sinner

1999 • 👩🏼 • basic but cool af

[whereve-e-r-you-are]

THIS SONG SUITS HIM SO WELL

credit to hearts4dyer on ig, I only changed song to his own anthem 🤩

[whereve-e-r-you-are]

Aniela don’t worry, I’ll take care of him ; )))

[whereve-e-r-you-are]

face card never declined

[whereve-e-r-you-are]

cute

[dr3am-operator]

happy pride month to HIM

[whereve-e-r-you-are]

i think about this edit 24/7 but since it’s june, I’m thinking harder so happy pride month!!

[whereve-e-r-you-are]

I love them together and I would love to watch spin off about Maddy and Bishop, they give me morticia and gomez addams vibes AS FUCK

so sad that they didn’t have many scenes together:(

[whereve-e-r-you-are]

and thats iconic duo

[beejwatch]

MASH s02e13 - Deal Me Out

[freakytikigifs]

Dan Stevens as David Collins THE GUEST

[loveallthegays]

Michael Johnston by Kee Chang

[dcmonblood]

Kyle Gallner as The Demon STRANGE DARLING (2023) dir. JT Mollner

[godsfavrib]

Jesus Christ Antony we are losing our minds here

[aenslem]

The Homelander & Billy Butcher in THE BOYS || 5.08 "Blood and Bone"

[whereve-e-r-you-are]

this moment was the last time he ever smiled

[soldierboys]

THE BOYS 5.08 Blood and Bone

[whereve-e-r-you-are]

pathetic homelander is my favorite homelander, and Antony Starr deserves every fucking award for his role

[vcujensen]

[whereve-e-r-you-are]

HE’S SO FUCKING HANDSOME WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

[ancientwastedlores]

Chapter 4 - The Father of God (Reader x Soldier Boy)

Happy The Boys finale eve! This chapter is definitely NOT going to be painful. You can trust me :) 

Catch the series here if you haven’t already: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 

This is the final chapter, I hope it’s everything you guys wanted <3 <3 

Tags: @1inacerulean @sammysweetheart @witch-of-letters @monkievonkie @spnfamily-j2 @mornixgstar18 @glowingtoenails @kathypellar @spookybitchdreams @chxrrybomb22 @calyyypsooo @audreybea @ladykitana90 @happinessisaloadedgun @kizzylori @babesplzreadthz @blissfulwatermelons-blog @porcelanalux @nbhrhn @welikeclownsinthishouse @inkmm0ne @nightlark100 @prettybiching @monteyli77 @delightfulmusictiger @valencia-somerhalder-morgan @brainmp4 @verco @lmillsy97 @mathews78 @stellervoid

Relationship: Soldier Boy x Reader, Homelander in love with Reader. 

Word count: 9603

--------------------------------

The Father of God - Chapter 4

The office door slammed open.

Soldier Boy walked in like he had broken several security protocols and enjoyed every single one.

He looked at Sage first, then at you. His expression changed when he saw your face. Not dramatically, because that face was not built for dramatic displays of tenderness. It was built for war. 

“That’s enough,” he said. “Show’s over. We’re fucking leaving.”

Sage turned toward him slowly. “No, you’re not.”

“Wasn’t asking.”

“If she leaves now, Homelander gets a whole new reason to go crazy, and even the public would be on his side for that one.” 

“I don’t give a fuck…” he looked at you. “We are leaving.” 

“Put that love shit aside for a second and listen to me…” She moved in front of him, standing between the two of you. “If she disappears, he gets to tell a story of betrayal. He has a stolen bride and a conspiracy against heaven. All the mythological shit he wants.”

Soldier Boy’s eyes narrowed. “Are you suggesting we put her in a fucking cult, then?”

You moved without thinking, placing yourself between them. Both of them looked at you. The absurdity of it nearly made you laugh. You, human and exhausted and newly canonized by a national cult, standing between two supes and asking them to be polite.

“Stop,” you said. “Just give me a second to think.” 

You pressed your fingers to your temples.

Your name was still trending. Homelander was still waiting. Tomorrow was still coming. The public had already been handed a story, and stories, once released, did not return obediently to the mouth.

You needed a route.

Some delay.

Sage watched you for a few seconds.

Then said, “You’ve thought plenty.”

You looked at her. Her voice was cold now. Not cruel exactly. Worse… efficient.

“What exactly were you hoping would happen?” she asked. “You’d feed him divine language indefinitely and he would never use it? Or include you in it to get him brownie points? He’s not an idiot. America needs a man in charge but it settles them to know a woman is around to ground him.” 

Your throat tightened.

“I thought we had time,” you said.

Sage’s expression shifted.

“Time?”

“You were supposed to get that virus before all this went to hell.”

Soldier Boy went very still. Sage’s face remained unreadable. For one second, the entire room seemed to tilt.

You saw the calculation in her eyes, the flicker of annoyance that you had said it in front of him, then the immediate dismissal of that concern because larger disasters had already eaten the smaller ones.

“Yes, well,” she said dryly, “some things don’t work on your end, some things don’t work on mine.”

Anger flared in you so fast it nearly steadied you.

“Don’t you dare.”

Her eyes sharpened.

“You hired me,” you said, voice low. “You pushed me toward him. You used my reads, my language, my strategies, my ability to keep him calm, and now you’re standing here like I’m the only one responsible.”

Soldier Boy glanced at you. Sage said nothing.

“You wanted proximity,” you continued. “You got it. You wanted influence. You got it. You wanted him stable enough to build around. You got that too. So don’t stand there and act like I invented this nightmare by myself.”

Sage held your gaze. For once, there was no immediate answer.

But there was no time for a blame game. No time for the satisfaction of being right. You exhaled shakily and turned away from both of them.

“We need a plan.” 

“I gave you a plan,” Soldier Boy said. “We leave.”

You looked at him. His expression softened only slightly, which meant, for him, it had softened a lot.

“She can’t leave the American people,” Sage snapped.

Soldier Boy turned on her. “Don’t you put that on her.”

“The polls show she is a grounding factor,” Sage said. “People believe more in Homelander if there’s a sane mother figure attached to the narrative.”

“MOTHER figure?” Soldier Boy barked.

The word seemed to hit him like an insult. His face twisted with disgust. 

“Jesus Christ, that’s what you people are calling it?”

“That is what the data indicates.”

“The data can go fuck itself.”

“I don’t want to leave…” You said, so quiet they almost missed it. 

Soldier Boy stared at you. “What?” 

You looked at him. “This can be managed… Sage just needs to keep working on that virus and I’ll… I can keep him steady. The more he trusts me, the easier it’ll be to administer the virus.” 

He looked at you in absolute disbelief. The way you kept punishing yourself, walking further and further into the trap, thinking wholeheartedly you were doing good when you were losing more and more of yourself… 

It was killing him. 

“What are you doing?” he asked. It sounded tired… dragged through years of conflict and heartbreak. 

“It’ll be fine…” You said, more to convince yourself than to convince him. “I can’t… we can’t leave. He’ll get so angry, and the people who would suffer for it…” 

“Their blood wouldn’t be on your hands,” he said, knowing where you were going with this. 

You shook your head. “It would be. It would be my fault.” 

“Oh, honey,” Sage said. She tried to sound sarcastic, but the tiniest shred of care bled through anyway. 

He looked at you, and something dawned on his face. 

“You know what…” he said. “Fine.” 

“Fine?” you asked. 

“Fine.” 

He laughed, but there was no humor in it. He turned to leave, and you grabbed his arm. 

“What does that mean?” you asked. 

He turned to face you. “Maybe you and Homelander are more alike than I thought.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Yeah. He thinks he’s god. You think you make a lick of difference.” 

“I’ve been handling—” 

“Yeah yeah yeah,” he waved his hand dismissively. “You handle him, and how much has that helped? You keep thinking you can control this and make things better, that you are the only chosen one who can do it. Sound familiar?” 

It felt like a whip cracking across your chest. 

He sighed. “I’ll see you at home.” 

Home. 

He called it home… he wasn’t mad enough to abandon you, but what a time to say that for the first time. Of course, his timing was awful. 

He left quietly, leaving you and Sage alone in the conference room. 

He was barely gone two seconds before Sage snapped into action. 

“Okay. Tomorrow. You appear with him, but you frame the role yourself before he defines it for you. You are not a wife or a mother. You are a witness. Advisor. Human conscience. Got it?”

You let out a short, broken laugh. “Sounds easy.”

***

You had slept maybe two hours. Soldier Boy had stayed at your apartment only because the thought of leaving you alone after the day you’d had felt obscene. He had sat on your couch while you drafted and redrafted what you would say, beer untouched beside him, watching you with that tight, furious expression of a man who had agreed to let you walk into a burning building.

At dawn, when you stood in front of the mirror fixing your hair with hands that refused to be steady, he came up behind you.

Not touching.

Just standing there.

His reflection met yours.

“One of these days, you’re going to force me to knock you unconscious and drag you out of here.” 

You laughed. “You would never do that.” 

“No?” he asked. “Give it time.” 

You hoped it wouldn’t come to that… 

Sage said she had another angle for the virus. Until then, the best way to keep Homelander occupied was not pure worship but a few hiccups from non-believers now and again. Obstacles offered a sense of purpose, she said. 

Jesus, you hated yourself. 

He leaned down and pressed his mouth against your neck, his eyes still on yours in the mirror. 

Then he mumbled against your skin, “Fab Five Freddy told me everybody’s fly…” 

You laughed. That was what he did when he wanted to lighten the mood; tell you that even though he was angry, he loved you. 

“DJ Spinnin’ I said, my my,” you finished. 

He spun you around to face him and kissed you. 

It was hard not to think of yourself as a lamb walking to the slaughter. 

*** 

The sanctuary looked worse in person. Every surface had been polished until it seemed not to reflect light but manufacture it. The audience was packed so tightly that the room felt feverish. People cried when they saw him. Some cried when they saw you.

That was new.

That was horrible.

You stood backstage with Sage at your side, watching the feed on a monitor. Homelander was already out there, speaking in the low, solemn cadence you had trained into him. His voice rolled over the congregation like warm thunder.

“And now,” he said, voice rich with pride, “the woman who didn’t ask to be known. Never asked for praise or worship or recognition…”

Your pulse pounded.

“She has stood beside me in silence. In faith. In patience. Today, she speaks for herself.”

The applause began before you moved. A wave of sound, not as loud as for him, but warm.

Curious.

You walked out.

The light hit first. Then the faces. Hundreds in the sanctuary, millions beyond the cameras. You could feel every lens finding you. Every person inventing you in real time.

The Healer.

The right hand.

The chosen woman.

The mother-shaped thing Sage had warned you about.

You reached the podium.

Homelander stood nearby, glowing with pride so intense it almost softened him into something bearable. He looked like he had given you the world and was waiting to see you admire the wrapping.

You turned to the audience.

For one impossible second, your mind emptied.

Then you found the line you had built.

“I am human,” you said.

The room went quiet. You let the silence stay long enough.

“I think it is important to start there. I am human. I am limited. I am flawed. I am not divine.”

A ripple moved through the congregation. You felt Homelander’s attention sharpen.

“I have been called many things in the last twenty-four hours,” you continued, allowing the faintest self-conscious smile. “A lot of it much larger than what I can carry.”

Soft laughter.

Humor humanized you. It also lowered threat.

“But if I have any role here, it is not to stand above you. It is to witness. To listen. Homelander calls me a healer, and I hope to do that justice. If he wants me for counsel, to be the voice of people like me—flawed, sometimes helpless, oftentimes stupid in the way we handle danger…”

That got another laugh. 

“Then I will be that. I want to be that. I want to know you so I can help Homelander be closer to you.” 

You could feel it. Not all at once, but slowly. Sage would be insufferable about how well this worked.

The applause rose, relieved and approving. 

You turned back to Homelander as the applause grew, and for one awful moment, the pride on his face almost knocked the breath from your lungs.

He was thrilled.

Completely.

Radiantly.

He reached for your hand in front of everyone. You had no choice but to let him take it. 

The applause became cheers.

***

Back at the tower, the atmosphere was near euphoric. People kept a respectful distance from you, even those you considered work buddies, because now there was something vaguely untouchable about you. 

That only made you feel lonely. 

You were upset until The Deep found you. 

“Okay, I just want to say, from someone with a platform, that was huge. Huge. I actually think you and I should do an episode together. Like, the human conscience and the ocean conscience—”

“No,” Sage said, appearing from nowhere.

The Deep deflated.

“But—”

“Leave.” 

He left looking wounded. Sage turned to you.

“Well done. Your Oscar is in the mail, I’m sure.” 

“Thanks.”

“You look like you’re going to vomit.”

“Also true.”

“They like you.”

“I noticed.”

“That helps us.”

“Of course it does."

“Not that it will protect you if Homelander finds out about you and his daddy.” 

You frowned, disgusted. “Sage—” 

“Have you spoken to him about it?” she cut in. “Depowering Homelander?” 

“I don’t know how to bring it up.” 

“A little pillowtalk… some big doe eyes…” 

“Fuck, Sage, can you just be my friend for a second and not a military strategist?” 

You regretted the words the second they left you. You sighed, hoping she’d see your state and let it go. 

She didn’t. 

“We are not friends…” she said. 

“No, I know. You don’t have friends.” 

She looked wounded by that, but recovered quickly enough. “Friends are a waste of time.” 

“And every second of your life is so fucking optimized?” you asked. 

“It actually is.” 

“Then I’m happy for you. Not as a friend, as a subordinate. Your employee. Okay?” 

She knew better than to retaliate. 

“Good,” she said. 

Before you could answer, Homelander appeared at the end of the hallway.

Sage saw him too and gave you one last look before leaving. 

Coward, you thought, with deep professional respect.

Homelander walked toward you like he was approaching something sacred.

His smile was open. Boyish, almost. He looked happier than he had in months. That was the terrible thing about giving him what he wanted.

“There you are,” he said. 

“You did well today,” you said, trying to keep things focused on him so he wouldn’t see you unravel. 

Not that it worked. 

He laughed softly, shaking his head. “Me? You did. They loved you.”

“They were kind.”

“No.” His eyes shone. “They loved you. You make everything make sense.”

That was becoming a problem. The mythology was tightening around you even when you loosened one knot.

He gestured toward the conference room. “Come in. Just for a minute.”

The room was empty when you entered. No briefing, no tablets, no team. Just the glass, the city, and the terrible shine of success.

Homelander walked to the window, then turned back toward you.

“You know,” he said, “I was thinking while you spoke.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

He laughed, delighted by the gentle tease. That was the way to not get lasered, you realized. Know when to appeal to God and when to treat him like a person. It was a delicate balance that occupied all of your mental faculties all the time. 

How exhausting. 

You pushed the thought from your head. 

“I was thinking about the future.”

Of course he was.

You stayed near the table. “What part of it?”

“All of it.” He turned back to you. “This was the hard part, wasn’t it? Getting them to see. But now they do. And after enough comes more.”

“And… what does more mean?” 

“We’ll need national gatherings. Not rallies… something bigger. Cleaner. More…” He searched for the word.

“Liturgical?” you offered before you could stop yourself.

His eyes lit.

“Yes. That. See? You understand.”

You regretted the word immediately.

He continued, energized. “We’ll need symbols. Not Vought symbols. Ours. The Church’s. The country’s.”

“I can workshop that.”

“We,” he corrected, pleased. “We’ll workshop it. Together.” 

Your stomach tightened.

“Yeah. We.”

Then he came closer.

Slowly.

You held still.

He stopped in front of you, eyes moving over your face with that warm, possessive softness that made your nerves light up in warning.

“You were beautiful today,” he said.

Soldier Boy’s voice was suddenly in your head, telling you it was time to leave. Leave Homelander, leave Vought, leave the whole fucking circus. 

“Thank you,” you said.

“No.” He shook his head gently. “Not like that. Not… decorative.” A faint smile. “Though obviously.”

You forced a small laugh.

“I mean beautiful like…” His expression grew earnest. “Like truth. Purity.”

Oh, God. You were too tired for this.

“Homelander.”

“John,” he said suddenly.

You froze. He watched you carefully.

“That’s what you should call me. When we’re alone.”

The room seemed to thin around you.

You smiled slowly, softly, buying yourself time. “That feels… close.”

“I want it to be.”

“You’re very sweet.” 

That pleased him. He stepped closer still.

His hand lifted, hovering near your cheek.

You knew the exact angle now. The exact breath. The moment before want became action. Your body prepared itself to hold still, to endure, to calculate. Then his fingers brushed your cheek, warm and almost trembling.

“Today,” he whispered, “I could see it.”

“What?”

“You beside me.”

Your pulse kicked.

“Homelander—”

“John.”

You swallowed.

“John,” you said, and the name came out like a swallowed blade.

His eyes softened so intensely that it almost frightened you more than rage.

“There,” he breathed. The word was almost worshipful.

He leaned in… he was slow, but you hesitated anyway. 

He stopped instantly.

His face changed, confusion crossing his features, followed quickly by concern. 

“Hey, hey…” he whispered. “It’s okay. It’ll be fine.”

You stared at him. His thumb brushed your cheek.

“We don’t have to rush. I told you. I won’t kiss you until we’re properly together if that’s what you need. I just…” He looked almost shy. “I thought after today…”

The room was spinning. You needed to stop this without making it a wound.

“It’s not that,” you said.

He stilled.

“What is it, then?” 

You let your eyes flick briefly toward the upper corner of the room.

The camera.

Then back to him.

“The room has cameras.”

For one second, he did not understand. Then he did.

His hand dropped immediately, and he stepped back from you, making the distance respectable again. 

“Right,” he said, laughter escaping him. “Sorry.” 

The word landed flat. 

You lowered your gaze, performing regret and modesty so carefully it could have won awards.

“Killed the moment,” you said softly. “Sorry.”

You were not sorry. Not at all. The relief moving through you was so huge you almost felt faint with it.

Homelander looked toward the camera. For the first time, irritation crossed his face.

“No,” he said after a moment. “No, you’re right. Of course. That would be… disrespectful.”

“Yes.”

“Our first kiss shouldn’t be content.”

Your stomach twisted.

“Our first kiss should be ours,” he said.

You nearly closed your eyes.

God.

The mythology kept building, no matter what you did.

You gave a small nod. “It should be.”

He smiled then, softer, restored by the idea that restraint made the future more meaningful.

“See?” he said. “This is why I need you.”

You did not answer. He didn’t even need you to, these days. 

He moved toward the door, still visibly buoyed by the day, by your speech, by the near-kiss he had decided was romantic rather than avoided.

“Later,” he said.

“Later.”

He left the room with the glow still on him.

You waited.

One second.

Two.

Three.

Then you looked directly at the camera in the corner. You prayed he wouldn’t have that disabled for your next meeting in there. 

By the time you reached your office, Soldier Boy was inside. 

He stood by the window this time, not sitting, not pretending casualness. His arms were folded, jaw tight, eyes fixed on you before the door even shut.

“He tried to kiss you,” he said.

You closed the door behind you.

“He didn’t, though. I’ll keep people around us from now on.” 

“How long do you think that’ll work?” 

You leaned back against the door and closed your eyes for a moment. You were so tired. So incredibly tired.

“He’s happy,” you said, eyes still closed. 

“That supposed to comfort me?”

“No.”

Silence. 

“You okay?” he asked. 

You opened your eyes. 

“The people liked me,” you said. 

He looked at you for a moment.

Then nodded once, grim.

“Yeah.”

“That’s bad.”

“Yeah.”

He came toward you, stopping close enough that you could lean into him if you wanted to. You did, because it was the only thing you wanted anymore. 

For one second, the two of you just stood there.

Then he reached past you and locked the office door.

You raised an eyebrow.

“That’s your solution?”

“No.” His hand settled at the back of your neck, warm and heavy. “That’s my opening move.”

Despite yourself, you laughed a real laugh. 

His face changed when he heard it. His arms came around you as if he had been waiting all day to do exactly that. 

You stood in Soldier Boy’s arms, alive for one more hour, with the terrible knowledge that today had gone well.

Which meant the trap had gotten prettier.

***

Weeks passed, and Homelander did not make another move.

He was waiting.

For the right time. The sacred time. The private time. The time when you would no longer hesitate, when the country would no longer question, when the cameras would no longer make the moment feel vulgar.

And because he waited, people loved him for it. American Christian family values and all that other nonsense. The tabloids began calling you The Woman Beside the God. Then The Healer. Then, after one particularly nauseating profile by a lifestyle magazine, The Quiet Grace of America’s New Faith.

You had never wanted to be a concept, but here you were. A concept with tailored blouses, formal trousers, and carefully controlled facial expressions.

A concept who now had scheduled hours at the Church of America.

That, apparently, was your life.

The first time Sage told you about the “confession initiative,” you stared at her so long she finally sighed.

“It tests well,” she said.

“Of course it does.”

“You don’t have to call it confession.”

“What would you prefer? Emotionally manipulative patriotic intake?”

“Pastoral listening.”

“You’re joking.”

“I never joke.”

No, she never did. 

The idea was simple. Horrifying, but simple.

Homelander was too large now. Too divine. Too symbolic. His flock loved him, yes, but love at that scale became abstract. They needed a human entry point into the faith. A place to bring fear, guilt, doubt, grief, and shame. They needed someone who could sit across from them and make the Church feel compassionate instead of merely powerful.

They needed you.

Your first day in the confession room, you nearly walked out.

It was not called that officially. Officially, it was the Reflection Chamber, because Vought could not name a thing without making it sound like either a spa treatment or a low-level brainwashing facility.

The room was beautifully designed, which only made it worse. It was a place you would have liked to cozy up in, read Russian Literature against Soldier Boy’s chest while he called it depressing shit.

The room had soft lighting and a small table between two comfortable chairs. A box of tissues placed within easy reach. A discreet camera hidden badly enough that you knew it was meant to be noticed by you, not by visitors. Behind your chair, a stylized version of Homelander’s eagle emblem hung like a cross.

You stood in the doorway and stared at it.

“Please, no,” you said.

Sage, beside you, did not look up from her tablet. “The emblem stays.”

“It’s grotesque.”

“It’s brand recognition.”

“It’s behind my head.”

“Yes.”

“So when people look at me, they see him.”

“That’s the point, genius.” 

You turned to her.

“This is disgusting.”

Her eyes lifted. “Most effective things are.”

You wanted to argue.

You didn’t.

Because you were tired, and because she was right.

So you sat. And people came.

At first, you expected lunatics… you got some, too. 

A man who believed Homelander had cured his gambling addiction by appearing in a dream. A woman who wanted to know if calling another driver a bitch counted as failure of faith. A college student who asked whether fantasizing about Homelander was “inappropriate” and then cried when you said she was allowed to have private thoughts.

You went home that night, walked straight into your apartment, and told Soldier Boy, “A woman asked me if lusting after Homelander was a sin.”

He looked up from the couch, deeply offended. “Jesus Christ.”

“That was not my answer, but close.”

“What’d you say?”

“I told her fantasy is not moral failure unless it causes active harm.”

He stared.

“Sounds like shrink shit.”

“It is shrink shit.”

“She bought it?”

“She cried.”

He grimaced. “People cry a lot around you.”

“They do.”

“Why?”

You dropped your bag by the door. “Because I listen.”

He looked at you for a moment. Then back at the television.

“I always thought that was your worst habit.” 

You laughed.

Because yes. Yes, it was.

But most people who came to you were not fanatics. Most were ordinary. Embarrassingly ordinary. A retired teacher whose husband had died the year before. A young father terrified he was failing his son. A nurse who had worked through too many emergencies and wanted to know why saving people did not make her feel clean.

They sat across from you under soft light and gave you the smallest, heaviest things inside them.

And you listened.

That was all.

No miracles or divine insight. No extraordinary wisdom.

You told one man that anger was often grief with nowhere safe to go. You told a woman she was allowed to love her mother and still admit her mother had hurt her. You told a boy barely out of high school that courage was not the absence of fear, and that leaving a violent home did not make him disloyal.

Honestly, it was all just common sense. It was eight years of your experience as a behavioral analyst and a working knowledge of human patterns.

That was all.

Well, that and basic human decency. 

And somehow, it felt holy to others. They left your room lighter, and by evening, clips and quotes appeared online.

One stood out: I met her today. I understand why he chose her.

The effect was immediate. Homelander’s numbers rose… so did yours. 

Your face began appearing on Church materials in subtle ways. Not beside his at first, but beneath. Smaller. A human counterweight to divine force. Homelander in red, white, and blue, eyes lifted toward destiny. You in cream or pale blue, looking directly at the people.

You hated every image.

Vought loved them.

“The duality is excellent,” a brand strategist said during a meeting, tapping a presentation slide with obscene enthusiasm. “Power and peace. Judgment and mercy. God and witness. We’re also seeing strong engagement from women thirty-five to sixty-four and surprisingly high trust among secular moderates.”

“So glad my psychological imprisonment has cross-demographic appeal,” you said flatly. 

The strategist laughed because she thought you were joking.

Sage did not.

Homelander visited the Reflection Chamber often, though never while someone was inside. He would stand in the doorway afterward, looking at the chairs, the tissues, the soft lighting, like he was seeing proof of something he had always hoped was true.

“They trust you,” he said one afternoon.

You were gathering your notes. “They trust the space. It’s well designed for its purpose.”

“No.” He smiled. “They trust you.”

You looked up. He was warm again, which was never good news for you. 

“You help them understand me,” he said.

Your fingers tightened around the folder.

“I help them understand themselves.”

His smile faltered slightly… the twitch that could launch missiles. Then he absorbed the correction and made it part of his own story.

“Exactly,” he said. “Because through themselves, they find me.”

You stared at him. Sometimes there was no winning. Sometimes every road led back to the altar.

“They do,” you said softly.

Because what else could you say?

The press would not leave it alone, either. 

At first, reporters asked carefully: “What role does she play in the Church?”

Then boldly: “Is she your spiritual advisor?”

Then greedily: “Homelander, what does she really mean to you?”

He loved that question. You could tell every time he was asked. His posture shifted, his smile softened. 

“She is…” he said once, outside the Church after a memorial service for victims of the Denver attack. “She is proof that humanity can still be saved.”

The clip went viral in eleven minutes.

Another time, a reporter shouted, “Are you two romantically involved?”

Homelander paused.

He did not deny it. He smiled faintly, looked down as though protecting something intimate, then said, “Some things are too sacred to reduce to gossip.”

The internet lost its mind. Vought did not care to correct the speculation either, which meant… 

***

That night, you got home to see Soldier Boy watching reruns of that particular clip. 

Some things are too sacred to reduce to gossip.

You stood near the kitchen, arms crossed around yourself.

“Say something,” you said.

Soldier Boy turned off the TV. The silence afterward was worse.

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know.”

“I hate it.”

“You’ve said that already.”

“Still hate it.”

“I know.”

He stood.

“He’s getting comfortable,” Soldier Boy said.

“Yes.”

“With you.”

“Yes.”

“With the country thinking you’re his.”

Your throat tightened.

“I know.”

His eyes flicked to yours.

“You’re getting comfortable too.”

That hit wrong.

You straightened. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“I am not comfortable.”

“No?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

Anger flared. “Do you think I enjoy being turned into a symbol?”

“No,” he said. “I think you enjoy being useful. You always do.”

You went still.

“That’s not fair,” you said. “You make me sound like some desperate people-pleaser.” 

“Okay. Then walk away from the church.” 

You stared at him. “I don’t go there for Homelander, I go there for the people.” 

“I never said you go there for Homelander.” 

“I’m helping people,” you said.

His expression shifted.

“I know.”

“I am.”

“I know.”

“Some of them come in there destroyed.”

“I know.”

“And I tell them something ordinary, something any decent person could say, and they look at me like—” Your voice caught. You hated that too. “Like no one has ever spoken to them gently in their entire lives.”

Soldier Boy said nothing. You pressed your fingers to your eyes, willing all the hurt away so you could think. 

You lowered your hands.

He was watching you differently now.

“It would be easier if it were all fake,” you said. “If everyone in that room were a zealot or a plant or a monster. But they aren’t. They’re lonely. They’re scared. They sit across from me and I can help them.”

Soldier Boy’s face hardened. 

“But every time you help them,” he said, “it helps him.”

You laughed once, bitterly.

“I know. That’s the whole rotten machine. The kinder I am, the stronger he becomes.”

Soldier Boy crossed the room then and took your face in both hands. The gesture was so sudden and so careful it stole your breath.

“You listen to me,” he said.

You looked up at him.

“You are not the rotten part.”

Your eyes burned instantly, and you closed them. 

“I’m becoming it,” you whispered.

“No, you’re not. You wanna help people, help people. But you can do that anywhere, you don’t have to do it here.”

A laugh broke out of you.

“You are very bad at comforting people.”

“I know.”

“The worst.” 

“Yeah.”

You opened your eyes. He looked almost embarrassed by the tenderness, which made it land harder.

So you leaned forward and rested your forehead against his chest.

His arms went around you immediately.

“I’m scared I won’t know when to leave,” you said into his shirt.

His chest moved under your cheek.

“Offer’s still up to knock you unconscious and drag you out of here.” 

You laughed, though it was laced with enough sadness to break his heart. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.” 

***

The trap got sweeter.

Every layer made sense on its own.

One more Church appearance, because your approval among hesitant women was softening resistance. One more listening session, because the testimonials were stabilizing the base. One more carefully photographed moment with Homelander, because the image of power tempered by humanity reassured moderates. One more interview refusal, because mystique played better than overexposure.

One more soft smile.

One more clip of Homelander looking at you like you were sacred.

One more day.

One more day.

One more day.

Vought knew what you meant now. Not to Homelander, but to the machine. It was a tale as old as time—let the woman bear the emotional weight so the man can carry… nothing. 

Nothing at all. 

The better you got at your role, the better he looked. 

It was cruel. It was disgusting. 

It was… American. 

And the public adored you for it.

People began waiting outside the Church to see you. They brought letters. Flowers. Small gifts you refused whenever possible and that Vought cataloged when refusal became impossible. Women cried when you touched their hands. Men lowered their voices when speaking to you. Children waved.

One little girl, maybe seven, gave you a drawing of Homelander in the sky, and you standing beneath him with yellow light around your head.

You stared at it for too long.

“What is it?” Homelander asked later, seeing it on your desk.

You smiled faintly. “Child’s drawing.”

He picked it up and looked at it.

His face softened.

“She sees it,” he said.

Your stomach went cold.

He placed the drawing carefully back on the desk, as if it were precious.

“You’re so loved,” he said. It was so warm, you could have cried. But laced with that was pride. 

Like he had given you this.

“Thanks to you,” you said, because it was the safest answer.

His smile was beautiful.

Terrible.

“You deserve it.”

At home, you started crying in the shower. It was the only place you could truly let yourself go, because you knew even Soldier Boy had limits to how much he could tolerate the pain you were inflicting on yourself. 

The first time it happened, you stepped out, wrapped in a towel, and found Soldier Boy sitting on the closed toilet lid, staring at the floor.

You froze.

“What are you doing?”

He looked up. His face was unreadable.

“You were in there a long time.”

“I’m allowed to shower.”

“Yeah.”

“Were you listening?”

“No.”

You both pretended that was true. 

“You put your bag down in the wrong place and didn’t yell at me for drinking from the carton. Figured something was off.” 

You stared at him. Then, absurdly, you laughed.

He frowned.

“What?”

“You notice where I put my bag?”

His expression went flat. “Don’t make it weird.”

“It is weird.”

“You’re weird.”

“You drank from the carton?”

“There she is.”

You laughed, only for a second. When that faded, the ache remained. 

He saw that too.

He got up and stepped closer to you. 

“I know things are fucked in a way you can’t even explain…” he said. “But I don’t want you to think I’m tired of being here. I mean… I usually never know what to say, I’m no shrink—”  

You laughed at that. 

“But I’m here,” he finished. “Whatever that means to you.” 

It meant a lot. 

That was one of two things keeping you going. The other was the promise that Sage was working on getting the virus. 

So… you kept working.

What else could you do?

You listened to confessions that were not called confessions. You told people to call their daughters, leave their cruel husbands, apologize without demanding forgiveness, sleep more, drink water, stop treating grief like a moral failure. You said ordinary things in a quiet voice, and people left believing they had been touched by grace.

The trap got sweeter.

***

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. 

You waited for that to become true for Homelander any day now. 

But you—even if Vought wouldn’t say it to his face—had become bigger than Homelander. That’s what made it worse. 

By noon, the clip was everywhere. By 12:07 PM, it had crossed every platform. By 12:14, the first edited compilations appeared. By 12:20, the hashtags split into factions.

#TheHealerExposed

#ProtectHomelander

#FalseProphet

#WhoreOfVought

By 1 PM, the Church of America’s main prayer forums had collapsed into digital bloodsport.

You stared at your phone in the Crime Analytics department while your pulse hammered so violently it blurred your vision.

The footage was unmistakable.

Vought security footage from one of the private archive rooms three weeks ago… you and Soldier Boy.

His mouth on your throat.

Your hands in his hair.

The sound muted, but the intimacy louder for it somehow. The urgency. The wanting. You looked devastated by him. Hungry for him. Alive with him.

And America saw all of it.

You sat frozen on the edge of your chair while headlines multiplied in real time.

THE HEALER’S BETRAYAL

HOMELANDER’S RIGHT HAND EXPOSED

SECRET AFFAIR INSIDE VOUGHT

WAS THE CHURCH BUILT ON A LIE?

The comments were worse. You had not realized how much of the country had quietly decided you already belonged to Homelander until they reacted as though you had cheated on a marriage that had never happened.

Not just cheated.

Desecrated.

They called you manipulative. Corrupt. Satanic. A temptress. A government plant. A communist honeypot. A whore who used softness to weaken America’s protector. Women who once quoted your advice under pastel graphics now reposted Bible verses about false idols and adulteresses. Men who had once called you calming now called you contaminated.

The speed of it was nauseating. The internet did not merely turn on women… it always enjoyed the turn. 

“What the fuck…” you breathed. “What the fuck, what the fuck.” 

The others in the room had all seen the footage, of course. They stared at you. 

You stood up from your chair and walked into the hallway, only to meet a wall in front of you. You looked up, and his teeth flashed at you. 

“Going somewhere?” 

You took a deep breath to calibrate yourself. “I was going to look for you.” 

“Is that right?” 

You nodded. 

He turned. “Conference room. Now.” 

You followed him because there was nothing else to do. You could hear Soldier Boy in your head, furious that you didn’t leave with him, furious that you didn’t listen to him. 

No time for that now. 

On the way to the conference room, you watched crisis teams move in perfect lines. PR assistants clutched tablets with pale faces. Every screen in the building showed some variation of your face beside Homelander’s and Soldier Boy’s, split into before and after like a national betrayal timeline.

The Healer.

The Lover.

The Fraud.

You walked through it like someone moving toward an execution chamber.

Nobody stopped you. Nobody met your eyes either.

The Seven conference room doors slid open.

He turned once you were inside. The doors closed behind you like a death sentence. 

You had seen Homelander furious. Smiling. Bloody. Euphoric. Empty. You had never seen him wounded.

It was horrifying.

His eyes moved over you slowly, desperately, like he was trying to find evidence the footage was fake hidden somewhere in your face.

“I watched it,” he said quietly.

Your throat closed.

“I gathered.” 

“Ten times, probably. Do you know why?” 

Each word sounded surgically controlled.

“I kept thinking maybe…” He swallowed hard. “Maybe there was context missing.”

You couldn’t breathe properly. Homelander stopped in front of you. Close enough now that you could see the exhaustion beneath his eyes. The devastation. The humiliation. The terrible, impossible hope still alive underneath it all.

“You don’t have to be scared,” he said softly.

The sentence nearly destroyed you.

“You can tell me the truth.”

You stared at him.

“I know Soldier Boy,” he continued quickly, voice tightening. “I know what he’s like. He can be… pushy. Maybe he cornered you. Maybe he pressured you. Maybe you felt…” His jaw worked. “Unsafe.”

The hope in his eyes was unbearable. Not because it was noble but because he was asking, begging, for you to be everything he thought you were. 

He wanted this. Wanted the world where you had not betrayed him. Wanted the world where he could save you instead of lose you.

And for one catastrophic second, you saw the path.

He wanted you to say yes. The Church would forgive you because victimhood fit the mythology. The flock would turn their hatred toward Soldier Boy, and Homelander would become your protector. Your savior. 

The God who healed the healer. 

Jesus. Fucking. Christ. 

All it would cost was the man you loved.

Soldier Boy’s laugh flashed through your mind. His softness that you had earned with honesty. How you had become peace, actual peace, for each other. 

Fuck. 

You really should have left when you had the chance.

Homelander’s voice cracked slightly. “Is that what happened?”

You looked at him. And understood with sudden, terrible clarity that this was the last real choice you were ever going to get.

Your mouth felt numb.

“He didn’t force me into anything,” you said finally. 

The room changed. Homelander’s face emptied.

Then something behind it collapsed with enough force you almost physically felt it.

“Ah,” he said.

Just that.

You had never heard a human being sound so destroyed in one syllable.

Then came the rest—hurt, betrayal, humiliation. 

The realization.

Every smile you had given him, every careful word, all the times he mistook your management for intimacy. 

His breathing changed. Your survival instincts screamed.

“Homelander—”

“Don’t.”

His voice was flat now. Terrifyingly flat.

“You lied to me.”

You swallowed. “Not about everything.”

His eyes snapped to yours, red already flickering beneath the blue.

“You let him touch you,” he said, as if this were the greater crime. “You wouldn’t even let me kiss you, but him—you let him fuck you wherever he wanted.” 

The words landed like a slap. 

“You pointed to that fucking camera and said we couldn’t kiss, like you were so fucking modest,” his voice rose. “All the while—” 

He laughed.  

“I cared about you,” you said, trying to salvage whatever you could. “I—I told you, I just couldn’t love you in the way—” 

“Don’t you dare, missy.” 

You stopped in your tracks. You wished he would just laser you and get it over with.

“Oh my God.” He stepped back, staring at you like he no longer understood the shape of reality. “Oh my God, you actually—”

His eyes burned brighter.

“You let me build all this around you.”

“I was trying to keep things stable.”

“You LET ME LOVE YOU.”

The room rattled. Glass trembled. Your heart slammed against your ribs.

“You told me you believed in me!”

“I did! I do!”

“Bullshit!”

His eyes flashed fully red. For one second, you thought he would kill you right there. Then he stopped himself.

Barely.

His chest rose violently beneath the suit.

“You made me weak,” he whispered.

“No—”

“You made me think…” He laughed again, more broken this time. “Jesus Christ. I made you holy.”

Pain shot through you because yes. Yes, he had, and you had let him because of your own desire to survive. 

Homelander came closer suddenly, too fast for your body to react properly.

His eyes glowed bright now.

“You embarrassed me.”

The heat from his gaze touched your skin.

“You turned me into a joke.”

“I never wanted—”

“SHUT UP!”

The windows shook. Somewhere outside the room, alarms began chirping.

Homelander stared at you breathing hard, eyes burning. Then something worse entered his face.

Decision.

The exact expression you had spent a year preventing.

“You know what?” he said softly.

That softness terrified you more than the shouting.

“Maybe Sage was right.”

Cold flooded your body.

“What?”

“She said love made people irrational.” His smile twitched. “I just thought she was a miserable, lonely fucking nerd, but… she was right.” 

The glow intensified. 

The conference room doors exploded inward. Soldier Boy came through them like a missile.

Homelander barely had time to turn before Soldier Boy hit him hard enough to crater the far wall.

The impact shook the entire room.

Concrete burst outward.

Glass shattered in glittering sheets across the skyline.

Homelander roared, grabbing Soldier Boy by the throat and driving him through the conference table. The thing split in half with a deafening crack.

You stumbled backward as alarms screamed now throughout the tower.

Soldier Boy slammed his shield upward into Homelander’s jaw. Homelander hit the floor, then launched upward instantly, driving Soldier Boy through three reinforced wall panels like paper.

The building shook.

People screamed outside.

Soldier Boy laughed through split lips.

Homelander hit him again, hard enough to bend steel.

“You fucking ruined EVERYTHING!”

“No,” Soldier Boy snarled, shoving him back. “She did.”

Your stomach dropped. Homelander froze just enough for Soldier Boy to continue.

“She made people think there was still something human in you.” His expression turned vicious. “Turns out you’re just a needy fucking baby in a cape.”

Homelander lunged. The fight became catastrophic. Two gods tearing chunks out of each other inside a skyscraper built to worship them.

Homelander moved faster, but Soldier Boy hit harder. Every impact sounded like structural collapse. Walls caved inward. Screens exploded. Sprinklers burst from the ceiling. Smoke poured through the ruined room.

Soldier Boy’s expression changed. Energy began building in his chest. Homelander’s eyes widened. And for the first time, you saw fear. Pure, unadulterated fear. 

That is when you realized it… 

This leak. The timing. The source.

Sage.

Of course.

She was the leak. 

Not because she hated you, Sage didn’t have time for hate any more than she had time for love. This was contingency, and you were collateral. 

Rage flashed through you so hot it almost cut through the terror.

“You don’t deserve the fucking mythology they built around you,” Soldier Boy growled. “You’re no god.”

The light intensified.

Homelander launched forward.

Soldier Boy grabbed him.

Held him close. 

The blast detonated.

White-hot energy tore through the conference room with catastrophic force. Every screen exploded. The remaining walls vaporized outward. 

For one blinding second, everything disappeared in brilliant, white light.

Then silence. Ringing silence.

Smoke choked the room.

You pushed yourself upward, ears screaming. The conference room had been ripped open to the city air, steel bent outward like broken ribs.

And in the center of the devastation—

Homelander lay still.

A second later, he gasped sharply, confused and panicked. 

Then he looked at his hands. 

Bleeding. 

Soldier Boy staggered nearby, breathing hard. Homelander looked up at him slowly.

“What…” His voice cracked. “What did you do?”

“Took the god outta your bloodstream.”

The horror that crossed Homelander’s face was unlike anything you had ever seen. Like someone had scooped the sun out of his chest and left him alive to notice.

Outside, sirens screamed through Manhattan.

Inside, America’s god stared at trembling human hands while the mythology around him finally, finally began to die.

***

You woke up to Sage staring at you.

Which, honestly, should have counted as attempted murder.

The hospital room was too white and clean. Machines beeped beside you. Your throat felt raw. Your body hurt in places you were certain had not existed before the blast.

For several seconds, you stared at Sage. Sage stared back.

“You look terrible,” she said.

Your eyes closed again.

“Wonderful,” you rasped. “I survived hell to be negged by the smartest person alive.”

“You survived hell because I had emergency responders waiting three floors down before Soldier Boy decided to turn the Seven conference room into Hiroshima.”

You opened one eye.

“You leaked the footage.”

“You had all your clothes on.”

“You used me as collateral.”

“Right again.”

“You are aware that I hate you?”

“Yes.”

“Same page, then.” 

Sage pulled a chair closer to your bed and sat down, like this was a routine performance review and not the aftermath of a national religious collapse. 

“Where’s Ben?” you asked.

“In the hallway, threatening a nurse.”

Your heart kicked hard enough to make the monitor complain. Sage glanced at it.

“Relax. She asked him to lower his voice. He told her this was his indoor voice.”

Despite everything, you laughed. It hurt.

“Oh, don’t do that,” Sage said. “You cracked two ribs.”

“You are so comforting.”

“I’m not here to comfort you.”

“Then why are you here?”

She looked at you for a second. Something passed over her face. Small. Annoying. Almost human.

Then she said, “There was always a sixty-five percent chance you’d be okay.”

You stared at her.

“Sage.”

“What?”

“That is not reassuring.”

“I liked those odds.”

“You liked—” Your voice cracked. You coughed, winced, and glared at her with all the anger you had left, which was unfortunately not enough to kill her. “You liked those odds?”

“You’re alive, aren’t you?”

You kept staring at her. She stared back.

Then, quietly, she said, “It was either that or—.”

She didn’t need to finish that sentence. The consequences were obvious to anyone with half a brain. 

Outside the window, New York looked strangely ordinary. Cars moved. Lights blinked. The sky had the soft gray-blue pallor of a city pretending yesterday had not happened.

Yesterday, God had bled.

By midnight, the Church’s board had dissolved into accusations, resignations, and one public statement so aggressively bland it might as well have been written by a hostage.

The Church of America, as an institution, was “entering a period of reflection.”

Which was PR language for dead in a ditch.

“Where is Homelander?” you asked.

Sage’s expression sharpened with interest.

“In custody.”

Your breath caught.

“For real?”

“For real.”

“No access to V?”

“No access to Compound V. No access to press. No access to worshippers, staff, mirrors, capes, flags, patriotic music, milk, or emotionally vulnerable women with savior complexes.”

You frowned.

“That last one felt directed at me.”

“It was.”

You closed your eyes. Something inside you loosened.

“Does he know I’m alive?” you asked.

Sage tilted her head.

“No.”

You looked at her.

“Really?”

“He asked,” she said. 

“And?”

“And… as far as he’s concerned, you died in the blast.” 

“Why would you do that for me?”

“Because you have spent enough of your life being information fed to him.”

You almost wanted to tell her that was very "friend" of her, then decided not to. No sense in pushing your luck.

Sage looked down at her tablet, swiped once, then stood.

“The public narrative is unstable, but manageable. Vought is radioactive. The Seven are being restructured. Firecracker is claiming spiritual persecution and The Deep is pitching a redemption docuseries called From the Depths. Noir remains unproblematic.” 

Despite yourself, you smiled faintly.

At that exact moment, something crashed in the hallway.

A nurse shouted, “Sir, you cannot smoke in a hospital!”

Soldier Boy’s voice thundered back, “It’s a cigar, sweetheart, don’t get hysterical.”

Your heart did something embarrassing. Sage’s mouth twitched.

The door opened before she could say anything else.

Soldier Boy stepped inside with a cigar between his fingers, blood dried along his temple, one eye bruised, shirt torn, jacket missing, looking like he had crawled out of an apocalypse.

His eyes landed on you.

Everything crude and combative dropped out of his face so fast it almost hurt.

“Hey,” you said softly.

He crossed the room in three strides.

Soldier Boy stopped beside your bed like he did not trust himself to touch you yet. His gaze moved over your face, the bruises, the IV, the bandages, the proof that you were alive and hurt and still there.

His jaw worked once.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he said.

You blinked.

“Is that concern?”

“Yes it is.”

You smiled.

He exhaled hard, like the sound punched out of him. Then he bent carefully, so carefully it made your throat tighten, and pressed his mouth to your forehead.

For a second, you let your eyes close.

He smelled like smoke, blood, leather, and the end of the world. Home, absurdly, was somewhere in that.

Behind him, Sage cleared her throat.

Soldier Boy did not look away from you. “Why is she still here?”

“Because I saved your ass and saved the world.” Sage said.

“You leaked a sex tape and almost got her killed.” 

“Hey, I cut the footage before it got anywhere good,” she shrugged. 

Soldier Boy stared at her. 

“Anywhere good? So you watched the whole thing?” 

“What I do when I’m lobotomized is between me and God.” 

“God’s dead,” you murmured. 

“He is, isn’t he?” Sage said, lightly amused. 

***

Two days later, Ashley showed up with a fruit basket and a nervous breakdown.

You had been moved to a private recovery suite because Vought was trying very hard to not look liable, evil, incompetent, or cult-adjacent. It was failing on all counts.

Soldier Boy was sitting in the chair beside your bed, boots propped on the windowsill, flipping through channels with the disgusted concentration of a man trying to find one redeeming thing about modern television.

Ashley came in carrying a tablet, a basket, and the air of someone who had slept thirty minutes in four days.

“Oh my God,” she said when she saw you. “You’re awake. Great. Great. That’s great. You look… alive.”

“Thank you, Ashley.”

She gave you the basket. It contained pears, crackers, and a small jar of organic honey.

Soldier Boy looked into it.

“What the fuck is this?”

“A recovery gift,” Ashley snapped.

“From who, a dying rabbit?”

You pressed your lips together. Ashley ignored him with visible effort.

“We’re in a transitional moment,” she said.

“Are we?” you asked.

“Yes. Obviously. Homelander is… indisposed. The Church is toxic. Vought is panicking. Congress is sniffing around. You know, transitional.”

Soldier Boy snorted. Ashley’s eye twitched.

“The point is,” she continued, “you have an opportunity.”

“No,” you groaned. “Ashley, why does Vought still have you by the balls? You are Vice President.” 

“You don’t even know what I was going to say!”

“I know your face when you’re about to ask for something unforgivable.”

She looked wounded… which was rich.

Ashley took a breath, then turned to Soldier Boy.

“The Seven needs leadership.”

Silence.

You looked at Soldier Boy. Soldier Boy looked at Ashley.

Ashley smiled the smile of a woman who had decided desperation was a strategy.

“You are the original American hero,” she said. “You’re iconic. You’re familiar to older demographics but newly popular with younger anti-establishment men. You took down Homelander. You could lead the Seven.”

Soldier Boy stared at her.

Then he laughed. A full, rough, deeply entertained laugh that made your ribs hurt in sympathy.

Ashley’s smile tightened.

“I’m serious.”

“I know. That makes it funnier.”

“Ben,” you said warningly, already feeling the shape of whatever terrible thing he was about to say.

“Let me get this straight. You want me to run your little spandex circle jerk because Daddy Laser-Tits lost his juice and cried on the floor?”

Ashley went pale. You turned your face into your pillow.

Terrible.

Horrifying.

So funny you nearly died.

“Please don’t call him that,” Ashley whispered.

“Why? He copyrighted it?”

“Soldier Boy—”

“No.” He tossed the remote onto the bed. “I spent forty years in a Russian box, woke up in a country where coffee tastes like burnt ass, men wear pants tight enough to count their sperm, and every moron with a podcast thinks he’s a philosopher. I am not spending the rest of my life babysitting Fish Sticks and Bible Barbie.”

You made a strangled sound.

“Vought can offer you significant creative control,” Ashley said. 

“Can Vought offer me a farmhouse, a freezer full of steaks, a bed that doesn’t feel like hospital cardboard, and nobody saying words like ‘data’ within fifty goddamn miles of me?”

Ashley blinked.

“No.”

“Then there’s your answer.”

He leaned back, satisfied.

You stared at him. He glanced at you.

“What?”

“You want a farmhouse?”

He looked away.

“Don’t make it weird.”

Ashley looked between you both, slowly realizing that her pitch had not merely failed. It had walked into a field and shot itself.

“So… that’s a no?”

Soldier Boy gave her a look. Ashley nodded quickly.

“Great. Love the clarity.”

She left the fruit basket. 

Soldier Boy waited until the door closed before grabbing one of the pears and inspecting it suspiciously.

“People eat these on purpose?”

You laughed. It hurt. He put the pear down immediately.

“Stop laughing. You’re cracked.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not the medical term.”

“You’re pretty sure about a lot of things. Look where that got us.”

You smiled faintly. He softened instantly, because he knew.

“Hey,” he said, lower now.

You looked at him.

“You’re not going back there.”

You nodded. 

“And if you start thinking you owe anybody anything—”

“I know,” you said. “You’ll knock me unconscious and drag me out.”

He smiled.

“Damn right.”

Your eyes burned.

“Ben?”

“Yeah?”

“Farmhouse sounds nice.”

His face changed.

“Yeah?”

You looked out the window at the city, the glass towers, the billboards, the endless machinery of meaning and money and blood. For so long, your life had been rooms full of screens. Graphs. Briefings. Emergency protocols. Men who wanted your reassurance like oxygen. Systems that turned your softness into infrastructure.

You had mistaken usefulness for purpose.

A farmhouse sounded… nice. 

Just land. Air. Maybe a porch. Maybe Soldier Boy arguing with a rooster.

The thought made you smile so abruptly you had to cover your mouth.

“What?” he asked.

“Just imagining you fighting farm animals.”

His eyes narrowed.

“If a bull starts some shit, that’s on him.”

“Of course it is,” you laughed. 

He leaned forward to kiss you. It was as perfect as perfect could be, and though a farmhouse with Soldier Boy would come with its own set of entertaining problems, these were problems you were excited to tackle. 

With him. 

-------------------------------

That’s a wrap, baby <3

Let me know your thoughts!

[ancientwastedlores]

Chapter 1 - The Father of God (Reader x Soldier Boy)

Hello lovelies, woke up this morning and desired to write a random fic idea that slapped me in the face. Hope you like this fic I wrote, fuelled by 3 espressos and a walnut brownie. What can’t chocolate and coffee do? 

WORD COUNT: 9,500

About: Homelander is terrible at hiding his crush on you. Unfortunately for him, someone else isn’t so shy. Homelander regrets releasing Soldier Boy from containment because if there’s one thing he hates, it’s sharing you. 

Relationship: Soldier Boy x Reader, Homelander in love with Reader. 

Note: I’m all plot, plot, plot, sometimes angst, and lots of religion, so my smut is not very… up there. But I tried? Let me know if you liked it, and maybe I’ll try more of it. 

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Chapter 1- The Father of God

The alley smelled of blood baking in hundred-degree heat.

Copper-thick and sun-cooked into the concrete where three men had died a few hours ago in a “robbery gone wrong.” 

You stood under the fire escape, your tablet in hand, sweat gathering at the base of your spine. Homelander stood across from you, smiling perfectly for the cameras. The corpses behind him were almost decorative. 

“This is why, now more than ever, we need Supes in national defense,” he said. “Imagine how much safer America’s children would be from these immigrants polluting our good nation…” 

You sighed. The talking points were getting old and tired, but his fans never stopped eating it up. 

“Sir, don’t you think a nation run by Supes would make us no different from a fascist state?” one reporter asked. 

Homelander’s canines flashed. “Jessica from Metro News, right?” he asked, which made her visibly cower. 

“Uh… yes, sir.” 

“Jessica, why do you hate America?” he asked. 

You looked at your tablet… not that you needed to consult your screen to tell how Homelander was feeling. 

Vought hired you seven months ago. Your job, on paper, was to monitor The Seven for emotional triggers and thought patterns so they could be better managed for press and public events. Sometimes, the goal was to optimize user experience as well—the more loved the public felt by their heroes, the more they spent money on tickets, comic books, merchandise, and parks. 

But to the disillusioned, your job was obvious. 

You were running a fucking daycare. 

“I guess we no longer give a fuck about the liberal vote?” you asked Ashley. 

“I didn’t make Vice President because of the liberals,” she replied. 

“You didn’t make Vice President for any reason other than Sage,” you reminded her. 

She looked at you, barely containing her scowl. “Why did Sage hire you?” she asked. 

You knew exactly why, but you weren’t about to reveal that. Sage was a brilliant woman—but she constantly failed at one thing. 

Love. 

Love made things hard to predict. And being as pitifully human as you were, she hoped you’d be more in touch with your messy feelings, enough to be better at predicting what people might do driven by love. 

“Guess she needed a break from putting out your fires,” you told Ashley. 

“Listen here, you little shit—” she began before Homelander appeared out of thin air. 

“Heyyy! How’s my favorite analyst?” he asked you, grinning ear to ear. “Did you hear me out there?”

You smiled. “It was excellent. You covered all the talking points and you stayed so calm through the whole thing.” 

He preened, obviously thrilled by the praise. 

You turned your tablet to show him the data you had just manipulated. “Look at that steady line. Even when Jessica asked you that stupid question. That’s what I like to see.” 

His smile could have lit up New York City. It was more important to let him think he was doing a good job than to show him the truth. 

Next to him, Ashley rolled her eyes and walked away. 

“Sometimes it feels like these people don’t even want America safe,” he complained to you. 

“Good thing they have you, right?” you asked, and he nodded. “They don’t deserve you, but you still protect them. You know what that makes you?” 

He waited for the answer, knowing it would be a moment he’d replay endlessly in his head. 

“It makes you kind,” you said gently. “It makes you benevolent.” 

“Damn right,” he grinned. 

You knew to choose your words wisely. Homelander had just announced to the Seven that he was, without a shadow of doubt, God. That Vought was supposed to prepare America for it. It had been a fun couple of weeks at the Tower trying to make that happen, but as usual, you were the quickest to make that switch, so Homelander’s attention would remain on you while everyone else got their shit together. 

He looked around the alley. 

“Alright, let’s get out of this disgusting shithole,” he said, grabbing you by the waist without warning. 

You’d gotten used to it. 

He flew you right out of the bloody alley and back to Vought. 

***

“You were supposed to see this coming,” Sage yelled at you. 

You sighed. “I didn’t even know he had Soldier Boy’s chamber in his fucking penthouse. I can’t account for factors—” 

“What the fuck did I hire you for then?” she asked you. 

You looked at her. “I told you I work from information. It was obvious he would release Soldier Boy if he had him, but I didn’t know he had him.” 

Sage glared at you. 

“We don’t have time to fuck around,” she told you. “It’s hard enough trying to get a hold of Butcher for that virus, Soldier Boy is an uncontrollable variable—” 

“I have it handled,” you cut in, not wanting to hear the same drivel again for the third time. 

She looked at you. “You better,” she said. “You get only one more chance. After that, either I take care of you or I let Homelander do it.” 

She walked out, leaving you in your office. 

You tossed your tablet onto the couch. 

Seven months of this shit. 

Seven months of Homelander being very obviously in love with you, to the point where it was starting to piss off Firecracker. It also didn’t help that The Deep wanted, badly, to get the approval from you that Homelander was getting. 

And, of course, Sage being on your ass. 

The only person not being a problem was Noir. 

Knowing this place, though, it was only a matter of time before he joined them. 

“Alright then,” you said to yourself. “What fresh hell is Soldier Boy going to bring?” 

***

The Seven conference room was cold enough to preserve bodies.

Which, you supposed, was fitting.

The place looked less like a superhero headquarters these days and more like a mausoleum with mood lighting. The massive table gleamed black beneath the city skyline. Deep was nervously sipping something green. Firecracker sat with her boots on the chair beside her, scrolling through social media with visible delight every time she found a death threat directed at a journalist. Noir stood silently in the corner like a sleep paralysis demon in tactical gear.

Sage leaned against the glass wall, arms folded.

And Homelander—

Homelander paced.

Which was never a good sign.

“You are agitating yourself,” you told him from your seat.

“I’m excited,” he corrected.

Your tablet flickered with elevated dopamine markers and adrenaline spikes. It was wiser to stay quiet. 

“All of you, just fucking… behave,” he addressed The Seven. “As we prepare America for my ascension, having a full team is—” 

The doors opened.

Soldier Boy walked into the room like the building belonged to him.

He walked in without theater, without performance. Just heavy boots, the green suit, and the shield. 

Sage’s eyes sharpened with immediate calculation.

Homelander spread his arms. “Everyone,” he announced proudly, “welcome back the greatest American hero who ever lived.”

Soldier Boy glanced around once.

Disinterested.

Bored.

Then his eyes landed on you.

It was almost imperceptible. A tiny hitch. But after seven months in this building, you’d become frighteningly good at noticing microexpressions in unstable superhumans.

His gaze moved slowly over you—not in the polished, media-trained way Homelander looked at women.

No.

Soldier Boy looked at you like he’d walked into a warzone and a pocket of… peace. 

Silence. 

Homelander, of course, did not take kindly to his welcome going unacknowledged. 

“I am also proud to say,” he continued, trying to get Soldier Boy’s attention. “That he is the newest member of The Seven.” 

“What the fuck is that?” Soldier Boy asked, his voice gruff.

Homelander’s smile twitched ever so slightly. 

“The heroes of America,” he clarified. “We protect the greatest nation on earth.” 

Soldier Boy finally took his eyes off of you and looked at the room. 

“Even fish boy?” he asked, clearly referring to The Deep, which visibly offended him. 

“Uh—hi, sir, my name is The Deep—” 

Soldier Boy laughed. “The Deep?” 

He flinched, and Homelander glared at him to back off. 

“The name could use work,” Homelander said quickly. “The point is… you’re part of the most elite group of supe—” 

“Who is that?” he asked, pointing at you. 

That went about as well as a lead balloon. You stayed quiet as Sage’s eyes fell on you. 

“That?” Homelander laughed. “That’s, uh… that’s the analyst.” 

“The what?” 

“She analyzes our behavior to determine—” 

“She’s a shrink?” Soldier Boy asked with all the tact of a bomb. 

“She’s more than that,” Homelander said, immediately getting defensive. “She keeps us at the top of our game; she handles our image.” 

“Back in my day, you handled your own image,” Soldier Boy declared, looking directly at you. 

“It’s gotten harder to do that,” you said quietly. 

“What, being a person?” he asked you. 

“Pretending to be a person when you’re really a god,” you said. 

Oh, you were good. 

Just like Homelander knew his talking points, you knew yours.

“Is that right? Gods?” Soldier Boy asked you. “You believe in that bullshit?” 

You maintained a small, neutral smile on your face and kept your eyes locked on his. 

Soldier Boy looked at you for another second.

Then he held his hand out to shake yours. 

You put your hand in his. 

And Jesus Christ.

You’d shaken hands with Supes before. Homelander liked grabbing people too hard as a dominance thing. D-listers had twitchy restless energy. Deep always held on a second too long.

Soldier Boy’s hand felt different.

His thumb brushed once against your knuckles before he let go.

“You’re human?” he asked.

“I am,” you said. 

“Huh.”

That was it.

Just huh.

But something about the way he said it made your stomach tighten. It felt like, for once, a man wanted to be the solution, not the problem. 

Homelander stepped beside you immediately, hand landing on your lower back. Not aggressive enough to call out, but territorial enough to be noticed by Soldier Boy. 

“She’s human, but she’s brilliant,” he said. “You’ll see in time.” 

Soldier Boy’s eyes dropped to the hand on your back, then slowly lifted to Homelander’s face.

And for the first time since entering the room—

He smiled.

“I’m sure she is,” he said. 

He moved around the table to take a seat, clearly having decided something by himself. Homelander did not move his hand from your back until Soldier Boy had settled into his chair. 

Well. 

Fuck, you thought to yourself. 

***

The knock on your door came at 11:14 PM. Three slow hits against the wood.

You stared at it from your couch for a long second. Nobody visited you… not even Homelander, who was afraid enough of jeopardizing your relationship to keep a respectful distance. 

You got up carefully, setting your book aside.

The second you opened the door, Soldier Boy leaned one shoulder against the frame and looked down at you like this was the most natural thing in the world.

“You took forever,” he said.

“Forgive me, I wasn’t expecting anyone because I didn’t invite anyone,” you said flatly.

He grinned but stayed silent. 

Your eyes moved over him without meaning to. No visible injuries, civilian clothes instead of the suit. Dark green jacket. Henley. Boots.

“How did you get my address?”

“I’m Soldier Boy.”

“That does not answer the question.”

“Used to answer enough.”

You sighed.

Nobody in your building knew you worked at Vought, and you wanted to keep it that way… so you moved aside quickly to let him in before any prying eyes saw. 

And the moment he walked in—

You watched it happen.

The tiny shift.

Soldier Boy looked around your apartment in complete silence.

Your home was quiet in a way Vought Tower never was. Warm lamp lighting instead of sterile LEDs. Soft music low in the background. Bookshelves overflowing. Blankets thrown over the couch. Plants by the windows. 

Actual color. Actual life.

The whole place smelled faintly like sandalwood and coffee.

Human.

After the endless glass and chrome and ego of Vought, it hit him strangely hard. You could tell.

Soldier Boy wandered farther inside, slow and deliberate.

“Huh,” he muttered.

“What?”

He looked around once more.

“This place feels…” He frowned like he hated needing the words at all. “Good.”

You blinked at him.

Then laughed softly despite yourself.

“That sounded physically painful for you to admit.”

“Don’t make it weird.”

“You’re the one here at 11 o’clock in the night, uninvited. I’m making it weird?”

“Yeah, well.” He looked toward your bookshelf. “The tower feels like a dentist office designed by Nazis.”

You snorted before you could stop yourself. That seemed to genuinely delight him.

“There she is,” he said. “Thought maybe you were a robot for a second.”

You crossed your arms. “What do you want, Soldier Boy?”

“Ben.”

“What?”

“My name,” he said. “You can call me Ben.”

That surprised you more than it should have. But, as always, you covered it well.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

He looked at you for a second. Then he shrugged and sat down on your couch like he belonged there.

“I got bored.”

“You got bored.”

“Yeah.”

“New York is supposedly the greatest city on earth. Loads to do here. You can go anywhere.” 

“I did,” he said. “Didn’t like it.”

You stared at him.

Soldier Boy leaned back against your couch cushions with a low grunt, eyes scanning the room again. Then they landed on you.

“So,” he said. “You seriously enjoy babysitting those airheads?”

You walked toward your kitchen. “I’m good at it.

“I didn’t ask if you were good at it.”

You opened your fridge. “Want a beer?”

“Hell yeah.”

You tossed him one. He caught it easily without looking.

“You know,” he continued, watching you carefully now, “the fish guy spent twenty minutes trying to explain NFTs to me.”

“My condolences.”

“And Homelander—” he laughed once to himself. “Jesus Christ.”

Your shoulders stiffened instinctively. Of course, he noticed. Soldier Boy noticed everything. That was becoming rapidly apparent.

“You scared of him?” he asked bluntly.

“No.”

“Bullshit.”

You cracked open your drink. “Fear isn’t useful in my position.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

You looked at him carefully.

Then took a sip instead of answering.

Soldier Boy watched you over the rim of his beer bottle.

“You know what I think?” he asked.

“I can’t wait to know,” you said dryly. 

He ignored the tone. 

“I think you spend all day managing everybody else so they don’t fucking explode.” He gestured vaguely toward you. “But nobody’s taking care of you.”

You almost laughed.

“I don’t need taking care of.”

“Oh, I beg to fucking differ.”

His voice dropped lower then.

Rougher.

“I think,” he said slowly, “you haven’t had anyone fuck you well in years, and you’re wound so tight you could crack diamonds between your teeth.”

The vulgarity, you had expected. The soldier out of time, the crude misogynist with no filter. You… did not seem to mind it. 

“Do you say things like that to shock people,” you asked, “or because you actually believe it?”

Soldier Boy grinned. God, that grin was dangerous.

It wasn’t polished or media-trained like Homelander’s. There was no vapid hollowness, no hunger behind it. It was genuine, pure delight. His grin looked earned through bar fights and bad decisions and cigarettes smoked in motel parking lots.

“I think,” you continued carefully, “you like getting a reaction out of people.”

“I like getting a reaction out of Homelander,” he admitted immediately. “But you?” He shook his head once. “Nah.”

“No?”

“I think people test you enough.”

Something in your expression shifted before you could stop it.

“We just met,” you said quietly. “You don’t know a thing about me.”

“I know Homelander wants you like he wants a mommy.”

You hid your disgust well… years of practice. And yet, you could tell, his eyes sharpened slightly like he caught it anyway.

“But me?” he said, standing now.

He walked toward you without hurry.

“I want you like a man wants a woman.”

Your breath caught despite yourself.

And God… that was embarrassing. Because part of you immediately relaxed.

Soldier Boy stopped in front of you.

Close enough now that you could smell smoke and leather and something warm beneath it.

“Doesn’t that relieve a tiny part of you?” he asked softly.

You hated how much it did.

Homelander’s obsession felt consuming. Childish. Needy in a way that made your skin crawl some days. Everything with him felt like an emotional hostage negotiation.

But this?

A man looking at you and wanting you without needing you to save him first?

Soldier Boy watched the realization happen across your face.

“You’re absurdly confident,” you said quietly. 

“No,” he said quietly. “I’m observant.”

He lifted his hand slowly and brushed his knuckles lightly against your jaw. Gentle enough that it almost hurt more. He leaned in, his breath hot against your face. 

“Wanna know what I thought the second I saw you?” he asked, his voice low. 

You almost closed your eyes and leaned it when—

BZZZZZ. BZZZZZZZZ. 

The sound shattered the moment.

Soldier Boy’s hand was still against your jaw, warm and impossibly careful for a man built like artillery.

The screen lit up.

UNKNOWN NUMBER.

It was obvious who was calling. 

Soldier Boy followed your gaze toward the phone, then looked back at you. Something in his eyes changed, and it didn’t escape you. 

“Don’t pick it up,” he said.

Your eyes stayed on the phone as it buzzed again.

“I have a job to do,” you replied quietly.

You moved to reach for it, and Soldier Boy caught your wrist.

It wasn’t rough or possessive… it was almost gentle, like coaxing a baby away from an electric socket. 

The contrast of it nearly killed you. Homelander had a habit of grabbing things—objects, people, it didn’t matter. He was possessive and jealous and far too quick to claim things he believed were his. 

But this… this felt like someone asking you to reconsider.

Your pulse stumbled traitorously beneath his fingers.

“It’s almost midnight,” Soldier Boy said. “You off the clock yet or does he keep you on a leash twenty-four seven?”

“He doesn’t like it if I ignore him too long.”

“That supposed to make me sympathetic?”

“No,” you admitted. “Just informed.”

The phone buzzed again.

Again.

Again.

Rapid now.

Homelander was spiraling. Probably pacing, wearing a hole in the marble floors of his glossy penthouse. 

You could practically hear him already.

Where are you?

Why didn’t you answer?

Did I do something wrong?

Need wrapped in threat. Threat wrapped in need.

Soldier Boy watched your face carefully.

“Let go of me, fucking war relic,” you said firmly. 

His eyes widened at that, and obvious delight crossed his face. He let go of your wrist. 

You grabbed it off the counter.

The second the call connected, Homelander spoke.

“Hey!”

Too bright. Way too bright. You closed your eyes briefly to muster the strength you needed. 

“Hi.”

“Where are you?” he asked immediately. “I thought we were going to go over tomorrow’s event. Managing triggers and all that. I got us dinner, too, I thought—” 

“Homelander, my job is to analyze you AFTER an event; there’s really nothing to talk about before an event,” you reminded him. 

“Don’t we want to preempt and prevent?” he asked in the voice used to give pep talks to policemen.

Your eyes flicked toward Soldier Boy. He was watching you with an expression you couldn’t quite survive.

“I know you’ll do well,” you said. “You’ve been consistent the last few events, you listen to my notes and always apply them so well—” you cooed. “Hell, if you stay on this track, Vought might not even need me anymore.” 

“I should probably laser a few people then, just so there is a reason to keep you around,” he laughed. 

You laughed back because it was the right thing to do. There was a pause on the line, heavy enough to crush. 

“Hey…” he said softly. “Can I… ask you something?” 

Your eyes flicked to Soldier Boy again. 

“Anything,” you replied. 

“Is Sage having you… integrate… Soldier Boy?” 

“Integrate?” 

“Assimilate. I don’t know. Prepare him for a life in front of the cameras. Be part of The Seven.” 

Sage had, indeed, asked you to do that. You knew her motive without her even telling you, of course. But what she hadn’t accounted for and wouldn’t be happy about was the fact that you were losing your mind in his presence. 

“She did,” you said honestly. “They chipped him this afternoon, I think, and I have to start monitoring tomorrow.” 

Another pause followed. You knew Homelander, every last bit of his damaged, childish self. 

“I don’t want you to,” he said finally. 

Soldier Boy’s mouth twitched instantly beside you. You shot him a warning look, but that only delighted him. 

“Homelander…” you said carefully. “It’s my job.”

“I’ll have someone else do it.”

“Why?”

He exhaled sharply.

“I just don’t want you to.” His voice tightened. “I always do what you tell me to. Can’t you listen for once?”

God, that awful childlike sincerity.

Across from you, Soldier Boy leaned against the counter with folded arms, watching the entire thing unfold like he’d just discovered reality television.

You turned away from him slightly.

“Homelander,” you said gently, “you know I’m good at difficult personalities.”

“That’s exactly the fucking problem.”

Your stomach tightened.

On the other side of the kitchen, Soldier Boy’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“You think I don’t see the way he looks at you?” Homelander continued quietly. “I’m not stupid.”

You closed your eyes briefly.

No… unfortunately, he wasn’t.

“He’s newly out of containment,” you said. “He’s looking at everyone strangely.”

“Not like that.”

Your silence answered too much. Soldier Boy noticed immediately. His smugness faded into something far more dangerous. 

“He’s old,” Homelander said suddenly, grasping now. “He’s unstable. He’s an asshole. He’s—”

“He’s your father,” you interrupted softly.

The line went dead silent. So did the room. Soldier Boy slowly lifted his eyebrows.

Homelander spoke again after a moment, quieter this time.

“It’s complicated,” he said. 

“I know,” you said. 

“I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

You leaned against the counter. Suddenly, you felt very, very tired.

“He’s curious,” you said softly. “That’s all.”

“Curious men are dangerous.”

You knew that all too well. You felt it, and you hated how much you liked it. 

“I can handle myself,” you told Homelander.

“I know you can,” he replied instantly. “That’s not the point.”

There was genuine emotion in his voice now. Open and raw in a way he rarely allowed himself to be. And despite everything, part of you still pitied him. Homelander loved like a starving thing. Sage knew what you would mean to someone like that. That was, to her credit, one of the few things she truly understood about love. 

“I just…” He exhaled shakily. “I don’t like the idea of him near you.”

Soldier Boy looked like he was having the time of his fucking life. You rubbed your temple slowly.

“Alright,” you said at last.

Soldier Boy’s eyes snapped to yours.

You ignored him.

“I’ll come in tomorrow morning,” you continued into the phone. “We’ll talk before the event. And…” You hesitated.

Soldier Boy went still.

“I won’t meet with Soldier Boy until I meet with you first.”

The effect was immediate. Relief flooded Homelander’s voice so fast it almost made your chest ache.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“You promise?”

Soldier Boy actually scoffed under his breath. You shot him another look.

“Yes,” you said quietly. “I promise.”

A long exhale came through the speaker, like a storm settling.

“Okay,” Homelander murmured. “Okay. Good.”

You could practically picture him now, decompressing. Re-centering himself around your reassurance like a plant turning toward sunlight.

“You always know how to make me feel better,” he said softly.

Of course you knew. It was your fucking job. 

“Not at all,” you said. “I think we just understand each other, you know? It’s rare to find that in this hellhole.” 

He made a sound like he agreed. 

“Get some sleep,” you told him gently.

“You too.” A pause. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

The call ended.

Silence filled your apartment again.

Soldier Boy was looking at you like he’d just won an argument you never realized you were having.

“You done proving my point?” he asked.

You hated the heat that climbed your neck.

“You sound like a fuckin’ exhausted wife talking down a drunk husband at two in the morning.”

You tossed your phone aside. “I think it’s time you left,” you said. 

He laughed softly, the knowing in his tone infuriating you by the second. Somehow, his smugness felt less suffocating than Homelander’s need. Your careful words were now second nature, and somewhere… you had lost your real self. 

The realization made you feel sick.

“Well, do you?” he asked suddenly. 

“Do I what?” you asked. 

“Know what I thought when I first saw you?” 

Your pulse stumbled.

“What?”

He looked at you.

“I thought…” He smiled faintly. “She’s quiet. Not in a shy way but just… very controlled.” 

You had no idea why he was telling you this or what it was supposed to mean, until he added—

“Made me want to be the one to make you scream.” 

“Jesus Christ, Soldier Boy!” you exclaimed. 

“Exactly like that, just more breathy and with less clothes…” 

“Get the fuck out of my house,” you demanded, unable to hold your shocked laughter back, which delighted him. 

“Night, sweetheart,” he called as he left your apartment. 

***

You stepped out of the elevator with your tablet pressed to your chest, your face arranged into the calm, unreadable expression that had kept you alive for seven months. The morning staff moved around you in nervous little currents. Everyone felt the shift in the building. Soldier Boy’s presence had disturbed something fundamental in Vought Tower, like a dead king waking up beneath a palace.

But Homelander was the immediate problem in front of you.

And he was waiting in the Seven meeting room.

He stood by the windows, hands clasped behind his back as he looked down at the city. The room was otherwise empty. 

That alone put your senses on edge.

When the door slid shut behind you, he turned.

He smiled.

“You came,” he said.

“I said I would.”

His eyes flicked over you, absorbing the blouse, the skirt, the hair, the lipstick, the tiny human details you suddenly hated him noticing. You had dressed carefully this morning. Professional enough to create distance. Soft enough not to provoke rejection. Neutral colors. Low heels. No sharp edges.

Everything about you was a strategy.

And yet, after last night, you felt like your whole body had become a confession.

Homelander walked toward the table but did not sit. “Coffee?” he asked.

You glanced down.

There were two cups on the table. One black. One exactly the way you took yours. Homelander didn’t drink coffee, but he had made a habit of feigning humanity around humans. 

Your stomach twisted.

“That’s very thoughtful, Homelander.”

His face warmed immediately at the praise. The leash you held in your hand was made of compliments, and every day it felt thinner.

You sat down slowly, placing your tablet on the table. “We should go over the event brief.”

He did not sit across from you… He sat beside you. Not touching, but close enough that his presence crowded the air.

“Already read it,” he said.

“You did?”

He smiled, pleased by your surprise. “Twice.”

“That’s good,” you said carefully. “Really good.”

His smile broadened, then faltered almost immediately, like even praise couldn’t hold him steady today.

“You still going to meet with him?”

There it was. No warm-up.

You unlocked your tablet with deliberate calm. “I told you last night. I’m meeting with you first.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

You looked up at him.

His eyes were fixed on you, impossibly blue and terribly empty in that way they became when he was waiting for someone to fill him up.

“I have to meet with him eventually,” you said. “That was Sage’s instruction.”

“Sage isn’t in charge of you.”

That was factually untrue in almost every way that mattered, but you did not correct him.

“Maybe,” you said instead. “But I do have responsibilities.”

His jaw worked once.

“Responsibilities.” He said the word like it disgusted him.

You waited. Sometimes silence worked on him. Sometimes it made him worse.

Today, you could honestly not tell which. You would normally look at your screen to monitor his levels, but you can’t really do that with him right next to you. 

He leaned back slightly, eyes narrowing with a kind of wounded focus. “Are you blind or just wilfully ignorant?” he asked. 

“Excuse me?” you asked. 

“Your screen can’t tell you what’s going on here?” he asked. 

You weren’t sure what it was supposed to tell you… But no, you hadn’t been blind. A dead person could tell, by this point, what you meant to Homelander. 

“Are you really so blind that you can’t see how much I love you?” he finally confessed. 

The room seemed to contract around you.

Hearing him say it—hearing him finally drag the thing into the room and lay it between you—felt like watching a match fall into gasoline. You had, of course, prepared for many variations of this conversation. You had contingencies. Detours. Delays. Soft refusals. Strategic praise. Gentle ambiguity.

None of them felt safe right now. 

So you did the only thing that came naturally.

You told the truth, but not all of it.

“I know you do,” you said.

Homelander froze. 

The change in him was immediate and almost frightening. His shoulders went still. His face emptied. His mouth parted slightly, not in shock exactly, but in disbelief so raw it looked childlike. For a moment, all the terrible arrogance went out of him, and what remained was the boy beneath the cape, staring at a door he had expected to be locked forever.

“What?” he asked.

You held his gaze.

“I know you love me.”

He stared at you.

Nothing moved in his face except his eyes. They searched yours desperately, greedily, like the sentence had split open some starving part of him and he was trying to crawl inside it before it disappeared.

“And?” he asked.

The expectation dripped from the word, thick and hopeful. You felt your heartbeat in your throat.

“And…” You swallowed. “I love you too.”

It punched him in the gut.

His lips parted further. His eyes flashed with something bright and helpless. His breath caught so violently, his chest rose beneath the suit. The muscles in his face lost their practiced arrangement one by one: the smile, the superiority, the polished confidence, all of it broke apart into naked astonishment.

For a second, he looked almost beautiful. Not good or safe, that was wishful thinking, but beautiful in the catastrophic way a fire looked beautiful from far away.

“You do?” he asked.

His voice was smaller now, almost reverent. You forced yourself not to look away.

“Not in the way you do, maybe,” you said softly.

And there it was… the falter. The light dimmed.

“But,” you continued quickly, carefully, before the hurt could sharpen into anger, “I believe in you. I have faith.”

His brows drew together.

“Faith?” he scoffed, but the sound was weak. Defensive.

“Faith,” you repeated. “Faith in your goodness. Faith in your desire to protect this country. Faith that you are everything you say you are.” 

His eyes stayed on your face.

You could tell it was not enough. Not remotely. You had given him a church when he wanted a bed, and the safest thing for you to do was to keep talking until that altar started looking homely. 

The silence stretched. 

So you turned the blade.

“Why do you love me?” you asked.

He blinked. The question threw him.

“What?”

“Why do you love me?”

His throat moved. For a moment, he looked offended by the question, as if love should explain itself by existing. Then his expression shifted again, softer and more uncertain.

“You see me,” he said.

The words came out rougher than he intended. You stayed completely still.

“You’re not scared of me,” he continued. “You don’t treat me like a fucking bomb about to explode.”

A deep, sick ache opened in your chest… because he was wrong. He was wrong, and he had never been more wrong, and every single thing you did around him was built around the knowledge that he was exactly that.

A bomb.

You looked at him and let your face soften into something almost tender.

“It is because I have faith,” you said quietly.

His eyes searched yours.

“Your desire to protect far, far outweighs whatever you think makes you a monster.”

It didn’t. God, you knew it didn’t. But he needed to hear this.

Homelander nearly broke at that.

His face changed again, crumpling in tiny, controlled increments he could not fully stop. His lower lip tightened first. Then his nostrils flared as he drew in a breath through his nose. His eyes grew glassy in a way that made your entire body tense, because emotion made him unpredictable.

“You really believe that?” he asked.

“I do.”

His hand shifted on the table, inching toward yours.

You let him cover your fingers. You noticed, for the first time, that he had taken off his gloves for this conversation, like he was ready to be vulnerable with you. Like he had fully planned to lay himself bare to prevent you from spending any time with Soldier Boy. 

His skin was warm.

For a terrible second, you remembered Soldier Boy’s hand around your wrist the night before. The difference was so sharp it almost made you dizzy.

“Then why don’t you love me?” Homelander asked.

Your blood went cold.

You looked at him.

His voice had cracked on the question.

He heard it too. You could tell by the flash of humiliation in his eyes, the quick anger that followed, then the way he swallowed both down because he wanted the answer more than he wanted pride.

“You know what I mean,” he said, forcing the words out. “Why… why isn’t it enough?”

For the first time all morning, you were genuinely thrown. Your mind ran through options with brutal speed, but none of those answers would leave your head attached to your body.

And you had already disappointed Sage enough times.

This was supposed to be your forte, wasn’t it?

Love.

The one thing Sage could not reliably predict. The thing she had hired you to understand. And here you were, standing in the middle of it like a fool with a tablet.

“I’m scared,” you said.

The words left you before you fully approved them. Homelander went still… You could see it hurt him more than if you had slapped him. The hope in his face collapsed first. Then came the wound. Then disbelief. Then something small and devastating that made your stomach twist despite everything he was.

“You’re scared?” he asked.

His voice was barely above a whisper. You could feel the temperature of the room change.

“Of… me?”

There it was. You had stepped onto glass and heard the first crack.

You thought, absurdly, childishly, of the door opening. Sage walking in. Deep doing something stupid. Firecracker causing a scene. Anything to interrupt this moment. 

No one came.

You had to think fast.

“No,” you said softly. “Not you.” 

You leaned closer, just enough to make the correction feel intimate rather than strategic.

“I’m scared of what this means.”

He watched you, uncertain now.

You continued carefully. “I’m human.”

His expression flickered at that.

“I don’t mean weak,” you added. “I mean temporary. Limited. Small in ways you are not. And you…” You let yourself look at him with the kind of awe he craved. “You are the most powerful person on the planet.”

His breathing slowed slightly.

“I know what people want from you,” you said. “I know what they take. I know how they pray to you when they need something and hate you when you don’t deliver. That’s the curse of being God. And I am scared that if I let this become more, I’ll just become another person asking more of you.”

He frowned.

That was not the answer he had expected.

“I don’t want to take from you,” you said. “I don’t want to become one more need. One more demand. Your ascension is around the corner, you cannot have… distractions.”

His fingers tightened around yours.

“You wouldn’t distract me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“You don’t,” you said gently. “Because love does that to people. It makes them selfish. It makes them hungry. It makes them want reassurance every hour, every minute. It makes them forget that the person they love has a duty larger than them.”

He stared at you.

You could see him trying to follow the path you had built for him. He wanted to reject it, but there were enough words in it he liked: “duty,” “larger,” “love.” 

“You think you loving me would… distract me?” he asked.

“I think being loved by you would make me forget what I’m meant to do for you.”

His face changed. The wound remained, but pride began to creep around its edges. You had given him something noble to suffer for.

It was horrible how well it worked.

His eyes flicked between yours, hungry for more. So you gave him more.

“You need someone who sees America with you. Someone who believes in the mission.” Your voice softened. “Love… will make me want more. More time, more attention, more softness. Parts of you nobody else gets to see.”

His lips parted.

You saw the desire move through him, not just sexual, not even primarily romantic, but emotional. The unbearable seduction of being hidden and precious and known.

“If I love you,” you said, “then I have to deal with sharing you. And you’re too fucking important to hide away.”

His eyes glistened again.

“You really think that?”

“I do.”

Again, the lie. Again, the survival.

He looked down at your joined hands. For a second, he seemed almost young.

“You love me,” he said quietly, like he was testing the words in his mouth.

“I do.”

You sat there long enough for the moment to feel meaningful. 

Then you slowly withdrew. 

“We should focus on today’s event,” you said gently. “You have a strong messaging window if you stay calm through the defense questions. Don’t engage if someone mentions Soldier Boy. Smile, redirect to unity, say America honors its heroes while building toward the future.”

He watched you for another second, visibly reluctant to leave the emotional territory he had just forced open.

Then, slowly, he nodded.

“Unity,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“America honors its heroes while building toward the future.”

“Exactly.”

He smiled then, small but real. 

Pleased with himself.

He walked you to the door, which was unnecessary and therefore terrifying. Before you stepped out, he caught your hand again.

“You’ll come see me after?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He nodded, satisfied.

You left the meeting room without rushing.

You walked past the assistants, past the glass corridor, past the security desk, past two Vought employees whispering too softly to be anything but terrified.

You did not breathe properly until you turned the corner.

Even then, you waited.

Homelander could hear too much.

So you kept walking.

Only when you reached the elevator bank and the doors slid shut behind you did you let your shoulders drop. The sigh that left you was nearly silent and still too heavy.

You pressed the button for your floor with a hand that did not quite shake.

By the time you reached your office, you had reconstructed yourself.

Mostly.

You opened the door, and Soldier Boy was sitting behind your desk.

Feet up, grinning ear-to-fucking-ear. 

Your entire body went cold.

“What the fuck are you doing in my office?”

He held up one finger. Then pointed lazily at your computer.

On the screen was a live feed of the Seven meeting room… the place you had just come back from. The place where, currently, Homelander was also sporting a shit-eating grin as he sat at the head of the table. 

Your blood turned cold. 

You always had a direct line to the security cameras and microphones in the Seven conference room, but you didn’t think anybody, least of all Soldier Boy, knew how to get to it. 

“Were you listening in on a private conversation?” you asked. 

His grin widened.

“Wasn’t private if it was broadcastin’, sweetheart.”

You slammed the laptop shut. The sound cracked through the office. Soldier Boy did not flinch.

“You are unbelievable,” you snapped.

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“You had no right.”

“No,” he agreed easily. “But I did have a really boring morning.” 

You stared at him, fury rising fast because fury was easier than humiliation. He had heard everything.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Like I caught you naked.”

You hated the heat that climbed your neck.

“In a way, you did.”

That wiped some of the amusement from his face. He lowered his boots from your desk and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. For once, he did not throw a vulgar joke into the space between you. For once, he seemed to understand that there were some wounds even he should not prod with dirty fingers.

“You’re good,” he said quietly.

You laughed once, humorless.

“Congratulations. You’ve discovered why I’m employed.”

“No.” He shook his head. “You’re really good.”

Something about the emphasis made you look at him.

His expression was frustratingly unreadable now. Rough, yes. Amused, still. But beneath that, there was something like respect.

“He was ready to crack,” Soldier Boy said. “You gave him a whole church to kneel in instead.”

Your stomach twisted.

“Don’t make it sound beautiful.”

His gaze held yours.

“Even I almost bought it,” he said. “The god shit.” 

You looked away.

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” you said. 

“Didn’t say it should.”

Silence settled between you, thick and unpleasantly intimate. Your office suddenly felt too small.

“What did you want?” you asked him. “Why are you here?” 

“Thought we’d pick up where we left off last night,” he said. 

Your pulse betrayed you first.

Not your face. You still had control over that, mostly. Your expression stayed annoyed, cold, and professional in all the right places. But your pulse? Your stupid, human, treacherous pulse kicked hard beneath your skin, and from the slight sharpening of his grin, he knew it.

Of course he knew it.

Soldier Boy rose from your chair like he had all the time in the world. He didn’t move like Homelander. Homelander floated, appeared, vanished, invaded space with the eerie smoothness of something unnatural. Soldier Boy moved like a man. Heavy. Certain. Boots on carpet. Leather creaking faintly. Body taking up space without apology.

It was worse. So much worse.

“Last night ended with you leaving my apartment,” you said.

“After you told me to get the fuck out.”

“I stand by the sentiment.”

“Sure you do.”

Every step he took toward you felt like a countdown. You held your ground.

“That was not an invitation to try harder.”

“No?” His eyes dropped briefly to your mouth before returning to your eyes. “Because you keep lookin’ at me like you’re mad I’m still dressed.”

A hot, humiliating rush moved through you.

You hated him.

You hated the bluntness. The absolute lack of poetry. The crude confidence of it. There was no careful circling, no psychological chess, no elaborate dance of subtext dressed up as morality. He said things plainly, brutally, almost offensively, and some buried part of you—some exhausted, overmanaged part of you—rose toward it like oxygen.

Because with him, you did not have to predict the next emotional collapse. You did not have to calculate the safest sentence. You did not have to polish every word.

You could look him right in the face and say things like, “Arrogant bastard.”

So you did exactly that, and it earned you a grin. 

“There she is.”

And God help you, that did something to you. Funnily, it wasn’t his voice or the grin or even his body and the dangerous warmth of it. It was actually you. The version of you that came out around him. Sharp-tongued and angry, for once not managing emotions and egos.  

With Soldier Boy, your irritation had somewhere to go.

With Soldier Boy, your desire did too.

“Look at me,” he said.

Your eyes snapped to his.

Not because he commanded it… You weren’t so obedient. But right now, it felt confusing… looking at him felt like defiance, even if it was technically what he wanted. 

His mouth curved.

“You like being told what to do?” he asked. 

“You are not in charge of me.”

“Never said I was.”

“Good.”

“But you like thinking I might try.”

The words hit low in your stomach. You went still.

Soldier Boy saw it. His eyes darkened, and this time, he did come closer. One step. Then another. Still slow. Still giving you every chance to move.

You didn’t.

Your back touched the edge of your desk.

His gaze dropped to the contact point, then lifted again.

“Funny thing,” he murmured. “Woman like you, sittin’ in this tower all day, telling gods and freaks and psychos how to behave…”

“Careful,” you repeated, but your voice had lost some of its edge.

He heard that, too.

“…and all it takes is a guy saying one honest thing, and suddenly you don’t know where to put your hands.”

Your fingers curled against the edge of the desk.

“Like that,” he said, like he’d caught you doing something obscene.

You hated the heat in your face.

He smiled again, but there was no mockery in it now. Not really. He looked pleased, yes. Insufferably pleased. But underneath it was hunger. Plain and unvarnished, adult in a way that made your entire body feel too aware of itself.

Homelander wanted you like he was starving and thought you were the thing that had denied him food. Soldier Boy wanted you like appetite was a normal fact of being alive.

You wished you could stop comparing it. Strangely, it just made things better. 

“Stop enjoying this,” you said.

“No way.”

“At least pretend to be ashamed.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re in my office.”

“So?”

“Anyone could walk in.”

His eyes flicked to the door. “I locked it when you entered. Safety button under your desk, right?” 

Your breath caught. His grin returned.

“Since when are you so tech savvy?” you asked. 

“Didn’t want anybody interrupting while you yelled at me.”

“I’m not yelling.”

“No,” he said, eyes dropping once more to your mouth. “But I’d like it if you would.” 

Your office was not large. You had always liked that. It was one of the few rooms in Vought where the scale almost felt human. Small couch, a reasonably sized desk, and books stacked near the window because you had run out of shelf space. A lamp you brought from home because the overhead lights gave you headaches. There was even a small throw blanket folded over the armchair for late nights when the building AC turned vicious.

You’d made it livable.

That, probably, was one of the reasons the place felt quiet to Soldier Boy. 

“Are you gonna yell at me?” he asked, inching closer. 

“You shouldn’t have been listening,” you said, a weak attempt at admonishing him. 

“That the best you got, little lady?” he murmured against your lips. 

“You’re a presumptuous, arrogant bastard.”

“Been told.”

“Crude.”

“Obviously,” he laughed. 

“Old-fashioned.”

His grin flashed. “Careful. You sound turned on.”

You should have slapped him. You really should have. Instead, you stared at him for one suspended second, all your good sense burning down around you, and then you grabbed the front of his jacket and kissed him.

It was a catastrophic decision.

You knew that instantly.

You knew it in the way his entire body went still for half a heartbeat, shocked despite all his swagger, as if some part of him had not expected you to be the one to close the distance. Then his hand slid to the back of your neck, firm and hot, and he kissed you back.

Your desk dug into the backs of your thighs. You didn’t care. His mouth was warm, demanding, rough without being careless, and the sound he made when you tugged him closer went through you like a match struck in the dark.

There was nothing elegant about it.

Thank God.

No polished seduction, no careful choreography. Just heat, breath, fingers curling, your body remembering it was a body and not a crisis management department.

He pulled back first, barely, to look at you. His eyes were dark, his breathing heavier than before.

“Well,” he said roughly. “That was impolite.”

A laugh broke out of you, helpless and shocked.

Your back arched as he stepped closer, his body crowding yours, not trapping but surrounding. You felt the desk behind you, him in front of you, the absurd danger of the locked door, the tower humming beyond the walls, Homelander somewhere above or below or too close with ears that could hear too much if either of you forgot yourselves.

That should have cooled you.

It didn’t.

It made the whole thing feel better.

Your hands slid into his hair, and the texture of it beneath your fingers sent another rush of heat through you. He groaned when you tugged, and that sound—God, that sound—did something irreversible to your brain.

“You like that?” you asked before you could stop yourself.

He pulled back enough to look at you, shocked by the question. 

“Listen to you, darlin’!” 

Your face heated, but you didn’t retreat.

Soldier Boy lifted you onto the edge of the desk like you weighed nothing.

The motion stole the air from your lungs.

You pulled him between your knees, and his hands landed on the desk on either side of you, caging you in. His eyes darkened, and the air between you changed instantly, heat folding in on itself until the entire office felt too small.

Then his hand came up, caught the back of your neck, and his mouth was on yours.

His kiss was hard enough to make you forget the conversation in the Seven conference room. He kissed like a man who knew exactly what he wanted and had finally been told he could take it. You grabbed at his jacket, dragging him closer, and the low sound that tore from his throat made every thought in your head scatter.

“Fuck,” he muttered against your mouth. “Knew you’d be like this.”

“Like what?” you breathed, because apparently you had become suicidal.

His hand slid to your waist, firm and hot through your blouse. “Hungry.”

The word should have embarrassed you.

It did. But it also made your fingers tighten in his jacket hard enough to wrinkle the fabric.

He laughed under his breath. “Yeah. Exactly like that.”

“Shut up,” you said, but there was no force in it.

“Make me.”

You kissed him again.

It became thoughtless quickly after that.

Papers slid. Something fell. A pen cup tipped over and scattered across the carpet. Soldier Boy did not look away from your mouth.

“Your office is a mess,” he said.

“You did that.”

“Yeah.” His grin flashed. “Gonna do worse.”

The crude promise sent a shock of heat through you so sharp your knees nearly gave.

He caught it, of course.

“You like it when I talk dirty,” he said.

You swallowed.

He leaned closer, mouth brushing your ear. “Don’t bother lying. You’re bad at it when I’m this close.”

“I’m excellent at lying.”

He laughed into your mouth. “Not to me.”

The sound dissolved into something rougher when your teeth grazed his lower lip. His mouth moved down your jaw to your throat.

You made a sound.

“Told you,” he murmured, mouth at your neck, “wanted to be the one to make you scream.”

The heat that went through you was obscene. You tugged his hair hard enough to make his head lift.

“Careful,” you whispered. “Homelander can hear too much.”

His eyes locked on yours.

“You worried about him hearing me?” he asked. 

“I’m worried about him hearing me.”

That did something to him. The flare in his eyes, the way his breathing changed. 

“Then you better bite down on something.”

Your face went hot.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Like that.”

His mouth was back on your neck before you could answer, and this time his hands were less careful. He tugged you off the desk and separated your thighs with his knee gently, then, rudely, thrillingly, shoved his thigh between your legs. 

“Grind,” he commanded. 

Your body hesitated. Your mind wanted to fight it, to protect some imagined pride.

“Grind down on me,” he said again, slower this time. “Stop using that brilliant brain and just do as you’re told.” 

You shuddered. Then moved. The first roll of your hips was cautious, almost questioning. He rewarded it with a soft growl.

“Good girl.”

The second one was more confident. And the third—hungry.

You could feel the rough press of his thigh through your soaked underwear, the friction catching just right. Your breath hitched as pleasure bloomed—fast, hot, like wildfire catching.

“Eyes open.”

You hadn’t even realized you had squeezed them shut.

“Look at me,” he said. 

The intensity in his gaze nearly undid you. The satisfaction, the hunger, the patience, the promise. 

It was all there.

His hand slid up your back.

“Arch.”

You obeyed again, breathless, and the angle shifted—everything deeper, tighter, more exposed. The noise you made was half-sob, half-moan.

“See?” he murmured against your mouth. “No thinking. Just follow orders. Let your body feel.”

You did.

Every grind brought you closer to madness, to the edge of something blinding and unbearable. Your hands clawed at his suit, your mouth gasping against his.

“Faster,” he murmured, voice molten. “You’re so close, I can feel it.”

Your nails dug into his shoulders. Your forehead dropped against his. Your moans were caught behind bitten lips, but he could hear them anyway. Feel them, in the tremble of your thighs, the way your rhythm faltered and then picked up again.

His hand slid up the back of your neck, fingers threading into your hair, anchoring you. The sound of your heat dragging against him, the small, filthy friction of cloth-on-cloth, filled the room.

“You hear that?” he whispered. “That’s how wet you are. That’s how much your body’s begging to come.”

You were gasping, whining low in your throat.

He tilted your head, forced you to look at him again. “You were going to walk away from this,” he murmured. “You kicked me out yesterday. Look at you now, getting off on my leg like a bitch in heat.”

“Soldier Boy—” you panted.

“Say you want to come.”

Your eyes fluttered. Your hips jerked.

“Say it.”

“I— I want to— I want to come,” you whispered, nearly sobbing with it.

He dragged you harder against his thigh. 

“Please,” you breathed, collapsing into him. “Please let me come. Please—”

His mouth crashed into yours, and he let you. 

Your body broke apart in silence, shaking against him, your moan buried in his kiss. Your thighs clenched, your back arched, and you shattered on his thigh like a woman possessed.

He held you through all of it. 

When it was over, when your hips had stilled, and your breath was nothing but small, broken gasps, he pulled his mouth from yours and dragged his lips to your ear.

“That,” he whispered, rough and reverent, “was just from grinding.”

His fingers found the waistline of your trousers and tugged at them. “Let’s do the real thing, shall we?”

___________________________________

Okay, so I DO have more of this written, but idk if you guys will like it enough? It does get a bit deranged from here, closely following Homelander’s god arc on the actual show. It was fun to write tbh, so if enough people like this, I might post it.

EDIT: PART 2 IS UP

[whereve-e-r-you-are]

omg I’m speechless and reading it made me iykyk I LOVE IT