JESTER'S PRIVILEGE────── Homelander
Start Day: Thurs 4-06-2026
Synopsis. You were just another overworked, underpaid PR grunt at Vought, until Homelander noticed you. What began as a predator's idle curiosity quickly became a suffocating obsession. Promoted against your will to his personal handler, stripped of every support system, you find yourself trapped in his gilded cage. When your freeloading cousin Marta becomes his final obstacle, Homelander decides to remove her — permanently. In his mind, it's not cruelty; it's love. And for a lonely god who was never taught how to love, love justifies absolutely anything.
Pairing: Obsessed! Homelander x Stressed! PR! Reader
Content: M D N I. Homelander (The Boys). smut dubcon. Size kink. bulge kink. Dark corporate atmosphere in Vought Tower. Workplace harassment. Obsessive surveillance. Extreme power imbalance. Psychological manipulation. Maternal neediness projection. Forced isolation. Non-consensu Sal touching. Coercion. Murder of a secondary character (off-screen). Blood (mild). Emotional kidnapping. Dominant/submissive dynamics. Intense, dark intimate sessions. Making out. Sustained eye contact. Provocative and possessive language. Pet names (little ant). Extreme possessiveness. Subtle jealousy. Power display. Prolonged pace. Overwhelming sensations. Male vulnerability revealed in intimacy. Personal space invasion. Home invasion. Insistent touching. Whispered words. Growing, destructive obsession. Pathological narcissism. Dark ending with no redemption.
Word Count: 8k
N/A. Truth is, I've never had this much trouble with a draft before. I know it's your standard Homelander fic, but hey, I had to join the party 👍
« But you're everything to me.
You deepen the red of my blood »
Twenty-two hours. That was the cursed number that governed your existence, the official schedule—or rather, the administrative sentence—imposed on you by the Public Relations Department of Vought International. Twenty-two hours a week that, on paper, were supposed to translate into a salary decent enough to allow you the luxury of renting a decent apartment, filling the fridge with food that wasn't made of plastic, and perhaps, with a bit of luck, treating yourself to the occasional indulgence. But reality, like almost everything in that damned glass tower of corporate mirages, was a cruel joke wrapped in bureaucracy. The salary turned out to be laughable, barely a trickle of red ink in your bank account that evaporated before you could blink, leaving you trapped on a perpetual hamster wheel of financial anxiety while you watched the company's real heroes earn more from a single soda commercial than you would in your entire working life.
As if that financial tightrope weren't torture enough, fate had decided to add dead weight to your already tottering balance. You had your cousin living at home. A thirty-year-old woman you hadn't seen since the blurry days of childhood, when both families still pretended to get along at Christmas gatherings. You had taken her in out of a gesture of compassion that now seemed like the worst miscalculation of your adult life. She didn't work. She didn't look for work. She didn't seem to have the slightest intention of lifting a finger to ease the burden her presence represented. She had settled on your sofa like a wilted, demanding fern, an emotional and financial parasite that consumed your resources without offering anything in return. And there you were, trapped in the impossible role of sole provider, taking care of a fully functional adult as if she were a teenage daughter, looking after two people when you could barely keep yourself upright.
Ironic, you sometimes thought while rubbing your temples in front of the computer screen in the empty office, how you had become everyone's pillar when your own foundations were silently crumbling. No one saw it, of course. No one noticed the cracks in your professional smile, the slight trembling of your hands as you poured your third coffee of the day, the dark circles you covered with cheap concealer before facing the most narcissistic superheroes on the planet. You were the image expert who kept everyone else's façade flawless, while your own fell apart behind the closed door of your tiny apartment. And the worst of all was that growing feeling that someone—someone with eyes too blue and a smile that never reached his gaze—had begun to notice the fissures.
The first time Homelander noticed you, it wasn't because of your looks, or your voice, or even the position you held in the tower. It was because of the smell.
He was flying over the administrative wing, a pastime he cultivated when boredom gnawed at his skull, when his superhuman sense of smell picked up a distinct chemical signature amidst the cheap perfume of the hallways. Cortisol. Adrenaline at almost clinical levels. A cocktail of stress so pure and concentrated it was nearly intoxicating. He descended a few meters, hovering silently like a bored god, and located you through the glass walls. You were hunched over a tiny desk, your fingers pounding the keyboard with mechanical fury, your jaw so tight he could almost hear your teeth grinding. Your heart was beating like a trapped bird against your ribs.
He smiled to himself. What a pathetic creature, he thought. Barely a bundle of nerves with an ID badge hanging around her neck. And yet... she's still there. Still fighting. He liked that contradiction: the most absolute fragility that refused to break. It was like watching an insect trying to lift a crumb of bread too big. He decided to remember your face.
The second encounter was deliberate. A leak to the press about one of A-Train's nocturnal excesses had put the Public Relations department under siege, and Homelander decided to honor the crisis room with his presence. Not because he cared about the speedster's fate—whom he considered little more than a defective tool—but because he wanted to see you under real pressure. He wanted to know if that chemical symphony from the other night was your natural state.
He arrived without making a sound, as always. The door opened and his silhouette outlined against the fluorescent light was enough to make everyone in the room hold their breath. Everyone except you. You didn't even look up from your tablet, too absorbed in damage timelines and press releases. That annoyed him. And he liked it.
—Is someone going to explain to me why my time is being interrupted by the incompetence of a drug-addict runner? —he purred, sweeping his gaze over those present until he fixed it on you.
You were the only one who answered, with a tired but firm voice that didn't tremble when addressing him:
—With all due respect, Mr. Homelander, if we manage to contain this before noon, your time won't be affected at all. We're on it.
Mr. Homelander? The formal address rang in his ego like a pleasant bell, but it was the lack of fear in your tone that truly captured his attention. Almost all employees stammered in his presence, sweated, averted their eyes like prey before a predator. You, on the other hand, were too exhausted to be afraid. Your pulse had barely altered when speaking to him. It was insolence born of exhaustion, not courage, and that made it delightfully genuine.
He leaned toward you, invading your personal space with calculated slowness. The scent of your stress was more intense up close, an invisible cloud enveloping him. He could smell the stale coffee on your breath, the lack of sleep on your skin, the cheap perfume that tried to mask desperation.
—Do you have any idea who's talking to you? —he murmured, low enough that only you could hear.
—Perfectly —you replied, finally raising your eyes. Tired. Beautiful in their devastation—. That's exactly why I need you to let me work.
No one spoke to him like that. No one. Fury and pleasure tangled in his chest like two serpents. He wanted to punish you. He wanted to rip out that insolent tongue and collect it in a jar. But he also wanted, above all, for you to look at him like that again, with that mix of indifference and loyalty to a cause as insignificant as saving Vought's reputation.
—Alright —he said at last, straightening up with a smile that didn't reach his eyes—. Work. And don't disappoint me.
From then on, he became your invisible shadow. Not in an obvious way, of course; he was too cunning to stoop to following a mere human through the hallways like a lapdog. Instead, he used his senses: he listened to your conversations through walls, smelled your mood swings from entire floors away, watched your routine with the patience of a feline observing a lame mouse.
He discovered that you worked twenty-two hours a week, a figure that struck him as ridiculous and almost insulting. Was that all you were worth to the company? A miserable salary and cut hours? The injustice, curiously, didn't outrage him out of empathy—he was incapable of feeling it—but because it placed you on such a low rung that you almost escaped his radar. He didn't like that. If you were going to be his new distraction, his little pastime, you needed to be in a visible, controllable place. He would have to fix it. A transfer, perhaps. A forced promotion to his personal image team. After all, wasn't he Vought's greatest asset? His image was that of a god. He deserved someone dedicated exclusively to polishing it.
And then there was the matter of your cousin. That parasite who vegetated in your apartment. He listened to her one night, while floating outside your window, invisible among the shadows of the sky. Your voice, tense, begging her to look for work. Hers, indolent, complaining of imaginary aches. The anger rising up your throat, the tears you held back because you couldn't afford the luxury of falling apart. Homelander clenched his fists. It wasn't compassion he felt; it was possession. How dare that useless woman add more weight onto your shoulders? Those shoulders were his now. The exhaustion, the dark circles, the tears you didn't shed, all of that belonged to him. No one else had the right to cause them.
One night, after a charity event where you had coordinated every detail with surgical precision—and where he had pretended not to look at you from the stage—, he intercepted you in the underground parking lot. Your heels echoed against the concrete with a limping rhythm; you had twisted your ankle at some point during the evening and the pain added to your litany of miseries. He appeared out of nowhere, the flag waving on his cape even underground, his superstar smile firmly in place.
—You did a good job tonight —he said, blocking your way with his mere presence—. I've been watching you.
You stopped, leaning against a pillar to relieve the pressure on your ankle. —Thank you. I try to do my job well.
—Oh, I know. You work like a damned slave for a few coins and an apartment infested with useless relatives. —Your expression of surprise drew a soft, almost paternal laugh from him—. Don't make that face. I know a lot of things. I know you don't sleep, I know you eat junk from vending machines, I know that bruise on your left wrist you got from bumping into a filing cabinet last Tuesday, during your break.
The fear that finally appeared in your eyes was the sweetest of nectars. At last, at last, you broke that façade of indifferent professional. You stepped back, but he took you by the chin with the tips of his fingers, a touch light as a caress and firm as a threat.
—You're weak —he murmured, delighting in the word, savoring it—. Fragile, exhausted, about to break. But that's okay. I like it. Fragile things are easier to possess. And you, my little ant, need someone to possess you. To take care of you. To push all those parasites sucking the life out of you out of your way so you can thrive.
—I don't need... —you began, but his thumb lightly pressed your lower lip, silencing you.
—Of course you do. You just don't know it yet. But don't worry. I have a loooot of patience with things that interest me. —He tilted his head, his blue eyes piercing you from an unattainable height—. You are inferior to me in everything that matters, but that doesn't mean you can't be useful to me. In fact, I think you're going to become my favorite project.
His smile widened, white and perfect, and in that gesture was all the narcissism in the world: the certainty of a god who has decided to take a fancy to a mortal and expects, of course, absolute gratitude.
—Now, go home. Rest. I don't want my favorite toy to break before I start playing with it. Tomorrow we'll talk about your new position. You're welcome, in advance.
And with a swirl of his cape, he rose into the night, leaving you alone under the hum of the fluorescents, with your heart galloping and the terrifying certainty that the most dangerous predator on the planet had just set his sights on you. The worst wasn't the fear. The worst was that tiny, almost imperceptible part of you that, for one fleeting second, felt seen.
That night, after the encounter in the parking lot, you barely managed to get the key into the lock. Your hands trembled like leaves in the wind and your ankle throbbed with a dull ache that climbed all the way to your hip. When you opened the door, the smell of stale popcorn and cheap cologne hit you in the face. Marta was sprawled on the sofa, wrapped in a faded flannel robe, watching a cooking competition on TV with the volume far too loud.
—Watching that again? —you murmured, dropping your bag to the floor with a dry thud.
—Well, honey, there's nothing else on... These damn superheroes hog every channel. On channel one, on two, on three... Even on the paid ones! Homelander saves who-knows-who, Queen Maeve opens a shopping center... What a load of crap! —she grumbled, turning off the television with a theatrical gesture—. They used to show reruns of 'Médico de familia', which was a proper, decent series.
You let yourself collapse into the dining chair, rubbing your temples. The terror you had felt in the parking lot was still there, lodged in your chest like a cold stone. And Marta, with her chronic uselessness, was the only person in the world you could share it with. Paradoxical. The thirty-something cousin who never lifted a finger, who lived off your miserable salary, was your only confidante.
—Marta... —you began, your voice broken—. I think I've gotten myself into a really serious problem.
She half sat up, propping herself on one elbow. For once, the chronic laziness on her face gave way to a spark of attention.
—Were you fired? Because if you were fired, I know a guy who sells some really good creams online, and we could...
—No, Marta, I wasn't fired. It's... —You swallowed. The words burned in your throat, but you had to let them out or you would choke—. It's Homelander. The real Homelander. He's been following me. He says he's been... watching me. He knows where I live, he knows about my schedule, he knows about you.
—He knows about me? —Marta's tone sharpened with almost comical indignation—. And what's he going to know about me if he doesn't know me at all? Look, I haven't done anything wrong! I've got enough with my arthritis and my migraines without some guy in blue pajamas coming to meddle in my life.
—Marta, you don't understand. He's dangerous. Really. He told me I'm his... his toy.
There was a silence. Marta blinked twice, processing the information with the slowness of an old computer. Then she got up from the sofa, dragging the fuzzy slippers she had stolen from you, and came over to you. She knelt beside you —with some difficulty, because the arthritis was real, not made up— and took your hands with an almost tender clumsiness.
—Look, I don't like those heroes. They're fascists, hoarders, a bunch of... sons of bitches. But you're my cousin. And I might be useless, which I am, and a parasite, which I also am, but I'm not going to let some guy in a cape make you feel like this. —She squeezed your fingers harder than you expected—. From now on, I'll take care of the house, okay? And the shopping. And if that show-off with laser eyes shows up around here, I'll give him a piece of my mind, because I may have a lot of ailments but in my youth I handed out slaps like they were bread.
You almost laughed. The image of Marta confronting Homelander was as absurd as it was endearing. For the first time in months, you saw in her tired, failed-housewife eyes a spark of genuine loyalty. Marta wasn't a bad person. She was just a woman broken by life, a mediocre survivor who had gotten used to drifting aimlessly. But there she was, squeezing your hands, offering you the only thing she could give: her useless company and her sincere indignation.
—Thank you —you whispered, and it was a real thank you.
It was then that you felt it. A chill on the back of your neck, an icy tingling that ran down your spine. You looked up toward the living room window, the one that faced the street, the one you always left without curtains because there was no money for blinds. And there, floating in the darkness like a malignant star, two points of an almost white blue returned your gaze.
Homelander was outside. He hadn't left. He hadn't left at any point.
He was smiling. Even in the dim light, you could see the white curve of his teeth, the impossible stillness of his body suspended in the air, the cape waving slowly like a flag of conquest. He made no move to leave. He simply stayed there, watching you through the glass, savoring your terror with the calm of someone who has all the time in the world.
Because he did. Of course he did. And he wasn't going to leave.
You didn't sleep. You spent the night wide awake, sitting on the edge of the bed, with the curtains drawn and your mind repeating over and over that smile floating in the darkness. Marta fell asleep on the sofa, hugging a cushion like an old cat, oblivious to the danger lurking beyond the windowpanes. You didn't have the courage to look out the window at dawn, for fear of still finding those two blue points waiting for you in the gray sky.
At eight in the morning, with irritated eyes and yesterday's wrinkled clothes, you arrived at Vought Tower. The receptionist stopped you before you could take refuge in your cubicle.
—Ashley wants to see you. Right now. In her office.
The tone left no room for argument. Something had changed.
Ashley Barrett, the vice president of hero management, greeted you from behind her glass desk with a smile that was meant to be warm but couldn't hide the chronic panic that lived in her pupils. She had her phone glued to her ear, as always, but hung up as soon as she saw you enter.
—Oh, thank God you're here! Sit down, sit down. —She pointed to a chair with a nervous gesture, smoothing her coppery hair—. I have news... well, news. Important. Very important.
—Did I do something wrong? —you asked, though deep down you already knew. It wasn't punishment what was coming. It was something worse.
—Wrong? No, not at all! On the contrary. —Ashley let out a high-pitched giggle, the kind she used to disguise bad news—. There's been a... restructuring. Homelander has personally requested the creation of a Public Relations team dedicated exclusively to his image. And he has also personally asked that you be the one to lead it.
The word "lead" echoed hollowly in the office.
—But I'm the lowest on the ladder. I have no experience in... —you began, but Ashley interrupted you with a wave of her hand.
—Nonsense! You've demonstrated extraordinary resilience, a commitment to the company that doesn't go unnoticed. Besides, Homelander himself has praised your work. Do you know how hard it is for him to praise anyone? It's an honor! A privilege! —Her voice cracked for an instant, betraying the underlying terror—. And, well, there's a small detail: the team consists of you alone. There's no budget for more. Image crisis and all that. But I'm sure you can handle it. He trusts you.
He trusts you. The words tasted like poison to you.
Ashley handed you a folder with the new contract, the salary increase —generous, far too generous— and the schedule: exclusive dedication, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Absolute availability for the Seven. For him.
—Oh, and you have a private meeting with him —Ashley added, lowering her voice as if she feared the walls had ears—. Right now. On the ninety-ninth floor. He's waiting for you.
The elevator rose in a sepulchral silence. The digital numbers climbed toward the sky while your stomach plummeted in the opposite direction. Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine. The doors opened with a soft hiss, revealing a hallway lined with dark marble and a single double door at the end, guarded by the Vought eagle emblem.
You pushed the doors open with trembling hands. Homelander's private office was a temple to himself: glass walls that dominated all of Manhattan, a mahogany desk the size of a football field, giant screens projecting his image on a loop. And at the back, his back to you, silhouetted against the dawn light, his silhouette. The cape waving gently from the air conditioning. Hands clasped behind his back. The feline stillness of a predator in no hurry.
—Come in —he said without turning around. His voice was velvety, almost affable, but vibrated at a frequency that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end—. And close the door. I don't want interruptions.
You obeyed. The click of the latch echoed like a gunshot.
Homelander turned around slowly, savoring the moment. His eyes were exactly the same as the night before, blue to the point of nausea, bright like magnifying glasses focusing on an ant. He was smiling.
—Did you sleep well? —he asked, and it was obvious he knew the answer.
You remained standing by the door, unable to move forward. Words stuck in your throat like sand. He raised an eyebrow, amused.
—You don't need to tell me. The dark circles speak for you. It doesn't matter. From now on you'll sleep better, I promise. —He took a step toward you, then another, closing the distance with unbearable slowness—. Did you like the news? Your own team, your own office, a salary that finally lets you live without counting coins. And all thanks to me. Aren't you going to thank me?
The question hung in the air. He tilted his head, expectant, like a child waiting for a gift. But his eyes weren't a child's. They were a wolf's.
—I... I didn't ask for this —you managed to articulate.
—No, of course you didn't. That's why it's so wonderful. The best things aren't asked for, they're taken. Or received. —He stopped a meter from you, raising a hand to caress the edge of his own jaw with a thoughtful gesture—. Look, I know you had a little chat with your cousin last night. Marta, right? Picturesque woman. Very... how shall I put it? Useless? But with a certain character. I liked what she said. "I'm not going to let some guy in a cape make you feel like this." Verbatim. She's got guts, I admit. Bad taste, but guts.
Your blood ran cold in your veins. He had heard everything. Every whispered word, every confession, every clumsy promise from Marta.
—Don't do anything to her —you begged, and your voice sounded more broken than you intended.
Homelander let out a brief, genuine laugh.
—Do something to her? To that sack of arthritis and TV reruns? Please. I couldn't care less. —He waved a hand in the air, unconcerned—. You matter to me. What she said, what you told her... That does interest me. You talked about me. You described me. Do you know what that means? That I occupy space in your head. That even when I'm not here, I am.
He leaned toward you, reducing the space until you could smell his cologne, a mix of sandalwood and power.
—You've been promoted because I want it. Now you're mine. Every minute of your workday, every thought, every drop of stress you secrete. Everything. —His voice dropped to an intimate, almost tender whisper—. And you're going to do an excellent job, my little ant, because you know what happens when someone disappoints me. Right?
You nodded, because there was no other choice. Because he was the sun and you an insignificant planet trapped in his orbit. Because the nearest window was ninety-nine stories above the ground and, even if you jumped, he would fly faster.
—Good —he purred, straightening up with a triumphant smile—. Now, sit down. We need to plan my next charity dinner. I don't want my image to suffer. And I don't like repeating things.
You took a seat opposite his desk, your hands clasped on your lap and your heart hammering against your ribs. He occupied his mahogany throne, contemplated you for a moment with the quiet possession of someone admiring a newly acquired object, and began dictating his demands.
The following days dissolved into a suffocating routine that didn't belong to you. Your life ceased to be your own and became an appendage of his, a tiny satellite trapped in the gravity of a sun that didn't share its light but devoured it all for itself.
Homelander took you everywhere. There was no executive meeting, press conference, or shopping mall inauguration he attended without you one step behind, tablet in hand and your pulse racing. He introduced you as "my new head of image," and the words sounded less like a professional title than a mark of ownership. The other Vought executives noticed, of course. Ashley averted her gaze. The members of the Seven pretended not to see you. No one said anything. No one dared.
Your breaks ceased to exist as private spaces. The first day, when you tried to slip away to the staff cafeteria to eat a sandwich in solitude, his voice boomed from the communicator he had given you that very morning —a tiny device you wore pinned to the collar of your blouse like a collar of submission—.
"Come up to the penthouse. I ordered sushi for two."
It wasn't an invitation. It never was. You went up to the penthouse, a private dining room overlooking Central Park that reeked of luxury and a god's loneliness, and found him seated at the head of an endless table, pointing to the chair on his right with an imperial gesture.
—I don't like eating alone —he said, while unrolling a maki roll with the precision of someone dismembering something alive—. And you need to eat better. You're all skin and bones. I don't want my investment to depreciate.
You ate in silence, feeling his eyes fixed on you with every bite. When you left a piece of ginger on the plate, he speared it with his chopsticks and brought it to your lips.
—Open up.
You trembled, but obeyed. The ginger burned your tongue and he smiled, satisfied, as if he'd given you a piece of candy.
From that day on, every meal, every coffee break, every minute you used to use to breathe was relocated to his side. He took you to his private dressing room while he changed suits for charity galas, without bothering to close the curtain, talking to you about image strategies while his bare torso gleamed under the spotlights. You looked away, but he came closer, leaned over your shoulder to point something out on the tablet, and his chest brushed your back. The contact was deliberate, millimeter-perfect, and you remained rigid like an animal caught in headlights.
His hands. That was the worst. His hands were everywhere, always, without warning and without asking permission. A palm that settled on the curve of your waist as you walked down the hallway, guiding you with firm pressure. Fingers that tucked a strand of hair behind your ear in the middle of a meeting, in a gesture so intimate it froze the room. The thumb that grazed the nape of your neck when you bent down to pick up some papers, tracing slow circles on your skin, as if calibrating how much pressure he could exert before breaking you.
One night, during the review of a script for a corporate commercial, you were alone in his office. You were reading the proposed lines aloud, seated on the edge of a white leather sofa, and he interrupted you by raising a hand.
—Come here.
You looked up. He had reclined in his armchair, legs slightly apart, the lazy smile of someone who expects the world to kneel.
—Closer. I don't bite. —He paused, tilting his head—. Today.
You stood up on legs of jelly and positioned yourself in front of him. But it wasn't enough. His hand reached out, took you by the wrist, and pulled you until you fell seated on the armrest of his chair, leaning over him, your faces mere centimeters apart. His other hand found your knee and stayed there, warm, heavy, owning.
—Keep reading —he ordered, his eyes half-closed.
Your voice came out trembling, broken, as you tried to ignore the thumb that was now drawing lazy circles on your kneecap, rising barely a millimeter with each pass. He listened without listening, absorbed in the trembling of your hands, in the frantic beating of your jugular, in the perfume of your fear. When you finished, he took you by the chin and turned your face toward him.
—You did well. I'm proud of you. —The words should have been praise, but his tone was that of a master petting his dog—. Tomorrow I'm taking you to the premiere in Los Angeles. Wear something nice. Something I'll like.
You didn't ask him what he liked. There was no need. The next morning you found a dress on your chair, black, form-fitting, with a price tag you couldn't afford even in your dreams. You put it on because there was no other option, because refusing was unthinkable, because you had learned in barely two weeks that saying "no" to Homelander was like saying "no" to gravity.
On the private jet, he sat you next to him, so close that his thigh pressed against yours. During the flight, his hand found yours on the armrest and intertwined his fingers with terrifying naturalness. You looked out the window at the passing clouds, wondering if you would ever set foot on solid ground again.
Marta called that night, late. You were in the hotel bathroom, the dress crumpled on the floor, the marks of his fingers still imprinted on your waist like an invisible seal. You answered in a whisper.
—Are you okay, cousin? You haven't been home in days. —Her voice, for once, lacked its usual laziness. She sounded worried. Frightened, even.
—I'm fine —you lied, because you couldn't say anything else, because the communicator was still on your neck and you never knew if he was listening—. I have a lot of work. We'll see each other soon.
You hung up before she could insist. You looked at yourself in the mirror and saw a stranger: pale, haggard, with eyes too wide. The shadow of a smile that wasn't yours formed in the reflection just before the bathroom light went out and, from the adjoining room, his voice came like a purr through the half-open door:
—Don't fall asleep yet. I want you to read me tomorrow's headlines. And bring me a glass of milk. You know how I like it.
You closed your eyes. You inhaled. You opened them again.
And you went for the glass.
The first night he forced you to sleep by his side, you understood that you were not just a toy. You were a substitute.
It happened after a charity gala in Chicago. The private jet brought you back to New York in the early hours, and when you tried to say goodbye in the tower lobby, he held you back by the wrist.
—Tonight you're staying here.
It wasn't a question. He led you to his private apartment, a penthouse at the top of the tower where everything was white, sterile, and impersonal, like the cell of a lonely god. The bed was immense, dressed in sheets of a cold blue that smelled of fabric softener and of him. He indicated that you should lie down on the left side. You obeyed, rigid as a corpse, staring at the ceiling.
He slipped under the sheets with the naturalness of someone who has always slept alone and never learned to share space. He turned off the lights with a blink of his eyes and darkness swallowed everything. Then, his voice emerged from the shadows, softer than you had ever heard it.
—Madelyn... she used to stay late. She listened to me. She cared... but it turned out she was a liar.
Stillwell's name floated in the gloom like a ghost. You swallowed, not daring to respond. There was no need. He wasn't seeking dialogue; he was seeking an audience.
—I was raised in a lab —he continued, and his tone grew deeper, almost childlike—. I had no mother. I had no father. Just white coats and needles and cameras. Do you know what it's like to be observed without being seen? To be measured without being loved?
His hand searched for yours under the sheets and squeezed it with a force bordering on pain. It wasn't affection. It was possession. It was the desperate need of a child that never existed clinging to a breast he never had.
—You see me —he murmured, turning his face toward you in the darkness—. You're weak, you're small, you're insignificant... but you see me. And I need you here. Every night. From now on.
You wanted to refuse. You wanted to scream, to flee, to claw at the white walls until you found a way out. But his arm wrapped around your waist and pulled you against his chest, caging you like a human teddy bear, and his chin rested on your head with a sigh of satisfaction.
—Talk to me about yourself —he ordered in a whisper—. Tell me something I don't know.
And you did. You told him about your childhood, about your parents, about the summers you spent with Marta when you were both little girls and the world hadn't crushed you yet. You told him things you hadn't shared with anyone, fragments of yourself that you gave in exchange for nothing, because his warmth was fake but his threat was real, and in that freezing bed there was no option to stay silent.
When you finished, a thick silence filled the room. Then, his voice, barely a breath against your hair:
—See? You're not so alone anymore. Neither am I. We have each other.
He closed his eyes and his breathing became slow, regular. He was sleeping. He was sleeping like a monstrous child clutching his new stuffed toy, and you remained awake, counting the hours, feeling the weight of his arm like a tombstone.
The next morning, you woke to his absence. The hollow in the bed was still warm and on the empty pillow there was a handwritten note, in surprisingly childish handwriting:
"You slept well. Don't leave without having breakfast. H. ♡"
The shaky lettering, the solitary initial, the order disguised as courtesy. Everything in that note oozed the lack of someone who never learned to love without possessing, who sought in you the mother they took from him, the confidante he murdered, the mirror to reflect his greatness without ever seeing his monstrosity.
And that night, when you returned home for the first time in three days and found Marta asleep on the sofa with a cup of cold coffee waiting for you on the table, you knew that this wasn't going to end. Because Homelander didn't want you as an employee. He wanted you as a witness. A witness to his life, his pain, his glory. And witnesses, in the trial of a god, are never released.
The communicator on your neck vibrated softly.
"I miss you. Come back."
You closed your eyes, kissed Marta's sleeping forehead silently, and walked out the door. Because there was no other option. Because he always won. And because the most terrifying thing of all was that, in some dark corner of your chest, his need made you feel something akin to pity. And pity, when it came to Homelander, was the antechamber of hell.
That night, the summons came later than usual. The communicator vibrated just when you had surrendered to the idea that, for once, he would let you rest.
"Come up. Now."
The elevator spit you out into the dimly lit penthouse. The lights of Manhattan flickered on the other side of the floor-to-ceiling windows, but inside everything was shadow and silence. You walked forward barefoot —you had taken off your heels in the lobby, without quite knowing why— and found him standing by the sink of the open bathroom, leaning over the marble, rubbing something off his face with a white towel.
The towel was stained with crimson.
Your heart stopped for an instant. He looked up at the mirror and caught your reflection, your eyes fixed on the bloodied cloth, your body paralyzed in the doorway. He smiled wearily, almost tenderly, as if he had just returned from an exhausting day and not from... whatever he had done.
—Don't make that face. It's not mine. —He passed the towel over his cheek one last time and tossed it into the sink with disdain—. A matter that required my attention. It's been resolved.
He turned toward you. Under the dim light, his face was clean, but there was a dark trace under a fingernail, a shadow in the crease of his ear. The blue of his eyes shone with a different intensity, wilder, less rehearsed. He smelled of ozone, sweat, and something metallic you preferred not to identify.
—You took your time —he said, approaching with slow steps—. I almost started to think you wouldn't come.
—I always come —you replied, and your voice sounded firmer than you felt.
—I know. That's why I like you. That's why I need you here. —He stopped in front of you, so close that his breath grazed your forehead—. Tonight... tonight was long. And I don't want to be alone. Not after what I've done.
You didn't ask what he had done. You didn't want to know. But he needed to tell it, as always, to project onto you the echo of his acts so they would exist, so someone would validate them. His hand rose and caressed your cheek with a sweetness that was a thousand times more terrifying than his violence.
—You understand me —he whispered—. You're the only one who understands me. The only one who doesn't leave.
His thumb traced your lower lip, and something in his gaze changed. The childish need you had seen other nights was still there, in the depths, but now it was tinged with something darker, hungrier. The blood he had cleaned from his face hadn't sated anything. It had only whetted his appetite.
—Come —he said, and it was at once a plea and a sentence—. Stay with me. For real. Tonight I need you more than ever.
He took you by the hand and led you to the bedroom. The bed received you with its blue sheets, cold like the sky before dawn. You sat on the edge, and he knelt before you —him, kneeling!— to look into your eyes from below, like a feline feigning submission before pouncing on its prey.
—Don't be afraid —he lied, and his hands began to travel over your arms, your shoulders, the contour of your neck with a veneration that chilled your blood—. Tonight I'm going to show you how important you are to me.
The gloom of the bedroom was barely broken by the distant glow of the skyscrapers, a canvas of cold lights that silhouetted him against the windows. He was still kneeling before you, and in that almost devout posture there was something profoundly unnatural, like seeing a lion prostrate itself before a lamb. His hands, the same ones that minutes before had gripped something you preferred not to imagine, now removed your shoes with a liturgical delicacy. The tips of his fingers traced the arch of your foot, your still-aching ankle, the curve of your calf, like someone caressing the edge of a relic.
— Look at me — he whispered, his breath warm against your knees.
You raised your eyes. His burned in the darkness, two blue embers where the smoldering glow of the recently committed violence still danced. He smelled of iron beneath the cologne, of sweat beneath the sandalwood, of something wild that the superhero suit couldn't tame. When his mouth brushed against the inside of your wrist—right where your pulse raced—a shiver ran down your spine. It wasn't just desire that vibrated between his parted lips. It was hunger. It was possession. It was the certainty that you were about to be devoured by a god who didn't distinguish between love and annihilation.
His fingers traced the outline of your waist, descending over your hips with agonizing slowness. Each caress was a signature, a mark of ownership written on your skin.
— Tell me you're mine — he repeated against the skin of your neck, and this time it wasn't a command, but a poorly disguised plea, the voice of a child demanding what he fears losing.
— I'm... yours — your lips formed the words before your mind could stop them, and something broke inside you as you spoke them.
He exhaled a trembling, almost ecstatic sigh, and his forehead rested for a moment against your collarbone, as if he needed to regain his composure. Then he sat up, his eyes roaming over your half-naked body with a mixture of adoration and ancient hunger.
— Look at me — he whispered, cupping your chin between two fingers. — Don't close your eyes. I want to see you while I have you. —
His lips trailed down your sternum, leaving a warm, wet trail. He continued kissing your soft, sweat-stained skin down to your belly, while his strong hands gripped your hips, turning them red from the pressure he was applying.
— You’re the only good thing I have — he murmured against your skin, and there was a strange honesty in his words, a confession not directed at you but at the entire universe. — The only thing I don’t want to break. —
You were terrified as he removed the last of your clothes. You could barely think. What were you doing? You were letting the man—no, the god—who had made you submit to his will do whatever he wanted with you.
You clenched your jaw as he rushed to grasp your breasts, squeezing them and licking your nipples as if you were a baby. You let out a choked, almost timid moan as the blond man’s hands rubbed your pussy, wetting it with the pressure he exerted on you.
You tried to stifle your moans, but he stopped stimulating you and looked at you with crushing seriousness.
— You'd better keep moaning unless you want me to rip out that pretty tongue of yours — he said, before continuing his work.
You felt compelled to respond to his intimate touch and the tension he was putting you under. He began to insert one of his large fingers inside you, making you moan more and more. However, even though you didn't want to be noisy, you couldn't help it; he knew exactly where to touch you, where to make you cry.
He began to fill you with one finger, then two, then three, withdrawing again and again, each time faster and louder, filling the room with the sound of your sloshing cunt.
— How sensitive you are — he said, separating from your nipple with a thread of saliva connecting it to the reddish ring he left on your breast.
— I-I, oh god — you moaned as he moved his fingers faster inside your tight interior.
— The only god you should moan for is me —he said sarcastically.
Before you could even pull away, he withdrew his fingers, which were stained with your vaginal juices. He gently placed them in his mouth, smiling as he felt your fluids drip onto his tongue.
— How sweet you are when you're only mine — he murmured.
You were trembling as your lubricant still trickled down your thighs. He positioned himself over you, his hot breath circling your ear.
— Like that... like that —he panted close to your ear, his voice a deep purr, a vibration that resonated through your chest. — Don't pull away from me. Not now. —
Homage's breath caught in his throat as he removed his underwear, just enough to free his cock. You'd seen him do this a few times before, shamelessly changing in front of you, but this time was different, because he was going to be inside you. His penis was huge, too big, and you hadn't seen many in your life. It was red with arousal, and pre-ejaculate was spurting from his slit.
— You're so big... — You breathed deeply, in a scared whisper that made him laugh at your surprise.
Homelander slowly pressed the blunt tip against your pussy, penetrating you with a gentleness that almost made him feel romantic. The thickness made you shudder with pain and moan as he filled your pussy, sliding into each of your wet rings. He thrust forward, filling you completely until he reached the very depths of your being. He didn't give you any time to adjust, and began to pound into you despite the pain that coursed through you as you clung to his very thick length.
— You're so small — he growls and thrusts hard again, not even letting you breathe.
— Shit — you cry as he cups your face in his hands, forcing you to look at him, to see what he's doing to you. An obscene bulge forms in your aching belly as he forces you to maintain eye contact with his blue eyes, which occasionally turn a bright red with excitement.
He hits your G-spot with a force that tears you apart inside, until your vision blurs with your own tears and the white sheets are ruined.
— You feel me, don't you? Deep...inside you — he says, laughing as he thrusts forcefully into your insides.
His hand finds yours on the pillow and intertwines your fingers with a firmness that almost hurts. It's an anchor, a chain, a silent promise that he will never let go.
— Do you know how long I've been waiting for this? — His breathing becomes ragged, his movements deeper. From the moment I saw you in that hallway. From the moment I smelled your fear. You were already mine and you didn't even know it.
He kept moving hard as you began to feel spasms. You didn't even respond to what he'd said. Your whole body started to tremble, your thighs clenched, and your belly tensed tightly.
And then it happened. You came.
You came hard while he was still inside you.
— Oh, fuck! — you cried as your nails dug into his back.
He kept fucking you even after you'd had your orgasm, searching for his own. You were still trembling from your orgasm around him when he finally let out a loud groan and spilled inside you in hot, heavy pulses, letting his strands of semen fill your aching womb. His whole body shuddered with his climax, his hips thrusting down until he was empty inside, buried deep within you, where he belonged.
— Don’t go — he moaned afterward, still inside you, his face buried in the hollow of your shoulder. —Don’t leave me alone. Not like the others. —
His voice had become small, almost childlike, and for a moment he wasn’t Homelander, the god feared by millions. He was a child in a lab, an experiment who had never received a hug, a monster he had just killed and was still waiting for someone to tell him he was okay.
“I’m not going anywhere,” you lied, stroking the back of his neck with trembling fingers, because it was what he needed to hear, because it was what kept you alive.
The following silence was thick, broken only by the hum of the air conditioning and your intertwined breathing. You lay on your back, staring at the ceiling, feeling the weight of his arm on your waist like an invisible chain. He, propped on one elbow, watched you with a strangely placid, almost beatific expression, as if he had just received communion.
His free hand played with a strand of your hair, twirling and untwirling it around his index finger.
—See? —he murmured, and his voice was a purr—. This is how it should always be. You and me. No interruptions. No... interference.
Something in the way he said that last word made you turn your face toward him.
—What do you mean?
Homelander sighed, almost with annoyance, as if you were forcing him to give explanations he considered obvious.
—I mean it's done. —He shrugged, such a mundane gesture for what he had just confessed—. That woman. Martha. The one who was sucking the life out of you while you worked yourself to the bone. The one who watched reruns and complained about me. She's gone.
Your mind took a few seconds to process the words. When it did, the world opened up beneath you like a crack in the ice.
—What... what did you do to her? —Your voice was barely a whisper.
—What I had to do. —There was no remorse in his tone. Only the quiet certainty of someone who has pulled a weed from the garden—. I went to your apartment while you were coming back from the office. I wanted to talk to her, explain the situation. Tell her that from now on, you would live here, with me, and that her services as a parasite were no longer needed. But, honestly, she got really belligerent. She started screaming, calling me a fascist, a control freak... What was the other thing she said? Ah, yes. A son of a bitch. —He smiled, reminiscing—. Your cousin had quite a mouth on her.
Tears welled up before you could contain them. They weren't from sadness, not yet; they were pure horror, disbelief, the atrocious certainty that this man-god had just described a murder as if detailing an administrative task.
—Martha hadn't done anything to you... —you sobbed.
—She was in my way. You were in my way with her. Always worried, always looking after that useless woman. —His expression darkened for an instant—. I need you whole. Complete. Not at half-throttle because you have to go home to take care of an adult who doesn't know how to wipe her own ass. Now there's no home to go back to. Now your home is this. Our home.
You tried to sit up, to flee, but his arm tightened like a steel band and kept you pinned to the mattress.
—You don't understand, little ant. —His voice regained that sickly sweetness—. I did it for you. For us. She was killing you. Stealing your energy, your money, your patience. I've liberated you. Now you can focus on what matters. On me.
You turned to him, and he must have read something like hatred on your face, because his gaze hardened.
—Don't look at me like that. Not after what we just shared. —His hand moved up to your throat, not squeezing, just reminding you of his presence—. Martha was a waste of oxygen. You are my oxygen. I'm not going to apologize for breathing.
You couldn't speak. The words choked you along with your sobs, with the image of Martha asleep on the sofa, her cold coffee cup waiting for you on the table, her clumsy promise to protect you from the man who now held you prisoner.
—Starting tomorrow, you're settling in here. Your clothes, your things, I'll buy you everything new. You don't need anything from there. —He paused, and in his eyes appeared a flash of childish pride—. I've thought of everything. I even ordered a new closet for you. See what I do for you? See how I take care of you?
He closed his eyes, satisfied, and pulled you back against his chest. His heart beat slow, steady, the heart of a man who had just committed a heinous crime and felt at peace with himself. The communicator lay on the nightstand, mute, useless. The nearest window was a hundred floors above the ground. And Martha, the only person you had left in the world, the useless cousin who had promised to defend you, no longer existed.
—Now we're truly alone —he murmured against your hair, and his voice was almost a lullaby—. You and me. As it should be.
You didn't answer. You couldn't. You just closed your eyes and let the tears soak the pillow while he held you, absolute master of your life and your death, convinced that this was love.
Because for him, it was. And that was the problem.
TS SO PEAK I MIGHT ACTUALLY NEED TO REREAD YOU x67