EVERYONE EVERYWHERE JUST THIS ONCE
Main Masterlist ❀ Soldier Boy Masterlist ⋆ ˚｡⋆ PAIRING Soldier Boy/Ben x f!SupeReader ⋆ ˚｡⋆ SUMMARY Are you hearing voices? That's nothing to worry about! Even the greatest heroes of America have them. Except if they're Starlighters. Call 2-800-122-8585 to report yourself now, and we'll remove those traitorous voices for you for free!
CW / TAGS Crackfic-Angst | 18+! The Boys styled Ben's POV | Having watched S5 is recommended ! | E6 fix fic? (you BET!) | Ben's kinda losing it | Manipulation | SMUT ! | Drugs | Psycho-Horror Elements | (almost?) Love confession | Unreliable Narrator | Dark Humor | Timejumps | Mention of Nazis | We do NOT support Stormfront/Clara but fix the sheit out of this mess | No use of Y/N | SB's his own warning tag
English is not my native language and I haven’t written in over two months. Pls bear with me
⋆ ˚｡⋆ WORDS ~9k (don't ask)
⋆ ˚｡⋆ J/NOTES I'M ALIVE. And stealth dropping this patchwork piece. I was screaming at our tv screen after ep. 6 (haven't seen the new ones yet). This epsiode season needed fixing ASAP. (Is it far fetched and confusing? Perhaps. but at this point, fanfic Ben's less ooc than the canon one, right?)
“You know, Clara used to say the craziest shit.”
Soldier Boy says her name. Always her name.
But the face that’s meant to be before his inner eyes? The voice that’s still somewhere buried inside his messed up head? It’s not Clara. Not Liberty. Not Stormfront, or whatever the fuck they’d called her.
It’s yours.
And if even one shred of your shared memory was still untouched, he’d know it’s always been you. In all of them.
None of this will make a lick of sense though, so let’s scrub back to how it all started.
Ever since Soldier Boy was defrosted, again, things were fucked up.
And it’s not just how, soon as he’s out of the fridge, he’s been sent to the fucking woodchipper thanks to a supe killing virus, which is apparently a thing now. Or how his asexual weirdo son’s only way of getting his dick wet is by bathing in tit-jizz. Or how everyone at Vought wants to crawl up said weirdo’s shithole, preaching he’s God.
It’s worse than that.
It’s inside his head.
He says "it" when muttering in front of the vanity mirror like he’s a soft pussy on fucking meth, but what he really means, is a voice.
And here’s the thing; That voice isn’t actually talking. There’s no words, nothing he could argue with and shut down.
But it’s there.
Since he’s back.
He knows it is - he can feel it hovering behind him, breathing next to his ear. It’s a rotting corpse in the trenches right behind his conscious mind. Right out of reach. Or else he would’ve throttled it by now. He’s tried that in his dreams; His fingers curl around the faceless figure, squeezing it until it gives in with that satisfying sound of a crushed egg.
But the moment his eyes snap open? You are there again.
And that was really starting to piss him off. Which said a lot, considering Soldier Boy’s lived through the whiff-and-snort sixties without his brain ever dribbling out of his fuckin’ ears. He’d snorted it all; cocaine, LSD, gasoline - you name it, it crossed his nose. Never did jack shit to him.
But this?
He swears, he’s going to lose his fucking mind.
Which has led him to only one conclusion; this must be a farewell gift of the Reds.
“Can Elmo tell you a secret?”
Now that voice is not coming from inside his head. Ben had the TV running some random bullshit show in the background, hoping it would drown out whatever he’s dealing with at the moment. So far, it has done nothing more than shift his annoyance – which he’ll take as a win.
From his angle, he can see just enough of the TV screen to judge their stupid faces.
“Sure, little dude,” Andy Samberg beams with the enthusiasm of somebody whose ballsack’s being held hostage by a mousetrap. Ben sneers at the thought. “Secrets are healthy!”
“Like how your balls’re in the pincers?” Ben barbs from the bathroom.
Andy leans down for the fuzzy orange puppet to whisper next to his ear.
“Sometimes Elmo hears voices that tell Elmo things.”
“Well, is it the voice of Homelander?”
“No…”
Andy’s lips twitch into a tight smile. “Ooff, buddy. Looks like the Starlighters got into your head.”
A laugh track erupts – the same moment doors slam open off screen, two Vought security guards storm on set.
“What the f–” The Elmo puppet gets violently yanked out of the frame as the puppeteer screams somewhere under the stage. “Wait, wait! I didn’t post that meme– Andy! Please– tell ‘em!”
Andy sucks in a breath and turns back to the camera with a shaky smile.
“Remember, kids! See something, say something! Even if it’s your best friend.”
“And you still don’t fuckin’ listen.”
How parents let their kids watch these whacko shows nowadays is beyond him. Back in his day, they at least had perky pin-up girls for their propaganda. He turns on the tab, splashes some water into his face. He thinks back of those perfect million-dollar legs of Betty Grable, and how they’d bounced on his shoulders when he’d railed her on the producer’s desk. Good fuckin’ times.
“Oi, you cunt. I said, you never fuckin’ listen to me.”
Ben’s grin dies.
The TV keeps spewing some happy kid’s show melody. Only that this time, the voice didn’t come from the television.
Ben’s face snaps up towards the mirror – then he freezes.
There’s a man standing behind him.
He quickly turns to look over his shoulder just to be met with the golden towel rack on the wall.
“You never loved ‘er,” you drawl in a thick British accent from behind him. Ben’s head turns back.
The guy’s still there, inside his mirror; Black hair, black trenchcoat, a Hawaiian shirt.
“Butcher?” his eyes go wide, his upper lip twitches. “You fucking bastard betrayed me–”
“Betray ya?” you cut him short, “And what about me? You completely forgot about me, didn’t ya?”
“Get out of my fucking head,” Ben growls and swings his arm to smash the mirror. Butcher’s face shatters.
It effectively makes him vanish, just for another figure to pop up on the opposite side.
“Ooh, but mon Petit Soldat, no can do. You need to pull your dick out of your ass and–” More glass crumbles beneath Soldier Boy’s knuckles.
“–and stop fucking around with Clara.” This time Hughie pipes up from the upper corner of the still intact mirror.
“I’m not–” Ben clenches his teeth, the jaw muscle ticking under his beard when he sees that pussy’s face looking down at him, “I fucked her maybe once or twice. That’s all.”
“Are you… sure?”
Hughie’s eyebrows do that thing like he knows something Ben doesn’t, and all it does is make him remember why he’s always wanted to punch that kid in the face.
“Get. The fuck. Out,” Ben grits out. His fist smashes the spot where his knuckles would have connected with his nose. It explodes into more pieces.
Silence.
Ben huffs through his nose. Roughly combs the damp hair back and out of his face.
His eyes dart up into the last unscathed corner when he senses more movement.
It’s… a bird? In fact, it’s America’s mascot— his mascot; wearing the green helmet and all. There’s even the American Flag rising in slow motion behind the cracks.
“I’m inside your head, Ben,” the eagle says in his own comic-voice, then its beak cracks wide open, blinding him with a row of very unnaturally shiny human teeth, “I must know.”
Christ on a stake. He’s losing it.
Ben stormed out of the bathroom without even taking the rest of the mirror down. He scrambles for the phone, the cable one next to his bed – his hands are too shaky for the flimsy little pocket buzzer – he pauses. Looks down at his free hand hovering in the air. It’s unsteady.
The moment the call connects, Soldier Boy’s grip tightens around the handset.
“Get me a bowl full of cocaine. Pronto.”
If cocaine could still make him as high as any normal person, he’d be up in the fucking stratosphere right now, painting the sky white with his spunk.
He had just gone through powder worth 200 grand like it’s nothing. Soldier Boy drops back into the couch with a satisfied groan. He lazily wipes the dust off his nose and beard, while his other hand fondles the bulge between his legs. It’s getting uncomfortably tight down there – just like he’d hoped. With his dick rock hard and his head buzzing to the sound of Colombia, he’d call his plan a success so far.
Time to bust a nut.
While he lets Firecracker ride him, he allows his eyes to slide close, enjoying the blissful state of absolutely-fucking-nada filling his head. He doesn’t even bother to play his part. He just lets her bounce on his dick like a pathetic bunny in heat.
After all, this works like a fucking charm.
Until it doesn’t.
Once Firecracker rolls off him with a cry of ecstasy, Soldier Boy reaches for his joint and hums, feeling absolutely confident in his victory.
“Oi, you done with lyin’ there like a dead nun?”
Soldier Boy’s irritation flares up.
“The fuck’s that supposed to mean, huh?” He asks, annoyed. Clearly his focus is on the blunt he’d prepared on the bedside table, because if he’d spare the girl that just got him off a single glance, he’d see her confused look.
“What?” Firecracker questions.
Soldier Boy turns to watch her slip under the covers next to him. The voice goes on.
“Now, why don’t you boot the girl and you and me can go back to our proper lil’ chinwag?”
Soldier Boy’s teeth grind down, the blunt snaps in half.
You are still there.
The elevator dings. He says a few words to Sister Sage, but doesn’t really listen.
The following days go by in a blur. He’s learned to endure and ignore you like a yapping dog from the neighbours. A very, very, annoying little Commie bitch-dog with a knack for doing his head in.
Which he can’t kick. Or stomp. Or crush. Or throttle. Or–
Truth is, each minute feels like he’s getting closer to turning into one of those twitchy fucking flower people. Except that he doesn’t assfuck to the voice of Jimi Hendrix, and he hasn’t met God yet, either. And no, a meetup with his overgrown baby gravy does not qualify as a Godly intervention in his book, even if there seems to be no ceiling to how much of a wackjob he is.
At least he, unlike that asswipe, doesn't let any of that get to him.
Sure, you’re still there. And yes, he hasn’t found a way yet to smother you for good. But he’s been through worse.
So, Soldier Boy strides out of the elevator, his chin held high, face as neutral as ever.
If it wasn’t for his calm exterior, he’s convinced that Cleopatra Jones back there would be balls deep up in his business right now. Not that he’d give two fucks about Sister Sage and the way her eyes try to laser a hole into the back of his skull. To make that work, you’d need to be able to read his mind — tough luck, sister.
Although, the thought of letting her skinny-dip in his fucked up brain juice for just a minute, does put a leer on his face.
That is, until it’s overwritten by a mildly annoyed frown.
Soldier Boy rubs the side of his palm against his temple. What’s that throbbing sensation inside his skull? A sudden jolt makes him stumble for a second and catch himself with his arm braced against the wall.
The hell was that?
“Where’s that fucking powder...” he grumbles to himself, while emptying each of his pockets in vain. He digs his knuckles into his pounding forehead until the feeling fizzles out.
He’s pissed off at his own body.
Soldier Boy doesn’t get ‘a headache’. He doesn’t even get a head-scratch. The strongest supe doesn’t get sick—
His dick’s pulsing. His hips stutter, hands grasping at flesh and bones.
He knows this room. Or at least he thinks he does. The sheets smell familiar, the music’s too. But the details blur when he tries to grab them. Was this in New York? In Berlin? Why the fuck can’t he remember?
A pair of tits jiggle above him. He wants to grope them, bury his beard between them – no, wait.
He doesn’t have a beard yet.
He wants to feel the smooth skin of his jaws under the touch of fingernails.
“Fuck– yes! That’s it!” He can’t make out the voice. But it sounds familiar, too.
He feels the warm body arch beneath him, then go slack. He wraps an arm around it, rests his chin right above the tits. He lets his eyes trail over the curves and bumps, lets himself breathe it all in. He loves that familiar scent that’s clouding his mind. It made– it still makes him feel stupidly fuzzy inside. He can’t help it, even as he scoffs to his younger self at how much of a wuzzy he’s become in the arms of—
Huh, the name’s escaped him.
A hand that has threaded into the back of his hair, draws his attention up. The fingers begin to comb his short strands. The tender touch makes his eyes flutter.
“Mein Übermensch…” the voice coos.
Uh-huh, he hears himself think, whatever the fuck makes you nut, but don’t stop what you’re doin’.
“You only love me, don’t you?” She asks. And damn, she’s demanding.
He recognizes her now. Clara. But he still can’t put together when this happened.
Meanwhile, his memory-self’s immediate response is Yes, only you.
Now that makes Ben halt the scene right there.
Sure, alright. He’d fucked the nazi bitch two times. Two! They were both high as fuck and she had a nice pair of tits along with a superiority complex that somehow scratched his ego just the right way.
He scrubs the memory back, but it starts to slip him the more he tries to focus on it. At least the images do. The emotions on the other hand slap him in the face like the wet dick of Gary Busey — hard, fucking ugly and definitely out of place.
Because the moment Clara’s face comes into view, his chest aches so fucking much. He can’t place the feeling. It’s as if he’s about to lose something real important to him.
Soldier Boy groans when he pushes off the hallway’s wall again.
The images which had flashed across his inner eyes are gone the next moment. His fingers pinch the bridge of his nose. It lasted no more than a few seconds, but felt like so much more.
Where the hell did that just come from? Is this some kinda after-effect of my time in the freezer? Did the Commies fuck with my memories?
And how the fuck could I forget about Clara?
Ever since Soldier Boy’s regained a new piece of his past, he’s become obsessed with it.
“It”, not being the voice in his head any longer –that one finally pissed off–, but Clara.
There’s so much that irritates him about this whole new development.
Him and Clara? Not just the fucking and the drinking and riding it out on the roof of the Ritz-Carlton, but more?
All he wants to do is shrug it off as some weird shit that’s happened between them while his head was stuffed with nose candy. He wants to ignore the thought that maybe, the Reds didn’t plant something new into his brain, but maybe, they’d ripped something open which he’d buried himself. Ben wants nothing but to ignore the way he gets yanked around by the inside of his chest whenever he recalls that new memory. At this point he’d even prefer you chewing off his ear over this sweet sticky crap he’s got to deal with now.
He hates that feeling. He’s not a pussy for Christ’s sake. In fact, he wouldn’t even know what to do with it when shoved down his throat. All of that fuzzy-buzzy crap, like staring at a picture with those longing eyes of a lovesick puppy – that’s for the weak and the ladies.
As if to prove his point, Soldier Boy kicks a thick branch out of the dirt with a lot more force than needed. It cannonballs into the horizon.
With the victorious grunt of a caveman, he continues his path through the woods, taking point with his weirdo son glued to his ass.
Soldier Boy would have turned over every desk and tore apart every computer at Vought in search for more information about Clara. Anything that helps him get rid of this disgusting new feeling that’s been lodged within his ribs. But he couldn’t risk Homelander returning successfully from Fort Harmony. His annoying knuckle child becoming immortal is the least thing he’d need right now.
The fact that they’re marching towards the place where everything began, is not really helping either. Even if Soldier Boy wouldn’t ever admit how just the large letters spelling out “Fort Harmony Medical Department” coming into view, winds him tighter than he already is.
A twig snaps under his boot. He exchanges some sarcastic quips with Homelander while they walk up to the building resting behind the trees, but in reality, his mind wanders elsewhere again.
What really gets to him is the idea that there’s more of his past. So much more, that his body reacts to it against his own will. The feeling of her touch, her scent, her love – it’s strangely real, even for something he still denies. Clara. That name holds so much more weight now. So much more history he’s been robbed of, whether he likes it or not. And even if every fibre of his body fights his emotions tied to that memory, he cannot help but wonder; What else is he missing?
The idea has latched onto him like a tick. Taking hold of every thought.
He just has to know.
As if reading his mind, Homelander suddenly points out that, “The other day, when Clara Vought’s name came up, I had the impression you knew her.”
But unlike his son, Ben has no intention of sharing that new obsession with him.
Therefore, Soldier Boy once again answers with his standard phrase, “I fucked her maybe once or twice. That’s all.”
Still, Homelander yaps on. “You did? I guess we’re related in more ways than one.” Soldier Boy’s muscles coil up more with every word wasted between them. The thought of his own fucking son being anywhere close to Clara has no room in his mind.
It does open a new question though. If she’s still alive then–
“Where is she?”
Homelander glances back at him.
“Dead,” he answers flatly, “Suicide.”
Soldier Boy stops dead in his tracks. She’s immortal like him. She has to be out there.
“Horseshit,” he growls, his eyes narrowing when Homelander just keeps walking. “She’d never off herself.”
“Yeah, well, she did,” he says simply. Soldier Boy’s shoulders tense up. That goddamn hook in his chest dragging his emotions into the open again. And with it, that tick spews new ideas into his system – he doesn’t even know where they’re coming from. New thoughts to latch onto. New hope.
She must still be out there, right? Maybe Clara’s waiting for him, holding all the answers. The way he was waiting to be saved while the Reds fucking burned and prodded him.
“Did you see a body?” he shouts after him, but is left with no answer.
Soldier Boy wants to go after him, wants to grip his shoulder and beat the truth out of that pathetic cape-sack.
Instead, he staggers.
He braces himself against a nearby tree, the pounding behind his eyes growing stronger. He slaps himself against the forehead. Then shakes his head, hoping it might rattle some cogs loose–
Music plays from a phonograph. Blue and red striped bedsheets are twisted around his legs. He’s leaned against the headrest.
“You know, I could get you some,” his young-self says while watching the smoke curl up towards the ceiling. A body shifts next to him. He can’t remember which girl it is that he’d hooked up with this time.
“Am I not perfect enough?” She answers in a distinctive accent.
Right. Now he remembers. Immortal. She’s immortal like him — Why the hell did you fuckin’ idiot even consider getting her V1?
She hums something, and suddenly she’s rolled halfway onto his body to look down at him.
“Huh?” Ben frowns up at the bright silhouette above him. It takes him a moment to make out her face, like a polaroid picture that’s still gaining colour and shape.
“Thinking of your future, hm?” she repeats. Once Ben’s eyes have focused, his frown deepens.
“Clara?” he utters her name in slight confusion and if he wouldn’t know any better, he’d say the memory-Clara reacts to it.
Ben stills. Was that just him now or him back then talking?
Up until now, the room had felt warm and familiar. The music in the background, the sweetish scent of vanilla mixed with the musk of sex. It’s just like the first time; The emotional pull is there, he just cannot quite figure out why the visuals don’t match up in his head.
But now the room temperature just dropped.
“Benjamin,” she says firmly, a hand snaking down between his legs to regain his attention. And she gets it, both of his versions’. He feels himself tense up in response – huh, that’s not the reaction he’d expected. For some reason, it doesn’t sit well with him that she’s pressed herself against him like that. Is this still part of the memory? He can’t tell anymore where this thing starts and where his present ends.
Clara doesn’t seem to mind either way cause she goes on with that special lilt of hers. “You’re the strongest Supe alive. You don’t get to deal with mortality.”
He doesn’t get how these memories work. One moment he’s a spectator, the next he’s shoved on set without a script or any idea what the fuck he’s even doing here.
“Perhaps,” Ben grunts nonchalantly and shrugs. He’s trying his damndest to ignore how his dick twitches between her slender fingers. Aren’t we supposed to fuck now?
Clara finally closes her grip around him, after she’s lifted herself fully up to perch on his bare chest. “You’re not a man.” She commends, squeezing him with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. He’s not a fan of the way her lips curl – the fluttering thing in the pit of his stomach disagrees vehemently. “You’re the greatest expression of what humanity can offer.”
Soldier Boy stares back at her, brows pulled together. He may like the sound of that, but frankly speaking, she could dangle the sweetest pussy in front of his face right now and he’d still rather go for that bowl of white powder that’s waiting in his real-present-selves loft right now. This brain-scrambling nonsense was getting him nowhere – fine, on a second thought, maybe he’ll let her finish him off first. It’d be a shame to let a wet memory-dream-whatever-the -fuck this is, go to waste, right? – but then he’s done here.
Just when he’d let a small groan form in the back of his throat, he almost chokes on it.
Clara’s face flickers. Like radio static.
All of a sudden, a different voice cuts in – it’s out of sync with Clara’s still moving lips, and it’s distorted, fragile – but he can make some of it out.
“Listen—- don’t—- it’s me, Stargate–”
He blinks. And you’re gone.
“Right,” he finally says, although he’s not sure anymore what the conversation was even about. Neither does he care.
His mind’s racing now. It’s grappling with his memory as it refuses to let the name click into place; Stargate.
He repeats it.
Notices a strange feeling beneath his skin when he does – like he’s high on some new fuckin’ drug – so he keeps doing it. Stargate, Stargate, Stargate.
As if the woman that’s straddling his chest can sense his shift of emotions, she suddenly leans down to catch his lips in a kiss. It breaks into his mind. The memory sinks its claws into him, turns hungry and wild and – off.
Soldier Boy’s already walking down the halls of Fort Harmony when he’s snapped back. Homelander’s talking next to him, apparently they are mid-argument.
If only he knew what the fuck just happened.
Ben was convinced that regaining more of his memories would feel, I don’t know, good? That it would bring him the answers he was looking for. Maybe even give him a purpose in this modern world, where so far he’s just been made to feel like a really handsome relic.
It has done nothing more than confuse him even more.
First Clara. Then Stargate. Were you the thing the Commies had stuffed into his skull? The vault that keeps him from regaining his memories?
No. That doesn’t make any sense. (As if anything still made sense at this point.) The sound of your voice, of your name, it triggered something in him. He can’t quite grasp it, but it’s there. See? That’s why he hates this whole ‘touchy-feely’ crap. There’s nothing for him to work with. Just another hazy notion which he’d gladly trade for a grenade or a stroll through a minefield.
Unfortunately, Fort Harmony offers him neither.
After sending his annoying son to the time out, Soldier Boy’s roaming the ruins of the Medical Department, in search for the V1, and for answers. Mainly for answers.
He’s digging through old papers, the dust swirling up into the air making him cough.
Nothing. No V1, no clues.
He curses – moves to the desk instead, where he yanks the drawers right out of their sockets. The wood clatters, its innards spilling across the cold floor. He steps over it, eyes scanning the papers.
There must at least be something about Stargate here. Anything - anything at all. Did he just make you up in his head?
His boot kicks over another pile of Vought files. All he’s greeted with is the black and white picture of his old teammates. They seem to judge him even from the floor. He ignores it and moves to a different desk.
If you’re a Supe old enough to show up in his early memories, then you must’ve been jabbed in this place.
Yet, there’s nothing.
He swings his arm into the side of the table, flipping it over and into a row of lockers.
“Fuck!” he shouts. His voice echoes off the cold walls. He turns on the spot, yells at nothing particular when a hint of desperation seeps through his voice. “C’mon, talk to me, damnit!”
Nothing.
“You’ve been riding my face for two fuckin’ weeks and now you just fuck off?!”
Silence.
His hopes lie in the dust. The darkness swallows what’s left.
You’re not here anymore. Hell, maybe you never were.
CLINK.
His attention snaps to the open doorway. “Stargate?” he blurts, almost hopeful.
Only to be met with – who the fuck’s that guy? He stares at him, wide eyed. Then he sticks his tongue out before he makes a break for it.
It takes Ben a moment to process what just happened. But his instincts kick in naturally and he gives chase.
His boots thunder down the hallways, down the stairs, further down into the lower level of the building. That midget is fast, he’s gotta hand it to him. Finally he’s got him cornered, skidding to a halt in front of the basement.
His eyes widen slightly. His focus is drawn to a mangled body that’s merged with the wall, sprouting vines and ooze.
“My God. Quinn,” Ben mutters in disbelief.
He wanted to find the V1 and destroy it. Wanted to find you – Or at least a trace of your existence. Just enough proof that you were real.
But all he’s got to stumble upon is Quinn. That piece of shit.
You still looking for her?
“The fuck’d you say?” Ben growls, but Quinn barely manages to twitch a bulging eye. The guy forgotten in the corner, Frenchie, squints, looking back and forth between the two.
She’s not here. She never was.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Ben grits out between his clenched teeth. He wants to shout more, but a flash of searing pain splitting his skull in half, forces his eyes to squeeze shut.
He just blinked. But now the cool basement is gone.
“What the fuck…”
Ben slowly turns his head, takes in the white walls and its soft shadows, the fairy lights hanging off the rack, the twisted sheets on the bed. He takes a slow step into the room, testing the floorboards – then halts, his eyes locking with those of a plush monkey. He slightly tilts his head, and for fucks sakes, there’s more of them on every surface, and they’re all staring back at him with their dead eyes.
“Ben..? Is that really you?” The soft voice has his focus shift to the end of the room.
There she sits. Tied down to the chair in that skintight red suit, just like he’d last seen her. That same old wretched face.
So, that’s what this is. Another memory. This is getting ridiculous. He knows this memory, nothing new to discover here – so he decides to snap out of it.
But he’s still here.
The fuck?
And of course, the unasked for details of that moment come crashing down on him now. Ben’s jaw tightens. As it seems, his body cannot tell the difference, because he’s not just remembering this, he’s reliving the moment.
“You killed me,” Crimson Countess accuses and gets him to look at her.
Ben doesn’t move, knowing she’s right. Instead, a weight forms on his chest. The shit he keeps buried starts digging its way back up. Again.
“You said you hated me.” Ben’s hurt is thinly veiled when he speaks.
“We all did,” she spits each word like venom. That makes Ben pause.
“So, I deserved to be tortured and pumped with poison for forty years like some fucking lab rat. Is that what you’re saying?” he asks, and he doesn’t even realize how pained he looks when voicing the million-dollar question.
No – he doesn’t care. He has to know. He has to know whether he’s really “the greatest expression of what humanity can offer” or he’s just an asshole that deserves to rot in Hell. Probably both–
“Ben. Don’t listen to her.”
Ben jolts. Because Crimson Countess’ red lips move, but no voice comes out, like she’s been muted. Hold on – this time, he recognizes the voice.
“Stargate?” he calls out your name. His head whirls around, but no one else is there. Then something moves in his peripheral vision.
Slowly, one of the monkeys has its head turned to face him.
“The fu–” Ben doesn’t even get to finish a curse, when another monkey slowly cranes its neck back. Followed by the ugly as sin one hanging off the rack. And another, and another. A wall full of plush monkeys with the aura of a creepy doll collection.
Ben takes a tentative step back. Each one of them adjusts their stitched beady eyes to keep them locked onto him.
Then, the monkeys all begin to chatter one after the other, like a TV that’s switching channels. Every time ripping open another stitched mouth, sputtering stuffing as they throw chopped up words at him and expect him to catch them all.
“Remember-–”
“This isn’t–”
“She’s corrupting your–”
“—and my face–”
“Don’t give the–”
CRACK.
They – you – go silent all at once.
Their fuzzy bodies begin buzzing on the spot just as the walls begin to shake. Ben has to steady himself for a moment, the back of his knees bumping into the bedframe behind him. When he looks up again, the stuffed animals are leaking something crimson from their eyes.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Hey– keep talking to me!” he demands but is cut short as each one of them explodes into a puff of red glitter.
Ben stands there.
Glitter’s raining down on him. He’s muttering a hoarse, “Jesus fuckin’ Christ” while he’s trying to scrub the panic out of his face. But apparently, he doesn’t get a break.
Something’s touching his foot.
“Fuck!” Ben shouts, and in a knee-jerk reaction spins around to stomp down on whatever’s latched onto his ankle. A sickening squelching crack echoes off the walls. But the sound wouldn’t be reason enough for him to suddenly go rigid.
It’s when he recognizes the maimed body that’s crawled out from beneath the bed, now pinned beneath his boot. At least what’s left of it – it’s more of a lump of meat with stubs for what once were limbs and a few loose strands of black hair that stick to its skull.
Clara rolls her head on its own axis until her eyes meet his. Ben’s breath stops for a moment.
“You wouldn’t ever forget about us,” she says, and smiles. In every broken way, she curls her lips further than naturally possible, “right, Benjamin?”
Ben doesn’t say anything. He can’t. He can’t breathe anymore.
“But–”
Ben’s head snaps around as Crimson chimes in in a distorted voice, like she’s just joining a conversation.
“Why did you burn me? You said you loved mmmeee—” the word stretches on, warbling in a slow, sickening way.
Meanwhile Ben watches with a stony expression how Crimson Countess’ face begins to rip into long stripes, her skin peeling back to reveal a charcoal body beneath. Then, a white, blinding light floods the room. The silhouette of what was Crimson, then Clara, then Quinn – it’s all burning.
Ben doubles over when the darkness of the basement spits him out again. He’s clutching his knees, chest heaving, struggling for air.
“Fuck. I’m so fucking sorry,” he mutters between his labored breaths.
Once Ben looks up, he is met with the burnt remains of what once was Quinn’s mangled body fused with the wall. He killed him too.
Maybe that’s what’s happening to him.
He’s the undertaker of his own grave. He’s planned his own burial alive without realizing it.
His entire past – his memories, his relationships, his purpose – it’s all crumbling to dust, piece by piece. Soon he’ll be the last one standing. Locked into this mess of a head of his.
You thought you wouldn’t die alone? Pathetic.
The words echo off the cold walls. Then the voice fucking laughs. Maybe Quinn’s. Maybe yours. Hell, maybe his own. He can’t tell anymore – it doesn’t change anything.
He will die alone. If he can die at all, that is.
And worst is, he fucking deserves it.
“Just do it already,” Ben husks out. But Homelander, who's back from his corner, doesn’t move, just hovers in the doorway. Ben’s shoulders hunch when he realizes how his words came out unusually broken and wet. He really is pathetic.
He’s still here.
Alive. Alone. Potato, fucking potato.
Soldier Boy hasn’t slept since they’ve returned from Fort Harmony. The question, why he’s still here, is tearing him apart. And frankly, he has passed the point of trying to deny it, or at least he would, if anybody asked.
He still can’t get you out of his head. Although you’d stopped talking to him days ago. The only exception being when you’d possessed a collection of monkeys in his fucked up brain. He keeps replaying the words you’d said then, over and over. As if it will jumpstart a new thought, or trigger a new memory if he just tries hard enough. The bitter truth is, he still knows jack shit about you.
He thinks he should know. No, that’s not right. It’s more like… he feels something, like he should remember. Which, once again, is an odd thing to say when you’re as emotionally constipated as Soldier Boy.
Which is why he’d rather not risk opening that pandora’s box further.
So, suck it up and onwards it is. And thanks to Homelander, that path leads him across half of America to visit Los Angeles. He fucking hates Los Angeles.
But it still beats the alternative.
If he knew, that by the end of his day, he was going to end up bombshell-throwing Seth Rogan and spilling baby oil to catch a speedster, he would’ve probably – actually, no. Soldier Boy would’ve absolutely picked Los Angeles over another fucking fieldtrip to monkey-memory-land.
And what’s more, he would’ve missed out on the old Soldier Boy comic he’s eyeing with a smug smirk right now. The fresh blood splatter tainting his comic self crimson, doesn’t bother him. In fact, it kinda adds to the Kraut-hunter flair. He chuckles to himself at the thought, pocketing it.
Just as he turns, a picture between the collection of Nazi plates catches his attention. He steps closer, brows furrowing.
It’s Clara. At this point she’s haunting him wherever he goes.
Well. If he’d ever been looking for clues about her existence, he’d be holding the key in his hands now.
Unfortunately, that’s not the thing that’s bothering him when looking at her. If he can trust anything of the recollection he has gained so far, or more like, the emotional package that came with it, Clara was special to him. He’s accepted that much by now. But all that happens when he turns the photo in his hand is, shouldn’t I – I don’t know – feel something? Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?
He sets the frame back down. Crosses his arms in front of his chest as he stares down at it.
The face of Clara flickers – Ben blinked. He missed how your face reflected in the frame’s glass, yelling his name. For just a split second. But his subconscious caught it.
And unbeknownst to Ben, it’s enough to complete the process.
Ben's head screams of pain.
All forty years of his time in the torture chamber combined tear through his skull at once.
Images flash before his inner eyes. He recognizes some of them; The music. "Whatever will be, will be" playing in the background. The bedsheets. The taste of smoke on his tongue. But others are new. A slender hand covering his. Wait - there's that familiar smell of vanilla again. A strand of hair that curls around his finger as he strokes it behind her ear.
For the first time, Ben sees the face of the woman his mind's trying to overwrite; You're gorgeous. Soft light in your hair. Eyes full of love, only for him. When you open your mouth to giggle, he recognizes it at once; Stargate. You're Stargate.
Ben tries to grip you tight. But the lighting bolt that's thundering inside his head tears right through your face. Breaking it to pieces like a mirror.
"Fuck!" Ben groans, his fingers flexing around the edge of the table - or maybe it's a counter - he can't tell anymore.
Something in him turns over hard. Sickening. He fights the feeling that drags itself back up his throat, forces himself to focus on where your face has been moments ago.
There it is again, that terrible ache, that fear, like he’s lost something important.
And now he understands.
Ben drops to his knees, he desperately tries to hold onto the fragments. He tries to remember your laugh. But Clara's voice answers instead. He tries to picture your warm eyes. But Clara smiles back at him instead. He tries glue them back together, form your face with them – but the more his fingers dig into the shards, the more they crumble.
Your name slips through his fingers next.
The ache in his chest remains.
When the pain in his skull subsides, Ben's eyes refocus on his empty hands in his lap. His fingers still flex, like he was trying to grab for something. He frowns to himself, slightly disoriented. Then his head angles back, his gaze instinctively pulled to the picture frame he'd placed back on the table.
And suddenly, the grief inside his ribs twists into something more; Guilt.
Only now, his mind finally gives it a reason. Clara.
Soldier Boy’s always been an asshole. Deep down, he knows it.
And believe it or not, he regrets it. Not all of it, of course. But some.
Like how he'd disappointed the one person who'd always believed in him. Had loved him unconditionally. Why does he realize that just now?
It’s not fucking fair how decades later, he’s been given the idea that he’s not only been capable of being in love, but actually could have spent eternity with someone he loves. Only to get it yanked from his hands moments later, because he’s not fucking worth it and meant to end up alone.
Alone with a weirdo son he didn’t ask for.
What’s it worth being more than a man, when you die the pathetic, lonely, and slow death of a forgotten and degraded war hero?
Bombsight was aware of that. Unlike him.
And yet, Ben can’t admit that he wished he had gotten the V1 earlier. Maybe had gotten himself someone like Clara. Gotten himself a life he always thought he wasn’t cut out for.
But all of that regret's worth jack shit, because there's nothing left for him to fix. All he can do now, is do right by her. Just this once.
Soldier Boy blocks his fist — let’s it connect with his forearm. He swivels, grazes his knuckles across Bombsight’s face.
Then goes for his throat.
His chest. His guts.
He drives him back towards the wall – this is almost too easy.
Then Bombsight twists away just in time, turns, so his fist’s flying towards Ben’s face when his vision suddenly whites out, his skull feeling like it’s cracking open and –
Soft static crackles along the music of Doris Bay’s Que Sera, Sera. The needle jumps from the weight that’s being thrown around the room. The floor imitates a warground with broken wood, ripped clothes, torn pillows, and its feathers swirling through the white powder that’s scattered all over the place. Wood groans as it gets slammed against the wall, over and over. Grunting and the wet slap of skin against skin mix into the rhythm.
And there you are.
Your arms are spread out like an eagle, fingers twisted into the smooth fabric of the flag.
Soldier Boy holds you up by your ass – one hand is enough to keep you in the air. And it gives him the opportunity to pin you to the wall behind his bed with his other, curled around your neck. He’s not putting any pressure on your throat though, how could he?
You look like a fucking Goddess.
“Isn’t this flag desecration?” you smirk down at him, at which Ben’s own grin widens.
“Doll, I am fucking America,” he snorts.
“Yeah, literally,” you laugh, then gasp as Ben drives his point home with another punishing roll of his hips. You wrap your legs around his waist, circle his shoulder and his chest with an arm each as you dig your fingers into his skin. Ben hisses – he wishes it was from pain, from feeling every inch of his skin breaking under your nails – he never carries away any marks from you, but he likes to imagine it anyway. At least he can mark you up.
“Fuck– don’t stop–” you cry out right next to his ear where your forehead has dropped to. Like hell’s he going to stop. Not now, not ever.
“Ain’t stoppin’ till you’ve milked me dry,” he warns. His grip on your ass turns bruising, then moves it to the small of your back for better leverage. He pulls you in, meeting his every thrust as he fucks up into that tight little cunt of yours.
He feels how your soft walls begin to flutter around his cock. He knows you’re close. And if that wasn’t telling enough, the state of the Old Glory on his wall would surely give it away. A satisfied grin spreads across his lips as he watches the way your head has dropped back against the wall, thudding with every snap of his hips. How your eyes rolled back under your eyelids. How you’re back to fisting the stars and stripes, how your moans begin to slip into desperate whines, and how the flag goes taut from how much you squirm and writhe.
Christ. Fucking you is divine.
You announce your orgasm with a shuddering cry, the flag protests under it but ultimately gives in as it rips from its hinges and drapes over your shoulders like a cape. Your cunt squeezes him with a vice grip, and it’s enough to make him follow you over the edge as he shoots his load up your walls.
He sinks back to his knees, takes you down with him as he settles down on the mattress.
“Look at my sweet girl,” he chuckles with a tilt of his head, his hand brushing the edge of the flag out of your face. “Takin’ down America like she fuckin’ owns it.”
That quip earns him a giggle of yours. Christ, he'd kill just for that sound. He pulls you further into his lap by the small of your back, wanting to feel the tiny rumbles of your chest against his.
His smooth chin rests against your sternum. The stormy green in his eyes never leaves you. “You’re fucking gorgeous. You know that?”
You roll your eyes at him, the way you always do when he compliments you – he remembers that detail now, too. Would you still react that snarky if he was to say that he really means it? That, sure, your body’s gorgeous, but it’s so much more than that. That, if he was any better with words, with feelings, he’d tell you?
You try to wiggle out of his lap, but Ben tuts and rolls you both over so you’re under him.
“Come here you cheeky lil’ minx,” Ben growls roughly, while his strong hands find purchase on the plush of your hips and his own slot back between your thighs with ease. Your fingers thread into the back of his short hair, yank at it as he pushes himself back into your still sticky heat without a warning and bottoms out.
Ben continues to fuck you through four more rounds. Until both of you have collapsed to your backs, you tapping out and Ben calling for a joint-break.
He presses the tip of the blunt to his lips, primes it with a few quick puffs until he takes a longer drag. He holds it for a moment, then blows out the smoke through his lips again.
“You know, I could get you some,” he says while staring up at the ceiling where the smoke dissipates. He doesn’t need to look to feel your chest heave before a sigh.
“That’s not how it works.”
This time Ben rolls his eyes. “Why wouldn’t it? You’ve got a body somewhere, right? And you’re a fuckin’ supe.”
“This is me.” Your challenging tone drives his eyebrows together, and his head angles to glare down at you.
“Quit fuckin’ playin’ with my head, Stargate. You know what I meant,” he snaps, then pauses.
His fingertips rub along the blunt for a couple of times before his frown softens and he passes you the joint as a peace offering. You don’t take it right away, but eventually, you do.
Soldier Boy takes it as his cue to go on. His free forefinger glides through a strand of your hair before he tenderly brushes it behind your ear. The tips of his fingers linger there. Like maybe, if he tries hard enough, he can feel what touching your real skin would feel like. “I just–” he lets out a heavy breath through his nose. “I wish I could…”
“Fuck my real body?” You quip and blow a swirl of smoke into his face.
“Yeah. That too,” he snorts, breathes in some of the smoke that’s left your lungs. “We could also–,” he pauses to search for the right genuine words, while he looks down to your small hand covering his as it curves your hipbone, “We could, you know, grow not old together.” He winces inwardly at how that made him sound like a goddamn pantywaist. So he quickly adds; “Fucking’s definitely more fun without the toilet dippers and a cunt bucket, don’t ya think?”
The silence that follows is killing him. After a beat, he dares to look up at you, but is met with sad eyes that he wishes he’d rather not seen.
“Ben…” you murmur, lips pressed into a tight line. “We have no idea where my body is.”
“So?” He frowns. “I‘ll find it. I’ll get you out.”
“– or when.”
Right. Then there’s that small but crucial detail. His jaw muscles work to form some kind of smart response, but ultimately he falls silent. Time’s relative for you. That’s a fact that he tends to ignore. Mainly because he can’t wrap his mind around it. How can you talk to him here, in this moment, and at the same time be stuck anywhere in time?
“Look…” You rub your thumb over his knuckles. The softness of your touch makes his defiant gaze snap back to you. “We got to be realistic about this… Chances are, that my body’s already dead.”
Well. That’s not how he’d planned this conversion to go. You always shut him down with that argument. And honestly? It pisses him off how gloomy you are about the whole future thing.
Without a word, you pass him the blunt back. He takes a longer drag than usual. Time passes without either of you adding anything.
Maybe… maybe if you knew how he felt, you’d change your mind.
Ben’s throat works. He clears it from the smoke, but still, nothing makes it past his lips. He looks away, fumbles for those three damn words that he cannot seem to get in line. When he finally meets your eyes again, his determined frown has given way to something uncharacteristic for Soldier Boy. An expression, that’s almost… soft.
It’s not like he hasn’t thrown around those exact same words countless times before.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
It should be easy, right? But this is the moment he realizes that they’ve never held this much weight for him until now. And that kinda terrifies Ben.
Ben turns away, flicking the roach into the mug on the bedside table. While still looking the other way, he rasps out your name – gosh, your name is so perfect when it rolls off his tongue. So perfect and complete. He wants to taste it, savour it. Never let it go again. Then brand every sperm of his ballsack with your initials and let everyone know that they belong to this perfect fucking woman he can call his own. See? That’s how romantic he can get.
Come on, you fuckin’ pussy. Just get it over with.
He forces his shoulders to angle back towards you.
The way you stare up at him with those wide eyes, naked body stretched out beneath him, is actually not helping at all. Ben fully turns to his side, braces himself on his right arm to slowly snake his free hand up your side and watch you shiver from it. Or, maybe it will. He lets his mouth follow his hungry gaze as he kisses a path down the front of your neck, over your collarbone, till the valley between your breasts.
“I just think,” he muses, “it’d be a shame for these perfect tits to go saggy,” he grins against your skin.
You gasp, then want to smack his shoulder. But Ben catches your wrist first.
“I’m not fuckin’ done yet,” he grunts. This is it. The moment he has to get those three little pathetic words off his chest before they crush his ribs like nothing physical ever could.
“What I’m tryin’ to say is…” he mutters gruffly, before he goes to press his lips to the inside of your wrist. “I lo–”
I love you.
The words still echo in the back of his mind. So clear. So triumphant. He sees it all now. Your face, your voice, your name.
How could he ever forget. How could he ever leave you behind?
Then the moment’s gone.
His mind resets.
“You know, Clara used to say the craziest shit. That I was the strongest Supe alive, the “ultimate expression” of what we could be.”
Ben pauses – Why the fuck did I say that? His fingers twitch around the blue liquid for a moment. He frowns down at it, but the thought slips him before he can catch it. When he looks back up at his son, his muscles seem to relax by themselves.
His mouth continues. “But she was wrong. She hadn’t met you yet.”
Homelander frowns slightly, in disbelief. “But you hate me,” he mutters.
Soldier Boy exhales heavily through his nose, as he conjures up the image of what his memory system has saved as yours.
“I love S–” his brow furrows. “–Clara more. And this is what she would want.”
Then –
Black.
A hook in your chest yanks you backwards with such force, that your eyes snap wide open - but your vision stays dark.
Fuck, you feel dazed. Nauseous like hell. You want to throw up, but you wouldn’t even know what way to turn. Or how to turn.
There’s noise. So much noise around you.
People are… talking. And… clapping?
“Good job, sir.”
“Thank you, thank you. But none of this would have worked without Mrs. Vought–”
The voices sound distorted, drowned out like they’re inside a dome.
“This is it, meine Damen und Herren... Mark this day… Phase one of The Great Reset is complete.” What’s that voice - why does it sound so familiar? Phase one?
“Wh- m- I?” Your tongue feels numb.
“Eye movement detected. Asset is regaining consciousness, sir.” A voice says somewhere behind you.
“Wha- s- on?” Yeah, still numb. Everything feels numb, now that you try to make out where your body starts and where it ends.
“Heart rate is increasing.”
“Signs of disorientation.”
“Put her back to sleep.”
“Wh- n-o, n-no-” You want to protest. To scream. To thrash. But your body is so far away. And now you’re sinking through the void below you, down, down, down…
“Start phase two.”
The woman with the German accent announces somewhere far away, followed by more clapping.
Until it’s all fading into black.
And the voice of Michael Jackson.
⋆ ˚｡⋆ J / NOTES I wish I could say I'm officially back - but the writer's block and my irl still have me in a chokehold. Maybe this'll help me to overcome it... we'll see how it goes. How are you all doing?? I miss y'all so much. And I'm so so sorry if I didn't get to reply to your ask or comment yet. </3
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