riley

you worked hard to get him to trust you. months of hunts, patched-up injuries, late-night diner coffee, standing shoulder to shoulder in graveyards while ugly things crawled out of darker corners than neither of you wanted to talk about. you earned the version of him that doesn’t flinch when you reach across him for the weapons bag, the version that tosses you the impala keys without acting like he’s handing over his firstborn child, the version that grins too openly when you insult him back.

and what do you get for all that patience? intimacy? vulnerability? a tender breakthrough? no.

you get a plastic spider in your boot at six in the morning. you get a fake bloody hand in your duffel. you get your shampoo replaced with dish soap, your favorite jacket hung from the motel ceiling fan, and one deeply traumatic morning where every single pair of your socks had been dampened just enough to make you question the mercy of god.

dean thinks this is love language.

you think he needs consequences.

sam knows something is coming before dean does, because sam has survival instincts and dean has whatever the opposite of that is. he watches you from the motel table while dean’s in the shower, your expression calm as you hide the supplies back inside your bag: green food coloring, red hair dye, a bottle of body wash you found in a sad little drugstore clearance bin labeled classic musk, and one large box you have been guarding for three towns.

sam lowers his laptop screen by an inch. “should i ask?”

“no.”

“is anyone going to the hospital?”

“emotionally, maybe.”

he looks at the box. “is that for the car?”

you smile.

sam closes his eyes for a second. “i don’t want to know.”

“correct.”

the setup takes precision, spite, and the kind of quiet focus usually reserved for summoning rituals or assembling ikea furniture without crying. you’d inject the toothpaste with enough green coloring to make the inside of the tube look cursed, swap dean’s shampoo for a violent red rinse that promises temporary color in letters so cheerful they feel legally suspicious, and replaced his body wash with the elderly musk gel that carries the aggressive aura of mothballs, dusty church pews, and a man named eugene who owns three cardigans.

then comes baby.

you move fast in the parking lot, heart beating with the kind of joy that feels criminal. hello kitty steering wheel cover first. pink seat covers next. matching floor mats. a soft blanket stretched across the backseat. tiny headrest bows. one dangling charm from the rearview mirror that swings innocently in the dark, completely unaware it’s about to become the focal point of dean’s psychological collapse.

when you get back inside, sam is sitting exactly where you left him, hands folded beneath his chin.

“i’m not involved,” he says immediately.

“you’re a witness.”

“witnesses can be killed.”

“then maybe keep the poker face.”

he makes a strangled sound and goes back to pretending to read.

dean emerges from the bathroom twenty minutes later with a towel around his waist, red hair, green teeth, and the full confidence of a man who hasn’t yet processed that he looks like christmas tree coming to life. the red is not subtle. it clings to the short spikes of his hair in damp, furious streaks, especially near his temples, where it has taken on a cherry-cough-syrup intensity that makes your soul leave your body for one beautiful second.

his teeth are worse.

bright green. radioactive. cartoon-villain green.

you stare.

sam makes one tiny noise from the table and immediately turns it into a cough so violent it almost deserves an emmy.

dean narrows his eyes at both of you. “what?”

your mouth trembles. “nothing.”

“why are you looking at me weird?”

“i’m just admiring,” you say, voice thin with restraint, “your commitment to personal grooming.”

dean points at you with the hand holding his shaving kit. “don’t start. i have a date.”

that nearly ends you.

sam’s shoulders start shaking.

dean looks at him. “you got a problem?”

sam presses his lips together so hard they almost disappear. “nope.”

dean accepts this too easily. he tosses the shaving kit onto his duffel and keeps moving around the room, utterly unaware that every step sends that tragic old-man body wash clouding behind him. he gets dressed anyway. jeans, boots, dark shirt, leather jacket. somehow, horribly, he still has the posture of a man who thinks he can pull this off.

you sit on the edge of your bed with both hands folded in your lap, nails digging into your palms.

“so,” you manage. “big night?”

“absolutely,” dean checks himself in the mirror, then stops. properly stops. his face goes still in that dangerous little way that means his brain has finally caught up to his reflection, and for one beautiful second, the whole motel room holds its breath.

sam sinks lower behind his laptop.

dean leans closer to the mirror, lips parting just enough to reveal the green. bright. wet. horrifying. his eyes move up to his hair next. red. aggressively red. not cute copper, not sexy auburn, not even passable under bad motel lighting. just red in the way emergency exits are red. in the way cough syrup stains your tongue red. in the way warnings are red.

you press your lips together so hard they hurt.

dean turns slowly. “you.”

you blink, angelic. “me?”

“don’t me me!” he points at his own mouth. “why do i look like i ate a glow stick?”

sam makes a noise so high and strangled that it barely sounds human.

dean whips his head toward him. “you knew?”

sam’s face is pure suffering. “i didn’t know about the teeth.”

“but you knew something.”

sam looks at you, then at dean, then back at his laptop with the dead-eyed survival instinct of a man who has spent his whole life between two disasters and learned to choose silence when necessary. “i wasn’t part of it.”

you finally lose the fight and smile. big. bright. no shame.

dean stares at you for another second, furious, hair red, teeth green, and somehow still carrying the wounded dignity of a man betrayed by his own kingdom.

“rookie work.”

you blink. “excuse me?”

“rookie,” he says again, rummaging through a duffel with unnecessary aggression. “you think this is my first rodeo? food coloring in toothpaste? hair dye in shampoo? come on. i practically invented bathroom warfare.”

“you invented bathroom warfare?”

“ask sam about the nair incident.”

sam closes his eyes. “please don’t.”

dean disappears back into the bathroom with all the purpose of a man going to war. water starts running. drawers open and slam. something clatters into the sink. you hear him muttering to himself, low and offended, and then—“sammy! i’m using your toothpaste.”

“why mine?”

“because mine’s been violated.”

you snort so hard you nearly choke. you sit on the edge of the bed, swinging one foot lightly, joy humming through your whole body.

the bathroom door opens again ten minutes later, and the worst thing happens.

dean looks good. of course he does. idiot. absolute curse of a man. the green is gone from his teeth, scrubbed clean by sam’s betrayed toothpaste and probably half a bottle of mouthwash. his hair is still red, but damp and pushed back now, the color settling into something annoyingly intentional under the yellow motel light. it should look ridiculous. it sort of does. but dean has the unbearable confidence to make even bad decisions look styled.

he steps out, jacket on, boots tied, jaw tilted in that way that says he knows he has recovered far too well. “see?” he says, spreading his arms. “still hot.”

you hate that you agree. deeply. personally.

dean catches the tiny shift in your face and grins. “oh, don’t look so disappointed. you made me hotter.”

“your hair looks like a traffic cone.”

“a sexy traffic cone.”

“those don’t exist.”

“i’m making history.” he checks himself in the mirror one last time, turns his head left and right, then nods with disgusting self-satisfaction. “yeah. date’s still happening.”

you keep smiling too much.

dean notices.

his eyes narrow. “what?”

“nothing.”

“no.” he points at you. “that’s not nothing. that’s your evil face.”

you fold your hands in your lap, sweet as a hymn. “have fun tonight.”

dean studies you for another second, suspicion flickering over his face, but ego wins. he grabs his keys from the table, twirls them once around his finger, and heads for the door.

“don’t wait up,” he says.

“wouldn’t dream of it.”

he leaves. the door shuts.

for two seconds, there’s silence.

sam slowly looks at you.

you look back at him.

outside, dean’s boots crunch across the gravel parking lot. there’s the faint jingle of keys. a pause. another step. then—“SON OF A BITCH!”

you’re already laughing by the time the door flies open again.

dean storms in with the kind of rage usually reserved for demons, betrayal, and people who put dents in baby’s doors. his face is red now too, almost matching his hair, which feels thematically excellent. he points toward the parking lot with a shaking hand.

“m-my car.”

you gasp, delighted. “is something wrong with baby?”

“do not call her baby right now.”

“why? she’s dressed so cute.”

“she has bows on her headrests.”

“yes.”

“pink floor mats.”

“mhm.”

“a hello kitty steering wheel cover.”

“limited edition.”

dean stares at you as if you’ve personally rewritten the laws of nature just to hurt him. “my car looks like it got stolen by a twelve-year-old.”

sam makes the mistake of laughing. not much. just one sharp little burst he tries to smother immediately with a cough.

dean turns on him. “oh, you think this is funny?”

sam’s eyes are wet. “no.”

“you’re crying.”

you lose it again, falling back against the mattress while dean glares at both of you, his date forgotten, his dignity in ruins, his red hair glowing under the cheap motel light. for a second, he holds onto the anger. really tries. you can see him fighting for it, clinging to the righteous fury of a man whose soulmate-on-wheels has been degraded by pink polyester and cute cats.

then his mouth twitches. “i’m homicidal.”

“you’re smiling homicidally.”

that breaks him.

dean laughs, sudden and rough, one hand bracing against the doorframe like even he can’t believe how badly he’s been played. the green teeth are gone, which is a shame, but the red hair and the old-man body wash still do plenty of work. he laughs until sam finally gives up pretending to cough and just laughs too, shoulders shaking over the table.

“okay,” dean says eventually, pointing at you. “truce.”

“no.”

his smile drops. “no?”

“beg.”

“i will absolutely not beg.”

you lift your eyebrows. dean glances toward the parking lot. you can almost see him picturing baby sitting out there in all her hello kitty glory, exposed to the public, vulnerable to witnesses, one stray pedestrian away from permanent humiliation.

his jaw works. his pride takes a knee. “please,” he says tightly, “remove the tiny cat cult from my car.”

you beam. “and?”

“and…” he exhales through his nose, already planning murder behind his eyes. “i’ll stop pranking you.”

sam snorts again.

dean does not look away from you. “temporarily.”

“there it is.”

“i’m honest.”

“you’re a menace.”

“you started car crimes.”

“you put a rubber finger in my cereal.”

“that was funny.”

“so is baby’s soft era.”

his grin comes back slowly, dangerous and warm at the same time. “enjoy it while you can.”

you should be scared. honestly, you are a little. dean winchester with a wounded ego, and red hair is not a safe man. but he’s laughing, and sam’s still wiping at his eyes, and for once the motel room holds nothing sharp or haunted or waiting to kill you. *just this—*dean looking ridiculous and happy and too fond of you to hide it properly.

“worth it,” you say.

his eyes linger for half a second longer than the joke needs. “yeah,” he says, quieter under the laughter. “we’ll see.”

soldier boy is behind another door. that’s not your problem. you tell yourself that twice on your way to the kitchen, barefoot and cold, wearing sleep shorts and an old shirt soft enough to make you feel briefly less armed. 

the bruises under your jaw have faded into ugly little ghosts, gone if the light is kind. your wrist aches where his hand had closed around it earlier, but not badly enough to matter. not badly enough to touch. you’ve been very committed to not touching it.

the kitchen light stays off. you know where the fridge is. you know where the beer is. you take one bottle, then stare at the rest for a second before shutting the door with your hip.

one beer is fine. one beer at three in the morning while your chest feels too tight and your brain keeps replaying soldier boy’s voice saying i made a mistake is completely normal.

you don’t think about that. instead, you move into the living room and claim the couch with the stiff seriousness of a woman establishing territory. the room is dim, lit mostly by the weak blue glow of the television after you find the remote wedged between two cushions. the couch isn’t sagged in the middle like the one left at the old safehouse. this one doesn’t carry the shape of too many nights. this couch is firmer, colder, unfamiliar beneath your legs when you curl them under yourself.

you turn the tv on low and flip through channels until you find something aggressively stupid. a love island rerun. a neon villa, pretty people with shiny skin and terrible emotional boundaries. women in bikinis sitting by a pool while men with abs and the conversational depth of soap stand around pretending to have thoughts. perfect. meaningless. nobody on screen has ever had to run from black noir through an alley or stab a man to save hughie or make soldier boy kneel with a sentence.

a blonde girl is crying because a man named mason or jaxon or some other asshole-guy-name kissed her friend after saying he was “open to exploring connections.”

you take a sip of your beer. 

“idiot,” you mutter at the screen. the blonde keeps crying. the man says he didn’t want to hurt anybody. you hope a palm tree falls on him.

for a while, that’s enough. the low voices from the tv. the rain thinning against the windows. the bottle cold in your hand. the house finally still around you.

then the hallway floor creaks. your shoulders tense before you can stop them. 

you don’t turn. you know those steps. heavy, unapologetic, impossible to mistake even when he’s trying to be quiet, which he never really is. the sound moves closer, pauses near the kitchen, then continues toward the living room. a shadow fills the doorway.

soldier boy stops when he sees you.

you look at him then, because not looking would be worse. he’s in an old shirt and sweats, hair messy from whatever version of sleep he didn’t get, jaw rough, eyes sharp even in the low light. he looks too awake. too solid. too much like every bad thing you’re trying not to feel.

you glare at him.

he stares back.

you roll your eyes and look at the tv again.

from the doorway, he exhales through his nose. not a laugh. not quite a scoff. something irritatingly close to both. 

he doesn’t leave. leaving would mean you moved him out of a room by existing in it, and soldier boy would rather walk into traffic than hand you that.

he crosses to the kitchen without a word. the fridge opens. glass clinks faintly. it shuts again. his footsteps return.

you take another drink and keep your eyes fixed on the blonde girl, who’s now decided to forgive mason-jaxon-whatever because he called her “special” beside a fire pit. humiliating.

the couch dips on the opposite end. soldier boy sits with a full cushion between you and then some, body angled toward the tv, beer loose in one hand. not close. not far enough either. the space between you feels staged. childish. two people refusing to leave the same room because both of them are too stubborn to admit the room changed when the other entered it.

the woman on screen walks toward the pool in a bikini small enough to leave little to the imagination. which is kind to say. her lips are glossy and overfilled, chest bouncing with every step.

soldier boy lasts exactly twelve seconds. “jesus,” he says. “look at the tits on that one.”

you make a disgusted sound before you can stop yourself.

his eyes flick toward you. “what?”

“nothing,” you take a slow drink. 

the answer doesn’t satisfy him. “that was somethin’.” 

“just forgot you’re a walking harassment lawsuit.”

“lawsuit?” he repeats, as if personally insulted by the concept. “i complimented her.”

“you stared at a stranger’s chest and announced it to the room.”

“only room’s you.”

“tragic for me.”

his mouth twitches. you make the mistake of glancing his way and catch it. something ugly surges. shame. hurt. regret. the words are on the tip of your tongue. make the moment softer. fix things. explain. make it right.

“listen…” the word trembles pathetically on its way out. “i—”

he knows what you’re doing. still, he doesn’t flinch. instead, his eyes stay on the tv. he talks over your weak attempt. “you watching this crap for the plot?”

a soft scoff leaves your lips. “yes. i’m deeply invested in whether chastity forgives a man with the personality of damp cardboard.”

“she the one with the rack?”

“obviously.”

“then he should be apologizing harder.”

you turn your head slowly and stare at him. “you are so unbelievably old.”

he looks back with infuriating innocence. “and yet… still right.”

“women could vote when you were born, right? just checking.”

“don’t start.”

“i’m trying to understand where history failed you.”

he takes a drink from his beer, gaze returning to the tv. “women used to have standards.”

“men used to die from infected paper cuts. maybe progress is fine.”

his mouth does it again. the almost-smile. smaller this time, buried before it can become anything generous. you look away.

the show keeps going. someone receives a text and the entire villa reacts as if god has spoken through an iphone. a man in a linen shirt says he feels “tested”. another woman cries. a brunette with lashes large enough to create wind resistance says she’s “not here for drama” while actively walking toward drama with both hands open.

for five minutes, neither of you speaks. the silence isn’t comfortable. it has too many teeth for that. but it’s not the silence from earlier either, the one in the kitchen after he said he made a mistake and left the words inside you to rot. this one is stranger. quieter. full of old muscle memory and new caution. the couch knows too much even if the walls don’t.

you can feel him beside you. not even close enough for his body heat to reach your legs properly. still, he’s there, taking up space like he always does, one arm spread along the back of the couch, beer balanced against his thigh, attention pretending to belong to the tv.

eventually, he grunts a reluctant “can’t sleep?”

you don’t look at him. “you conducting wellness checks now?”

“heard you moving around.”

your mouth tightens around the next breath. “didn’t know you still listened.”

the tv murmurs between you. some poolside nightmare says she needs to protect her peace. you need to protect your peace, too. 

soldier boy is quiet long enough that you have to physically restrain yourself from staring at him.

“hard not to,” he says. something inside your chest reacts stupidly. then, after a beat, he adds, “you walk loud.”

you turn your head just enough to glare at him. “go fuck yourself.”

and he grins. actually grins. not the cruel curl from earlier. not the mean, empty thing he wore while holding butcher against the wall or your wrist in his hand. this is quick and sharp and horribly familiar, there and gone before you can decide whether seeing it hurts more than missing it did.

you kick his leg. you kick his leg with your foot. not hard. not enough to hurt even if he were human, which he isn’t, and that’s apparently something you can’t stop reminding him of tonight. it’s childish. petty. the kind of thing you do because your mouth has already said go fuck yourself and your body is too restless to let the insult be the end of it.

his hand closes around your ankle before your foot can drop back to the couch. firm. fast. not tight enough to hurt. tight enough to stop you.

the tv keeps flickering over both of you, blue and pink and stupidly cheerful, some woman on screen crying into a plastic champagne flute because her best friend whom she met 73 hours ago is after her man.

your foot is caught in soldier boy’s hand, your heel resting against his palm, his fingers wrapped around the bone just above it, and for one suspended second the whole room feels too small for the shape of that touch.

you look at his hand. then at his face. his grin is gone.

“you need to stop touching me,” his voice is low. flat. not loud enough to wake anyone down the hall, but sharp enough to make the air between you change.

your throat tightens before you can stop it. something mean rises to cover it. something colder than the want sitting under your ribs, colder than the guilt that’s followed you from room to room for days, wearing your skin better than you do.

“you’re all about consent now, huh?”

you know it’s ugly the second it leaves your mouth. you know it’s unfair in a way that feels good for maybe half a heartbeat before it feels rotten. because the thing between you isn’t clean enough for a line like that to land anywhere simple. because you were the one who said stop and made his body listen. because you were the one who took choice from him in a motel room with your voice shaking and power still hot in your blood. because there are things you can throw at him, and there are things that come back with teeth.

soldier boy’s eyes go still. his grip on your ankle tightens by one degree. “careful.”

“or what?” you ask, and the words are stupid. stupid, stupid, stupid, because your pulse is in your mouth now and your face feels too warm and your foot is still in his hand. “you’ll tell me to stay away again?”

his jaw shifts. you should stop.

“you’ll call me a liability?” you continue, voice quieter now, rougher around the edges. “tell me i’m a mistake? what’s next, soldier boy? you got a list?” the name lands hard. not ben. not anymore. you use it because he told you to. because it hurts less if you pretend the difference is respect and not punishment you agreed to by accident.

he stares at you for a long second.

then his hand pulls. sharp. warning.

your leg unfolds with the motion before you catch yourself, body sliding a few inches across the couch, beer bottle wobbling near your thigh. your free hand catches the cushion. the distance between you shrinks by half.

soldier boy doesn’t let go. “your mouth keeps getting you into trouble,.”

your laugh comes out too thin. “and yet you keep poking.”

his eyes drop to your mouth. that’s the first honest thing either of you has done all night. 

heat cuts through you so fast it almost feels like anger. maybe it is. maybe there’s no difference anymore. not with him. not after everything. you want to pull your foot back. you want to kick him again. you want to crawl into his lap and bite that stupid, mean line off his mouth before he can use it on you twice.

you hate that wanting him has survived this. you hate that it doesn’t even feel weaker.

his thumb shifts against your ankle. a small adjustment of grip. practical. possessive. a warning pretending to be nothing.

“let go,” you say.

“get out”

the words land between you with a weight neither of you misreads. your lungs forget how to work for one second.

the tv laughs for you. canned, bright, humiliating. some girl on screen says she just feels really “disrespected, babe”, and under any other circumstances you might’ve found that funny. under any other circumstances, you might’ve made a joke. under any other circumstances, soldier boy’s hand around your ankle wouldn't have felt like the last weak thread of restraint in the room.

you push yourself upright, every movement slow enough to pretend you’re still thinking.

his gaze follows. “don’t start something you can’t finish.”

the old rhythm is there, buried under fresh damage, under the motel room, under butcher’s voice saying give her another dose, under your own voice telling him to shut up and his body obeying. still there. sickeningly familiar. a wound with a pulse.

you tilt your head. “you first.”

his hand pulls again. harder this time. and this time, you go with it. easy. too easy. the way he taught you, back when the worst thing between you was pride. follow force instead of fighting it. use the pull. close the distance. don’t waste motion trying to prove you can overpower something stronger than you.

your knee lands beside his thigh. one hand hits the back of the couch near his shoulder. the other grabs the front of his shirt, fingers curling in old fabric before you decide to let them. his beer hits the side table with a dull clink, abandoned. your body ends up over his lap, not fully settled, not yet, hovering at the edge of a choice both of you have already made by the time your faces are close enough for his breath to touch your mouth.

for a second, neither of you moves. there’s still time not to. that might be the worst part.

then he kisses you. or you kiss him. it happens too fast to divide the blame cleanly.

his mouth hits yours hard enough to knock the breath out of you, and you make a sound you’ll hate yourself for later, small and furious in the back of your throat. he swallows it. his hand leaves your ankle and grabs your waist instead, fingers digging into you like he can pull the last few days out by force. your other knee finds the couch on the outside of his thigh, and then you’re in his lap properly, too close, too hot, your beer forgotten somewhere near the cushion, your hands in his shirt, then his hair, then the side of his neck.

teeth catch. his lower lip drags between yours. your fingers tighten in his hair until he makes a rough sound against your mouth, and the sound goes straight through you, bright and awful. he grips your waist harder. you grind down before pride can stop you, more anger than rhythm at first, just a mean little press of your hips into his because you want him to feel what he still does to you. you want to punish him with it. you want to punish yourself more.

his body answers immediately. his hand slides up your back, dragging your shirt with it just enough for the cool air to touch your skin. you shiver and bite his mouth for noticing. he catches your jaw in one hand, just enough to hold you there, enough to angle your face so he can kiss you deeper, dirtier, until the stupid tv sounds far away and the only thing you can hear is your breathing and his and the rough drag of fabric where your hips move against him.

“does this count as out?” you say against his mouth, because you’re committed to ruining everything with words.

he huffs something almost like a laugh, then kisses you hard enough to shut you up. the sound you make is swallowed whole. his grip on your waist turns bruising as he pulls you down fully into his lap, your knees sinking into the couch on either side of his thighs. the heat of him is immediate, solid, the thick line of his cock already pressing up against you through his sweats. you grind down without thinking, a slow roll of your hips that drags a low groan out of his chest.

“fuck,” he mutters, one hand sliding down to grip your ass, fingers digging into the soft fabric of your sleep shorts. he squeezes, encouraging the motion, guiding you into a filthy rhythm against him. “all that mouth and you still climb right into my lap.”

you bite his bottom lip in retaliation, but it only makes him buck up harder, grinding his cock right against your clit through the thin layers separating you. the friction is too good, too much, and you’re already wet enough that the fabric clings. his other hand slips under the waistband of your shorts from behind, palm hot against bare skin, then lower. 

he finds how wet you are and goes still for half a second. just long enough to make it worse. his eyes lift to yours, dark and mean and too satisfied. “look at that.”

“shut up,” you breathe.

“no.” his fingers drag through you, slow and filthy, spreading the slick mess he finds there. “you don’t get to kick me, crawl all over me, soak through your fucking shorts, and then act like i’m the problem.”

your hips move before you can stop them, chasing the pressure, and his mouth curves against your jaw.

“there she is,” he says, rough and low. “knew you were still in there.”

the words hit too close to something tender. not sweet. not gentle. tender in the way a bruise is tender. tender because there was a version of you he used to pull out with his hands and his mouth and that awful voice, a version of you that didn’t flinch from wanting him, that didn’t have to measure every touch against what you did in the motel.

she’s still in there. apparently. still stupid enough to answer when he calls.

his fingers press against your entrance, and you hate the sound you make. small. broken. honest enough to humiliate you. he feels the way you shift into it, the way your thighs tense around his hips, the way your body gives him permission your mouth is too proud to shape.

“yeah?” he asks, close to your ear. “that what you want?”

he pushes two fingers inside you, slow enough to make you feel every inch, rough enough to make your forehead drop against his shoulder. the stretch steals the air out of your lungs. your nails dig into the back of his neck, and his free hand tightens at your waist, holding you there while his fingers work into you with the same cruel patience he used to have on the training mat.

“always got something to say,” he breathes, lips brushing your ear. his thumb finds your clit through the slick, messy heat between your thighs, circling hard enough to make your hips jerk. “running your mouth like you’re in charge. but look at you now… falling apart on my hand in the middle of the fucking living room.” 

his fingers thrust deeper, curling just right, and you clench around them, a broken sound escaping before you can stop it. 

“got me under some kind of spell, don’t you? can’t seem to stay the fuck away even when i should.”

the second the word tumble out, the both of you freeze. not because of the words exactly. but your body knows. his body knows. the room knows. the phrase lands with the shadow of power behind it even though there’s none left in your blood. 

soldier boy’s face changes beneath yours. not fear. not full anger either. something guarded, instant and reflexive, his eyes sharpening as if some part of him still has to check whether his mouth will obey him.

that’s what breaks it. you push off his lap so fast your knee slips on the couch.

his hand catches your elbow before you can stumble. you jerk back like the touch burns. “don’t.”

he lets go. immediately. no fight. no pull. no mean little grip to keep you there. his hand drops away, fingers curling once against his own thigh instead. it leaves you standing there with all your heat and all your shame and nowhere to put either of them. 

your mouth feels swollen. your breathing sounds too loud. your shorts sit crooked, wet, on you. your shirt twisted where his hand dragged it up your back. you fix none of it. fixing it would mean admitting there’s something to fix.

soldier boy looks up at you from the couch, eyes dark, jaw tight, mouth red from yours.

for one stupid second, you want to go back. the thought horrifies you enough to make you cruel. “that didn’t mean anything,” you say.

his face closes. he leans back by half an inch, slow, like he’s giving himself room to look less affected. “sure looked like something.”

your hands curl at your sides. your fingers still remember his hair. your thighs still remember the shape of him beneath you. your body is a traitor, every inch of it, warm and awake and confused enough to mistake being wanted for being absolved. you don’t deserve absolution from him. you’re not asking for it, but it doesn’t stop you from wanting things you have no right to want.

soldier boy’s gaze drops once to your mouth, then back to your eyes. “running?”

you laugh, but it comes out wrong. “from you?”

“looks like it.”

for a second, you just stand there. the tv keeps playing behind you, bright and stupid and impossible. someone by the pool says trust is really important to me, and you almost laugh because the universe has a sick sense of humor.

you pick up your beer from the couch cushion. it’s warm now, useless. you hold it anyway. “this was a mistake,” the words come out before you can stop them.

soldier boy’s expression hardens so completely it feels like watching a door shut.

you feel it then. the echo. his voice from earlier. the way it carved through you and left you standing in the kitchen with your face held together by pride alone. you didn’t mean to give it back to him. maybe you did. maybe that’s the ugly part.

his eyes stay on yours. “seems to be going around.”

hurt lands in you with a dull, familiar weight. you nod once, like you earned that. because you did. “yeah,” you say, quieter now. “guess so.” the softness in your own voice disgusts you.

you turn before he can hear any more of it. before your face does something stupid. before you can look at him long enough to remember the exact sound he made when your hands were in his hair. the hallway waits dark beyond the living room, and you head for it with your beer still in hand and your pulse still wrecked.

behind you, soldier boy says nothing. no stop. no insult. no old nickname tossed at your back to make you turn around.  the silence follows you down the hall anyway, hot and mean and alive.

butcher’s last through the door. he doesn’t slam it. instead, he closes it quietly, calmly, like the whole civic center isn’t currently crawling with vought security because the deep recognized your face and soldier boy knocked him flat instead of letting him pass. like noir isn’t still out there. like homelander wasn’t moved before anybody got close enough to make the risk worth something.

for a second, nobody says anything.

the safehouse hums around the silence. the old refrigerator. the rain ticking against the kitchen window. somebody’s phone vibrating once inside a bag and then going quiet. your wrist still feels warm where soldier boy dragged you to safety. 

“well,” butcher rolls the word on his tongue enough that it almost sounds obscene, “that was a spectacular fuckin’ waste.”

soldier boy’s head turns slowly. you see it happen before anyone else does. not the anger—that’s been sitting in him since the van, tight and ugly beneath his ribs. you see the moment he gives it somewhere to go. his shoulders square. his jaw locks. the wet line of his hair sticks near his temple, and he doesn’t wipe it away.

mm notices half a second after you. “don’t.”

soldier boy ignores him completely, ready to continue what couldnt be finished in the van, “you had one job.”

butcher lifts his brows. “that right?”

“keep your team in line and her from getting made.”

the room shifts around the word her. like you’re a piece of evidence on the table between them, damp and breathing and inconvenient.

your fingers curl at your side.

butcher’s mouth curves, but there’s no humor in it. “interesting. could’ve sworn the job was to get noir.”

soldier boy steps closer. “she shouldn’t have been in that hallway.”

“she was where the plan put her.”

“the plan was shit.”

“plan was workin’ fine until you redecorated the south corridor with fish boy’s teeth.”

“he was going after her,” the words come out too fast. too blunt. the words hit the room with enough force that hughie’s eyes flick toward you and away again.

butcher’s expression changes by almost nothing, which is always how you know he’s found something sharp enough to keep. “aw,” he taunts, low and almost song-like. “would you look at that.”

soldier boy’s eyes narrow. “watch it.”

“what? you want me to pretend that wasn’t sweet?” butcher tosses the coat onto the back of a chair. “you had noir close enough to smell the rubber on his little ninja suit, and you chose runnin’ after our girl instead.”

the temperature of the room drops. you breathe in once. our girl. butcher says it to hurt him. to hurt you. to make ownership sound communal enough that nobody can punch him for it without proving his point.

soldier boy’s mouth twitches. “keep talking.”

“why? you embarrassed?” butcher asks. “don’t be. happens to the best of us. bloke sees a pretty thing in trouble, forgets the mission, goes runnin’ with his shield swingin’ and his prick making all the decisions.”

annie’s voice cuts in, sharp. “butcher—”

“no,” soldier boy says, and now he’s smiling, all his teeth hidden. “let him finish.”

butcher leans back against the edge of the table, bruised mouth still marked from the last time soldier boy decided talking had gone on long enough. “you wanna blame someone because noir walked, fine. blame me. blame the deep. blame the bloody catering company if it helps you sleep. but don’t stand there actin’ like this is about strategy when we all saw what it was.”

soldier boy moves. there’s no dramatic buildup, no chair scraping, no one getting enough time to shout. one second he’s standing in the middle of the room with anger locked behind his teeth, and the next butcher’s slammed back against the wall.

annie lights up immediately. gold spills under her skin, small but bright. kimiko steps off the wall. hughie makes a sound that might be soldier boy’s name or a terrified vowel. frenchie’s hand twitches toward the equipment bag and stops when mm points at him.

soldier boy’s hand is wrapped in the front of butcher’s shirt, fist twisted tight under his throat. not choking him. not yet. close enough that butcher’s chin tilts up beneath the pressure. “she’s off the team.” 

“wha—” your whole body goes still.

butcher’s eyes sharpen. “say again?”

“you heard me.”

“did i?” his voice scrapes slightly where fabric presses against his windpipe. “because it sounded like you thought you were in charge.”

soldier boy drags him an inch higher against the wall. “the deep knows her face. vought knows her face. every supe in that building’s gonna have her picture by night.”

“and?” butcher’s lack of ability to keep his trap shut could almost be impressive if the entire room wasn’t holding their breath.  “homelander wants all of us dead. noir’s followin’ us through alleys. deep’s got beef with annie too, if we’re makin’ a little social calendar of grudges.” butcher’s mouth curls faintly even with soldier boy’s fist against his collar. “you think fish boy holdin’ a grudge makes her special?”

his grip tightens. “she blew the mission.”

“you blew the mission.”

soldier boy jerks him forward and slams him back again. the wall gives a little behind butcher’s shoulder. plaster dust falls in a thin pale line.

“ben—” the name leaves your mouth before you decide whether you’re allowed to use it.

“leave it,” mm says, voice firm. “both of you.”

butcher ignores him too, because nobody in this house values survival as much as they should. his eyes stay on soldier boy, but the edge of his smile is for you. “you really want her safe? give her another dose.”

the room breaks open around that.

butcher doesn’t look at anyone else. “girl gets made by vought, we don’t bench her. we make sure next time she can do more than run.”

soldier boy’s face empties. your stomach drops because you know that expression now. you’ve seen him furious. crude. cruel. jealous. wounded enough to put teeth into every word. this is different. this is the part of him that existed before you ever walked into a safehouse and called him butcher’s commie toy. the part that sat under restraints and learned that a body could become a room with no doors.

“you give her that shit again,” he says, each word quiet enough to scare even you, “i’ll rip your spine out through your mouth.”

butcher’s eyes flicker. finally. a little. “quite the gesture, innit?”

soldier boy’s free hand draws back.

you move before anyone else does. maybe you shouldn’t. maybe after everything that’s happened, after his hand around your throat, after telling you not to call him ben anymore, after your own voice turned his body against him, maybe you should know better than to put yourself between soldier boy and something he wants to hit.

but butcher’s standing there with his mouth full of gasoline. soldier boy’s holding the match. and your survival instincts have never learned to mind their own business.

you cross the room fast and shove soldier boy in the shoulder with both hands.

he doesn’t move. not even a step.

pain jumps through your palms from the impact. something old flashes between you so quickly it nearly steals the air from your lungs: your fist meeting his face in that first safehouse, the total failure of it, the smile he gave you after.  only now, there’s no smile.

soldier boy drops butcher. you didn’t move him. he just decides butcher can wait. butcher hits the floor with one knee first, coughing once as his hand catches the wall. before you can shove soldier boy again, his hand snaps around your wrist. hard. your whole body stops short. his fingers close around the narrow bones with brutal precision, not enough to break, but tight enough that the pressure bites straight through your skin and into memory. your breath catches before you can hide it.

annie takes one step. “soldier boy—”

“stay out of it,” the words scrape your throat on the way out. the bruises there are mostly faded now, disappearing beneath your jaw, but the skin still remembers.

you try to pull your wrist back. nothing. not even the satisfaction of making him adjust his stance. you might as well be yanking against a locked door.

“take your hand off me,” you demand, forcing your chin high.

his eyes return to yours. “big girl now?”

“always was. you’re just juiced up.”

silence lands so fast it almost makes the room smaller. hughie’s mouth parts. annie’s eyes widen by a fraction. frenchie looks at the floor like he wants to be anywhere else and also can’t stop listening. butcher coughs out something that might have been a laugh if soldier boy hadn’t just nearly put him through drywall.

soldier boy’s eyes narrow. the old thing shows. the ugly spark. the part of him that likes your mouth even when he wants to shut it. especially then. his hand tightens by one cruel degree. you refuse to wince.

“that right?” he asks.

“yeah.” your free hand presses against his chest and shoves again. useless. humiliating. “if you were human, i would’ve put you on your ass by now.”

his gaze drops to your palm against his chest, then lifts slowly to your face. “you think so?”

“i know so.”

“you couldn’t take me.”

“you’re bulletproof and steroided by nazi kool-aid. forgive me if i don’t find your advantage personally impressive.”

butcher makes a low sound from the floor. “christ.”

soldier boy ignores him. you have all his attention now, and you hate how familiar it feels. hate the heat of him in front of you. his hand around your wrist. the way your body remembers being caught by him in other rooms, under other lighting, when his grip meant pull closer.

that memory turns your anger mean. “let go.”

his mouth twitches. “you gonna command me again?”

everything goes quiet at the mention of the wound underneath the fight.

your pulse stumbles once. for half a second, guilt rises so fast it nearly folds your anger in half. you see him on his knees in the motel, one hand braced against the carpet, sweat at his temple, eyes so full of betrayal you still can’t recall it without wanting to tear your own voice out. 

then his fingers dig into your wrist again, and the present comes back.

your voice lowers. “no.”

he leans closer. enough for his words to land where only you should hear them, though everyone else does anyway. “funny. didn’t bother you last time.”

hurt flashes through you. still, you smile without meaning. “i can be sorry and still tell you to go fuck yourself.”

the line hits somewhere. maybe because you don’t deny it. maybe because you don’t beg. maybe because for days, you’ve walked around this house wearing guilt like a muzzle, and he’s gotten used to the quiet it bought from you. no more.

you step closer even with your wrist caught. “i’m sorry for what i did to you. i’ll be sorry for it longer than you’ll probably believe. but my guilt is not a leash either.”

his eyes sharpen at the word.

“you don’t get to use it to shut me up,” you continue. “you don’t get to use it to bench me. and you sure as hell don’t get to stand there calling me a liability because you made a choice you don’t know how to live with.”

soldier boy goes very still.

behind him, butcher pushes himself up fully, one hand rubbing at his throat. “careful, love.”

you turn your head toward him. “no, you be careful.”

butcher lifts his brows.

you yank once against soldier boy’s grip. he still doesn’t let go, but you don’t need him to. your stare stays on butcher now, anger finding a second target and liking the symmetry of it. “don’t stand there acting like you’re defending me when your intentions have always been far from noble.”

butcher’s expression flattens.

“all of you want to make this about what i am when it’s useful. liability. weapon. bait. leash.” your voice tightens. “pick a better word and it still means the same thing coming from all of your mouths.”

kimiko watches you from beside the couch with her hands still half-curled, ready for a fight that keeps changing shape before anyone can enter it.

you look back at soldier boy. “you want me off the team because you’re scared. and he wants me on it because i’m useful. neither are my problem.”

his grip shifts. for a second, you think he might shove you away. instead, he pulls you closer. not a lot. not close to make your bodies touch. enough that your arm bends between you, wrist still caught in his hand, his strength dragging you into the edge of his space with no permission asked and no apology offered. 

the motion is rough enough that annie glows brighter.

your heart kicks hard.

soldier boy looks down at you, voice low. “you think this is a game?”

you laugh once, ugly and breathless. “no. i think you’re pissed because noir is alive and i’m standing here.”

his expression lashes shut. “you don’t know shit.”

“i know you chose.”

his jaw flexes. “i made a mistake.”

for one second, the room loses sound. something in your chest folds inward. it hurts in a way you don’t want anyone to see, so you make your face harder around it. that’s what he’d do. and maybe that’s the worst part—how much of him you’ve learned.

butcher breaks the silence because he’s never respected anything sacred in his life. “touching as this little domestic is, we’ve still got a problem.”

soldier boy’s head turns slightly. “you’re still talking?”

“amazingly, yeah.” butcher’s voice is rough from being held against the wall, but his eyes are bright. “because while you two are workin’ through whatever the fuck that is, noir’s gone, homelander’s tucked away somewhere vought thinks is safe, and the deep’s probably cryin’ into a lobster tank about his concussion.”

“shut up, butcher.” mm doesn’t raise his voice. he doesn’t need to. “we got made at the civic center. vought’s adjusting. noir knows we’re moving around him. homelander’s security just got tighter. and we’re standing here arguing about whether one member of this team gets treated like a person.”

the words land differently from yours. steadier. less bloody at the edges. 

he doesn’t look away from soldier boy. “she stays on the team if she chooses, just like you.” mm says. “no more temp v unless she chooses. no more secret doses. no more deciding for each other because we’re scared.”

soldier boy’s mouth curls. “easy for you to say.”

mm’s stare hardens. “no, it ain’t.”

that shuts even butcher up for a second.

because mm knows. maybe not the same way. not the motel room. not your voice under his skin. but he knows what it means to have a body left behind in someone else’s war. he knows what soldier boy costs. what butcher costs. what every violent man in this room keeps asking everybody else to pay.

your wrist is starting to ache.

it’s almost like soldier boy notices. his eyes drop to the place his fingers remain locked around you briefly. something crosses his face so quickly you almost miss it. not an apology. not even regret clean enough to use. just the awareness that he’s still holding you.

his hand opens all at once. he releases you like the touch itself disgusts him, fingers snapping away, leaving the ghost of pressure burning in a ring around your wrist. your arm drops to your side. you keep it there. no rubbing. no shaking it out. no giving him the satisfaction of seeing how much it bit.

there are so many things in soldier boy’s face you don’t want to name because naming them might make you weak. things that your brain clocks despite your needs—fury, betrayal, resentment, the leftover shape of fear dressed up as command. something else too. buried so deep he’d probably put his own fist through a wall before letting it surface.

“you get grabbed again,” he says, voice low, “that’s on you.”

you nod once. “okay.”

his eyes narrow, like he expected a fight and hates that you didn’t give him one.

you turn before your face can do something stupid. before the ache has time to leak out. before the old version of you can look at him and ask if the mistake was choosing you or not choosing noir. you don’t want the answer. not tonight. maybe not ever.

You bit the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing. She turned her death glare on you like you'd just stolen her ring light.

During drills, she "accidentally" pushed a duffel into your path. You tripped, took a dirt dive, and landed face-first in gravel. “Oopsies,” she said, not sorry at all.

Price barked at you in front of the squad. Ghost glanced your way, jaw tight. You grunted and kept walking. You’d live. Probably.

It wasn’t until the field op that things got serious. A misfired flare caused a small explosion, splitting the team. You and Ghost ended up holed in an abandoned barn with limited comms and nightfall closing in.

“You alright?” he asked, checking your shoulder where shrapnel grazed.

“I’ll live. You?”

“Better now that she’s not here,” he muttered.

You chuckled, the sound low and tired. “You know she sees me as a rival?”

“Figured. She stares at you like she wants to murder you with a glittery bayonet.”

A silence hung between you, thicker than smoke. Then—

Ghost reached out, his gloved fingers surprisingly gentle as they hooked under your chin, tilting your face up to meet his gaze. The harsh shadows of the barn softened around him, and for a second, the chaos outside completely faded.

With his free hand, he reached up and slowly pulled the edge of his mask up just past his lips. Before you could even register the rare sight, he leaned in, his breath warm against your skin. He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the corner of your mouth, tasting faintly of mint and rain, sending a sharp jolt of electricity straight down your spine.

He lingered there for a heartbeat, his thumb brushing over your cheekbone, wiping away a streak of dirt. "I've been wanting to do that since you took that dive earlier," he murmured, his voice a low, rough purr right against your ear. "You look devastating when you're angry."

You could feel your heart hammering against your ribs, your breath catching in your throat as you wrapped a hand around his wrist, pulling him just a fraction closer. "Is that a confession, Lieutenant?"

"It’s a promise," he breathed, his hand shifting to cup the back of your neck, you could feel the heat radiating off him. "When we get back to base, I'm showing you exactly what you mean to me. Understood?"

Before anything else could be said, the door burst open. Tiffanie stood there, red-faced and holding her phone.

“I demand to be extracted! This lighting is heinous, and nobody told me there’d be spiders!”

Ghost pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Ma’am, calm down—” you tried.

“I knew you’d sabotage me! You’re just jealous!”

And that’s when she grabbed your vest.

You sighed, pulled out your taser, and shot her square in the thigh.

She collapsed like a diva in a soap opera.

Ghost looked down at her twitching body. “..You didn’t even hesitate.”

“She’s lucky I didn’t set her eyelashes on fire.”

Ghost stared at you, then nodded. “I’ll back your report.”

You shrugged. “Self-defence.”

Then you looked back up at the team who flooded in right at the moment, spoke deadpan. "You saw Nothing".

outside, the starlighters are already loud enough to reach the service corridors when the doors open at the wrong angle. chanting. whistles. a rolling wave of anger and devotion gathered behind barricades across the street, big enough to pull cameras away from the main entrance and make vought security pretend they aren’t nervous. annie’s people are good at noise.

inside, homelander smiles from every screen. not in person yet. not close enough to make the air turn sharp. only pre-recorded footage playing above the lobby while stage techs, assistants, security guards, and catered staff move through the building with increasing panic disguised as efficiency. his face appears twenty feet high over a crowd of donors and carefully selected families, all bright teeth and dead eyes, one hand raised in a wave that somehow feels threatening even when it’s only pixels.

you keep your head down and carry a tray of empty champagne flutes through the staff corridor. you belong perfectly. that’s the trick. not confidence exactly. confidence gets noticed if you wear too much of it. belonging is quieter. shoulders relaxed. pace steady. eyes moving only as much as they need to. staff badge clipped cleanly to your shirt. hair tied back. black trousers. white button-down.

“camera two is looped,” frenchie murmurs in your ear. “camera three is thinking about becoming looped, but she needs a little more persuasion.”

“don’t flirt with the cameras,” mm says over comms.

“i am building trust.”

“faster, french.”

kimiko is somewhere closer to the east stairwell, dressed in catering black with a tray she hasn’t once used for food. frenchie has disappeared into an equipment corridor with more wires than is probably safe for any building full of millionaires. annie is outside near the rally, face hidden beneath a cap and sunglasses while she keeps the starlighters pointed in the useful direction. 

butcher is inside the building, farther north, moving through the lower service level with the confidence of a man who has never believed in restricted access. soldier boy is closer to the older backstage corridors, where the route maps suggest black noir might move if homelander’s personal security detail needs a private passage.

you’re alone by design.

that felt fine when the plan was still paper. now, with vought security around every corner and homelander’s recorded voice bleeding faintly through the walls, it feels less fine. manageable. but less fine.

you reach the end of the corridor and stop beside a service table, pretending to rearrange napkins while your gaze tracks movement through the open archway ahead. main event staff. two guards. a woman with a headset walking fast enough to ruin her shoes by the end of the night. another server carrying bottled water toward the green room hallway.

then you see blue. not literal blue. not the suit. the deep isn’t wearing the full oceanic circus costume today, but there’s something painfully aquatic about him anyway. a teal pocket square. a pin shaped like a wave. hair styled too carefully, jaw set in the expression of a man trying to look important while knowing nobody in the room considers it.

he stands near the hallway leading toward the backstage holding area, talking to a vought assistant who looks like she’s considering walking directly into traffic.

and suddenly, the deep turns.

you look down immediately, but the motion has already happened. his face shifts through boredom, irritation, confusion. then recognition. of course. immediately. because kevin moskowitz may be a profound idiot, but apparently humiliation improves facial memory.

your pulse kicks once. hard. you reach up as if adjusting your earpiece beneath your hair. “seaworld recognized me,” you say quietly. “i’m gonna have to make a run for it.”

mm’s voice enters low. “how close?”

“too close.”

butcher answers next, clipped and already moving. “don’t get caught. don’t make a scene.”

“wow,” you mutter beneath your breath, still facing the napkins. “hadn’t considered either of those.”

the deep’s voice cuts across the corridor. “hey—”

your stomach drops. not panic yet. panic is expensive, and you’re standing inside a building where one wrong reaction could end the mission and put homelander on alert before anyone gets close enough to do anything that matters. you turn your head slightly, just enough to see him walking toward you.

his eyes narrow. “wait! you!”

fucking fantastic.

you turn on your heel. “fuck—i’m made. headed for the south back exit.”

“i’m on my way,” butcher says. “do not get boxed in.”

“that’s the goal.”

you walk fast at first. not running. not while there’s staff and guards still moving around the corridor. the tray stays in your hands for six more steps, then you pass a prep table and set it down with more care than the situation deserves because dropping glass behind you would attract every set of eyes within fifty feet.

behind you, the deep says, louder, “hey—no, no, no. i know you!”

your pace quickens. a security guard glances up. you lower your head and take the left turn toward the service hall. 

“south corridor,” you say. “passing storage c.”

“i’m too far out,” frenchie says, tense.

“stay on your position,” mm orders. “don’t break cover unless we call it.”

“mm,” annie says, voice tight from outside, the rally noise swelling behind her. “if he calls security—”

“i know.”

the deep’s footsteps come faster behind you. then he says your name. not your real one. something from the gala. the fake introduction you’d given him while smiling too sweetly beneath aquarium lighting like a woman with nothing in her head except blue tide summer and a crush on a man who talked to fish.

you break into a run. 

the staff corridor narrows ahead, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, the south back exit sign glowing dim green at the far end. your shoes slap against the polished floor. the apron tugs at your hips. your earpiece crackles with too many voices at once.

butcher swears. “move.”

“i am,” you snap.

“security rushing toward you,” mm warns. “two at the cross hall.”

you cut right before the intersection, shoving through a swinging door into a secondary service passage. your shoulder clips the frame hard enough to send pain through your upper arm. you keep going.

behind you, the door slams open. “come on!” the deep shouts, breath already rough because apparently running through service corridors is not part of his ocean training. “you think i’m stupid?”

you almost answer yes on instinct. 

you wish your knife pressed against your hip with every stride. you could draw it if he caught you. you know where your hand would fall. you know, with cold, practical certainty, that it wouldn’t be enough to make this fair.

you’re human. he’s not—even if it is idiot kevin.

“approaching south back exit,” you say, breath sharper now. “thirty seconds maybe.”

“twenty if you stop talking,” butcher says.

“helpful.”

a different voice enters the comms. soldier boy. low and flat. “where?”

“service passage. south side.” then mm’s tone changes. “soldier boy, stay on your mark.”

no answer. 

you keep running.

the final stretch of hallway opens ahead with the south exit sign glowing like the ugliest miracle you’ve ever seen. your lungs burn. your shoes slap too loudly against the polished floor. the staff uniform pulls wrong around your body now, too tight at the shoulders, too obvious, too easy to grab.

there’s nothing at your hip. no knife. no hidden blade. no small hard weight where your hand has learned to fall. the staff search at the entrance had been light, but not light enough to gamble on steel. no weapons visible. no weapons hidden. just a badge, a tray, an earpiece tucked under your hair, and the hope that nobody important would look at you long enough to remember your face. so much for that.

behind you, the deep’s footsteps slap through the corridor with embarrassing effort. “where the hell are you?”

“approaching the exit,” you say, breath sharp and uneven now. “south side.”

then the deep shouts behind you again, closer now. “i see you!”

panic tries to take the wheel. you shove it down. running blindly gets people killed. soldier boy taught you that before everything went wrong. keep your head. check your corners. know where the next body is before it reaches you.

the next body reaches you anyway.

a hand catches your wrist. your whole body jerks in shock. for half a second, terror does the math wrong and decides the deep caught you. you twist hard, free hand flying uselessly toward an empty hip, breath tearing up your throat before you can make it into anything useful.

soldier boy yanks you sideways into the alcove.

your back hits the wall between a stack of cardboard signs and a mop bucket. his hand covers your mouth before the sound leaves you, palm pressed firm over your lips. the other hand closes around your upper arm to keep you still, not gentle, not soft, not enough to bruise if you stop fighting him.

your body doesn’t know the difference immediately.

wall. hand. no air.

panic flashes white-hot through your chest.

his eyes find yours. “quiet,” he murmurs.

nothing else. one word. rough. low. not a threat.

you breathe once against his palm and realize you can. the air comes in shallow through your nose. fast, then slower. his hand is over your mouth, not your throat. his body crowds yours, but his fingers aren’t cutting into your neck. he’s not holding you up by the bruises he left. the other hand stays locked around your arm because your feet are still half-prepared to run.

you force yourself still. his gaze flicks over your face quickly. not tender. not asking if you are okay. only making sure you understand enough to not get both of you caught. you nod once against his hand.

footsteps pound past the alcove. the deep runs by first, then slows several steps ahead when the hallway opens near the exit. “fuck,” he pants. “come on.”

you hold your breath. soldier boy goes still enough to become part of the wall.

the deep turns back slowly, scanning the corridor with obvious, wounded frustration. he’s close enough now that you can see the sweat starting near his hairline, the flushed anger across his face. he looks ridiculous. he also looks like a supe standing between you and the only clean exit.

“come on, sweetheart. i know you’re here,” his footsteps slow near the alcove.

soldier boy’s palm remains over your mouth.

the deep moves closer. “homelander’s gonna love this. but maybe i’ll have my fun with you first, huh? stupid bitch drugged me and thought i’d forget.”

the air changes. nothing anyone else could measure from the hall. only soldier boy’s fingers tightening once around your arm.

you feel him decide. you catch his wrist before he moves, not hard enough to stop him. your eyes widen over his hand, warning clear enough. let him pass. do not blow this up. homelander is on the other side of the building. the mission is already hanging by a thread. soldier boy looks at you for half a second. then he removes his hand from your mouth and steps out of the alcove.

the deep turns too late. soldier boy hits him.

the sound is ugly. quick. almost swallowed by the hallway, but still heavy enough to make something inside you wince. the deep’s head snaps back, and his body drops with none of the grace vought probably trains into its public assets. one second he’s standing there with his mouth open around some half-formed insult. the next, he hits the floor flat on his ass, legs folding awkwardly beneath him, eyes unfocused and blinking at the ceiling. a stack of folded bunting topples beside him.

for one stunned second, you stare.

soldier boy looks down at him. “shut your fucking mouth.”

your mouth parts. “you were supposed to let him pass.”

he turns his head toward you. “he passed out. close enough.”

the worst part is that something in you almost laughs. 

then the comms explode.

“what was that?” mm demands.

frenchie says, “was that a punch?”

“why are we hearing punching?” hughie asks, distressed.

butcher cuts through them all. “everybody out. now. vought’s made us all.”

your stomach drops. soldier boy’s face hardens. that’s when you understand the sound was not only heard by your team. somewhere, maybe not close, maybe through a guard’s radio or a camera glitch or the deep failing to check in at the worst possible moment, the building has started correcting itself around the compromise. security details shifting. exits closing. homelander being pulled from the public stage before anyone gets the chance to make this worth the risk.

soldier boy catches your wrist. not your hand. his fingers close around the narrow bone with practical force and pull you into motion before you can object. you stumble once over the edge of the fallen bunting, catch yourself, and run.

the south back exit slams open into cold air.

rain has started lightly, barely enough to wet the pavement but enough to sharpen the smell of the alley behind the civic center. a black van waits near the curb with headlights off and engine running. mm’s in the driver’s seat, one hand braced over the wheel, the other near the gearshift. his eyes snap toward you through the windshield.

you and soldier boy reach the van first. he throws the side door open and all but shoves you inside by the wrist. you catch the edge of the seat with your free hand, breathless, knees knocking briefly against the floor as you climb in. he follows immediately, dropping into the space beside you with his jaw locked and his attention already turning toward the alley mouth.

mm looks at you in the mirror. his eyes flick to your wrist. then soldier boy. then your face. “where’s butcher?”

“coming,” soldier boy says.

the door remains open.

voices hit the alley next.

frenchie appears first with a security badge still clipped crookedly to his shirt, kimiko right behind him, silent and fast. she jumps into the van and immediately looks you over in one quick sweep that catches your flushed face, your empty hands, the way soldier boy still hasn’t fully let go of your wrist. his grip releases as if he only just noticed. you pull your hand back against your stomach.

soldier boy stares out the open door.

frenchie climbs in with a breathless, “i do not enjoy live events.”

“move,” mm says.

“we’re missing three.”

“i know who we’re missing.”

annie and hughie arrive from the opposite side of the alley, half-running, half-trying not to look like people who were trying to commit a crime. annie yanks open the passenger door and gets in beside mm, rain catching in her hair beneath her cap. hughie scrambles into the back, nearly trips over frenchie’s foot, and lands against the side panel with a pained little sound.

“everyone okay?” annie asks immediately.

“define okay,” hughie says.

butcher appears last. coat damp, face furious, cigarette nowhere in sight, which somehow makes him look more dangerous than usual. he slams the van door shut behind him the second he gets in, and mm pulls away before he has fully sat down. tires hiss over wet pavement. the alley slips behind you in a blur of brick, dumpsters, and red-white-blue banners flapping uselessly near a service entrance.

butcher looks at soldier boy. “did you get noir?”

the question lands strangely. not because you don’t understand it. because you do.

did you get him. killed him. finished it. the whole point. the reason soldier boy had agreed to stand inside a vought building two days after threatening to kill half the team. 

soldier boy says nothing. 

your breath slows with effort. you look at him. the side of his face is turned toward the window, rain-streaked city light cutting across his jaw. his hand rests near his knee now, curled loosely into a fist. 

butcher’s expression shifts. “you had him,” he says.

the van goes very quiet. mm’s eyes lift briefly to the rearview mirror. annie turns her head slowly from the passenger seat. hughie stops breathing for a second. your stomach drops through the floor of the van. 

had him.

soldier boy’s jaw flexes. “he got away.”

“did you kill him?” butcher asks, voice low. “or did you let him walk?”

soldier boy turns then. the look he gives butcher could strip paint. 

“you had him,” butcher repeats, surprise and arrogance mixing in his tone.

“and you had one job,” soldier boy snaps, voice suddenly harder. “keep your people from getting made by fucking fish boy.”

the words hit before you’re ready. your face goes still. not because he’s wrong. because the insult is a blade with a handle he clearly chose.

butcher leans forward slightly. “careful.”

soldier boy’s eyes stay on him. “or what?”

the van holds its breath.

mm says, “not in my van.”

“mm—” butcher starts.

“not,” mm repeats, sharper, “in my fucking van.”

silence slams down again. the civic center disappears behind you, swallowed by distance and rain and the shifting lights of vought security vehicles redirecting around the front of the building. somewhere behind those walls, homelander’s being moved to a safer exit. black noir has vanished again. because soldier boy reached the van with you. no blood on his hands.

you look down at your wrist where his fingers had been. the skin there still feels warm, held too tightly for too little time. practical. rough. nothing anyone could mistake for tenderness unless they were desperate enough to count any touch that didn’t hurt as evidence.

soldier boy stares out the window. butcher keeps swearing under his breath. nobody says out loud why noir is still alive. only then do you understand that soldier boy made a choice.