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that sadness in his eyes that you only see inâ
he said what he said!!!
have him!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Left Alive
Chapter 6: The Price of Attention
As John slowly begins to recover, he is forced to confront the limits of his new life, while Butcherâs presence becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/85679561/chapters/226402876
Left alive - chapter 5
Annie and Hughie arrive at the safe house and find Ryan guarding what is left of his father.
The Homelander in 5.08 | THE BOYS
https://archiveofourown.org/works/85679561/chapters/229278591
Left Alive - chapter 4
Butcher wakes up hungover and haunted by the line he crossed the night before.
But Ryanâs quiet protection of his father forces him to face what he may have broken between them.
thinking about antony starr and his canine teethâŠyeah, thatâs it
https://archiveofourown.org/works/85679561/chapters/227935546
AU - Homelander is not killed, Ryan saves him.
Chapter 3: John
John wakes in the middle of the night, stripped of his powers, his suit, and what little dignity he had left.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/85679561/chapters/226962266#workskin
Left Alive - chapter 2
Ryan stopped Butcher from killing Homelander.
Now they have to live with that.
After Washington, Butcher drives Ryan and a powerless Homelander away from the city and into a safe house. Homelander is injured, humiliated, and stripped of everything that used to make him untouchable.
Since Stormfrontâs death, Homelanderâs been showing cracks â a hollow space he canât hide. Annie notices⊠and decides to confront him in her own way.
Drama intensifies.
Chapter 1
The meeting room had long since emptied, but the screens on the walls kept cycling through the official images: perfect smiles, heroic stances, the glossy mythology Vought never stopped feeding the world. Among them, inevitably, there was her face. Stormfront.
Frozen in light, untouched by pain, preserved in that obscene digital perfection, as if nothing had burned, as if no flesh had been ruined, as if the woman behind the image had not been reduced to something broken and barely living in a hospital bed.
Every time Homelander saw her displayed like that, pristine and radiant, something twisted low in his stomach. It felt like a cruel joke designed especially for him. Her image still shone across the walls, victorious, immaculate, untouchable, while the truth of her had been hidden somewhere else entirely, behind sterile doors and the smell of disinfectant.
He had not spoken once during the entire meeting. Sitting at the end of the table, he had let his silence do the work for him, settling over the room like a warning, heavy enough to press shoulders down and shorten breaths. The others had understood quickly. They had gathered their tablets, avoided his eyes, and slipped out one by one with the careful haste of people who knew better than to draw attention to themselves.
All of them had left except her.
Starlight stood near the door, her file clutched against her chest like a schoolgirl holding on to her notebooks. Her fingers had already brushed the handle, but she had stopped, turned back, hesitated. Of course she had. Homelander watched her without moving, reading that hesitation as clearly as if she had spoken it aloud. She was deciding whether to risk it, whether to approach, whether to poke at whatever she thought she had seen in him. To watch him unravel, maybe. To measure the damage. To find the weak spot everyone seemed so eager to imagine.
âYou didnât say anything,â she said at last. âIt was like you werenât even here.â
Homelander raised his eyes, his voice sharp and flat. âI was here.â
She did not move. Her arms tightened around the file, but she held his gaze. âThis isnât the first time. For months now⊠you drift off. You stare at nothing, you vanish. Tonight was the same.â
A smile edged across his mouth, cold and narrow. âYou think you know what youâre talking about.â
âNo,â she replied, too quickly, though she did not look away. âI donât. But I see it. Youâre not the same as before.â
Not the same as before. The words scraped against something raw. As if she had any point of comparison. As if she knew what he had been before, what had been taken, what had been exposed, what had been left behind. The arrogance of it hardened his smile.
âYou see nothing,â he said. âYou take your little impressions and dress them up as truth. As always.â
She inhaled, and he saw the small movement of her throat as she swallowed. Still, she stayed where she was. âMaybe. But⊠everyoneâs noticed. Since Stormfront, youâre not the same.â
The name cut clean through him. Homelander straightened so abruptly the chair creaked beneath him, his eyes locking onto hers while the roomâs polished surfaces seemed to sharpen around them.
âDonât say her name,â he said, his voice low and lethal. âEver. Do you hear me?â
She flinched. Good. She should have. But she did not retreat. âIâm not talking about her,â she said, more softly. âIâm talking about you.â
He went still, his jaw tightening until it ached. She should have left it there; any sane person would have. But Starlight set her file down on the table with a faint, brittle rustle, then took one careful step toward him. She was not rushing, not pleading, only waiting, as if patience could pry him open.
âIâm not sorry for her,â she said finally. âIâm sorry for you.â
The words landed with unbearable gentleness. For an instant, something flickered through him before he could smother it, a tiny fracture in the expression he had arranged so carefully, no more than a twitch, a breath, a failure of control. But she saw it. He knew she did. Her eyes caught on that crack with terrible precision, and for one suspended second she seemed to understand that she had touched something real.
Homelander said nothing. His silence should have been a wall; instead, it felt like evidence.
There it was: pity. That old, disgusting thing. The soft face people made when they thought they were better than him because they had decided not to be afraid for five seconds. His fists clenched beneath the table, knuckles whitening. He hated her for looking at him like that. Hated her calm, hated her courage, hated the unbearable softness in her eyes, as if he were something wounded, something to be handled gently.
And still, she came closer. One step, measured and careful. Her hand lifted halfway between them, paused there as though even she was not sure she had the right. Homelander saw the hesitation, saw the chance to stop it, to freeze her with one look, one word. He did not.
Her palm settled on his shoulder.
The contact went through him like heat through metal. Every muscle in his body locked. He should have torn her hand away, should have crushed her wrist, shoved her back, reminded her exactly what happened to people who forgot their place. But his body betrayed him by doing nothing at all. He sat rigid beneath her touch, throat tightening, eyes turning away before she could see too much.
No one touched him like this. Not without wanting something, not without fear stiffening their fingers, not with this absurd, devastating gentleness. Since Stormfront, there had been nothing but rooms too large, applause too loud, screens too bright, and the constant grinding knowledge that even adoration could not warm him when the door closed. This simple touch, almost ridiculous in how light it was, struck deeper than violence.
His breath caught, and that was what made it unbearable. Not the pity, not even the risk of being seen, but the possibility, sudden and obscene, that someone could lay a hand on him without calculation. That a gesture could mean comfort and nothing else.
Then she crossed the final line.
Before he could decide whether to move, before he could even fully understand what she intended, her arms were around him. For a second, the world stopped. Homelander stood frozen against her, his arms stiff at his sides, his breath trapped somewhere high in his chest. Her warmth closed over him, too human, too intimate, too impossible. Her scent rose around him, clean and familiar beneath the sterile air of the meeting room, and his eyes shut before he could stop them.
A tear threatened, and he forced it down with almost physical violence.
How long had it been since anyone had held him like this? He could not remember. Even Stormfront had never done this. She had touched him, yes, and desired him, worshipped him, claimed him in the language of destiny and blood. But she had never held him with this quiet certainty, as though he did not need to perform anything for the right to be touched.
Slowly, almost against his own will, his arms rose. They closed around Starlight with an awkward stiffness that had nothing tender in it and yet was an embrace all the same. His hands hovered first, then settled, mechanical, controlled, too careful for a man who could split steel apart. Each passing second widened the fracture in him, and each breath brought him closer to something he could not allow.
His throat tightened. His hands trembled. He was going to give in, and the realization struck like panic.
He tore himself away and shoved her back with a sharp, brutal motion. âThatâs enough.â
The cold returned at once. It rushed into the space she had occupied, filled the air around his body, settled over the shoulder where her hand had been. Her scent was already fading, and the absence of it was worse than the contact itself. For one fleeting second, he had felt the shape of something he had been denied all his life. Then he had destroyed it himself.
She lowered her eyes but did not step back completely. Her hand remained suspended between them for a moment, trembling slightly, as if it did not know where to go now that he had rejected it.
Homelander dragged a hand over his face, wiping away every trace of whatever had almost surfaced. When he looked up again, his expression had hardened into something smooth and impenetrable.
âDonât get the wrong idea, Starlight,â he said. âIt wasnâtâŠâ
He stopped. The silence pressed around him, thick and humiliating, because for one second he could not find the lie quickly enough.
ââŠit was just a moment,â he said at last. âNothing more.â
She nodded slowly, and that was almost worse than if she had argued. She looked as if she had expected him to retreat, expected him to rebuild the wall brick by brick in front of her. But in her eyes, he saw the truth: she had noticed the delay. She had seen the struggle behind the words.
He grabbed her file from the table and held it out without meeting her gaze. âYou forgot this.â
She took it. Her fingers brushed his, and a small, electric shock passed through him, absurdly strong for such a meaningless contact. He remained perfectly still.
âGood night, Homelander.â
Her voice was soft, but steady. She waited. He made himself look at her.
âGood night.â
The words were cold, controlled, almost bored, exactly what they needed to be, even though his eyes still burned.
Her steps echoed across the empty room. At the threshold, she turned back one last time. There was no challenge in her face, no provocation, no triumph. Just something human and open enough to make his skin crawl. That was the worst part. She thought she had seen him. Worse, perhaps she really had. She thought she had reached past the costume, past the smile, past the god everyone else either feared or adored, and touched something underneath.
Homelander remained motionless, stone-faced, until she disappeared into the hallway, swallowed by the artificial light.
The door closed, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then the room seemed to collapse inward.
He stared at the door, jaw locked, fingers curling so tightly his knuckles blanched. A short, broken breath escaped him. He stepped back, unsteady, and nearly stumbled before dropping into the chair at the head of the table. His elbows hit the polished surface, his hands pressing hard against his temples as if he could force everything back inside by sheer pressure.
It did not work. Something cracked.
The tears came hot and violent, and the rage of them only made it worse. They slid down his face, wetting his palms as he bent forward over the table. His shoulders shook with spasms he despised, each one another betrayal of the body that was supposed to be perfect. Him, reduced to this, and she had seen enough to know.
She would be gloating. Maybe not openly. Maybe she would wrap it in compassion, in that saintly little softness she carried around like a halo. But somewhere inside, she would savor it: the knowledge that she had pried open what no one else had dared touch. Maybe she was already imagining herself as the one who had reached Homelander, the brave little angel who found the wounded thing beneath the monster, as if he were a project, as if he were a prize.
He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. Bitterness rose in him, thick and sickening. She probably thought it made her strong, that her pity gave her power over him. But it was only another costume, another performance, another way to feel clean in a world that had already stained her.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to drag her back, force her to look at him properly, force her to understand that she had not won anything. He wanted to erase her from his memory so completely that even the warmth of her hand would vanish from his skin. But no scream came. Only a low, strangled sound escaped him.
He stayed bent over the table until the sobs finally exhausted themselves. When they did, he wiped his face with a harsh, angry motion, as though disgust alone could remove the evidence. Then, before he could stop himself, his hand drifted back to his shoulder, to the exact place where she had touched him.
There was nothing there anymore. No warmth, no pressure, no trace of her. Just the cold return of his own body, armored and unreachable, with the emptiness beneath it heavier than before.
When Homelander lifted his head, the dark glass of the window gave him back his reflection. The face was already reassembling itself: composed, pale, perfect, a heroic shape cut out against the lights of the city. The only face that mattered.
Let her think she had seen something. Let her believe, for one ridiculous second, that she had mattered. It changed nothing. She knew nothing. She was nothing.
By the time he stood, straightened his shoulders, and adjusted the line of his cape, the room held no proof that anything had happened at all.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
AU where Ryan wakes up in the Oval Office before Butcher can finish what he started.
A small attempt to do justice to a character I deeply love, and who was done unbearably dirty.
-----
Homelanderâs face was a work of art. A fucking piece-of-shit work of art, obviously. The kind you didnât paint with brushes, but with fists, split knuckles, and years of carefully fed hatred.
Butcher had ruined it himself, and honestly, he loved his new masterpiece. He almost wanted to keep it like that. Frame it. Exhibit it. Put it on every screen in the country so the whole world could finally see what was under the golden varnish of their little national god.
Skin too pale beneath the blood. Face starting to swell. Bruised cheekbones, split brow, torn mouth. Red everywhere: on his teeth, on his chin, in the hollow of his throat, all over that ridiculous suit that didnât look like much of anything anymore. The deep red against the sickly whiteness of his skin had something indecent about it.
Beautiful, really. He could almost have written a poem about it, if heâd been the kind of cunt who wrote poems instead of breaking skulls.
Homelander was breathing badly. Every inhale came out wet, broken, pathetic. He couldnât even stand anymore. The great savior of America, Voughtâs blond god, reduced to a trembling little shit soaking in his own blood.
Butcher felt an indecent pleasure rise in his gut just looking at him like that. Nothing but blood and tears. Nothing left of that smug look. Nothing left of that cheap godlike posture, that little advertising-statue smile, that authoritative voice that always made it sound like the whole world shouldâve dropped to its knees before he even had to ask.
Now he was already on the ground. Half-folded in the debris, unable to pull himself up properly, his hands sliding through the red mess beneath him, his body answering to nothing but pain.
And an image came back to Butcher, almost sharp. The first time heâd seen him. Years ago. Becca on his arm. Homelander even younger then, even prettier, smoother, brighter. That immaculate face of an American miracle, perfect jaw, neat hair, not a crease in the suit. Saint Homelander. The Savior of America. The great blond piece of shit whoâd descended from heaven to reassure crowds and sell fucking action figures.
And Butcher, poor bastard, had actually thought: the bloke had style.
Before everything.Before Becca. Before all the fucking shit. Before the lies, the disappearances, the deaths, the years spent chewing the same hatred until it wore his teeth down. Real style.
Butcher looked down at him. Look at that now. The Savior of America reduced to a heap of blood and tears at his feet. Not Saint Homelander. A filthy fucking Devil. And even the Devil lost some of his shine when you smashed his teeth in hard enough.
Butcher almost wanted to laugh. No, actually, he wanted to laugh for real. Because it was symbolically strong, wasnât it? Fucking poetry. The symbol of America collapsing inside the symbol of America. The national hero ruined on the floorboards of a gutted Oval Office, among the gilding, the blood, the torn flags, and the old portraits watching their empire fall to pieces.
Homelander looked up at him. Eyes too clear, drowned in tears, panicked like an animal that had only just realized pain wasnât supposed to stop.
Butcher slowly lowered his hand toward the crowbar lying near the Resolute Desk.
He didnât hurry. That was the worst part. No explosive rage, no sudden movement. Just his hand closing around the metal with an almost peaceful slowness, as if everything had already been decided a long time ago.
Homelander saw the gesture, and something gave way in him. His hands shot up in front of his face. Not to hit. Not even really to defend himself. Just to put something between his smashed-in face and the next blow. His fingers shook in front of him, open, useless, almost ridiculous in their filthy gloves. A childâs gesture. A spoiled little brat who had lost his crown, his throne, and even the dignity to die standing.
âPleaseâŠâ His voice derailed.
Butcherâs nose wrinkled slightly.
The voice, mostly.
That was what disgusted him. More than the blood. More than the torn mouth. More than that pathetic way he folded in on himself when, logically, he shouldâve kept playing god right to the end.
It wasnât his real voice. Not the one from the screens. Not that full, calm, authoritative tone made to fill rooms and make America hard during his little patriotic speeches. Not that low, clean predatorâs voice, always so sure it would be obeyed. This one was weak, scraped raw, pleading. It sounded horribly young.
Butcher hated not recognizing the voice of the man he hated. He hated hearing something else instead. Something naked, terrified, pathetic. Something that should never have existed under the suit, or should have died under there without ever crawling out.
âPlease, noâŠâ
The words came apart in his throat. He was crying harder now that the crowbar hung from Butcherâs hand. He stammered, swallowed blood between syllables, and every sound came out weaker than the last, as if Butcher hadnât only broken his teeth or his nose, but something deeper, under the voice, under the suit, under everything heâd spent his life performing. Homelander was finally peeling away from his own skin, leaving nothing underneath but a sniveling, pathetic cunt.
Butcher watched him tremble. That tiny nervous movement in his hands. The way he flinched whenever the crowbar shifted an inch, as if he could already feel the next impact before it fell. Fuck, it was almost tender, in a way. Not tender like something youâd want to protect. Tender like meat that had been beaten too much.
Homelander tried to push himself up on one elbow, failed, slid in the dust, and stayed there, half-slumped, half-offered, suit torn, cape dragging behind him like a bad joke.
âI never killed you,â he stammered.
Butcher frowned.
Homelander seemed to understand, too late, that maybe it wasnât the argument of the century. But he kept going anyway, because he had nothing else left. The words came out of him in pieces, weak, rushed, soaked in panic.
âI couldâve. So many times. I never killed you. I let you⊠I let you live.â
Butcher felt his lip curl slightly. Not a smile. Not open anger either. Just instinctive contempt, almost physical, at the indecency of the bargaining.
Homelander shook his head, as if he didnât even know what he was saying anymore. His hands stayed raised in front of his face, trembling, pleading. His whole tall body seemed to have folded in on itself. No more statue. No more god.
âIâll do whatever you want,â he breathed.
Butcher didnât answer.
Then Homelander broke lower still. His lips trembled. His breathing snapped on a shameful, almost inaudible whimper. And that voice, that ruined little voice, too young for the man he was supposed to be, made the sentence even more obscene.
âIâll suck your cock if you want.â
Butcher stared at him in disgust. The sentence sat there between them, dirty and naked, more humiliating than all the blood on his face. Homelander was still crying, hands still raised, as if he might vanish inside his own costume if only someone gave him enough time.
The great savior of America, Voughtâs golden blond boy, on the floor, offering his mouth so he wouldnât die.
Butcher made an expression of revulsion. But his eyes didnât leave the spectacle. Not for a second.
âI⊠Iâll do anything you want,â Homelander repeated, between muffled sobs.
He swallowed wrong, coughed up a little blood, then raised what was left of his face toward him. His hands were still shaking in front of his open mouth, but they were lowering now in jerks, as if even begging took too much energy.
âIâll eat your fucking shit.â
Butcher felt his stomach tighten. Not disgust this time. Not only that.
Homelander breathed in short, broken bursts. The words came out in pieces, rushed, torn from somewhere deeper than fear.
âAnything you want. Anything. Iâll do anything. PleaseâŠâ
His breathing whistled. Every inhale tore a tiny, broken sound out of him. Not a threat. Not a provocation. Not even a strategy worthy of the name. Just a man trying to stay alive.
And fuck.
Butcher liked it. There was still pleasure there, of course there was. That black, hot, almost obscene joy at seeing him reduced to this. Seeing him in pieces, beneath him, begging in that grotesque costume, did something physical to his gut. Hatred had lived in his body for so long it had ended up wiring itself into everything else: pleasure, rage, grief, hunger. It all made the same sound now.
But underneath, something else rose up, slower, filthier. Pity. Not noble pity. Not forgiving pity. Disgusting, sticky pity, the kind he wanted to crush under his boot before it took up too much space. It was there anyway, because Homelanderâs voice was splitting like a kidâs whoâd been left too long alone in a white room. Because under the blood, under the crimes, under the cheap god costume, there was this naked, trembling thing with no dignity, that didnât even know how to beg without destroying itself.
It didnât forgive anything. But it was visible. And Butcher hated seeing it.
He hated that brief tightening in his chest, that rotten human reflex sliding between his hand and the end. He had sacrificed too much of himself to get here. Too many dead, too many lies, too many pieces of his soul torn out with teeth. All of that, just to hesitate in front of a blond prick in a cape crying in the wreckage?
No. Not a chance.
His hand tightened around the crowbar. Homelander followed the movement with his eyes, and his face emptied. All the panic concentrated at once in his half-open mouth. He stopped talking for a second. That silence had the taste of an ending. Even Homelander seemed to feel it, because his eyes started moving faster, searching for something, anything, in the ruins around him or in the little bit of brain he had left.
âWait⊠wait, I can⊠I can give you something.â
Butcher didnât move. The crowbar stayed heavy in his hand, ready to come down, and Homelander stared at him with that bright, hungry, almost obscene panic. He was looking for a crack. A rope. A price to put on his own survival. Anything. His whole body said he would have sold every last piece of himself for a few more seconds.
âI can bring Becca back.â
The world emptied.
The crowbar stayed suspended, but everything else in Butcher stopped dead. The pleasure first. That black joy heâd taken in watching him crawl in his own blood. Then the disgust. Then even that foul, sticky pity that had started rising in his chest against his will. All of it disappeared at once, swallowed by something colder.
Becca.
In that mouth.
For one second, there was nothing else. Not the gutted Oval Office. Not the bloodstained gilding. Not the broken royal clown at his feet. Just that name, dirtied by a voice that had no right to carry it.
Homelander saw that he had touched something. Poor cunt. He thought it was an opening.
âThere are shapeshifters,â he stammered too fast, blood wetting the words. âVought has them. They can become anyone. Her face, her voice, her body. Everything. I can bring her back. I canââ
âShut your mouth.â
It came out low. Almost calm. Not a shout, not an explosion. Worse.
Homelander froze, mouth still open, eyes locked on the crowbar as if he had only just understood that the metal had never been closer.
Butcher looked at him, and something locked shut inside him. Not in some great surge, not in spectacular rage. Colder than that. Simpler. Pity had had its chance, one shameful little hesitation in the middle of the carnage, and Homelander had just crushed it himself.
He had taken Becca, her name, her face, her memory, and tried to turn it into currency. One more Vought product. A skin to slip on. A body to stand back up so he could buy his dogâs life.
And just like that, Homelander had made the Oval Office his own grave.
Butcher felt his hand close tighter around the crowbar. His breathing slowed. The anger was still there, but it wasnât spilling over anymore. It had settled at the bottom of him, dense, black, useful. He didnât want to laugh anymore. Didnât want to savor it. Didnât want to watch the symbol collapse with a smile on his lips.
Now he just wanted to finish the job.
Homelander moved his lips, backing up against the desk.
âNo no no⊠pleaseâŠâ
He made a strangled sound. Nothing like a word at first, barely the remains of a voice. His hand rose in front of his face, trembling, ridiculous, as if a few open fingers could stop the crowbar.
Then something twitched behind his eyes. Not courage. Not even real defiance. Just the last rotten spark of the thing he had spent his whole life pretending to be.
âYou canât⊠you canât kill me,â he rasped.
Homelanderâs mouth trembled. His face was ruined beyond anything that could still look noble. He tried to lift his chin, tried to force himself back into the shape of the man from the screens, the god, the flag, the fucking miracle. But his body wouldnât follow. His voice wouldnât either.
âIâmâŠâ He tried to raise his voice. Tried to make it land like a threat, like a command, like something the world was still supposed to obey. âIâm the fucking Homelander.â
But it didnât come out like that.
It broke halfway through, cracked open by a sob, and the name sounded less like a warning than a child insisting he was still a superhero because he still had the costume on.
Butcherâs lip curled.
âNot anymore.â
His arm tightened.
In that instant, everything became simple. The metal, the weight in his fist, the angle of the skull. He could already see the trajectory, the impact, the way Homelanderâs head would snap sideways before the rest of the body understood. He saw the end as a straight line. Not pretty. Not clean. But necessary. An answer brutal enough to make sense in a world like this.
And behind him, a voice said:
âNo.â
The word crossed the room without effort.
Butcher froze.
The crowbar stayed suspended above Homelander, high, ready to fall, still weighted with everything Butcher had put into it: Becca, Ryan, the lost years, the dead, the hate, and that precise second when he had finally believed everything was about to close.
Slowly, he turned his head.
Ryan was awake.
Pale as a corpse, leaning against the remains of an overturned piece of furniture, his body still shaken by whatever he had just lived through. He was barely standing, or maybe not really standing at all; just upright enough not to fall. His eyes were wide open, too wide for his face, too steady for a kid. They moved from Butcher to Homelander, from his fatherâs ruined face to the raised crowbar, then back to Butcher.
He had seen enough.
Not everything, maybe. Not every word, not every plea, not Becca in Homelanderâs mouth. But enough to understand what was about to happen. Enough to see the man who was supposed to protect him standing over his father with death in his hand.
âNo,â Ryan repeated.
Not a shout. Not a threat. Not even really a plea. Just a refusal.
Homelander made a tiny sound. Almost a squeak. Something horribly ugly coming from a mouth that had spent its whole life giving orders to the entire world.
âRyan⊠Ryan, please, tell himâŠâ
Butcher swung back toward him all at once.
âShut your fucking mouth!â
The roar cracked against the gutted walls of the Oval Office. Homelander immediately curled in on himself, his hand still raised in front of his face, as if the shout had already been a blow. And for one second, Butcher wanted to hit him just for that. For daring. For crawling toward the boy with that beaten-dog voice, for trying to turn Ryan into the last shield between his skull and the crowbar.
But Ryan was there, so Butcher looked at him again.
Ryanâs jaw was trembling. Not much. Not a breakdown, not sobs, nothing that made the scene easy to read. Just a tiny fracture under the skin, a shiver he was trying to crush with all the dignity he could still scrape together. His eyes were wide, his face pale, his whole body held stiff, as if he knew one wrong movement could bring whatever was left of his world down for good.
And then Butcher knew.
The kid didnât want to see this.
He had already seen too much. Too much blood, too many screams, too many adults deciding for him what had to be done, what had to be sacrificed, who had to die in the name of what. And now he was standing in the middle of the gutted Oval Office, watching the man who had promised his mother he would protect him raise a crowbar over his father.
Fuck.
Butcherâs throat tightened. Not now. Not this.
âTurn around.â
His voice came out low, rough. Not gentle, no. Butcher didnât know how to be gentle when he had death in his hand. But there was something in it despite himself, something cracked, damaged, a kind of broken order that almost sounded like a prayer.
Ryan didnât move. Butcher clenched his teeth.
âRyan. Turn around.â
The boy blinked once. His lips parted, though no sound came out at first. And finally he took one step forward. Small, slow, terribly deliberate.
âLeave him.â
His voice barely trembled.
Butcher saw it anyway. The way he straightened his shoulders, planted his feet in the debris as if that were enough to make him taller. He was trying to keep it together. Not to beg, not to cry, not to be the terrified kid he still was underneath. Becca had had that same stupid courage. The kind that kept you standing when everything inside you was screaming to fall.
âStay where you are,â Butcher said.
Ryan stepped forward again.
Behind him, Homelander breathed louder. Not enough to speak. Just enough to remind them he still existed. A wet, pitiful sound that pulled something nasty in the back of Butcherâs neck. He didnât turn around. He couldnât. If he looked at Homelander, heâd finish the gesture. If he looked at Ryan too long, he wouldnât be able to.
So he stayed there, caught between the two of them, the crowbar raised, his hand trembling now, fuck. Barely. But it was trembling.
Ryan stopped a few yards away. Close enough to see the blood on Butcherâs fingers. Close enough to see his fatherâs demolished face. Too close, obviously. His eyes dropped to Homelander, and something crossed his face. Not forgiveness. Not pure, bright, simple love, that postcard bullshit. No. It was uglier than that. Truer. The horror of seeing him like this. The fear of what he was. The fear of what Butcher was about to do. And underneath, buried deep but still alive, that stupid blood tie that resisted everything else.
His father.
Homelander looked up at him. For the first time since heâd started crawling, he almost stopped crying. His ruined face turned toward Ryan with a kind of miserable hope that made Butcher want to break his teeth. The bastard was going to use it. Of course he was going to use it. Even beaten to pulp, even pissing himself with fear, even with death hanging over his skull, he would look for the crack. Ryan was a crack. Becca had been a crack. Anything that loved became a handle for monsters.
Butcher lowered his voice.
âDonât look at him.â
Ryan didnât answer. He was still looking at Homelander. His lips trembled at last, just once, then he swallowed hard, as if the words were scraping his throat before they even came out.
âItâs over.â
It wasnât only meant for Butcher. It was for Homelander too. Maybe for him most of all.
Homelander made the smallest movement of his head. A denial or a plea, impossible to tell. His mouth opened on a broken sound, but nothing properly human came out of it. Ryan took a short breath. He wanted to be solid. You could see it. He wanted it with everything he had. But his eyes shone, his jaw still trembled, and his hands were clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone white.
âItâs over,â he repeated, lower.
The crowbar suddenly weighed a ton in Butcherâs hand. He should have answered no. That nothing was over as long as that thing was breathing. That monsters didnât stop because a kid told them to. That pity was a luxury for people who had never had to bury their dead. He should have said it, really. He almost had it on his tongue.
But he heard Becca in the silence.
Not a ghost voice. Not some mystical bullshit. Just the memory of what she had asked of him. Protect him. Not avenge me. Not turn him into a weapon. Not let him watch you smash his fatherâs head in with a piece of metal in the Oval Office.
Protect him.
Butcher lowered his eyes to Homelander. The blond was still there, in pieces in his ridiculous costume, shoulders shaken by tremors he could no longer control. A god on the floor. A beaten dog. A catastrophe still breathing. The anger returned at once, burning, almost reassuring.
Then Ryan took another step, and the anger stopped dead against him.
âButcherâŠâ
The name came out low, almost scraped raw. Ryan had tried to put order into his voice, to stay standing inside his own fear, but it still trembled at the edge.
âLeave him⊠please.â
Butcher didnât know what gave way first. His arm, maybe. Or something behind his ribs. The crowbar lowered a little, not enough to forgive, not enough to truly renounce, but enough for death to stop hanging directly over Homelander.
Ryan swallowed hard. He looked at his father without really wanting to look at him, as if the sight hurt, but looking away would have been worse.
Homelander met his sonâs eyes, and it broke him.
Not like when Butcher had split his face open. Not like when his knees had given out. This was lower. More intimate. A break with no flash to it, almost silent at first, that still seemed to tear out whatever was left standing inside him.
He made a strangled sob, then crawled toward Ryan.
Butcher tensed immediately.
âDonât move, you littleââ
But Homelander wasnât attacking. Not this time. He collapsed at Ryanâs feet like a sack of shit, like a worshipper at the only altar he had left. His bloody hands clumsily grabbed at the boyâs pants, leaving red smears on the fabric.
Ryan flinched. Small. Barely visible. But he didnât step back.
Homelander lifted his head toward him. His face was so ruined he barely looked human anymore. All that remained was some wretched creature on its knees, in pieces, crying so hard it could barely breathe.
âRyanâŠâ
His voice broke on the name.
Butcher clenched his teeth. He wanted to step forward, tear him away, smash his skull in just for daring to put his blood-covered hands on the boy. But Ryan still didnât move. So Butcher stayed still, the crowbar lowered now, but still ready. Always ready.
âI love you,â Homelander sobbed. âI love you⊠Iâm sorry⊠Iâm so sorryâŠâ
The words came out of him in a mess, torn from his throat, drowned in tears.
âI didnât mean⊠I didnât want this to happen. I didnât want to scare you. I didnât want to lose you. Youâre the only one⊠the only one that matters. The only one I have left.â
He clung harder to Ryanâs pants, his forehead almost against the boyâs knees, as if he were trying to sink into the little contact that hadnât been taken from him yet.
Ryan looked down at him, and Butcher tried to read something on his face. Impossible. Nothing was clear on that kidâs face, too young to carry this. There was disgust, maybe. A contained disgust, clenched behind the teeth. Disgust at the blood, the tears, this weakness too naked. Disgust at seeing his father reduced to this. And emotion too, of course. Something trembled in his eyes, in his mouth, in the way he stayed frozen instead of pushing Homelander away. A cold, mute pain that didnât yet know whether it was supposed to become pity, anger, shame, or grief.
Homelander, meanwhile, kept going, unable to stop now that he had started emptying himself in front of him.
âI never loved anyone like you. Never. Youâre⊠youâre everything. Everything I have. Everything Iâve ever had that was real. The only one who stayed. Iâm sorry, Ryan. Iâm sorryâŠâ
Butcher felt an old wave of nausea rise in him. Not only hatred. There was something obscene in it: Homelander clinging to the boy like a life raft, dumping all his need to be loved onto him when Ryan could barely stand himself. It was monstrous, selfish, disgusting. And yet not entirely false. There was too much panic in his hands, too much ruin in his voice, too much twisted truth in that âI love youâ for Butcher to simply spit on it without feeling something grind inside him.
Ryan didnât answer. He didnât put a hand on him. He didnât push him away either. He stood there, arms at his sides, fingers slightly clenched, as if the smallest gesture would pull him into a story he didnât want.
Homelander clung to him.
Ryan let him.
That was all.
And somehow, it was worse than rejection.
Ryan finally moved. He lowered his eyes, but not to his fatherâs face. To the hands clutching his pants.
âGet up.â
No warmth. No forgiveness. Not even anger.
Just two flat words.
Homelander lifted his head a little, as if even that hurt. His eyes searched Ryanâs, desperate, starved, but the boy immediately looked away. He didnât want to look at him anymore. Or he didnât want Homelander to see what was on his face.
Ryan bent down anyway. His fingers took his fatherâs arm just above the elbow with stiff, almost disgusted care. Not an embrace. Not a tender gesture. Mechanical help, necessary, like picking someone up from the middle of a corridor because you need to move forward, not because you want to touch them.
Homelander let himself be helped up. His legs shook under him. He wavered, instinctively tried to lean more heavily on Ryan, and the boy stiffened at once.
He felt it for what it was. Even like this, barely standing, he felt the rejection in Ryanâs body. He loosened his grip a little, as if that tiny retreat cost him more than all of Butcherâs blows.
Ryan kept his head turned, face closed, eyes fixed somewhere in the ruins of the office rather than on him. He had helped his father stand. That was all he was willing to give.
Only then did Ryan turn toward Butcher, not fully, just enough for their eyes to meet. His were dry, but too bright. His jaw had almost stopped trembling. He was holding himself together in a way that hurt to look at.
âWe have to go.â
Butcher stayed still. The crowbar hung from his hand, smeared with blood, dust, and tiny shards catching the light. A makeshift weapon for an ending that hadnât come.
âRyanâŠâ
âWe have to go,â the boy repeated.
This time there was something else in his voice. Not a plea. Not an order either. A limit. A fucking line drawn in the middle of the blood.
Butcher clenched his teeth. He could have said no. He could have explained that it was now or never, that Homelander without powers was only a man to be put down before Vought found a way to rebuild him, before someone put V back in his veins, before the world got back on its knees in front of his face. He could have said all that, and he would have been right.
But Ryan was looking at him, and Becca was everywhere in that look.
So Butcher let out a hard breath through his nose.
âYeah.â
Homelander blinked, as if he couldnât quite believe he was still alive. He could barely stand, one arm tucked against his ribs, the other hovering near Ryan without quite daring to grab him. His mouth was still trembling. Ridiculous. Pathetic. Human, now that the lightning had left the body.
Butcher wanted to hit him just for that. For that late-arriving humanity. For that weakness that came after all the dead. For the luxury of crying after spending his whole life crushing everyone else.
But he didnât move.
Ryan took a step toward the exit. Homelander followed with the tiniest delay, like a badly trained dog. The word came back to Butcher and almost pulled a smile out of him.
A filthy little bitch.
He remembered the broken voice, the foul promises, the way Homelander had crawled through the wreckage of his own myth. âIâd eat your fucking shit.â
A shiver of dirty pleasure climbed the back of his neck.
Not a victory. Not really. Homelander was still breathing. The thing wasnât over the way Butcher had dreamed it. But something had been killed here. Something huge, golden, national, something that had worn a cape and called it greatness.
And that was when Butcher saw it.
The camera.
It was half-hidden behind a shattered panel of wood, tilted sideways, almost buried in the dust, but it was there. Still active.
Butcher stopped. Ryan, already near the door, didnât notice right away, but Homelander followed his gaze, and his face emptied at once. This time, Butcher smiled for real. Not a big theatrical smile, nothing clean, nothing victorious. A low, mean smile that slowly pulled at his mouth like a blade sliding out of its sheath.
They had seen, those good citizens. The fanatics, the couch patriots, the weeping little mothers in front of their saviorâs speeches, every cunt whoâd bought the mug, the flag, the prayer. They had seen their god on the ground, crawling through the debris of the Oval Office, begging, crying, offering his mouth, his dignity, his dogâs soul for a few more seconds. They had seen him collapse at his sonâs feet. The whole world, maybe, or enough of it.
The thought brought Butcher back to himself like a swig of whisky after a fight. A deep, thick satisfaction warmed his chest. He hadnât cracked Homelanderâs skull open, not yet, but heâd had this: the myth split down the middle, spilled out onto the floor, broadcast to everyone who had believed they were looking at a god.
Homelander saw him understand. His lips parted, and a panicked breath came out.
âNoâŠâ
Butcher slowly turned his head toward him.
âOh, yes.â
Ryan turned back at last, silent, his face closed.
Butcher approached the camera, stepping over debris, the crowbar hanging from the end of his arm. The red light was still glowing. He leaned toward the lens and, for one second, let the world look at him: his bloodied face, his dark eyes, his tired bastardâs smile.
Then he glanced over his shoulder. Homelander was standing crookedly near Ryan, face destroyed, suit filthy, eyes ravaged by a brand-new horror. It wasnât the fear of the blow this time. It was worse. He knew the world was finally seeing him.
Butcher turned back to the camera, and his smile widened by a fraction.
âHappy Easter, you cunts.â
He didnât add anything. No need. The crowbar came down on the lens, the glass burst with a dry crack, and the red light died at once.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/85679561/chapters/226962266#workskin
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michael jackson - come together (1988)