the road is wet, the car isn’t in your full control, and Homelander’s eyes are already glowing.

There’s a second where your whole body is pain. Where you falling or crashing or drowning, and you manage to keep your hold on Ryan, but your body is being shred apart and stitched together every other second. When the world comes back into focus you’re pinned under what feels like a mountain but is only metal, and Ryan’s half shielded under your body, but you can’t move.

And you still can’t feel Ben.

Homelander’s towering above you, grinning at how effectively trapped you are under the wreckage, and you can’t run, or fight, or pull yourself to entirely block Ryan from his view. You can’t even gnaw off your own leg like an animal in a trap, you can only scream in your head—between every roll of thunder and rush of chilling water—until Ben can hear you.

“Well,” Homelander sneers your name, his grin growing. “Where’s all your fight? That little spitfire attitude all gone now that you get it?”

“You,” you groan, because trying to pull your leg out from under the debris just breaks it and heals it all over again. “You’re not going to win. You can kill A-Train, but you can’t kill me, and people will notice-“

“Don’t be dramatic, I did not kill A-Train.” Homelander rolls his eyes. “I broke his legs and left him to die by himself. And I have no interest in killing you, that would be such a waste.”

Homelander scans over you, and suddenly you feel small. Any remaining resistance seems to be pulled from you as Homelander asses your body like it’s all you are, and for the first time he’s doing it without any guise. There are no declarations of a love you don’t want, for person who you’re not, you’re really just a vessel. Just a toy for Homelander to play with and use as he sees fit, and then break when he gets bored of.

You wonder how long it will take him to realize that he can’t get what he wants from you. That whenever he touches you, hurts you, your body will remember and refuse to let any part of him live within you, ever.

How long it will take before he gets rid of you somewhere cold where you can’t die but Ben can’t find you, and there will be no one left to protect Ryan. If Ben will blame himself, and burn the world only to not find you in the ash. He’ll keep looking after—he’ll be able to feel you and never find you and it might drive him mad—and you’ll keep trying to get back to him, and you won’t know how to do that or kill yourself, so you’ll become just a husk.

And you’re not strong enough to stop it. You should be, but you’re cold and there are screams echoing in your head and none of this is rational, so you’re not.

“You might be a weak, whoring, lying bitch,” Homelander says, and you can’t tell if you’re crying or just breaking in a silent, long way that no one will be able to fix. “But you’re still pretty. Smart enough to get Sage, always healthy from the V, and maybe your V will make our offspring immortal. Then we can figure that out, and put it into me.” Homelander nods to himself, and you’re going to scream but you can’t find your voice.

“Please, Dad,” Ryan whispers from behind you, and Homelander’s attention shoots to him with a flash of surprise over his horrible face at Ryan’s soft words. “Please don’t hurt her, I’ll come with you, but please-“

“Ryan, quiet.” Homelander looks over your head, to Ryan, pointing a stern finger. “This is not your concern-“

“But I don’t want you to hurt her, please, please don’t-“

You have to be stronger, but Ryan’s pleading is going to make you sob, and you can only push your upper body to try and shield Ryan a little more from Homelander’s wrath, and you can’t-

“Ryan!” Homelander’s shout rips through the air, over the storm, and right into your lungs. “I am your father, you will not tell me how to deal with my problems. And she is a problem.” His finger moves to you, and you choke on the rain. “She is weak, she is a parasite who tore our family apart, and parasites do don’t deserve to be happy. But I,” Homelander looks at you, his grin returning as he takes in the sight of you, trapped and useless and fucking broken. “Will be able to find a place for her. And we’ll figure out how to use her until she’s paid for what she broke. Until she understands that she is nothing, and you and Soldier Boy finally get she’s just good cattle, and fucking animals don’t deserve us-“

Something stabs and sears through your chest, carving you open and slicing your lungs in two and filling your mouth with blood. You hear a high, weak scream, and in the brief moment where everything is only pain—your vision blurred and body weak and head wrapped in iron and darkness—you don’t exactly what happened. There’s no weight under your legs anymore, the figure of Homelander is gone from your sight, and something that feels firm but touch you like it’s fragile is cradling you and calling your name in broken pleas.

“I didn’t mean to,” the sound is choked and barely audible, and you’re still lost in the daze of blood. Blood on your tongue and sticking to your skin and running the rain red. “I’m sorry, please don’t go, I don’t want you to go, I’m sorry-“

The voice says your name again, and something evil calls over it.

“Ryan. Let’s go.”

That’s Ryan’s voice. Saying your name and pleading for you to stay. Begging you not to leave through the fog of something that’s close, but never reachable.

Then everything rushes back into focus—your body mending itself and yanking you back to earth—and you can see Ryan’s red eyed, sobbing face over yours. Feel the cold rain on your skin and the fire in your body start to bubble over. The iron taste of blood sharpens your head, drags you together faster, and then you smell coconut.

You see a red gloved hand reaching for Ryan, feel your every instinct turn into no, and you have just enough time to throw Ryan off your body before you explode.

Ben will find you. You can’t feel him, but you know he’ll see the blue flame, vaulting from your body to the sky and burning away the rain, and understand what it means. What he has to do.

You’re not too far from the farm. You can’t burn everything—Ryan is a part of everything, and keeping him safe is and always has been more import than killing Homelander—but you can do a fuck ton of damage with just your hands and your own, zealous fury.

You can really, really hurt Homelander.

You can make him wish he’d never touched anyone before, and never want to touch anyone again.

It might be terror on his evil face, when you launch at him. And you understand that. The whole world is fire. The aftershocks of your explosion are still shaking the earth, and the rain may have begun to fall once more but it’s burning away around you. The air is hissing and waving, and you’re only flame. Your whole body wrapped in white fire, your hands curled in even, careful—just as Ben had taught you—and you might look like a monster. You might look like a demon, or vengeful spirit, or fallen star that’s refusing to burn out.

But you’re worse than that.

You’re just a human that has power in her body that makes the world sing, and you’re angry. You’ve sealed up every crack in your own body, you’re strong and you’re no demon or monster or god, because they’re not real.

You’re incredibly real.

And Homelander’s going to feel it.

The first blow of fire knocks him down the highway, the pavement cracking as he lands. He’s already stumbling—pushing up on shaking legs to glare at you—and there’s a hot, unrestrained anger in his laser slicing through your neck, but it does nothing. Ryan had just split you in two and you’d healed in ten seconds flat. If Homelander were smarter, less prideful and consumed by his own anger, he’d run.

He doesn’t, though. And you pull your punches to keep Ryan safe for your fire, but he’s still losing. His skin bubbles and twists when he tries to get close to you and land a blow, and every hunk of metal he throws at you explodes and melts as you blast right through it. You keep Ryan behind you—far enough to not feel the full force of your heat—and you never even trip.Homelander’s odd hit that strikes your face or gut sends a brief cracking sound through the air—leaves a dulled flash of pain through your body—but it fades and you repair and you don’t break.

Your hand cover’s Homelander’s face, melting away the skin of his nose, and you can feel an unfocused, aimless, hollow and self-serving anger that’s twined with the most vile, gnawing and destructive feeling you’ve ever experience. Making your body eat the anger and turn it into glory that’s only a trophy to hold high over your head.

Your empathy is back. Ben’s roaring your name in your head and between the crackling of flames, and you’re going to win. Your blood is held in your body—Ryan’s already shaking and crying behind you, and you don’t know how to focus the vigilance of your emotions yet—but your fire is growing brighter, and Ben is coming.

Homelander’s falling to the ground as you kick his tiny, worthless, hideous dick, and when you reach down with hands made of only fire, you’re smiling. Homelander is so fucking small and pathetic on the ground, at mercy you will never offer him, so you’re smiling like a fucking madwomen.

Then Homelander’s face flashes with a grin as well, and you’re not fast enough to stop his hand as it shoots up and stabs something into your bare arm.

You see the flash of green as he pushes the head on the needle down, and when he half scrambles back—holding his burnt hand up to the rain—you don’t know what to do. There glass vial that held the V shatters and melts as your fire flares, but your skin has healed over the needle and it’s too late anyway. Homelander had moved with quick precision, and the last dosage of the Soldier Boy V is in your body.

There’s a split second where you’re only afraid, and then all you can do is wish you were dead.

Agonizing is too weak a word. Pain is far too weak a word. This is what death feels like. Like no part of your body belongs to you, like they’re all being ripped and torn into isolation for their induvial torture, then being sown back together in a way that’s brittle and volatile and one wrong breath from imploding. You can’t stand, because your legs feel like they’re running away from you but can’t get away fast enough. You can’t reach out, because your hands feel heavy like you’re carrying the sky and world and every single star. You can’t push your body away from where’s Homelander’s gripping your wrist, cracking your bones and dragging you through the wreckage to where Ryan’s crying and begging. You can’t do anything but scream, and be unsure if Ben’s roars are echoing through the world in response or just imagined in your head, so you can pretend he’s here with you.

It’s not ending. You can feeling everything, and this doesn’t feel like it will ever be over. There’s light and strength in your muscles, but it’s overwhelming and stretching you far too thin. There’s water in your lungs and ribs that might be the rain, but still drowns you and makes you feel buried in your own body. Your voice is empty, and your fingers are cracking and locking back together, and you’re too aware of everything but it makes the world around you feel so big and horrible and worthless. Your blood is burning and half yours but also everything else’s and wrong in your body, pumping through your heart and filling you with dread and hate and terror. There’s lighting stinging and stabbed and destroying your whole fucking head and soul, and it feels like there’s a fever behind your eyes that’s screaming to get out and spill gut for retribution.

And then it all sinks deep, deep down into your body and becomes, so briefly, tolerable. Strange but peaceful in your body as something so, so strong wraps over every piece of pain and torture and soothes it into your body. Something golden and atomic, telling every other fiber in your body that this will be fucking fine, and that’s not an option.

Your body listens. You take a shaking breath, and you’re alive again. You’re all blood and skin and bone, and you’re all you.

There’s a hole in Homelander’s glove, and his skin feels like plastics on yours wrong. Static and inhuman, without the warmth a body should have. And his odd, twisted fear and anger are still pushing through his veins, but they’ve been covered by his anger.

And below everything else in his body, there’s something vital and horrible, but so, so powerful. It feels a little broken—as if it’s been molded and ingrained somewhere dark and wrong—but it’s still calling to you. Offering for you to grab a piece of it and pull it into your own body.

You’ve got nothing left to lose, so you bite your tongue and try to grab it. It comes willingly, and it’s only foreign and parasitic in your body for a second. Then it’s molding into a part of your body that’s fundamental and all yours, and everything is sharp. The rain is louder, your vision feels too focused—every line too pronounced, every raindrop bigger than it should be—and the smell of coconut is going to suffocate you.

But you also feel strong. Not in your mind or heart—which are the same as they’ve always been—but your hands. You feel like everything is breakable, and everything is soft, and you could flex your fingers and bring an empire to its knees. And there’s fire and fury living in your eyes, and you know exactly what’s happened. For a brief moment, you can’t help but understand why Homelander thinks he’s a god. If this was all you’d ever felt and known in your life—and everyone knew you were like this, and knew to fear it—you might think you’re better than you are as well.

You might have. You wouldn’t have, but you could have. Homelander’s powers might exist in your body—waning by the second until you take more—but you’re still you. And you’re not better. You’re exhausted and desperate, and you need more time. Just a little more time, until Ben finds you and this can be over. Until you can collapse and scream and cry and just fall all the way apart, when everything is safe.

You need more time. And you’re awake, and in pain, and so fucking angry and strong, so you’ll be able to buy it.

Homelander’s stopped dragging you along the road, and you can hear Ryan’s sobs, fueling every bit of resolve and will in your body. Building you higher and dragging you back to earth like an anchor.

“What, what did you do to her-“

Homelander cuts off Ryan’s heartbreaking, fearful, choked words with a scoff. “That doesn’t matter-“

“Yes, it does! She can’t die, I don’t want her to die, I need her-“

“No, you don’t. You don’t need anyone be me, Ryan. Look at her.” Homelander yanks you up, a hand wrapping around your neck to hold you where Ryan can presumably see. “All it took was one dose of V and she’s fucking done. I mean,” he laughs, and the fury begins to build up and up behind your pupils, lining your vision with red and your head with heat. “Carrying the original V into battle, letting it fall out of your pocket? That’s downright stupid, honey. I thought you’d know better, but no.” He clicks his tongue, and you screw your eyes shut. “You’re still just a stupid, weak little girl, and I will always fucking win-“

Your eyes shoot open, and Homelander can only stare in shock when he sees the red glow in your eyes. Can only open his mouth and try to drop you, throw you away from his body, but you’re fucking strong now. You wrap your hands around his on your throat—keeping him right in front of you as a manic grin pulls at your mouth and strains at your cheeks—and you laser him right in the fucking face.

He roars, and you’re fucking moving. Punching his melted, twisted, face—skin hanging off his body and sizzling—with all that new strength in your body. Homelander’s strength, that seems just slightly weaker in your body, but you’re still more powerful. Your fists are wrapped in your own fire, and your eyes are still glowing with the laser—slicing into his arms, not drawing blood or cutting limbs, but sending him stumbling away from you—and you’re a better fucking fighter. Ben trained you well, so you can absorb every hit to your body and deal even, measured blows that make sickening crunches when they land.

You’ve push Homelander down into the mud and debris—pinning his face to the wrecked pavement and his body to the ground—and you’re so fucking exhausted but you have to keep going. To focus the laser on his skin of his neck and burn a hole for the V. When Ben arrives—he’s close, you can hear him roaring in your head and feel him drawing closer—you need this to be done. The pain hasn’t left you, only been pushed aside by the adrenaline, and you can’t keep going. You have to, but you can’t. You’re tired and cold and covered in blood, and you’re starting to feel wrong.

This feels a little beyond death. It’s eating you alive and pulling your body away from you, and you’re still fighting because Homelander won’t touch Ryan, but you don’t feel well. Homelander’s powers are volatile and horrible in your body, and the new shot of V is leaving a chronic feeling of being cleaved open and sliced apart and shoved back together every fucking second. The world is moving in and out of focus—your body feels like lead and your brain feels like it’s not your own—and when Homelander throws you off his body all you can do is drag yourself back up and keep being a fucking problem.

He won’t let you touch him anymore. Homelander’s not stupid, he can see you’re growing weaker, and he’s figured out not to touch you. You’ve moved to block his path to Ryan, you’ve thrown up a thin wall of fire to keep him at bay, but you’re so fucking tired. You’re dizzy and heavy and breathing is an act of labor, and you’re holding yourself awake by your throat. By nails in your skin and quickly drying blood in your mouth.

And you’re going to fall down. You’re going to crack and break, and keep trying to fight until you’re dragged deep, deep under as your body implodes. Homelander’s face is so fucking hideous from your fight, but it’s coming into view as the fire flickers and hisses in the rain, and you’re going to collapse but you can’t-

You feel Ben first. Somewhere in the flame and blood and searing of flesh and snapping of bones, you feel more alive, and know he’s near. You feel something return to you that you’d longed for since it left, and it’s pious and loud and wrathful and aimed into you. Filling you up with just enough fight to keep going, more and more resolve and concentration, and sparking a fuel in your veins that’s calling you somewhere warm and safe.

Then there’s an ache and mold and wrath and love that’s stronger and better than anything else in the world, smell pine as your heart becomes something golden and fucking furious.

Then, through the rain and fog, you see a blinding white light. Drawing closer and closer, screeching on the wet pavement, going so fucking fast and aiming directly at Homelander.

He doesn’t realize anything happening until you grab Ryan will all the remaining strength in your body, and dive to the side. You see his fucking horrible smile falter, his head twist, and it’s too late. Butcher’s car crashes into Homelander with a burst of fire, and you think your scream stops the world.

Ben was in there. Ben was in the car and now it’s wrecked, and you can feel the pain in his body and you’re so tired. You can’t lose this, but you won’t be able to keep going if you lose Ben. There’s so much fucking pain in your heart and lungs and throat and skull and you’re not sure who it’s belongs to but you can’t do anything but scream.

You hear more explosions, hear Ryan calling your name, but you can’t fucking breathe and there are black spots covering your vision, and Ben. Where is Ben, you need him and you can feel him but everything fucking hurts and where is Ben-

“I’m here.” Something warm and familiar and safe pulls you up from the ground, and a deep, powerful, good voice says your name. “I’m right fucking here, Sunshine, I’m here.”

Ben-

You’re going to be okay. He mutters in your head, and you’re not sure if you’re crying or drowning, but Ben’s here so it doesn’t really matter. I fucking swear, beautiful, you’re going to be fine.

You pull your face back from his chest, and he looks terrible. He’s still handsome—Ben couldn’t be ugly if he tried—but God, he looks tired and angry. You can see every line on his face and feel every stab of mold through his heart, and when you reach up a hand to trace his frown, he leans into your touch like he’s not sure it’s real.

Benjamin, my love-

We’re fine. He grunts, kissing the top of your head. We’re going to be fucking fine.

There’s another explosion, and you flinch. Homelander-

Butcher’s got it. You and Ryan are safe, that’s all I fucking care about.

You blink around, Ben’s touch and existence in your body forcing the world into focus—even as you continue to fall—and you realize everything is covered in a golden glow. That Ryan is clinging to Ben’s arm—the one that isn’t holding you—and every bang and roar of Butcher and Homelander is muffled through the atomic feeling of Ben around you.

“Ryan,” you reach out to pull him closer, not allowing yourself to flinch when all his terror hits your body. “Are you-“

“I’m okay.” He whispers, staring at you with an open, fearful face. “What did my dad do to you-“

It’s impossible to look at Ben when you answer, because you feel him grow rigid, his love and care alight and bloody in your body, and his pure fucking fury written all over his face before you even speak.

“He,” you take a long breath, forcing the words out as your head begins to wrap in a haze again. “He shot me with the last original V-“

“He fucking what.”

You swallow, dropping your brow to Ben’s shoulder. “I’m okay-“

“I can fucking feel you,” Ben hisses your name, his voice lined with anger even as he runs his hand through your hair, his touch still reverent. “You’re sick, we need to get you out-“

“No.” You shake your head against him, pressing your palm to his chest. “Butcher can’t fight Homelander alone, he’s not a supe-“

“He shot the V.” Ben grunts. “The regular shit-“

Your gaze shoots up, your eyes wide. “He what-“

“When we realized Homelander wasn’t coming. He got laser eyes and strength, like last time, he’ll be fucking fine-“

“But he can’t kill Homelander, Ben.” Your words become frantic, your brain turning, but not fast enough for your tongue. “Even he gets the V in, it just makes Homelander vegetative. He needs to be hit with the nuke, he needs-“

You cut yourself off, your hand drifting to the exposed skin of Ben’s collarbone. Deep, deep down, in a fundamental part of his body—your body—he’s alive, and golden, and powerful. The V in him already feels like yours, and it’s so much better than Homelander’s. It might be because it’s the same as your V while Homelander’s is the overly perfect formula, or because Ben is simply good while Homelander is vile, or because Ben is yours and as vital to your existence as your own head and blood, but it’s right. You don’t need to take it, it already belongs to you, and it rolls into your body like a brilliant, peaceful storm.

The pain doesn’t leave you, but it becomes distant. Pushed away where it’s only banging on your skull, dulled by the sheer feeling of Ben’s power. It’s radiant and atomic in your body, up your spine and blooming over your ribs. It’s focused and hot and so fucking strong, and it’s only building higher, until you feel invincible. You feel like the earth itself, all the way down to your core, white-hot in your muscles. It would take a force like the sun to destroy you, but you’re not even the slightly bit worried it will. The sun rests in your body—under your skin and over your brain—and it’s moving in harmony with what Ben’s silently and unknowingly offered you.

You meet Ben’s eyes—the best shade of green in the world and looking right into the deepest parts of your mind that sometimes you don’t even know how to reach—and you wonder if he can feel it. Feel his own power in you, sense that something has shifted and settled into your bones.

“Ben-“

“No.” He cuts off your whisper with a stern hiss of your name. “There is not a fucking chance-“

“Butcher needs you. And you,” you glance at Ryan, still shaking and so small. “You need to stay here, my love.”

“You stay here, I’ll fight-“

“Please.” You move your hands to cup his face, and offer him a small, sad smile. “You said you’d let me do what I needed to do. I need to do this-“

“I did let you, and I lost you, so there is no goddamn way-“

“I need to do this. I, I don’t want to, but I need to. I have to. Please-“

“I’m the only one who can blast Homelander’s powers-“

“That’s not true.” You drop your brow to his, and let the power continue to climb. “Not anymore. I don’t know if you can-“

“I can.” Ben sighs, his hand squeezing the skin of your waist. “It’s, I felt all of it. And I can feel this. But you don’t have to do it just because you can fucking mimic me or some shit-“

“I do.” Everything hits a plateau of steady, unyielding strength, and you press a small kiss to Ben’s slack mouth. Please, Benjamin, my love. I can do this, please trust me.

He’s completely still under your touch, and you can feel that rot eating at his insides. It might drive you mad with guilt, but you need to do this. This has to end, and it needs to be you that ends it. You’ve never wanted it to be—you’d done everything in your power to make it so it wouldn’t be—but someone has to, and this feels unavoidable. All of Ben’s power is mixing in with yours, and you’ve never felt more alive, and it might be temporary but you’re going to use it to end this.

Ben will have to stay with Ryan. To keep him safe as you fight at Butcher’s side, to make sure he sees nothing that happens. And it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever asked of him, but you’ll spend a lifetime afterwards apologizing. Kissing him and touching him and doing whatever needs to be done for this to just be a ghost neither of you ever speak about.

And he’ll forgive you. You’ll crawl back to him and splinter apart in his arms every single time, and you know Ben will forgive you. He understands you, he’s always understood you—even if he might claim otherwise—so when you feel the mold twist in his arteries it kills you, but you know he’s going to let you do this.

Maybe one day you’ll be strong enough to tell him that—even if he doesn’t let you do anything—if Ben had shaken his head and told you no, I’ll fucking do this and you’ll stay safe, you would have given in. But he doesn’t. Ben gives you a tense nod, his jaw clenched and his grip on your body bruising, and you’re going to do this.

You have to kiss him. You should go now—there’s not a chance Butcher is strong enough to do this himself—but if you don’t kiss Ben you’re going to die. And he must feel it too, in his bones and blood and every burning nerve of your bodies—or maybe he just feels you—because you’ll never know who moved first.

You might dedicate a lifetime to describing this kiss, when everything is over. It’s hungry and angry and desperate, but coated with so much care and fear, and filled with love. It’s only really love, in the end. It’s a brief moment where it’s only you and Ben, and there’s fire on you lips that he doesn’t flinch from and a nuclear warmth in your body that only makes you dive deeper. It’s spit and teeth and fury, and so, so soft because at the core there’s a promise.

This isn’t a goodbye kiss. It’s a you’re not allowed to fucking say goodbye kiss. It’s you making a silent, final oath that Ben isn’t going to lose you, because that’s just not how this works. You’re alive in Ben, and he’s not something you’ll allow yourself to lose.

This kiss finishes, but neither of you pull away. You live in one second longer, where you’re attached in every way possible, and warm, and safe in a way that feels permanent and older than the universe, even if it’s not.

You burn, I burn, Sunshine. Ben’s voice in your head is hoarse, and his every exhale moves easily down your throat. No fucking burning without me.

I know. You smile, because Ben is here, so you’re not going to burn out. And you’re not fighting alone, because it will be Ben’s power—inside you and so fucking natural—that keeps you together and finishes this. I love you, Benjamin. You burn, I burn.

He nods slowly, and you have to pry yourself from his lips. Use every ounce of resolve in your body to stand, to give Ryan a reassuring smile as you steel yourself.

You take a long, deep, heavy breath that tastes like pine and gunpowder and Ben, and you can fucking do this.

The golden shield doesn’t need to drop, because you take a cautious step up to it and it begins to sing and glow in your presence. There’s a brief second—as you walk through it—that you’re stronger than you’ve ever been in your life, and you’re all yours and Ben’s. You’re everything, warm and vast and bloody, and nothing will ever break you again.

Then the chill of rain falls on your brow, and the wind rushes in your ears, and everything comes into a sharp, brutal, unforgiving focus as you step into the ruins around you.

Butcher and Homelander are locked in the most destructive fight you’ve ever seen. Scorched earth is too light a phrase, because everything has been razed and wrecked around them. The car parts have been flung around, and there’s melted metal and gas fires and fallen trees strewn across the road, and the air feels like it’s calling forward judgment day. Heavy and hot in your lungs, all smoke and oil and ash down your throat.

Neither of them see you at first—marching through the wreckage and wrapped in flames that make this rain fade in a hiss—but they don’t need to. You make yourself know as you let out the most primal, furious sound that’s ever left your body, and a wave of fire crashes through the world, aimed right at Homelander.

Butcher moves to your side as you advance on where Homelander had vanished in the flame, giving you a smirk.

“Bout fuckin time, Love-“

“Shut up.” You snap, not sparing Butcher a glance as you see a shifting, dark form emerging from the smoke. “You get him down, I blast him, no fucking games.”

Homelander roars as he charges toward you, his laser carving a hole in your chest, and you don’t even flinch. Something white-hot and in an easy rhythm with your heartbeat crashes through the air at your will, flashing gold and knocking Homelander back.

“Bloody Christ, how the hell-“

“I have new powers.” You mutter, shooting Butcher a daggered look. “Homelander shot me with the V that I took back. And you can be a fucking cunt about that,” you narrow your eyes, and Butcher closes his mouth. “After we kill Homelander.”

“Well, Love, I ain’t sure that your plan’ll work if I don’t got backup.” Butcher glances at Homelander, rising into the air, and doges a laser blast that had been aimed at his skull. “V made me strong, but the cunt-“

“I’ve got it.” You do. Ben’s power, thrown and focused, won’t wipe the V from Homelander’s body, but it will weaken him. Enough for Butcher to get his shot. “You just need to get the V-“

“Ah, that’s the thing-“

Butcher’s words are cut off as Homelander sweeps down, grabbing him and throwing him halfway down the cracked pavement.

“What are we chatting about?” Homelander turns to you, and fuck he looks ugly. His formally too perfect face has been marred and burnt and scarred, flesh falling off his skin and his nose half caved into his fucking head. “It’s not very nice to leave me out, you know-“

You have no interest in banter or conversation, so you punch Homelander right in his thin, mauled lips and send him stumbling backward.

“Fuck,” he roars, and when he spits out a tooth you don’t bother to hide your grin. “You evil little bitch-“

“Shut up.” You roll your eyes, throwing out another rush of Ben’s nuclear energy. “You’re fucking pathetic, Homelander, you know that? You had to kidnap me,” a punch to his gut, fist wrapped in fire. “And rape me,” his jaw, blood splattering over your face. “And fucking torture me in order to control me. But here’s the thing.” You take a step forward, and the pussy fucking flinches, taking a stumbling step back and your whole body begins to glow with fire and energy. You’re not sure if this is your power, or Ben’s, and you don’t really fucking care. “You never broke me. Not permanently. Not in a way that couldn’t be fixed. And now I’m going to kill you, and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

He tries to fly away, but you’re faster. The whole sky turns in a storm of fire, and Homelander crashes back to earth as he realizes there’s no way out.

You hear Butcher clear his throat behind you, and when you glance over your shoulder his nose is broken and there’s a large gash along his neck, but he’s still up. Still fighting.

“You still on that die like a human shit?” He asks, keeping his attention on Homelander’s stirring body. “Or you wanna just-“

“No. He dies like the human he is. Get the V-“

“That’s, ah, that’s the thing, ain’t it.“ Butcher coughs, and you’ve never seen him look nervous before. It’s unsettling. “We don’t got no V.”

“What-“

“Used mine.” Butcher muttered. “Rest shattered in the car wreck, or is back with the team. We just got each other, Love, which I ain’t thrilled about either, but-“

“Shut up.” You squeeze your eyes shut, your fingers tapping an inhuman speed against your palm as you try to fucking work your way out of this. “We need to keep him down, that’s what the V was for, and you could do it, but I’d need to blast you-“

“Do that.”

You frown at Butcher, examining his stone-like expression. “Butcher, that might kill you-“

“So?” Butcher shrugs, and the only sign of any care or fear in his body are his hands—fisted in his pockets—and his eyes. They’re flashing with something you don’t understand, but know is emotion, even if his face is set and blank. “Don’t pretend you think I got shit to live for, Love. You all got people, I got Ryan, and he’ll be fine without me. He’s got you, he’ll make it.”

There’s no disgust or resentment in Butcher’s words, but no defeat either. Just flat fact, like even if this isn’t the only possible way, he’s not looking for another. And you can only think of that last vial of V, meant for Butcher but in your body, and how he’d been so ready to take it.

You don’t think he wants an after. Butcher might really just believe that this is all he’s for, and after isn’t a place he belongs.

And you’re not sure if you agree, because you don’t like Butcher, but he’s not Homelander. He’s not Ben either, but he’s something in the middle. Something just as angry as them both, but with just enough love and care in his body that he couldn’t be Homelander, and not enough will for something better to be Ben.

He’s not lost. He’s close to it, but not quite. He’s a supe now—and you can almost taste his own hatred of that every time he scratches at his skin or grimaces at any step—and you might call that punishment enough. To be the thing he swore to destroy.

But this will wipe the V from his body, and there will be no retribution.

But you don’t think you care for retribution, or reparation, or even an apology from Butcher. You just want this to be over, and you will offer Butcher this grace. He’s never been your friend, but he’s never tried to stop you. He’s never liked you, but you don’t really think he hated you either. He’s backed up your every plan, and never stood in your direct way. He’s antagonized you, but still had your back on your more fucked up plans.

He’s the reason you have Ben. He’d backed you up, and if he hadn’t, you’d still be alone. And this isn’t your choice to make for him, and it’s your turn to back up the one time he’s will to make a sacrifice that he’ll pay the price for.

“Butcher,” your words are soft, but firm. “Do you-“

“I got a gun.” Butcher looks you up and down, his face grim. “You still want-“

“Yes.”

Butcher nods and that’s it. All that left to do is finish this.

Homelander’s flying at you, and when his hand wrapped around your throat you let all your blood out of your body. Every last bit of cold, paralyzing fear of him that existed inside of you is pushed out, into Homelander, and he barely gets you off the ground when he drops you with a pathetic fucking scream. Butcher’s waiting for him, lasering his gut and knocking him fully to the ground, grabbing his shoulders and pinning him to the pavement and you land on his chest.

He’s sneering and hissing hateful words you can’t hear, because you’re calling the drums. The start in the distance, so familiar and in a harmony and beat you’d recognize anywhere, and as they draw closer you feel like you’ve reached some sort of peak, and you’re only seconds from the plummet. Like the barrier of Ben’s power that’s been holding the pain at bay is about to collapse, and this split second is all you have.

But you don’t break, or falter, or fail.

The drums fall into time with your heart right as the sickness of the V returns.

And you feel every bit of the bomb rip out of your body and through the world right before you fall to the ground and everything is only pain.

In the distance, or maybe right by your ear, you hear a gunshot go off. It might just be a delusion of peace—born from the way that everything is fading in and out around you and you can’t tell what’s solid and what an illusion—but then you feel something being to riot in your chest that’s more real than anything and you know you’re still awake.

Your eyes flutter open, and everything is out focus and wrapped in a haze, but that Thing that’s only ardor and care is sinking into your heart and ribs, and it gives you a brief moment of clarity. A long moment where you’re warm and safe, and so, so loved. This love feels like the universe. This love feels bigger than the universe, and you think it might be all yours.

You hope it is. It would be really nice for this existence of only pain to fade, and to wake up and be loved like this for a long, long time.

But right now you have to rest. There’s something soft and dark creeping at your vision, and you’ve never been this tired in your life, so resting feels like a good idea. It feels very simple, to just close your eyes and rest.

Peace starts to pull you, down, down down—into something warm and intangible, but somehow everything and made of ardor—and the last thing you hear is someone that sounds like everything good roaring your name.

The last thing you see is cold, blue, lifeless eyes that will never hurt you again.

The last thing you feel is clean.

End Note: I would say f's in chat for Homelander but I'm throwing a party to celebrate his death, so no respect. Also, this chapter is a direct fuck you to the “powerful MC loses her magic” trope. Fuck that. She’s MORE magical!

Thank you for reading!! If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3

If you want to be tagged, just ask!

Taglist

@lordofthunderthr @kritara @sukunassfinger, @justiceforquentin @acciditties

@c1gs-coffee @manicjk @artemys-ackles, @a-cup-of-nightshade, @bitchykittenconnoisseur

@fghj18 @n-o-p-e-never @deanspinsterwitchs-readinglist @marisha-3 @stvrniolo

@deansbbyx @s0urw00lf @ciuguapa @ilyaasansaif @whimsicalcherry

@sadpods @ahoytothestorm @silverwingxox @criminalyetminimal @solsborg

@generalmoonpolice @ifyouwerethemoon @leavli @imsiriuslyreal @ambientcryptidsounds

@ej13928

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zepskies · 1 year ago

Text

Love Actually - Part 1

Paring: Soldier Boy/Ben x Reader

Summary: Ben gets in late on Christmas Eve with a Grinch-like attitude, but you’re determined to force some holiday cheer into his system.

AN: Here’s my last entry for the TGWRC: Christmas in July event! It’s set in the same world as “Break Me Down,” and set before “Checkerboard.” But this can be read as a stand-alone! Hope you enjoy…

Theme: Christmas movies Prompt: “That’s a poor excuse for a tree.”

Word Count: 3,100 Tags/Warnings: SB being himself, wee bit of angst, potential fluff overload!

Part 1: "Humbug"

He was late.

It was Christmas Eve, and your boyfriend was late.

With a large bowl of popcorn in your lap, you sank further into your favorite corner of the couch, drumming your nails on its arm.

Your favorite Christmas movie played on the ridiculously large flatscreen Ben had insisted on when you two moved into this apartment. But you couldn’t get into the story like you normally would.

It was the first Christmas you and Ben were spending together since he’d started working with, instead of against Supe Affairs and the CIA. In fact, he was on an extended mission—hunting down a rogue supe in Idaho, of all places.

Freakin’ Idaho. Goddamn potatoes, you thought irrationally, shoving another handful of popcorn into your mouth.

While he’d been gone, you went all out in decorating the apartment: red and white candles, stockings, various ornaments, multicolored string lights, and poinsettias. You’d even found a nice little tree that fit in the only free corner of the living room.

Well, you’d had to rearrange some furniture to make that happen, but in the end you’d succeeded. It felt like you were living at the bottom of a snow globe.

You hadn’t heard from Ben at all in over two weeks. The day he left you outside your office in the Surveillance department replayed often in your mind.

Two weeks ago…

“Don’t give me that face, baby doll.”

Ben quirked a smile at your concerned frown, and he propped a gentle fist under your chin. You crossed your arms.

You knew he had to go. Butcher and the rest of the guys were waiting outside the S.A. office. And you were proud of him for what he was doing, genuinely trying to put in the work on this “hero” thing. But you didn’t have to like the timing. It was only two weeks until Christmas.

“Fine,” you agreed. “Just get this guy quick. I don’t want to hear my aunt’s shady-ass sniping. Every time I show up to a family gathering by myself, she starts plotting my arranged marriage to her fucking pediatrist, her divorce attorney—mind the irony there—or even the guy who packages meat at the grocery store—”

“All right, Christ. I’ll be back in fucking time,” said Ben. He grabbed your arms to stop your verbal flapping. Then with a grin, his hands moved to the curve of your waist, down to get a healthy grip of your ass.

“’Sides, I’m the only one flingin’ meat around here,” he said with a deepening smirk.

You rolled your eyes, but a smile threatened to take over your frown as he pulled you flush against him, trapping your hands against his broad chest. You found purchase on the hard fabric of his uniform.

“You’re so gross,” you said. But you pulled him down for a searing kiss. If you weren’t going to see his handsome face for a while, then you were going to make the most of this moment.

And it seemed your boyfriend felt the same way; his arms wrapped around your frame like steel bands. Your fingers swept through his hair as your tongue slipped into his mouth, making his grip on you tighten with a pleased hum.

“Oi! Sid and fuckin’ Nancy,” Butcher called from down the hall. “Got a fucking job to do. Today, if you don’t mind.”

Ben broke away from you, just enough to frown in irritation over your head.

“Calm your fucking tits, Churchill. I’ll leave when I’m good and damn ready.”

You couldn’t help but giggle into his chest.

Now, it was quite literally hours away from Christmas Day.

You would be seeing your family tomorrow, regardless. You and Ben were supposed to go to your mother’s house for dinner. But you were starting to think that he might not make it tonight, let alone tomorrow.

And if you had to deal with your aunt nosing into your personal business again, your hand might just “slip” while pouring yourself a rum-filled eggnog, so you wouldn’t be held liable for your actions when you inevitably snapped on the bitch.

Sighing, you continued munching on some popcorn while you focused on one of your favorite parts of Love Actually. Hugh Grant was shaking his ass to “Jump In” by the Pointer Sisters.

The music was infectious, and you found yourself doing a little shimmy yourself on the couch in time with one of your favorite rom-com Brits.

With the TV volume as loud as it was, not even the door of your apartment unlocking could stop your mini-jam session.

And the door soon opened, revealing a dusty, soot-covered Benjamin, still in his supe suit and tactical gear. He took a small step back when the gaudy Christmas décor assaulted his eyes, but he blinked through it as he turned his head.

His lips curved at the familiar sight of you—bundled up in your pajamas and a fuzzy blanket on the couch, bopping to the beat of some shitty ‘80s song he actually recognized. You were alternatively mouthing the words and eating fistfuls of popcorn.

Shaking his head, Ben stepped into the apartment and shut the door with some force. You finally perked up at the sound, your smile alight with happiness when you realized he was home. That alone made him soften a bit.

“Ben!” You paused your movie and bounded over to greet him with a warm hug and a deep kiss.

He brushed your hair back and allowed himself to revel in the familiarity of you in his arms.

“Aren’t you a fucking sight,” he murmured.

Ben was still getting used to having someone to come home to, but it was grounding. This place was his home now, mostly because you were in it.

“You okay? How did it go?” you asked, wiping off some soot from his cheek.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Ben offered you a cocky smile. “We smoked that pyro bitch.”

Your eyes narrowed. “You what?”

“Relax, the supe’s alive,” he said, rolling his eyes, as if it grated him to admit it. He wouldn’t tell you that the supe had two broken arms and probably a crack in his skull. “Being shipped off to prison as we speak.”

You nodded with a smile. “Good. I’m proud of you.”

His lips pulled at a grin. But then you took his face between your hands with a hard slap (though it didn’t even sting, the point was made in your annoyed frown).

“You’re late,” you said. Ben raised a brow.

“Excuse me?” he said.

“You heard me. You’re fucking late,” you repeated. “Go take a shower. I already started the first movie without you.”

You tugged him by the hand and all but pushed him into the hall that led to your shared bedroom.

Ben wasn’t one to be manhandled though. He dug his heels in obstinately.

“Christ, I just got home. All I want to do is sleep…unless you want to give me a proper fucking welcome.”

He glanced at you over his shoulder with a more than suggestive smirk. He turned around and pulled you into his firm chest. His hands smoothed down your back and squeezed your hips, with his thumbs dragging under the hem of your pajama top.

While your lips threatened a smile, you had to wonder how he had enough energy for reunion sex, but not enough to watch a simple movie.

Still, his offer was all-too tempting, making heat prickle along your skin wherever he touched. Nonetheless, you managed to remain stubborn and pushed gently against his chest.

“Down, boy,” you said. “If I let you get your hands on me now, I’ll never get through my list.”

First it was Love Actually, then Christmas Vacation, followed swiftly by Home Alone and its sequel, Lost In New York.

Ben frowned at you. “So? Watch ‘em tomorrow.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, it’s Christmas Eve.”

You gestured to all your hard work in the form of the decorated apartment.

“Tomorrow, we have dinner at my mom’s house. So tonight, you’re gonna go shower," you said, pointing at him. "I’m going to make some more hot chocolate, and we’re watching all manner of cheesy, romantic, and downright silly Christmas movies until your Grinch-ass gets some holiday spirit.”

Ben released a tired sigh and dropped his hands away from you.

“I haven’t slept in three fucking days," he said. "I’m not staying up all night again for some corny bullshit.”

You frowned in disappointment.

“Ben, come on. Please?” you tried, but he just waved a dismissive hand and continued his way to the bedroom.

For a moment, you watched him go in disbelief. Was he really going to be like that?

With a flash of hot annoyance, you huffed and decided that you weren’t going to let him ruin the night for you.

So you went into the kitchen and whipped up some hot cocoa, breaking out the actual Godiva chocolate bars you bought just for this moment. You poured out one mug initially. But you listened to the old water pipes working, knowing that Ben must’ve been taking a shower.

You knew he wasn’t just tired. He didn’t seem to be looking forward to tomorrow either, and was going along with it for your sake. Which, to be fair, could just mean he still wasn’t totally comfortable around your family. (Your sister Luisa still hadn’t totally warmed up to him.)

You also had a feeling that he just wasn’t into Christmas.

The question was why…

But you poured a mug for him anyway, adding some mini marshmallows into each one. You brought both mugs with you back to the living room and set them down on the coffee table.

Getting comfortable on the couch again, complete with your blanket, mug, and the popcorn bowl, you pressed “play” and continued watching the movie…even though you felt just a bit lonelier.

But then, a weight dropped on the other end of the couch. You flinched and looked over at your now clean and pajama-clad boyfriend, who eyed you begrudgingly with his arms crossed over a soft plain shirt.

You smiled at him warmly. “Hey, baby.”

His grouchy face was the very picture of “humbug.” Biting your lip, you set down the popcorn on the coffee table and handed him the spare cup of hot chocolate.

“I made some for you,” you said. He gave you a brief nod and took a dutiful sip. But not even rich, chocolatey goodness could curb his sour mood as he stared blandly at the screen.

You knew that face. That was his, I’ll do this for you, but I’m not gonna fucking like it—face.

When he stifled a yawn, you knew that he hadn’t been lying. He really was tired. Sometimes you forgot that while Ben was all but indestructible, even he had his limits. Chasing that rogue supe across the country must’ve taken it out of him, even if he wouldn’t admit it.

So you reached over and plucked the mug out of his hand. His brows knit together as he watched you set it down on the coffee table with yours. Then you grabbed his hand.

“Come ‘ere,” you said, tugging him toward you.

“What now?” he groused.

“Just come on. Don’t bitch,” you teased. You guided him to lay across the couch, with his head pillowed in your lap. You grabbed an extra throw blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over him, making sure that it covered him up to his chest.

“What am I, a damn kid?” he said. But you knew his griping had no real weight. Already he was humming deep with pleasure as your fingers carded through his soft brown hair. You let your nails drag lightly over his scalp, massaging his head. Your free hand stroked his cheek.

Ben closed his eyes for a moment and let out a sigh through his nose. The movie continued to play, but you were no longer paying much attention. This was more important.

When he opened his eyes again, they were drawn to the small, four-foot Christmas tree in the corner of the room, next to the TV.

“That’s a poor fucking excuse for a tree,” he said.

You frowned and followed his gaze.

“I think it’s adorable,” you replied. And it was the only one you thought would fit in this cozy, but very narrow apartment.

Ben’s arms crossed over his blanket.

“I’ll go tomorrow, find us a real fucking tree,” he said.

Your frown deepened a little. “But I already decorated this one. All by myself, I might add.”

He eyed you then, a bit softer.

“All right, we’ll get a second one for the dining room,” he grumbled. “Getting the tree up is a man’s job anyway.”

You rolled your eyes at that. But you tried to see if there was anything deeper to read in his words. Not for the first time, you wondered how he’d spent his holidays in the past. No doubt with a lot of fanfare and celebrity parties during his hay day as Soldier Boy. You were more interested in his life before that.

“I remember, my mom would run the show at Christmas,” Ben said.

You blinked down at him in surprise. Without knowing, he’d opened up on your exact curiosity.

Or maybe he just knew you better than you thought.

“She’d have all the help in a damn tear around the house. Cooking, decorating, the whole nine yards. It was a perfect scene, like something out of a catalogue,” said Ben. “But getting the tree was always my dad’s job. His only job, really.”

You smiled and continued to listen with rapt attention. Your thumb continued to stroke along his neck.

“One year, he got this massive one. Must’ve been…I don’t know, twenty feet. I don’t even know how he got it through the door, but he was mighty fucking proud of himself,” Ben said.

His gaze trailed beyond you, lost in faded memories. They played in his mind like a reel, wordless, but bright and warm.

“Who decorated it?” you asked. Your voice drew his attention back.

“Me and him,” Ben admitted, surprising you yet again. “Meanwhile, Mom baked up a storm for the Christmas party they threw every year…”

It was a rare moment where Ben recalled what seemed to be a nice memory of his father. But soon enough, the nostalgia dimmed from his eyes.

He cleared his throat and swiped a hand over his mouth, as if that could erase his moment of vulnerability.

Then he turned to face the TV screen.

“So what’s even happening here? Seems like there’s four goddamn movies playing at once.”

You cracked a smile and continued brushing your fingers through his hair. You also rewinded the movie so he could actually follow the story.

“Yeah, that’s what makes this movie so classic. See, there’s Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman. They’re married, kids, the perfect life, right? But he’s actually cheating on her with a younger, sluttier woman.”

“…And this is a fucking Christmas movie?”

“Yeah, you’ll see. Then there’s Liam Neeson.”

Ben perked up at that. “The Taken guy?”

You nodded. “Yep! He’s a widower, but he has a stepson who’s got a sweet little crush. So he’s gonna try and help the kid impress the girl by helping him learn the drums.”

Your boyfriend nodded.

“Musicians get plenty of pussy, that’s for damn sure,” he said. And with a knowing grin, “Actors get more though.”

You snorted and pointed to Hugh Grant next. “He’s my favorite. He’s playing the Prime Minister, who falls in love with his assistant, Natalie. That’s her right there.”

Ben raised a brow at your choice of “favorite.” If nothing else, he noted your type for older men.

But he smirked when Natalie kept verbally fumbling in Hugh’s presence, then stared along with the Prime Minister at the woman’s ass when she walked away at the end of the scene.

“Hmm, I’ll admit. She’s got a juicy peach,” Ben remarked. You laughed and hit his shoulder playfully. It worked an amused smile onto his face.

He took your hand from his shoulder and pressed the back of it to his lips. You blinked down at him, and you warmed with a smile at seeing his more relaxed face.

He kept your hand on his chest, his thumb drawing back and forth over your wrist.

So you proceeded to explain the various angles of the movie until he was all caught up.

You two watched the rest of it together. Like always, you cried when Colin Firth poured his heart out to his housekeeper, Aurélia, half in his mangled Portuguese and half in English. You cried again when Emma’s character finally confronted her cheating bastard husband.

And you held your breath when Hugh and Natalie kissed as the stage curtain fell down, revealing their relationship to the world.

By the time the credits rolled, you were an emotional mess. You were happy though. Typically you’d watch this movie with your sister, but it was nice to share the holidays with someone…

Someone who loved you enough to curb his Grinch attitude about cheesy romantic things, like tree decorating and watching rom-coms with hot cocoa.

You glanced down, and sure enough, Ben was asleep. He had turned onto his stomach. His head still rested in your lap, his cheek pillowed by your thigh, and he had a hand curled around your leg. Your big, growling bear of a man had a gooey center that sometimes surprised even you.

For one mischievous moment, you considered sticking a piece of popcorn up his nose.

He looked so damn peaceful that you didn’t want to ruin it…yet now you couldn’t get up either.

Shit, you thought, but your grin was soft. Oh, whatever. Sleep is overrated.

You queued up Chevy Chase’s Christmas Vacation next in your movie marathon and settled in. You laid a gentle hand on Ben’s back, between his broad shoulders.

And his story about his parents returned to the forefront of your mind.

Maybe he didn’t hate Christmas. Maybe it was just difficult for him to remember the genuinely good ones. Maybe he missed his parents; both of them, despite how contentious it had been between him and his father.

You could certainly understand that. But now, you would make sure he would remember this one for the “good” column.

You only startled a little when your cell phone chimed on the coffee table. The screen read 12:00 a.m. It was officially December 25th.

You then felt Ben’s warm hand squeeze your leg. His eyes were still shut though, his breathing deep and even in sleep.

With a smile, you leaned down and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

And you whispered in his ear, “Merry Christmas, Ben.”

AN: Yay! I hope you liked this fluffy one for SB. 🎄❤️

Did you like Ben's little day trip down memory lane? Let me know in the comments! 😘

**Note: There will be two more parts to this due to popular request!

Keep Reading: PART 2

Soldier Boy Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Tag List:

@deans-spinster-witch @this-is-me19 @waynes-multiverse @mrsjenniferwinchester @samanddeaninatrenchcoat @spalady26 @spnwoman @syrma-sensei @wirdbeimaufhebengebunden @muhahaha303 @123passwort

@xoxovienna @katherineann83 @lollag0w0 @globetrotter28 @nancymcl @ashbatz @secretdreamlandmentality @kristophalis @wonderland2022 @emily-winchester @shelh93 @sl33pylilbunny @spoonmynoodle @chernayawidow

@buckybarnes-1917 @asgardprincess97 @sometimes-i-sing @itsyellow @karnellius @kimberleymjw @is-this-a-febreze-commercial @iamsapphine @sanscas @se-fucking-hun @lassie-bird @jessjad @yepimthatperson @fromcaintodean @stoneyggirl2

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#Love Actually #Part 1 #soldier boy #soldier boy/ben x reader #soldier boy x reader #soldier boy x female reader #the boys #soldier boy x you #tgwrcjulyevent #dw's witch events #Christmas in July!#TGWRC #break me down verse #Christmas fic #fluff #zepskies writes

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radioisntdead · 9 months ago

Text

Too sweet

Alastor x gn reader,

Warnings!!

Mild ooc, reader is dessert themed also kinda imagining they have eyes that resemble 1930's animation but that's just me, casual backstory drop in the middle that's just never brought up again, death, pacing is a little off, Alastor is prepared with angelic steel this time! It does not help whatsoever!

Song: Too sweet

It wasn't a secret that Alastor strongly disliked sweet things, it wasn't a complete hatred but he wouldn't willingly eat any, he preferred bitter things.

It can't be said I'm an early bird

You were as sweet as pure sugar, with that oh so charming smile of yours, your big ol' cartoony eyes, eccentric and positive attitude, not to mention you were quite literally dessert themed, Cake themed outfits, frosted purses, phone case adorned with spackled frosting, sprinkles and charms.

It's ten o'clock before I say a word

You were the most recent addition to the hotel, a few of the hotel's residents didn't quite understand how someone as sweet as you could've ended up in hell, it was theorized that maybe it was an act, a honey coated trap that would lead to the hotel demise or something.

Baby, I can never tell

That was thrown out rather quickly when you kept the same sweetheart persona even when alone, it was just how you were.

How do you sleep so well?

It was concerning to a certain few hotel residents when it was discovered that you had a thing for the Radio demon,

The way your eyes would linger on him for a moment too long, the way you would gaze at him love evident in your eyes.

You keep telling me to live right

Husk gave you a warning one night at the bar, you were sipping on a drink that had more sugar then any drink should, he was cleaning up the bar.

"Look kid, Alastor is a bad decision, this won't end well for you."

"I know." You had responded, twirling around that sickly sweet drink of yours

You weren't naive like your personality seemed to make people think, you knew Alastor was a bad idea, bad news, he was a cannibalistic murderer for heaven's sake!

To go to bed before the daylight

But it was alright to have a small crush that you wouldn't act on, it'd pass eventually but for now it wasn't bad to fantasize about dancing with him, cooking together or about doing something unholy like handholding! Nothing would become of it, you didn't have a good history with relationships anyways.

But then you wake up for the sunrise

Charlie was supportive of your little crush, she had found out about it after accidentally overhearing you drunkenly tell Angel Dust about it, that sugary little drink really did a number on you.

She decided she would try to push you and Alastor together, gently, She was such a great wingman!

After all Alastor tolerated you more than anyone else in the hotel so that's a indication that you might have a chance right? A truly slim one but a chance nonetheless!

You know you don't gotta pretend, baby, now and then

When Alastor began enjoying your company a little too much for his liking it was like he, from his prospective had been thrown into a horror movie and trapped with little to no way out.

He enjoyed some of your antics and reactions.

Don't you just wanna wake up, dark as a lake?

You were helpful around the hotel, helping out with advertising, you'd proofread scripts he had written for his radio broadcast, every time you went out for a treat you brought back some type of pastry or snack for the hotel residents, in particular you'd travel all the way to cannibal town to pick up something for Alastor, you didn't have too, but you did.

Smelling like a bonfire, lost in a haze?

As time went on the feelings didn't fade, especially since Charlie heavily suggested that the two of you should work together on hotel related things, and that pinwheeled into the two of you spending more time together, getting closer, and eventually you began to avoid Alastor, you had a tendency to ditch the people you were fond of in a way usually in a cruel fashion, you didn't mean too, truly! But you did and you didn't want to risk it with Alastor for his sake and yours.

If you're drunk on life, babe, I think it's great

You were a known partier back in your day, you died back in the heights of the roaring twenties where you had the money and privileges to go to lavish parties where anyone who was anyone could attend much like the parties Gatsby held in the great Gatsby, you lived what some folks thought the roaring twenties were all about, Flappers, speakeasies, parties and short-lived prosperity.

You were in your twenties, rebellious and reckless, drinking any drink given to you, playing around with people's emotions with those sickly sweet words of yours, taking whatever substance you were given, and a year before the stock market crash, you were found dead on the dancefloor poisoned by a former darling of yours who didn't like that you had left them because things were getting 'too serious' for you.

You didn't handle death well, and in order to keep at least some of your sanity you went to hurling yourself onto the hellish party scene, frequenting speakeasies, trying to keep some sense of what you knew, repeating harmful cycles, but you couldn't do it forever.

And so you gave up the party scene around the mid 40's, burning bridges and leaving behind many scorned people behind.

You were more unstable back then, but you had improved, at least you thought you did taking up the sweet attitude by a couple notches, switching from drinking alcohol each day to drinking sweet smoothies or milkshakes.

You cleaned up your act and you were continuing to keep it clean especially as you checked into the hotel.

No one there knew about your track record and you would like to keep it that way.

But while in this world

The avoidance didn't last long since Alastor cornered you asking why and you blabbered out your feelings in one big ramble.

And that was that.

I think I'll take my whiskey neat

Charlie was ecstatic to learn that you and Alastor had gotten together, Others were concerned particularly Husk, his bets were that either Alastor would end up owning your soul, you'd become just as twisted as Al or you'd end up dead.

None of them would end well for you.

My coffee black and my bed at three

The two of you were opposites, while he took his coffee black and bitter you loaded yours up with milk, sugar and whatever other toppings you wished, when he stayed awake for multiple days in end you snoozed away at night, when he was threatening someone who was messing with the hotel you were trying to defuse the situation with sweet words.

You're too sweet for me

Alastor didn't like sweet things, but he didn't mind you and your sugary sweetness, infact you could say he was growing a little bit of a sweet tooth.

Just the sight of your sweet little smile was enough to cause a slight ache in his heart and that fact that you could be called his now was just wonderful!

You're too sweet for me

He could see himself getting used to all this sweetness, he just needed to make sure no one knew that.

I take my whiskey neat

You smiled, listening intently and sipping on your sweet alcoholic drink while Alastor recounted an encounter he had, a glass of whiskey in his hand whooshing around as he spoke.

My coffee black and my bed at three

It was after a hotel game night mixed with alcohol, the two of you were tired and intoxicated, you were a giggly drunk, laughing at the most mundane things, Alastor was escorting you to your room and much to his surprise it was a challenge as you would stop every few steps to laugh at how the crack in the wall looked like a giraffe or how that stain on the carpet looked like a birthday cake!

You're too sweet for me

By the time he had finally gotten you to your room he was exhausted, you kicked off your shoes leaving them on your floor as you dived into your bed, reveling in the comfortable blankets.

Alastor rolled his eyes as he entered your room leaning down to pick up your discarded shoes to properly put them away in your woredrob, he intended to leave to his own room but you reached out your arms to him making grabby hands, he walked over and leaned in to see what you wanted only for you to suddenly grab him, pulling him down and covering him in the blankets before promptly passing out with your arm wrapped around one of his.

You're too sweet for me

He was going to get up, he truly was but he hadn't slept in hell knows how many days now, and the bed was warm, before he knew it his eyelids were drooped. His shadow thankfully decided to close the door to your room.

I aim low, I aim true and the ground's where I go

The next morning he was greeted by you humming while gently petting his fluffy ears, he wasn't sure you knew he was awake at that point, but he rather liked having his ears petted, at least by you and it wouldn't hurt to savor this moment for just a few more minutes before the two of you would have to deal with the duties that the day held for you.

I work late where I'm free from the phone, and the job gets done

Alastor preferred to have his radio broadcast aired in the morning but sometimes he wouldn't get the chance too, [Maybe he indulged a little too much in his morning time with you]

He would air around eight pm and sometimes you would hang around his tower, doing whatever activity you had brought along until he was done and the two of you would walk back to the hotel, maybe grabbing a bite to eat.

But you worry some, I know

Other nights you would turn on the radio in his room and curl up in a blanket on the leather chair he had, closing your eyes and listening to his oddly soothing voice.

But who wants to live forever, babe?

Alastor didn't particularly believe that heavens gates would accept sinners even if they were redeemed, but nothing is impossible and he, although he doubted it, could be wrong and the Hazbin hotel could be a success in redeeming sinners left and right and you were one of the residents checked in for redemption.

You treat your mouth as if it's Heaven's gate

Alastor moved a piece of your hair away from your face, careful not to disturb your sleeping position on his chair, he could admit to himself that he had gotten attached to you, and he couldn't just have his darling little partner leave him behind to fraternize with the winners above now could he?

The rest of you like you're the TSA

He picked you up from the chair and moved you over to his bed, tucking you in.

If anyone in this damned place could get redeemed it was you.

I wish that I could go along, babe, don't get me wrong

And Alastor, well he wasn't the type to be looking for redemption or redeemed, he was even less of the type to blindly follow someone somewhere even if it was you.

He did wish he could see his mother who obviously was in heaven but that simply just wasn't in the cards for him, it was tragic but he did murder people, he died while burying a body after all!

You know, you're bright as the morning, as soft as the rain

Alastor cut into the dead deer he had just sat on his table, he was about to take a bite when he caught a glimpse of you shooting up from his bed looking around in hasty panic before you visibly calmed at the sight of him, with one of your signature surgery sweet smiles that caused swirls in his heart you bid him a good morning.

Pretty as a vine, as sweet as a grape

Alastor strolled into the hotel after a day of errands, only to see everyone cluttered together looking at something you were holding that he couldn't see, you noticed him and waved him over, grinning as you held the red creature in your arms that looked strikingly like Alastor, you went on a small tangent about how you had found the little guy while taking a stroll around the hotel.

If you can sit in a barrel, maybe I'll wait

In all honesty he wanted to hurl the creature out the window but you were stubborn in saying that the two of you should keep the catlike creature immediately dubbing it as your son much to Alastor's displeasure.

Until that day

He and the little creature begun a little rivalry, whenever he had his arm around you that thing would try and headbutt it off.

On the plus side you had taken to dressing the little one up in ridiculous little outfits, usually to match you or Alastor, from dessert themed outfits to Alastor's signature suit.

The creature did not like being dressed the majority of the time as the little thing felt it was taken less seriously thanks to the outfits.

It was right, when the little one would strut around the hotel he was usually awe'd over by Charlie and Sir Pentious.

I'd rather take my whiskey neat

Time flew by as extermination day drew closer, preparing became the focus in the hotel, coating weapons in angelic steel, in particular you had a axe that you covered with dessert themed charms finding it funny, because imagine getting taken out with a dessert themed axe of all things!

My coffee black and my bed at three

You had just barely convinced Alastor to prepare to use an angelic weapon, borderline begging him to do so, you didn't know what you'd do if he got taken out or injured because he was too prideful and foolish to use angelic steel in some way.

You're too sweet for me

He just couldn't say no to you when you looked at him with those cartoonish eyes that reminded him of 1930's animation and surgery sweet smile!

You're too sweet for me

It was the night before extermination, everyone was ready, living this night as if they were going to die tomorrow, which they probably will but they had something to fight for! You indulged on the classic surgery sweet drink that you always got, sipping on it as Niffty declared Alastor king roach leading to you chuckling.

I take my whiskey neat

It was the time where everyone retired, laying in bed you gently brushed a hand through his awful haircut, the two of you chatted about what could happen tomorrow and what the two of you would do afterwards because obviously the two of you didn't intend on dying.

You let out a yawn, deciding to call it a night you gave Alastor a light peck before laying your head on your pillow.

My coffee black and my bed at three

Alastor channeled his inner Edward Cullen and watched you sleep, blanket curled around you, that little creature was snoozing by you, dressed in a onesie that you had obviously put on him.

He didn't say it often, or at all honesty but he adored you, the only sweet thing he would willingly indulge in.

He would do anything to protect you, you would survive the extermination, he would make sure of it.

You're too sweet for me

He, infact did not make sure of it.

It was during his little encounter with Adam, the first man had gone to attack him but you had ran in, taking the hit for Alastor.

Resulting in a large gash in your stomach, blood pooled around you as Alastor got a few hits on Adam before turning to you, clutching your body as shadows overtook the two of you, taking you to his radio tower.

You're too sweet for me

Alastor scrambled, his usual composed self gone as you were actively bleeding out, he tried to stop the bleeding but you had already lost too much.

I take my whiskey neat

He held you as he demanded to know why the hell you would jump Infront of him.

You simply smiled, lifting your hand to touch his face, you said three simple words that would be your last, the last thing you saw was Alastor's strained smile.

My coffee black and my bed at three

Husk was right, it would end one of three ways, either Alastor ended up with your soul, you became just as twisted or you died.

And many died that day, the hazbin hotel lost two of its residents, Sir Pentious and you.

Sir Pentious had died for his friends and you had died for the person you loved, sacrifices that landed the two of you into heaven.

You're too sweet for me

Alastor sat in his newly built radio tower, that damned creature that you had brought by his side.

He had managed to survive the hotel collapsing, good for him, unfortunately the person that brought him there didn't survive, and now he was stuck with Alastor, but maybe that wasn't such a bad thing anymore.

You're too sweet for me

Alastor despised sweet things, they were filled with sickly sweet sugar that would leave cavities behind in it's wake, even after being brushed away it would still leave some damage like you did, you left him like you had left others before only this time it was unwillingly, you were the sweetest thing he'd ever known, he made a unfortunately decision to get attached to you and now he paid the consequences, he would be unintentionally haunted by you, reminded of you every time he saw the portrait they hung of you in the hotel along with Sir Pentious or even with the cat that looked like him.

He wouldn't be making the mistake of falling for someone again that was for sure.

It's not like he could if he wanted to anyways.

Good evening folks! I hope you enjoyed this! I wrote it all in one day, I didn't write it because I got tired but the reader is totally fighting people to go back to Alastor, just "I JUST DIED AFTER TELLING HIM I LOVED HIM, THAT IS TRAUMATIZING"

#hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel x you #alastor x reader #alastor x you #hazbin alastor x you #hazbin alastor x reader

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ohsohoney · 2 months ago

Text

When it comes to love you're just as blinded.

Part Fourteen

Eminem x Musician

Summary: It starts with a drunk embarrassing video, it spirals into something a whole lot more.

Note: Been a little while but the next updates here! Lots to unpack, hope you enjoy it:)

| Set in 2014, just after the release of LP 2

taglist: @thelastemzy @helloitsme1223 @geekchic48

Masterlist

Things after that seemingly did a 360.

Not that I was given much of a chance to catch up with it all though, having been left standing in the studio hours earlier, back to the wall whilst the door hinges had slowly creaked to a close.

No, because that would have been far too much to ask for.

Marshall had relaxed in a way that was more like a steel trap being reset; ready and waiting to be crossed again. It had me on edge. I couldn’t deny that, seeing as I knew what could be lying in wait for me if I did dare to trample any closer, but there was also an ominous instinct that had my back up. Something that kept me from lingering too long.

“What’s goin’ on in there?” The man himself asked, tapping my forehead as he slid back into the driver's seat.

We’d gone out, as promised, not long after ‘The Change’ had occurred (something I’d taken to dubbing the whole situation as inside my head). Rosie hadn’t forgotten about her idea of dinner and a movie– and really… Of all the things we could have possibly done after a kiss like that, it just had to be this.

Honestly, I had to keep biting the inside of my cheek to stop that particular train of thought each time I found my mind wandering back to it.

“Yoo-hoo…” Marshall dragged out, his brow arching as he glanced over at me again.

Z was in the back typing away, having become completely unaware of our shared awkward existence ever since her sister had first called whilst we’d been eating dinner. The girl had taken to texting throughout, telling Ayla all about the heroics Marshall had performed that same morning in the principal's office, as well as the movie we were now headed to see. I had to smile at their closeness, thinking back to my own siblings and wondering how Em struggled to see just how much the two girls loved one another.

I glanced over at him, head rolling against the headrest. He was watching me with those familiar baby blues, but each time I caught sight of them, I was instantly reminded of the way they’d clouded over in the studio earlier.

“Thinking ‘bout getting a cat.”

His brow furrowed.

“A cat?” He deadpanned, obviously perplexed by my answer.

I wasn’t actually thinking about it, but now that I’d gone and said it… it wasn’t half a bad idea.

So I ultimately shrugged, if only in an attempt to tear my eyes away from his. “Cats are cool.”

At his scoff of disagreement, I nudged his arm off of the adjoining console with my elbow, “They are.” I defended, “They don’t need me to walk them or play fetch. They’re cute and fluffy, can definitely keep me warm at night.” I hummed, that eyebrow of his quirked up higher. “And besides, I reckon it could keep me company when I’m back in London, you know. Figure I’ll have a hard time with that after having you two around for so long– even with Lotts there to keep me from going insane.”

Marshall kept quiet at the acknowledgement, but did start up the car, its engine rumbling to life beneath us not a second later.

It was just when I heard his faint intake of breath and caught the way he opened his mouth to speak, that Rosie shoved her phone in my face, her beaming grin peeking out over my shoulder. “Ayla, meet El!”

I blinked at the sudden invasion I’d been confronted with but couldn’t help my warm laughter, even as Em gently scolded his daughter for the intrusion. “Z, what I keep tellin’ you?”

“But Dad, it’s important!”

My gaze flickered between the two of them and it was only when I drew my eyes back down to where the screen sat between us that I saw the fondness which had since swarmed my expression. I tried to dampen it slightly without being too obvious, but the girl waiting seemed to be watching the whole scene rather intently. She smiled though when she saw she’d finally captured my attention. All soft like.

My breath caught a little in truth, never really having thought about getting to meet Marshall’s eldest this early on, or through a screen either. Rosie didn’t seem to care much though, elbowing her way between the two front seats to get as much as she could of us into the frame.

“Layly, baby!” Marshall’s greeting cut in before I could spit out a hello, his little nickname for his girls sparking that same fondness I’d felt earlier. “How you doin’, Trailer? Behavin’, I hope.”

I blew out a small snort at the next nickname he used, turning an amused smile Marshall’s way, but his focus was wholly on the girl currency rolling her eyes at him through a digital frame. “You know I am.” Ayla huffed around a faint chuckle, leaning in closer to the lens, “School keeps me way too busy to get up to anything stupid.”

“What I love to hear.” Marshall replied with a sarky sort of smile, a new one that I could add to my growing collection, I quietly deemed. “You been good though?” He prompted further, “Don’t have to stop by and talk to any hanger-ons, do I? ‘Cause you know I will.”

“Yes, I know.” Ayla shook her head, exasperated, but her sweet smile was still so prominent. “Besides, I think you guys have had enough drama going on lately.”

Marshall’s eyes traitorously jumped over to meet mine in that split second, something I thought only I caught until I witnessed the assessing look Ayla took on. So I was quick to clear my throat, internally cursing his name, “I don’t know what Z’s told you, but the two of us? We’re innocent! This is all on your Dad.”

That seemed to earn me a lighthearted laugh, one that trickled out of the speaker and appeared to loosen Marshall’s tense set of shoulders. The man in turn levelled Rosie and I with an aggrieved look before he turned to speak to Ayla once more, “It’s like I’m a one man army here, AB. Didn’t think I’d ever lose Z, but she’s gone darkside.”

“Dad!” Rosie admonished around another giggle, whilst Ayla gasped theatrically, “Oh how the tables have turned. What will the papers say?”

“Hilarious.” Marshall said in a manner that was deliberately impassive. But he still cracked a smile though when Ayla’s chuckles trickled through.

“Good to see you guys,” She commented soon after and I got the chance to look at her a little closer, taking in the college dorm she had sitting behind her, as well as the blue of her eyes. They were more almond shaped, sure, but somehow the colour still managed to match Marshall’s toe for toe. “And to finally meet you, El. I’ve heard a lot about you these last few weeks.”

A sharp breath hitched my chest. “Only good things, I hope.” I found myself retorting around a rosy smile, knocking my head lightly against Z’s when the girl crowded in further to my side, her chin settling on my shoulder, “But it’s also really nice to put a face to all the stories I’ve been told, too.”

Ayla gifted me a bright grin at that, her gaze drifting between Rosie and I, “No hope in praying that it’s nothing too embarrassing then?”

I couldn’t stop the way I instinctively turned to share a secretive grin with the girl beside me, pleased when Rosie mimicked me to do the same. “I don’t know about that, I’ve heard all about the grocery store you see.”

The gasp that the comment drew from the older girl was all too real that time, “I was seven!”

“Seven don’t mean nothin’,” Em swiftly cut in, narrowing his eyes ever so as he directed a finger at the phone and his eldest, “You’d been potty trained since you were two.”

Rosie and I snickered between ourselves, but Marshall caught onto it all too quickly, moving to shift that finger towards the pair of us, “Aye, you two ain’t no better. Ms Bedwetter and Pillow-drewler.”

“Hey!” Rosie immediately spat, thumping the man’s shoulder hard enough to have the corners of his mouth twitching even as his brows rose, “That was years ago! And you said you wouldn’t tell nobody!”

Marshall’s hands flew up in a gesture of surrender when his daughter narrowed her eyes in further scrutiny, but I could tell that Z wasn’t as embarrassed as she was letting on to be, knew it to be true when she added, “You also said it was natural! That you didn’t stop doin’ it ‘til you were fourteen!”

Em’s chin jerked up before he softened his reaction, though his eyes were a tad bit too wide to have not been entirely caught off guard by the secret his daughter had just spilled, “Jus’ said that to make you feel better.”

His shrug wasn’t all that uncaring as he hoped for it to be.

“Liar!” Rosie laughed, poking her dad’s side before she turned to peer back over at her sister and me, “He really did, promised he wouldn’t tell on me if I didn’t tell on him either. But he’s a big fat liar.”

“Name of your next single.” I quipped thoughtlessly, the comment going straight over Rosie’s head. Em shot me a steely glare and faked a silent laugh though, his lips softening into a small smile.

It was after that in which Marshall’s palm pressed against Rosie’s forehead, jokingly coaxing her into the backseat once again, waving off her protests as she slumped into the middle. “Yeah, yeah, keep complainin’ and we’ll miss this damn movie, won’t we.”

“Dollar!” Two voices called out and I peered into the back to see Z snicker into the phone, the screen Ayla was still on illuminating her face.

Marshall scoffed at the two girls but I could see how he was grinning happily to himself as we pulled out of the lot and onto the main road.

It continued to surprise me how easily he could move throughout the city without looking at a map or using the GPS he had installed in the flashy monster-truck he was so fond of. I kept finding myself getting lost in the way he drove, in truth, stare caught on how the streetlights flashed over his stubbled cheek and the fluid way he switched gears as though the stick was an extension of his arm.

It was only when Rosie popped up with another question that I found myself startling, looking back to immediately avoid the knowing smile Marshall had plastered over his face. Shit.

“What’s the movie called again? Ayla wants to know if it’s the same one she’s watching this weekend.”

I had to think for a second before I could answer her, my mind still honed in on the image of Em’s profile, “Love, Rosie.”

Z’s face split into a wide grin, her eyes squinting with the strength of it as she repeated the answer back to her sister, talking a mile a minute about how we were only going to see that film over The Book of Life because it had her name in the title.

I settled back into my seat easily enough and fiddled with the radio to keep myself from acknowledging my previous leering, hoping that the drive would be over all too quickly. Only, things never typically tended to go my way.

Jerking ever so, my straying gaze snapped back over to where Em was still watching the road, as though all of his attention was stuck there, and that wasn’t his hand on my upper thigh.

It was less than a second later that I let my eyes shift up into the rearview mirror, a breath of relief escaping me when I realised Rosie hadn’t caught the exchange, or see the lines her Dad was crossing.

I licked the back of the teeth and willed myself to relax at the touch, taking a small breath before I looked back over at the man in question. When I did, I found myself narrowing my stare at the slight smirk Marshall wore, apparently rather pleased with the reaction he’d garnered.

Still, my mind was warring with my want. I couldn’t wrap my head around the hot and cold, the way he’d push me away and then pull me in, how I’d thought about leaving to escape the icy shift and then been backed into a wall– literally.

I didn’t push his hand away though, and that in itself spoke volumes.

I couldn’t tell how he meant the touch, was he trying to be teasing? Or was it just a show of reassurance for the unexpected conversation started with Ayla? Had it been something he’d been wanting to do for a while now, or was this all just a game?

He squeezed, ever so slightly.

My eyes slipped closed.

His thumb brushed over the bump of my knee and I let myself melt into the firm hold.

It felt unnatural not to.

The hand didn’t travel, only moved away and then back each time it jumped up to the gearstick. I found myself, once again, wanting the journey to be over, whilst simultaneously hoping that it would never end.

The touch grounded me.

But it pulled away when the theatre came into view.

…

“Can't believe The Marshall Mathers is planning on watching a chick-flick.” I taunted playfully as we made our way up onto the pavement outside the red and gold doors, the joke only made to keep me from wanting to reach out and slide his hand into mine. Because I didn’t do that, I didn’t like all that sappy shit. I didn’t want to be holding his fucking hand, or have him drape his arm around me. It was just the moment, just that kiss fucking with my head.

Marshall feigned a put upon sigh, that hand of his coming up by his brow in an attempt to swoon. “Lord strike me down.”

I laughed outwardly, Rosie glancing back over her shoulder at us as she tugged at the heavy handle. “You’re not looking forward to it, Daddy?”

Shooting me a semi-sour look, Marshall let a lazy smirk crawl over his face just as he reached out to steady the door above Z’s head, “Nah I am, baby. Lia’s jus’ makin’ fun of the big manly guy.”

“Who?” Rosie asked in utter sincerity, enough that it had me cackling outright on the pavement outside. Em shook his head at the two of us, attempting to remain unamused but failing as reaching out to take my hand, tugging me through the open doors.

Z was still looking confused by it all when I managed to calm slightly, but her smile was soft as ever as her eyes lingered over the pair of us. It was then I realised Marshall’s hand was still in mine. He must have realised it too, because he let it go and coughed quietly into his arm before gesturing his chin out towards the concession stands. “So we gettin’ some popcorn or what?”

And with that, Rosie’s sole focus was on getting exactly that.

I ended up trailing after her whilst Marshall went and grabbed us some tickets, keeping an eye on her shorter frame as she weaved around a tall shelf to get a look at the array of sweets. There weren’t too many people about, but I still found myself glancing back over towards Em to see if anyone had sussed him out yet.

“What’re you gonna get?”

My head snapped back at Rosie’s ask, eyes dancing over the grin she bore before flickering between her own. I glanced over the collection the theatre had to offer, surprised by the obvious differences I could see.

“Me and my sister had this thing,” I started to answer, reaching out to pluck a familiar bag from off the hook, “Where each time we would go to the cinema we’d just end up getting a big bucket of popcorn to share and dump a whole load of M&M’s or Magicstars inside. If the popcorn’s still warm the chocolate tends to melt a little.”

Rosie scrunched her nose, either in distaste or just thought. “Sweet or salted?” Was the next question she posed and it hastily reminded me of the same one Marshall had asked that very first night I’d spent with them.

“Salted.” Smirking slightly at the way her eyes lit up.

“You made the right choice.” Z claimed with a nod and wiggled her brows before she spun around the heel of her foot to make her way over to the short line.

We ended up getting a large popcorn to share. At first, I figured it wouldn’t be enough for the three of us until I saw the container we were handed, then I was just beyond baffled at how different the portion sizes were in The States compared to back in London.

Once we’d paid, Rosie and I wandered over to a corner to dump the contents of the chocolate I’d picked up into it, Z having so much fun with it that a good couple dozen of M&M’s rolled over the ugly patterned floor. When Marshall strolled back over, he was wearing a questionable expression but holding onto three tickets.

“Should I even ask?” He quizzed, peering into the overloaded bucket. The look he wore turned somewhat appraising once Z explained and he was quick to steal a taste of our concoction, earning a tap to the arm in rebuke.

“Hey, hands off, bright eyes. Popcorn’s for the trailers, not here.”

“Bright eyes?” Marshall questioned, the left corner of his mouth lifting, but his ask was drowned out by Z’s, “The trailers? Dad always makes us wait ‘til the movie starts!”

I snorted and held out the bucket so that Rosie could take a great big handful, “We’ve long since discovered your Dad’s a little neurotic, lovely. We just gotta love him for it.”

Rosie’s laugh was warm as she peered up at Marshall. But his eyes were caught on me and he almost appeared frozen before Z leaned into his side, “Can we head in now?” She wondered, chewing away.

“Uh, yeah.” Em seemed to stumble, before he blinked and leaned down to press his lips to the top of her head, “Think we made it just in time.”

Love, Rosie was a film I could have lived without watching, I wouldn’t lie. It was like every other Romcom I’d seen a thousand times before. And yet, I loved every single second of it.

We were stationed in the far back, on the side closest to the stairs, Rosie perched between Marshall and I, her legs swinging back and forth. Throughout the whole film her attention remained captured, never wavering as her big doe eyes stayed locked on the screen with such reverence that it warmed my entire being.

Marshall wasn’t much better either, in truth. Something which humoured me to no end. Whenever he wasn’t glancing at me from over the top of Z’s head or stealing the popcorn from out of my hand each time I reached into the bucket, his eyes didn’t stray from the heartfelt scenes as they played out.

It was a strange conclusion to come to, that Marshall loved a good old fashioned Romcom as much as his daughter did, but it was a fact that went and nestled itself in between my ribs, where all the other little quirks the man had went to stay.

It was only as we were leaving, Rosie talking a mile a minute about the ending and how she thought it sucked, that he reached out again in the dimly lit corridor that led us back to the main lobby, only this time he didn’t have the excuse of stealing any popcorn from me when his fingers slipped into mine.

I tried not to show how surprised I was by the action as I looked over at him, grateful that we were the last ones to filter out of the screening room so that no one else noticed when I let my feet slide closer to his so that our shoulders could brush.

They were such simple actions, ones that would be second nature to most people, but that meant a great deal to me. Because see, I’d never really been the type to be overly affectionate, having hated hugs or anything of the sort once Danny had grown too old for them. Well, up until Lottie had come along. And most of the people I’d been with over the years had seemed to struggle with that, even when I’d pushed myself into reciprocating, when I’d forced myself out of my comfort zone to make them happy. But here and now, it felt natural.

Most things with Marshall did, I deemed. Even us arguing.

Our hands parted just before we could step through the end doors, his thumb brushing over my wrist as our eyes adjusted to the vast change in light.

Rosie was rubbing at hers when I glanced over, her too large drink squashed in the crook of her arm. Marshall seemed to follow my gaze because he reached out to loop her into his side not a second later, peering down at her. “I want you takin’ notes, you hear?” He mentioned in reference to the film, his smile now sly, “None of that’s gone be happenin’ in your future, girlie. You wanna get married? I better be dead. And don’t even think ‘bout havin’ no babies ‘til you start gettin’ grey hairs, okay?”

Z rolled her eyes in response to her father's shakedown, shaking her head up at me in silent camaraderie. “You just don't want people to see you cry.” She poked fun, her grin turning evil, “But we all saw the tears when she started her speech, Dad!”

“Lies.” Em scoffed back at her, pushing her away and out of his hold. Rosie didn’t much care though as she laughed her way into mine, head coming to rest on my upper arm.

“Me? I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.” Was the retort she gave him, one that had me snorting on a laugh when Marshall raised a brow and turned towards me.

“Think we left Z inside,” He said, “seems Tony Montana here figures he’s comin’ home with us.”

I couldn’t help the giggles that escaped me at all the references, especially when Rosie pursed her lips and drooped her eyes slightly, holding her arms out wide like Al Picino did in the famous movie, “Last time you gonna see a bad guy like me.”

Even Em couldn’t hold back the large snort he made at the little act she’d put on for us, shaking his head at her antics before he pointed a finger at her, “Last time you watch a movie with me, I swear.”

Rosie’s jaw dropped just a tad, “But it’s Scarface!”

“Exactly.” Was the only reply Marshall gave.

I lifted a hand to give Z’s shoulder a squeeze, smiling stupidly when she wrapped an arm around my waist to pull me into a lazy hug. The pair of them continued with their little face-off though until I was promptly reminded of the thing that had been bugging me throughout the end of the film, “Go and head out to the car, Tony. Those petrol cans you lot call drinks had me needing to pee like yesterday.”

Amused, Marshall shook his head at the comment, though his eyes were fond when he reached out to steer Rosie back over to him, “You need us to hang about, or?”

Rolling my eyes at his protective streak, I smiled and simply waved him off. “I’m sure I’ll survive a trip to the loo’s. I’ll try to make it quick.”

His lips thinned slightly but he acquiesced easily enough, navigating Z over towards the exit whilst I slipped into the nearest corridor dotted with bathroom signs. I was beyond grateful when I found the line not to be too long, just an older woman waiting for the end stall to free as well as a mother and her baby stood by the sink.

It was only once I’d dried my hands and fixed my hat in the mirror that I felt a slight prickle on the back of my neck. I looked up as the bathroom door swung shut behind the young mother to find a new face stood off to the right just behind me. I caught their eye in the reflection and felt my own snap back down rather quickly, pretending to not notice their sudden fixation as I casually wiped down the front of my hoodie and turned to leave.

It was a cough and then a light ‘Excuse me’ that had me glancing back on instinct, only to find the same girl suddenly right there. I blinked in shock at her sudden proximity and rocked back on my foot to put a bit of space between us, but the smile I gave her wasn’t unkind.

“Sorry,” She apologised, seeming to realise, though she didn’t look all that sheepish, even with having accosted me in the theatre’s tiny bathroom, “Just, can I get a picture and like, an autograph maybe? I spotted you by the register earlier, but lost you in the crowd.”

I never minded the odd signature and a picture was done easily enough too, but Detroit was currently supposed to be my best kept secret and knowing that this girl had already spotted me, likely with Em, didn’t do much to ease the sudden anxiety I started to feel.

Still, I grinned, unable to turn her down, “Sure thing, maybe we can grab it outside though? I doubt you’d want a selfie in the loo’s.” I tried for a light chuckle and was pleased when she laughed around an excited nod, exhaling slowly.

So we headed out of the bathroom and I posed for a picture against the white wall there, smile drooping a little the longer she kept snapping away, having gathered a little under thirty or so different photo variations. I ended up signing her phone case for her afterwards though and was thankful when nobody else seemed to crop up and spot me.

It was just as I’d done dotting the i in my name that she shifted ever so.

“I never thought I’d get to meet you, but really, you’re like one of my favourite artists. I think I know your whole album off by heart.”

My anxiety eased at her sweet words and my smile was sincere when I handed her phone back to her. “That’s really lovely to hear. I know getting to see some of you guys here in The States is always a little up and down because of touring, so I’m just glad we got to meet.” I assured her kindly before lightly teasing, “Never had someone say hello to me in the toilets of a cinema though. Guess there’s a first time for everything.”

She laughed loudly and gave me a light shrug, “I’d say I was sorry again but I really didn’t wanna miss you, especially when I saw you out there with your boyfriend.”

My mouth went dry at her words, but the girl didn’t seem to notice, continuing to ramble on.

“Was that his sister with you guys, or yours? I know you have one, right? People say she’s a lot younger than you, but then they also claim she’s your kid too. The internet is so crazy sometimes. Still, he’s real cute from what I saw! Are you telling people about you guys soon or keeping it lowkey?”

I was grasping at straws trying to find words. To simply recall my media training and the lengthy speeches Mila had given me. But nothing sprung to mind. It was like a cesspit full of disease that ate each and every thought that attempted to grow.

“I don’t mind not saying anything to anyone if you don’t want me to.” The girl tacked on shortly after and I would have figured that she had quickly gathered that she’d caught me by total surprise there, but she was looking at me so closely that I could easily tell it wasn’t anything of the sort. It was like an eagle scoping out their prey.

“Um,” I swallowed, before finally plastering on something like a smile, “No, it’s– He’s not my boyfriend, just a– a family friend. But yeah, I’d prefer it if you didn’t mention it. At all. Please.”

Her eyes were wide when she nodded back at me, but her lips were curled into an insincere sort of grin that plucked my anxiety straight back up out of the cage I’d wrangled it into.

“Of course, you can count on me.” It was with that in which she tugged me into a hug that had her hand settling on my waist, before I forced myself to step back.

I knew my smile had to have been less than flattering by that point, but I nodded anyway and waved at her as I backed down the hallway and crossed the lobby in a light jog, pulling my hat down lower over my face. It was only once I’d made it through the exit doors that I hurried to swallow the cold air that immediately hit me, throwing a startled glance back over my shoulder when the doors opened again, grateful to note that it wasn’t the same girl.

My eyes scanned the parking lot and it was a second later that I saw Marshall step out of the car parked across the street, his face furrowed under the shadow of his cap as he waved me over. I went, but something must have shown on my own face because he moved to meet me halfway, extending a hand out towards my arm the second he could.

He dipped his chin to catch my eye when we came to a stop and I wondered why he suddenly looked so uneasy. “What happened?”

My eyes snapped up to meet his and I blinked, still somewhat startled, “Nothing, it’s fine.”

“It’s ain’t.” He insisted, “You look like you’re gone be sick.”

I blew out another heavy breath and forced myself to calm the fuck down, “Honest, it was nothing. Just me overreacting.”

Marshall levelled me with a look before he sighed, “I know you. You don’t over-fucking-react like this. What went on?”

“Marsh, please. It was just a weird, I don’t know, encounter.” I tried, attempting to look past him to the car, “A fan that said was a bit too friendly, you know?”

I watched his jaw twitch. “What, in the bathroom?”

I sighed and lifted a hand up to rub at my cheek, “Just, can we leave it? Please. I just wanna go home. I’ll tell you then.”

Marshall watched me for a long second and for a moment I really thought he was going to argue, that he’d push, but instead he just gave a minute nod and wrapped an arm around me to lead us back to the car.

Surprisingly, Em didn’t head straight for the passenger side door and so I was greeted by the bright grin of a lovely little face when he ushered me into the backseat, seemingly knowing I needed a friendly face right then.

“What took you so long!” Rosie exclaimed the second she saw me, already shuffling over to make room whilst Marshall helped me inside, lingering a second longer to make sure that I really was fine before shutting the door and moving towards the drivers side.

“There was a long line,” I dragged out with a teasing smile whilst Em started the engine, “Think someone had a bad batch of nachos or something.”

Rosie’s face wrinkled into a grimace at my words and so when I met Marshall’s heavy stare in the rearview mirror the anxiety I felt was already starting to ebb. He gifted me a soft smile and it was then that I knew how well and truly fucked I was, because my heart stuttered.

…

The peace didn’t seem to last long though.

Not when I woke up the next morning to a thousand different notifications and my face plastered all over TMZ.

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