kissa u... basard

Word Count: 2892 --------------------------------------

The Nation Mourns

You prayed. 

You prayed and you prayed for a power that would be useful and not disgusting or embarrassing. You didn’t quite know what you wanted, you just knew Butcher was coming, and Homelander was looking forward to it for some deranged reason. 

“My… fellow… Americans…” 

His voice came through the speakers of the bathroom, where you held a needle to your arm, the bright green liquid staring up at you with judgment. 

A week ago, Homelander had made you swear you wouldn’t do it. 

“Look at what happened to Butcher,” he’d said. “I can’t… I can’t have you fall sick, I can’t let you be taken—” 

You hugged him to stop him. 

“You’re all I have left,” he said softly against your shoulder. “Don’t… please don’t do something stupid.” 

“I won’t, okay?” you said. “I just wanted to… protect you.” 

He pulled back, eyes shining. “You want to protect me?” 

“Why are you saying it like that?” you asked. 

“Sweetheart,” he laughed. “I am immortal.” 

“That French guy was working on a bomb to wipe the V1 out of you.” 

“Please, that’s wishful thinking,” he shrugged. “I’ll be fine. You just have to stand there in that room and let them witness my ascension. That’s all you need to do. I’ll take care of everything else, okay?” 

You nodded. 

You loved him, but you also knew him. Control was his safety. If anything happened that made the control slip, he’d be a deer caught in headlights. Not that you’d ever tell him that… he would think you considered him weak. Incompetent. 

Nothing. 

He kissed your forehead just before entering the Oval Office. 

“I uh—I just have to go to the bathroom for a sec, I’ll be right there.” 

He frowned. “Can’t you just… hold it? I’m about to address the country.” 

“Just… two minutes, I swear. Please? Go on in, I’ll be right there.” 

He didn’t like that. He would have been angrier if he hadn’t been preoccupied. 

“Just… ugh, fine.” 

He huffed and entered the office. You turned on your heel and ran to the nearest ladies’ room. Shut and locked the door and emptied out your purse. 

Now, here you were, trying not to shake as you held the needle to your arm. 

“It’s just… one time,” you told yourself. “One time. God, please, please don’t make my fucking pubes grow.” 

You made contact. Pushed the plunger further in and watched the green disappear into your system. 

You took a deep breath. You weren’t sure what you were supposed to feel, exactly… light-headed? Super strength? Heat? Cold? Pain? 

The answer came seconds later when your heart began to pound violently in your chest. 

“Oh, what the fuck…” You tried to regulate your breathing. It felt like the amount of blood in your body had tripled. You sank to your knees and clawed at your clothes. 

“A day commemorating Jesus,” Homelander’s voice continued on the speakers. “Who, as we all know, was tortured, stripped of his dignity, and killed. And that’s all well and good.” 

You choked on nothing as you convulsed and stared up at the ceiling. 

Please. Please. Please. A good power. Teleportation, maybe. Or laser eyes. Starlight’s power. Please not The Deep’s… 

“AH!” you screamed as something in your body felt like it was snapping. 

And then… silence. A calm descended over you, as if your body had adjusted to new clothes. 

You got up off the floor and felt… wonderful. 

“Okay…” you said to yourself. You were still light-headed, so you stood still to orient yourself. “Okay, okay… what’s the power, then?” 

Nobody answered. Who the fuck would? 

“Not just to be the world's greatest hero but to save all humanity…” Homelander continued. 

You knew he’d get irritated soon if you didn’t show. But… fuck, what was the power? 

You moved towards the door and nearly slammed into it. 

What? 

You took a few steps back. You walked ahead and, again, nearly ran through the door.

You looked down at your feet. 

Okay. This would take a minute.  

***

“Shock and awe, my son…” came a voice over the speakers, violently British and insufferably cocky. “Blood and fucking bone.” 

Now, you thought to yourself. 

Before Butcher could get another word out, you slammed into Homelander’s body and ran him out of the White House, past the lawn, past the Washington Monument, further and further and further, in the blink of an eye. 

Super speed. 

Thank. Fucking. God. 

You kept running, air filling your lungs, your body feeling unleashed. You almost closed your eyes with the euphoria of it until you realized you were carrying precious cargo. 

You reached your destination—his cabin in the woods even Vought didn’t know about—and dropped him to the ground. 

He fell like a human. 

You winced at the sound he made. 

He stayed down for a few seconds while you caught your breath. The world around you seemed… fuller. Brighter. Every particle of dust felt visible to you, every insect, every leaf moving in the breeze, every tiny sound—

“What the fuck did you do?” came his voice from the ground. 

You looked down at him. Bleeding, but not damaged. You’d gotten to him just in time. Well… you could have been faster, he might have still had his powers, but if you miscalculated, you would have lost your powers too, and that would just be stupid, and you were not stu—

“Answer me!” 

You realized your thoughts were running a mile a minute. 

“Sorry…” you said, snapping back to attention. “I—I took Temp V, I’m sorry, but see, it was good I took it!” 

He shook his head. “You’re… you’re going to die.” 

“I won’t die from one hit, Butcher took like 20 hits.” 

“Listen to you. You’re talking about it like it’s heroine.” 

“That’s not the point,” you said, bringing him back. “John… your powers…” 

He sighed, broken and defeated. He teared up. 

“Oh… baby…” You said softly. You moved to the ground slowly and wrapped your arms around him. 

He felt… fragile. The usual brick wall you were usually met with, raw power rolling off of him in waves, was no longer there. Or maybe it was your newfound strength… which you were trying not to enjoy too much. 

He let out a breath, shaky and afraid, against your neck. 

For a second, you thought he might actually sob.

But he didn’t. Of course he didn’t.

He just sat there in your arms, stiff as a corpse, breathing like he had forgotten how lungs worked.

“It’s fine,” you whispered, though you had no idea if it was. “It’s okay. It’s… over.”

He didn’t move.

You swallowed, rubbing slow circles between his shoulder blades. “Maybe this is a gift.”

That made him pull back. He looked at you like you had said something so insane his body had to reboot just to process it.

His eyes found yours. Red-rimmed, wet, furious. Terrified. Human.

“What?” he asked.

You almost flinched. “John—”

“Go to Vought.”

You blinked. “What?”

“You have super speed. Go to Vought,” he said again, voice low and sharp. “Get me Compound V.”

You stared at him.

Then laughed once, because surely he wasn’t serious. Surely you had misheard him, or your super ears or whatever the fuck had scrambled the words on the way in.

“Are you actually serious?”

His jaw twitched. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

“You just got out alive.”

“I have unfinished business with Butcher.”

Oh.

There it was.

The name still came out of him like poison. Like a chain still wrapped around his throat.

You sat back on your heels and looked at him. Really looked at him. Blood smeared down the side of his face. Dirt on his cheek. His hair mussed. His lip trembling despite his best efforts to stop it.

For the first time since you’d known him, Homelander looked… small. You saw the boy and what had been done to him rather than the mythology he had made himself into. 

“John…” you said carefully. “Aren’t you tired?”

He looked away. “Don’t.”

“No, seriously. Aren’t you tired?”

“I said don’t.”

“We could stay here,” you said, softer. “You have money. Like, a stupid amount of money. We could go anywhere. Somewhere Vought and Butcher will never find us.” 

His eyes flicked back to you.

You reached for his hand. He didn’t give it to you, exactly, but he didn’t pull it away either. You counted that as a victory because you were not emotionally equipped to count anything else right now.

“We can start fresh,” you said. “Please.”

His face tightened. “Fresh.”

“Yes.”

“You think there’s a fresh for me?”

“I do.”

He gave a weak scoff and pushed back from you.

Or tried to.

It was barely anything. His hand pressed against your shoulder, but there was no force behind it. No effortless strength, no warning in the movement. Just a man trying to create space and realizing, in real time, that his body no longer obeyed him like it used to.

The realization hit him, too. You saw it happen in the way his eyes widened slightly and his hand faltered. Your heart broke for him. 

And he hated that you saw it.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he snapped.

“I’m not—”

“Yes, you are.”

“I’m looking at you because I love you.”

“Fuck off.”

“John.”

“I said fuck off.”

“No.”

He looked at you then, startled despite himself.

You took a breath. Your heart was still beating too fast. Not Temp V fast anymore. Something else. Fear, probably. Love, definitely. Maybe both were the same thing when it came to him.

“I can’t watch you go back to Butcher,” you said. “I can’t watch you walk right into him again. I can’t watch him depower you again. Or kill you. You only just made it out alive.”

His expression hardened. “You weren’t there.”

“What?”

“At the address.”

As usual, Homelander scrambled for something to blame when he felt like the spotlight was too harsh on him. 

He stared at you. “You were supposed to be there.”

“I was coming—”

“You weren’t there because you were shooting yourself up with Temp V?”

You went still.

He smiled, but there was nothing happy in it. “You promised me you wouldn’t do it.”

“And you promised me you’d be careful.”

His eyes flashed. For half a second, your whole body braced for heat vision that wasn’t coming.

That would never come.

God.

“I had to do it,” you said again, quieter this time. “It was one time. I couldn’t… I couldn’t just stand there like a fool and do nothing.”

Your voice cracked before you could stop it. 

“If I had to just stand by and watch Butcher take you from me... I couldn't live with myself..."

Silence.

The forest moved around you. Leaves whispering. Bugs screaming. A bird somewhere singing, having no respect for the emotional weight of the moment.

Homelander stared at you, the anger drained from him finally. Something in him shifted. Something awful and tender and raw.

Maybe he finally got it.

Maybe, for the first time in his life, he understood what it felt like to stand outside the glass. To watch power happen to someone else. To be too slow, too soft, too powerless to make a difference. 

His throat bobbed.

You wiped at your cheek with the back of your hand. “I know this isn’t ideal, but…”

A laugh tried to come out of you and died halfway.

“It’s a second chance,” you said. “We can have everything we wanted without the burden of Vought or politics or the Seven.”

He looked at you like you were speaking another language.

Then, very softly, he said, “I don’t know who I am without all that.”

Oh.

That hurt worse than the blood. Worse than the horrible second where you had grabbed him from the White House.

“You’re you,” you said. “Loving. Protective…”

His face crumpled into something ugly. “Not fucking protective now, am I?”

“Protection isn’t just punching holes through people, John.”

He stopped.

“You have a whole, normal life ahead of you to figure out what you are outside Vought,” you said. “You have me to help. I’m not going anywhere.”

He stared down at your hands.

“You sure?” he asked bitterly. “You could take off in a second and I wouldn’t be able to follow you.”

“Why would I do that?”

His laugh was small and vicious. Mostly aimed at himself.

“Because I’m nothing,” he said. “No power, no V, no God, no father, no son, I’m fucking useless.”

“Homelander, you were never useful to me.”

The second it left your mouth, you wanted to grab it out of the air and stomp it to death. His face went blank.

“Gee, thanks.”

“That came out wrong.”

“Did it?”

“Yes. Obviously. Jesus Christ, you know what I mean.”

“I really don’t.”

“I mean I didn’t love you because you had a use.”

His eyes flickered.

“And I still love you because it’s not about your use.”

He looked away. Fast. Too fast. Like if he didn’t, whatever was building in his face would betray him. You reached for him again and tugged at his head lightly so he’d rest it against your chest. 

Normally, when you did that, he would listen to your heartbeat. It was as loud as a drum to him. Now… it was soft. You could feel him feel the loss of it. 

He breathed.

Once.

Twice.

Three times. 

You wrapped your arms around him and held on.

“I’m scared,” he said.

It was so quiet you almost missed it. 

“I know,” you whispered.

“I don’t want to be.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know how to do this.”

“Me neither.”

He huffed against you. It might have been a laugh if either of you were less devastated.

“That’s reassuring,” he said. 

“I know, I’m very wise.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I’m your idiot.”

His fingers tightened in your shirt. Weakly. Humanly.

“Yeah,” he said. “You are.”

Your eyes burned.

You kissed the top of his head, careful, because he seemed breakable now, and you hated that. Not that he was breakable, just that nobody had ever treated him so gently or taught him that breakable could still be happy. 

A strange heaviness settled into your bones.

At first, you thought it was the emotion of it all. Which, fair. You were in the middle of the woods holding a depowered superhero in your arms after injecting yourself with science heroin. 

Anyone would be tired.

But then… the world dimmed.

Leaves became leaves again. Not a thousand sharp, trembling details. The bugs became background noise. Your blood stopped singing in your ears. The impossible energy in your legs, the thing that had made the whole world feel too slow, began to drain.

“Oh,” you said.

Homelander lifted his head. “What?”

“I think it’s wearing off.”

His expression changed instantly. Panic, sharp and immediate. “What?”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not—what if—what if it does something to you?”

“John.”

“What if your heart stops?”

“John.”

“You could start bleeding or get those fucking tentacles Butcher—”

“Baby.”

That shut him up.

You smiled weakly. “I’m okay, I swear. It just feels like I’m coming down from a hangover or something.”

He looked like he didn’t believe you.

You shifted, trying to sit more comfortably, and the movement made your whole body ache. Not a superhuman ache… just the ordinary, miserable ache of muscles being overused and adrenaline leaving the system.

You laughed under your breath. “Ow.”

His eyes widened. “What?”

“Nothing. Just… knees.”

“Knees?”

“I have them, apparently, and I used them too much today.” 

He stared at you.

Then, suddenly, unbelievably, he laughed.

It was a short, broken laugh, almost wet around the edges, but it was real. You almost started crying then, because apparently that was the thing that was going to break you. 

Laughter. 

His laugh died quickly, but the ghost of it stayed on his face. He looked younger with it. Lost, yes. Terrified, yes. But younger. 

You leaned back against the tree behind you and pulled him with you.

He resisted for half a second. Pride, probably. Habit, definitely.

Then he gave in.

His head rested against your chest, and you held him there as the last of the V slipped out of your body like a tide going out.

Maybe tomorrow would be awful. Maybe the world would come looking. Half the nation would mourn, the other half would rejoice. Vought would likely spin another tale for the public to eat up. 

But… good things would follow. 

Sure, some days Homelander would wake up furious, grieving, unbearable, terrified of every bruise and paper cut and cold morning. But… he’d have peace. He’d have a life far away from Butcher and Vought and the whole rotten machine that broke him before it made him into the perfect little weapon. 

He snuggled into you further, if such a thing was possible, and let out a soft breath. 

“I’m just John,” he said, as if informing himself of the fact. 

You held him tighter and pressed your lips to his temple.

“Just John is brilliant.” 

His fingers threaded through yours. 

You exhaled, feeling the last spark of Temp V vanish from your blood.

Human. Normal. 

That made two of you.

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

He slowly opens his eyes, only to immediately shut them with a groan. The fluorescent lights above him are blinding. It only exacerbates the feeling of his head splitting in two. The only comfort to him is the coolness of the metal under his naked skin.

Where is he?

The incredulity of the moment finally forces his eyes open. He’s in pain - so much pain. His arms and legs quiver with the shock of it. His agony echoes with memories. His skin is burned, frozen, poked at. White coats calling him “John” while he cries out for a mother he was never given. But he’s not a child anymore, is he? He was never a child. He’s the Homelander, and what is he doing back on the slab?

Homelander sucks all the air he can into his lungs as he sits up, and he nearly falls off the table. One hand grabs for the side, the other reaches for his aching skull. He jolts as his fingers press over something new – a scar, raw and fresh, cutting his head in half. He feels stitches pricking the pads of his fingertips. He gulps in another frightened breath.

“Good morning, John.”

Homelander gasps and shoots his gaze up, but the movement is too quick for his eyes. His legs compensate, sliding him off the table, and he collapses to the floor. His ass hits the tile hard, and his head bonks the slab’s pole. The humanity of it would be humbling were it not so horrifying. He has little choice but to watch as patent leather dress shoes step into his field of vision with all the confidence of a god.

“I was beginning to think you would never wake up.”

He would know that voice anywhere. It does little to convince Homelander this isn’t a nightmare. He slowly looks up at Stan Edgar. Edgar stares back and tilts his head as if examining a rare insect. “How are you feeling?”

It takes Homelander a moment to remember how to speak. He opens his mouth, closes it, tests his tongue, then answers in a hoarse register. “What happened?”

Edgar’s eyes narrow inquisitively. “How much do you remember?”

He doesn’t know how to answer that, so he elects for another question. “Where am I?”

Edgar tilts his head to examine the room that’s far too white for Homelander’s liking. “The Tower, of course. Granted, I doubt you’ve ever been on this particular floor.”

The CEO is even more irritating when accompanied by physical anguish. “What floor might that be?” Homelander grits out, if only because he knows Stan is waiting for the question.

Edgar smiles thinly. “The morgue.”

The word creeps along Homelander’s skin skin but strengthens his voice. “What…the fuck…happened?”

“You died. I’m among the lucky few who know you’re not,” He walks out of Homelander’s frame of vision. He doesn’t look up to watch as Edgar continues to monologue. “Our best scientists believed it was a lost cause, but I thought with your DNA, there was a chance it could be done. Sadly, your powers didn’t return. Another failed experiment.”

Homelander’s memory was spotty. He remembered the White House; he remembered Ryan. William, perhaps? A bright, blinding light, and then nothing. It wouldn’t be the first time his mind protected him with blank spaces, but never one this thorough. Slowly, in incremental movements, he picks himself off the floor. He rests both hands on the cool table for support. “Where are they?”

Edgar laughs, the sound curt and cold in the white room. “That’s your first question?”

Homelander raises shaky blue eyes to level Edgar as best he can. “Where are they?” He repeats.

Edgar’s feigned smile fades. “Safe. Living with a more than reasonable stipend on Long Island. Near a beach, if I remember correctly.”

Homelander knows him well enough to know he is withholding information. In another world, in the right world, his eyes would burn red. “Tell me where.”

“You no longer have any ability to give me orders, John.” Edgar cruelly reminds. When Homelander’s loathsome stare does not change, Edgar hums. “But you provide no use to the company anymore…I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”

~-~

The Long Island Sound is calmer than usual today. The waves brush the shore tentatively. You’ve grown accustomed to their quiet rhythm in the morning. At the very least, it is a welcome change from the pace of Vought.

Vought paid you handsomely. It was a clear demand to live quietly, to pretend all that had happened never happened. The sum was almost insulting in its surplus, but you no longer had the energy to fight this corporation. The “boys” clearly didn’t, either.

You watch the waves a moment longer before walking back inside. You don’t need a job with Vought’s stipend, but it’s still nice to have a routine. You’re ready to start it when there’s a knock at the door.

You’re not expecting anyone, nor are you anticipating any deliveries. Before you can even consider ignoring it, there’s another, louder knock. More urgent. You slowly go to the door and look through the peephole - and your heart jumps to your throat. You throw the door open and find Homelander clinging to the frame. At least, it certainly looks like Homelander. He’s wearing a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt too big for him, his muscles weak and thin through the fabric. His hair is shaved down to near nothing. The shade of brown is only slightly less shocking than the raw scar that parts his head. But you would know those blue eyes anywhere, and the way he looks at you like you’re the last tether holding him down.

You’re struck dumb. He, as usual, is not. He looks you up and down slowly, head nearly shaking from the effort. “You’re…alright?”

You step forward, arms instinctively moving out. “Homelander…how…”

To a point that you’re just grateful to all the powers at play that he’s still next to you today.

But you understand wanting things to feel normal. At your usual pace. Like the whole world hasn’t witnessed… well, that. So with a soft, sweet smile you let him have this. Letting him push you on top of the bed sent a little thrill up your spine. His strength could never compare to what it used to be and yet that’s the best part. You’re mindful enough to understand that he’s not ready to hear that you prefer him this way.

His strength is no longer a threat, it’s a thing you get to enjoy without that tiny flicker of doubt at the level of fine control he possesses. If somebody asks you? This is your happy ending. With the dirty, infectious claws of Vought dislodged from his shoulders, you can finally breathe again.

You just want him to see it that way too.

But it’s not that simple on the other side—you’re sympathetic to that.

You thought starting with kissing was a good idea, he’s always been fond of the act. Being stripped of his powers doesn’t take the joy of the mundane away. The kisses started off slow. Cautious of his bruised skin you didn’t pull him in the way you usually would. So you let him lead the pace, let him lie on top of you kissing you delicately as if you were the injured one.

Eventually he slides off you to get a better angle as his hand slips down your body.

You whine pretty for him when he kisses your neck with tongue and teeth, his smile tactile against your skin. That’s when you loosen up. The worry of what he built this moment up to is gone—you just get to enjoy the feeling of his lips on your skin and his hand down your body.

Homelander’s hand slips under your pyjama shorts and lucky for him you’ve already forgoed underwear. You sigh when his fingers dip into the centre of you, wetting them before coming back up to rub your clit.

“Mhm, that feels really nice.” Your breathy tone should tell him everything he needs to know.

It does feel really nice. You melt into the mattress, enjoying the pleasurable tingles migrating into every limb. Once Homelander stops kissing you, instead focusing mental energy on how his fingers play your tune, you turn your head to the side, kissing his unbruised shoulder before lying it back down again to close your eyes.

He feels great—just like usual—but it’s not the rushed dizzying pace he used to put you through. This feels like a fantastic massage more than a race to an orgasm.

You like it that way. Homelander less so.

It’s dark—he insisted on it—so you barely see when the issue starts, let alone when it turns into a full-blown meltdown.

His hand stills, pointer finger tapping your clit in slow succession.

“I–uh—I used to be good at this.” Your eyes shoot open and your head snaps to your right.

“What?”

“Making you feel good. I used to… I used to be able to feel you better. Every pulse, every breath. It’s—it was—second nature. I could hear your heartbeat riight here.” He taps your clit again, almost disappointed. You can only imagine the face he’s put on.

All the pleasure drains from your system. You don’t know how to approach this. 

He lets out a humourless chuckle, “I used to be able to look through you and find exactly where to touch you.”

You can’t help but snort, “I wish you hadn’t done that.” That was the wrong thing to say. You see him snap his head to you. One choked-up breath is enough to sink a heavy weight in your gut. 

“Well thank fuck you don’t have to worry about that anymore.” His voice caught in his throat, soft and vulnerable.

“Homelander—oh baby, no no no, that is not what I meant.” You pull yourself up, leaning over to click the bedside lamp on while his hand slides off your body and with a soft thud it hits the bedding. Homelander sits up.

“Hey look at me,” you put your hand on his arm after he angrily wipes his tears. “Do you think I’m not enjoying myself? Or that you’re—that you’re not… enough?”

Your hand goes up to hold his jaw, softly rubbing below the cut on his cheek. The residual tracks of his tears wet your thumb.

He looks away from you, your hand is left hanging in the air. He turns his body, legs hanging off the edge of the bed.

“You’ve always been… ecstatic, euphoric, over the fucking moon anytime we fucked. But that’s gone, huh? I’m no longer a god. I never was.” He visibly swallows, his chest heaves with a sob.

“You know I’ve never cared for power.” Softly you slide up behind him, arms wrapping around his torso from behind with slow motion—testing the waters if he’ll let you.

He does. You press a lingering kiss against his spine.

“I love being with you, and I always will. You don’t need your senses to touch me right. You’ve done it a million times. It’s muscle memory. Today may have just been a little too fast for us.”

He huffs a dry laugh. “Maybe not a million.”

You take the moment of lightness and nuzzle your face into his back. He’s wearing an old tattered T-shirt you found in the closet. You really need to get him to pick some nice clothing he’ll like.

“Alright, smartass, plenty enough.” You smile against his back and kiss him there again.

You sit like this in silence for a while.

“You don’t have to be gentle with me, you know? I know I’m useless but you’re still not stronger than me.” He sniffs a little bit but you can tell he’s getting some of his voice back.

“You’re not useless.”

“Right.” His scoff is sharp, accusatory.

“Your strength, your senses, any of it… it’s not why I’m with you. Them being gone isn’t a loss for me, it’s just different.”

“Yeah, different bad.”

“No. Just different. Things will have to change, but I’m happy to have you. Can you turn around for me honey?” You sit back a bit to give him the space, relieved when he turns around and pulls his legs back on the bed, facing you.

“I love you. No matter what. No matter how this changes our lives, you have me.” Your hands naturally itch to hold his face again, but the quiver of his lip makes you act further. So you lean into him, hands sneaking under his arms as they bring him into a hug.

Oh, how it feels good to feel him against you. Still alive. Still there with you. You feel the burn of brimming tears but you blink them away. Rubbing his back takes your attention away from the pain of what could have been.

“I love you so much.” You say it again, your lips speak close to his ear before you rest your head back on his shoulder. Homelander puts his arms around you too, squeezing you softly as if you could still shatter under his hands. If it makes him happy you don’t mind playing along with his fantasy.

“We don’t have to do anything today. Let’s take it slow and wait for it, okay?” He pulls away, near offended.

“B-but—I want to. I want to… feel something good. I want to make you feel good. Like I used to.”

“You still do. You’ve never stopped.” You reassure him, pulling on this hand and pressing it in between your breasts. “You may not hear it anymore but you can feel it, can’t you?” Your heart rate is slightly elevated.

“You can feel me like this. Like you used to.”

His hand presses into you gently, feeling your heart rate. 

He nods shakily, this gesture means something to him. You understand why his powers felt like such an innate part of him. What do you do when you feel like you’ve lost all your senses? Anything that felt even remotely like you? You don’t know, but you’re sure as hell gonna find out for him. With him.

Homelander kisses you with shocking passion. It steals the breath right out of your lungs. His hand stays firmly pressed against your ribcage, hungry lips devouring your words of adoration. Just like the hug and the hand over your heart you let him. You want him to have this.

Part of you feels relieved. In the couple days since the event, things have been rocky—rightfully so. To see just a glimmer of his confidence back fills you with so much excitement you can’t help but grin into his kiss.

Your heart rate is going up, winded from the gasping breathy kisses. He feels it too. He doesn’t need his super senses. You’re gonna teach him how to use the tools he has at his disposal just to feel even a sliver like himself.

Anything it takes.

“I want to—Can I?” He sounds desperate, just like the many times he has before. The fact that he can even think that you don’t see him the same way you did before is crazy. It’s never been about the powers, or godhood. It’s always been just him. 

The slow mornings rolling around in bed, just talking lazily about the world, about plans, and the future—bright visions of your life together. You used to talk about the colours you’d paint the walls of the living room, or the pictures you’d put up along the staircase. 

Or the romantic or passionate evenings, nights spent clutching the sheets or holding onto each other. The jokes and the laughs, the meaningful conversations. Even the coworker gossiping sessions. You loved everything that had to do with spending time together.

The powers never played a role. You’ll just have to show him how to wield his new ones. While mundane in his eyes, you still see him as extraordinary. And that didn’t happen thanks to a title change nor his power set.

“Yes. Yes you can.” 

He goes to take off your top, discarding the garment off to the side. Homelander’s lips go down from your neck to in between your breasts. You expect him to latch onto your nipples for comfort but he stays there, kissing the soft skin in between your breasts. You stroke the back of his neck, fingers playing with his hair. 

Once his fingers reach the hem of your shorts, he stops, pulls back and looks at you with an expression so uncertain it makes your heart ache.

“What if I don’t know how anymore?”

It’s a silly worry to have but you understand the underlying question. All the what ifs are swimming in his mind, thinking ‘what if you won’t love me the way I am anymore?’

Homelander’s always been a master at drowning his sorrows in pleasure. Any fight you’ve ever had ended up getting solved through touch and affection, however heated at the time.

He reduces his value to numbers. Score on a leaderboard. Stats on a supe sheet. Just how Vought tracked his yearly revenue, he tracks the numerical value he brings to your life.

But he’s always been so much more than that. And you will spend the rest of your life making him believe it.

“Then we’ll learn together.” And you mean it. With all the hiccups and blockades on the way.

You shimmy out of your shorts, feeling confident when his lips part, taking in a little gasp.

“Let me, baby.” You tug at his sleeping shirt, letting him take it off.

“Let me make us feel good.” Hands sliding down his fuzzy chest, over his soft tummy and down to his underwear. He’s already half-hard. Instinctually your hand squeezes him through the fabric, enjoying the lewd little moan he lets out.

He’s so sweet when he lets you treat him for once. Giving up the power, the status, and the performance for the sake of something real.

With his help, you pull his underwear down, giving his cock a couple of strokes before you sit over his lap and guide him right to your wet entrance. It’s so good to feel him in you again. It feels right. Being as close to him as humanly possible has always been essential—now more than ever.

You fully sink down on his lap with a happy sigh. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you ground yourself in the reality that is his warm body holding yours. After the nightmares you’ve had, you’ll take any reminder that he’s still here.

You don’t move. The light is still on and you can see every injury out in the open. Even when vulnerable, he’s beautiful—because he’s yours. Your fingers silently trace featherlight lines across his face. You don’t notice yourself smiling until he mirrors your expression.

That smile alone tells you that it will all be okay, regardless of how long it takes to get there.

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You died is what you try to say, but the words grow too large. No matter how you try to push them out, they catch in your throat and choke you until all you can do is cry. Loud, ugly sobs that turn to sharp pain in your chest. It was so real, you want to tell him. Your brain was all over the floor.

You’d scream if you could stop sobbing long enough to gather the air. He’s scared now. His arms are too tight around you, but you’d claw your way back in if he tried to let you go. Your nails rake his bare back, pressing against impenetrable skin, desperate for something to cling to. No blood. He doesn’t even wince. You press harder, trying to hurt him. You can’t. It wasn’t real.

A noise of anguished relief leaves you. You don’t recognize the sound of it. You’ve never heard something so animal come from your own throat.

He doesn’t know what to say, or how to soothe you, so he squeezes you to his chest. Your heart hammers against his, your tears wet his neck. At some point he starts to rock. The motion isn’t smooth nor practiced. How could it be? It’s jerky; the uncertain movements of a child that has never been rocked to sleep, but knows the principle of it as an adult.

Still, it works. His even breaths give you a baseline to gradually match your fitful gasps to. His heart, beating just as strong and loud as yours, reminds you with every pulse that this is real, and what you saw was…

“Just a dream,” he whispers in your ear. There's a weight of understanding in those words. You’ve said the same to him when he’s needed it. When it was his head cradled in your arms, his tears wet on your skin. The nightmares are usually his. “Can’t hurt you. M’here.”

Sniffling, you run your fingers through his hair, thumb smoothing over his forehead. Even now, your touch makes him shudder. Despite the visceral realness of your nightmare, his skin is unmarred beneath your touch. You map every familiar line and slope of him, a part of you still terrified to find some hidden place where he is broken, but he is blessedly whole.

You close your eyes, sagging in relief. The exhaustion that follows the gradual release of your every clenched muscle is almost enough to knock you right back into unconsciousness. He presses his forehead to yours, his breath warm and still faintly minty on your lips.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” you whisper back. The sound of it is hoarse and small.

“Thought you’d lost it,” he says quietly. “Was it Barney again?”

That gets a huff of laughter out of you. You have one weird dream about a purple dinosaur forcing you to eat mattresses, and apparently you’ll never live it down.

“No. It was…”

You died. It was so real. Your brains were all over the floor.

Your eyes burn. The words are still too big.

“You.”

“Me? I made you eat mattresses?”

“No, stop,” you groan, thudding your fist halfheartedly on his shoulder. It feels good to do. It reminds you of how solid he is. “You weren’t Barney. You were… You were hurt. Bad. It was… It was so bad,” you say, the humor in your voice fading, more sobs threatening the frayed edges of it.

For a moment, you think he might laugh at you. Remind you he’s invincible. For all of his insecurities, modesty is not a condition that Homelander suffers. Any implication of his own vulnerability, of weakness, has always made him bristle. Instead, his playful expression sobers. He doesn’t know what to say. He presses his lips to your forehead, your temple, your cheek.

You close your eyes, sinking gratefully into his impossible strength. His hands roam your body without intent, ghosting the same path your own had traversed upon him. He nuzzles your throat, conveying in touch what he doesn’t have the words to say.

Each kiss feels like a promise.

I’m here. 

I’m not going anywhere.

Feel me. 

I’m real. 

I’m yours.

He lays you down on the bed, settling his head upon your chest. You exhale a shaky breath, tangling your fingers in his hair. His arms slip around your waist, somehow both protective and vulnerable. He turns his head to press one last kiss to the spot just above your soundly beating heart.

“People don’t usually… worry about me. Getting hurt,” he says, glancing up at you. You stroke his cheek, admiring the crystal clear blue of his eyes. “Unless it's because they want to hurt me.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know.”

“Ever.”

He smiles.

“I know.”

You cup his cheek. He leans into your palm, closing his eyes.

“I love you so much. I don’t know what I’d do if…”

You trail off. The words aren’t too big, they’re just too terrible to give life to.

He kisses your palm.

“I love you, too.”

You close your eyes, finally letting yourself be soothed back to sleep by the gentle, persistent press of his lips.

I’m here. 

I’m not going anywhere.

Feel me. 

I’m real. 

“You don’t have a chimney,” the boy declares from the doorway, standing with a stocking clutched in both hands. “I don’t have anywhere to hang my stocking.”

“Oh, uhhhh…” Homelander looks over his shoulder, eying the stocking warily. One of Ryan’s holdovers from his former home. Former prison, more like. “Go ahead and hang it on Atlas. What’s one stocking against the weight of the world?”

Ryan doesn’t seem to appreciate the joke. His expression is still pinched in concern.

Homelander frowns, setting the lights down. “What’s wrong, bud?”

“How’s Santa going to get in if you don’t have a chimney?” He asks very seriously, lightly twisting the stocking between his hands.

“Oh,” Homelander barks softly, breaking into a smile as he looks back to his task. “Aren’t you a little old for that?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, the whole Santa thing?” When he looks back to his son, it still isn’t clicking. His brows furrow. “He’s not real, Ryan.”

Ryan grimaces like he’s been struck at, lifting his stocking to chest height like some sort of festive barrier. “Yes he is. Mom said so.”

Homelander blows a raspberry. Great, it’s going to be one of those conversations. “Yeah, well, your mom said a lot of things that weren’t true, didn’t she?” He stands from the table and makes his way over to the boy now scowling at him with hurt and confusion. “But hey, look at it this way: you don’t need Santa anymore. You’ve got me!” He says, arms splayed in invitation. “I don’t even need reindeer to fly! And neither do you, for that matter.”

Ryan doesn’t move. He’s still clutching that stocking to his chest. It looks handmade, the large R initial sloppily sewn in place. As much as he’d like to sneer at it, there’s a nagging jealousy in the back of his mind because the imperfections are how he knows it was made with love.

“Hey,” Homelander coaxes again, reaching out to give his shoulders a little squeeze. “C’mon, pal. Am I wrong?”

Still, Ryan doesn’t move. He doesn’t meet his father’s eye. Homelander can feel the mounting upset in the slight tremble of his shoulders, though.

“C’mon, little man,” he says, giving the gentlest shake. “Talk to me.”

“I killed Santa,” Ryan croaks out. 

Homelander recoils in equal parts surprise and confusion. “What?”

“It’s my fault,” he says, clutching the stocking tightly to his chest, choking on each word as tears spill down his cheeks. “It’s my fault mom’s gone, and now Santa’s gone too. They’re gone and I killed them.”

Shit, shit, fuck, damn it, shit. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, back it up, kiddo,” he says, dropping into a kneel. “We’ve been over this, okay? What happened wasn’t–”

“It doesn’t matter!” Ryan interrupts mournfully. “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter if it isn’t, she’s still gone. And Santa’s not real because she’s gone.”

Homelander stares for a long moment, utterly at a loss. “I… I’m sorry.”

The dam breaks and Ryan sobs as he throws his arms around Homelander’s neck, muffling the wet noise of it into the collar of his suit. The sound of it is horrible not just for the sensory of it, but how each ragged breath tolls like a bell of failure. Father’s aren’t supposed to make their sons cry. They’re supposed to protect them. They’re supposed to make everything better.

Homelander lifts Ryan as though he’s much smaller than he is, cradling the crying boy to his chest and rubbing his back in soothing sweeps. “I’m sorry, bud,” he says, whispering it again and again and again. “I’m sorry.”

I’m still getting the hang of this, he nearly says, but he swallows it back. He wants Ryan to think of him the way a father should be seen. As if he knows what the fuck he’s doing. He continues to rub his back, comforting him through a loss that is both alien and painfully familiar to Homelander.

He never had a mother to lose, not really, but isn’t that a loss in and of itself? The pain of grief is a bitterness shared across all types of love. Even for the love you never had the chance to know. Even for the love that was a perversion of what could have been.

His own eyes burn with their shared grief. His son weeps in his arms like a very small child would, and Homelander hears the familiar sobs of his own childhood echoed in those same cries.

“It’s okay,” he says, clearing his throat, the catch of his voice humiliating to his own ears. “It’s okay, son. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here… I’m here.”

Maybe it’s a poor consolation–Ryan will always miss his mother–but it has to account for something, doesn’t it? He already has so much more than Homelander ever did. He understands Ryan better than anyone ever will, and vice-versa. Together, they can weather this storm.

Eventually, Ryan quiets. He could have cried for several more hours if he wanted. His fathers arms would never tire of his weight. He’s stronger than that, though; of course he is. They both are, Homelander tells himself.

“Can we still put out milk and cookies?” Ryan asks after a time, voice still half-muffled against Homelander’s suit.

“Yeah, bud,” he agrees readily, giving his boy a squeeze. He would agree to anything in the world right now. Arson, murder, robbery, a thirty-stack of pancakes, whatever the kid wanted. Homelander’s nerves feel as structurally sound as jell-o in the wake of his son’s tears. “We sure can.”

There is a bright-eyed, genuine excitement he has for the topic that positively enraptures them in a way even you have never quite managed to. You remember his passion from your own childhood, but you've had the time to explore it, giving yours a patina that his lacks.

Homelander is experiencing this moment with the children. For all his experience in a proper classroom, he may as well be one of them. It brings as much of an ache to your heart as it does warmth.

To your delight, every single student leaves the room with a shiny smiling sticker for their engagement. You only have a handful of them left on your sheet by the time the last student leaves, and as the door closes, you let out a contented little sigh.

"That was fantastic," you tell him, putting a hand on his chest as you kiss his cheek. "They loved you!"

He even managed not to say anything too inappropriate. You forget sometimes just how accustomed he is to public speaking, and more specifically, manufacturing a suitable identity to appeal to whomever he's addressing.

He's like a chameleon in that regard. There's a handful of different Homelander's you might find yourself speaking to, depending on the day.

"Bahh, that was nothing. Trivia Night stuff," he says dismissively, but his grin tells you otherwise. He's glowing with pride, his cheeks a light shade of pink.

"Well. I'd say you earned this," you say, peeling off one more sticker to slap on the downturned flap of his suit.

He looks down at the sparkling sticker and barks a laugh, cupping your face in his hands. "This make me teachers pet?" He asks, and though you're sure he's trying to be salacious to deflect the sincere feelings welling up in his eyes, you see through his facade.

You always do. He loves that as much as he sometimes loathes it.

"You can be anything you'd like to be," you say, kissing the tip of his nose.

Judging by the shift in his expression, no one's ever told him that before.

He kisses you properly and without reprieve for that one.

“Hey,” he whispers, bringing your eyes back to him. You look like a deer in the headlights. He probably looked the same way during his first real photoshoot. Still, he tries to calm you by assuring you, “You’re doing great.”

“How many of these are we going to have to do?” You ask quietly, your tension creeping into your voice.

He frowns. He knows you’re nervous, but it really squeezes out any romance lingering in the moment to think you’re dreading how many more times you’re going to have to kiss each other. If it were just the two of you, it wouldn’t matter. He’d kiss you a dozen times for each mistletoe he saw. A hundred times. He’s got years and years spent without you to make up for.

Huh. Now there’s a thought.

“Hey, let’s take five,” he calls to the crew. Immediately, he feels you relax against him.

“Thank you,” you sigh, squeezing his forearms. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to complain–”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he soothes, already fixated on his brewing plot. He leans in to kiss your forehead and gives your hips a pat. “Lemme go get you some water, ‘kay? We’ll bang out the rest of these photos, and then we can get to bangin’ out in private,” he says, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

You laugh, giving him a playful little push, and he seizes the opportunity to split off and not only grab you a water bottle, but to pull Ashley aside for a quick word, whispering it in her ear.

Ashley’s eyes widen. She pulls back sharply to stare incredulously at him. “By the end of the shoot?”

“Yeah,” he confirms, smiling. “And wipe that fuckin’ look off your face before you’re seen,” he says, giving her arm an unfriendly pat that jostles her slightly. She immediately schools her expression, glancing at you. Luckily, you’re busy briefly dissociating while you recover from the flash of cameras and the bustle of the crew and makeup department.

“Right… Yes, sir,” she says, frantically pulling out her phone the second his back is turned.

Homelander returns to you with a crisp bottle of water and kisses your cheek reassuringly. “Almost done,” he promises you, rubbing your back. “And then I’ve got a treat for you back at my place.”

Your eyes narrow suspiciously as you drink. “Is it something to do with ‘bangin’ out’?”

“More like rockin’ around,” he says, breaking into a cheeky grin while the two of you move back into position.

Just shy of an hour later, the shoot has finally wrapped up–no thanks to Ashley’s thinly veiled stalling–and Homelander is eagerly guiding you back to his penthouse, your hand held firmly in his. Pausing at the door, he peers through it, ensuring everything looks right before he opens it.

Glancing down at you, he steps to the side as he swings the door open, gesturing you inside. “After you.”

That way, he has the perfect vantage to admire your shock as you’re blindsided by the sight of dozens upon dozens upon dozens of sprigs of mistletoe hanging from every doorway, light fixture and arch in his entire penthouse.

“Did you somehow not get enough kisses on set?” You ask playfully, reaching up to bat lightly at one of the hanging mistletoe. They’ve all been secured in place with some kind of clear tacky little bits of paste.

“Not familiar with this concept of ‘enough kisses,’ “ he says, miming quotation marks before dropping his hands to his hips, admiring the work he put into demanding this be done. They did a decent job, all things considered.

You turn around to face him, beaming as brightly as any shining star.

God, you look… beautiful. Backlit by the glittering Christmas lights decorating his penthouse–the cast of them warm on your skin–you give him a melancholic sense of nostalgia for something he’s yearned for his entire life, but never known. You look cut straight out of every Hallmark moment he’s ever dreamed of. You look the way Christmas does in the movies. You look like home.

He can’t stop himself from kissing you, your face cradled delicately in the warm, soft leather of his gloves. He strokes your cheek with his thumb, slipping his hand to the back of your neck to deepen the kiss. He leans into you the way he wanted to throughout the entirety of that goddamn photoshoot, taking so much more now than those chaste little kisses. They had only served to whet his appetite for you.

You sigh against his lips in a way that drives him insane with hunger, pushing your hands into his perfectly styled hair, thoroughly mussing it. He pushes further into you, forces your back to bow until he’s snaking his arm around your waist and becoming the only thing holding you up as he dips you in this fervent, aching kiss.

When he does finally relent and draw back, you suck in a breath, your cheeks flushed warmly, your eyes bright and glimmering in the twinkling lights that surround you both.

“God,” you exhale, licking your lips. “Now that was a kiss under the mistletoe.”

Homelander glances up at the mistletoe dangling above you, and then back down. His smile is equal parts warm and wicked. “One of many to come.”

“I don’t think my lips are going to survive it,” you say, but your eyes betray your excitement.

“Don’t worry,” he purrs. You give a giddy little yelp as he effortlessly lifts you up into his arms, settling you against his chest. He kisses you again and again, one for each mistletoe you pass on the way to his bedroom.  “These lips aren't the only part of you getting thoroughly kissed tonight.”

Maeve snorts. "What's there to argue about?" She asks, wearing a cheeky little smile as she climbs into bed.

"I'll have you know I'm winning the poll for top," Annie says, defiantly tipping her chin up.

"Oh really? Let me see," she says, skepticism written plainly in her expression. She reaches for the phone.

"No." Annie quickly hides her phone down flat against her chest, fighting back a smile. "I wouldn't want to hurt your pride. You're losing pretty badly."

"You're the worst liar," she says in turn, moving to grab her phone again. Annie lurches in an attempt to protect it, and Maeve catches her in a kiss, earning a satisfying little noise of surprise and pleasure from her.

Annie melts readily into the kiss, letting down her guard long enough to allow Maeve the opportunity to deftly snatch the phone from her. "Thank you," she says, rolling onto her back to look through it.

"Hey!" Annie cries, thoroughly scandalized despite her smile.

"The worst liar," Maeve emphasizes, giving a quiet scoff. "You're the unequivocal princess bottom of these polls. Wait, why do they think we're in a BDSM relationship? ... And why are you voting in these?"

"Just trying to help set the record straight," she says, cuddling up to Maeve's side, shaking her blonde locks out of the way before resting her head on her shoulder.

"Then why did you vote me the sub?" She asks, looking down at her.

Annie gives a little shrug. "Because you always do everything I ask you to."

"That's called being a decent girlfriend," Maeve says incredulously.

"It's also called being a good sub," Annie replies very matter-of-fact, kissing her on the cheek.

Maeve shakes her head. "I can't believe you're encouraging this," she says, setting the phone aside so that she can take Annie properly into her arms. "It's all just stereotypical bullshit anyways."

"Easy for you to say. The entire world is voting me some meek little pillow princess while you get to be the warrior sex queen," she says, slipping her arms around Maeve's waist as they get settled.

Maeve blows out a thoughtful breath. "You wanna release a sex tape or something? That'd settle matters."

"Maggie," she chastises, giving her side a punishing little tickle that makes her jerk. Maeve grins. "No, I don't want to release a sex tape. I'm just saying. It's not true."

"You don't have to prove anything to them. I know exactly what you're capable of," she says, leaning in to catch her in another kiss, which she easily succumbs to. It starts off chastely enough, but they rarely ever stay that way. Especially when Annie is out to prove herself.

She tastes like strawberries, but not in the artificial or cloying way. It's fresh and sweet, the kind of smell that reminds Maeve of picking farmland strawberries when she was a child. Annie still has the lingering warmth of the countryside bathed in sunlight baked into her skin, and the same golden wheat fields shining in her hair.

She's so much more real and honest than anything in Maeve's life has been in a long, long time.

By the time their lips part, they're both breathing a little heavier. "I'm going to guess this mean's you are topping tonight," Maeve says breathlessly, pushing her fingers through that perfect, soft blonde hair.

"You're darn right I am," Annie says giddily, reaching across her and into the nightstand next to their bed.

Darn. She never fails to make her smile.

“what are you looking at?” 

“constellations.”

in an attempt to make sense of the stars, you tilt your chin upwards and gaze into the sky. it all seems to be a mess of scattered luminescence to you. you rest your hand on his waist. 

“which ones? i can’t make out anything.”

“the north star, darling. polaris.”

you squint. the campfire crackles a distance away from the both of you. the rest of your party members lie in deep slumber, but a loud snore from halsin breaks your thoughts. you giggle. astarion huffs lightly and rolls his eyes. 

“and here i was enjoying a quiet night,” he mutters. 

“he must be tired.”

“mm.”

astarion turns onto his side. he nuzzles your neck, lips barely ghosting the bite marks he had given you earlier on. goosebumps prickle your skin and your body leans into his. 

“the stars themselves revolve around the north star. did you know that?” 

his breath is warm.

“no, i don’t find myself looking at the sky much. how do you know that?” 

“you learn a lot when the stars were your only friends for two centuries, darling. they’re more reliable than most others.”

you fall silent. astarion’s nose bumps against your jaw and you tilt your head further to give him more space. he presses kisses against your skin, trickling them down from your cheek to your collarbone. 

“i’m sorry,” you whisper.

“what for?”

“for bringing up any bad memories.”

astarion pauses in thought, and his hand grazes the small of your back. he plants his lips once more by the side of yours.

“don’t worry your pretty little head about… silly things like that. you should get some rest, or lae’zel will have my head on a pike for keeping you up all night – as lovely as that would be.”

from his waist, your hand ventures up to his cheek. astarion tenses instinctively, momentarily. your eyes meet and only then does he melt into your touch, his eyelids fluttering shut. 

“good night, astarion.”

he hums in response. 

For as long as you can remember, there have always been sacrifices.

Such a thing is not unique to your village. Gods–and the creatures worshiped as such–throughout the world demand all manner of recompense for protecting the lands of those who idolize them. If the slaughter of a single lamb ensures green pastures in which the herd may thrive, few ever think twice before they lift the blade.

Not all townships worship for benevolence, however. Yours has always worshiped for mercy.

For generations, stories of hellfire raining from the sky have been passed by your people. A great, terrible beast with wings as wide as ten men were tall once patrolled the skies above you, wielding power so devastating that not even ballistae firing bolts the size of tree trunks could fell it.

It had a hundred names, each more terrible than the last. Scourge of the Skies, the Red Death, Flame’s Maw, and perhaps most unfortunately, the Devourer. Named as such for the countless lives it began to claim when treasures were deemed an insufficient tribute. Sacrifices were initially sparse, required only every dozen or so seasons. As time went on, the Devourer grew greedier and greedier, with the timespan between sacrifices shortening.

By the time you offer yourself to the council, there has been a sacrifice every month for over a year.

The wagon hardly jostles on this well-trodden road. You imagine it used to be a rougher ride, but with the increase in frequency of travel, it has smoothed. The thought worsens the feeling of icy weight in your stomach. One might think the exquisite fabrics you’re dressed in would bring some measure of comfort–softer than anything you’ve worn before–but the extravagance of them only serves to further alienate you from yourself.

You have become a thing. A finely adorned offering, and the fabric makes your skin crawl for it.

The tree cover breaks, revealing a monolithic stone tower that stands so tall, it splits the sky in two.

The Tower of the Seven. It’s been generations since anyone knew exactly what it was named for, but legend speaks of mythic creatures that were once held in such reverence, this tower was built in their honor. It served as both a temple and home to these venerated beings.

The years have not been kind to it. The stone pillars have become wild with overgrowth, and the air about this place reeks of stale, old death.

It stands now as a graveyard.

Even the horses refuse to venture much further than the threshold of the treeline, forcing you and your attendants out of the wagon to tread the remainder of the trek on foot. The men who walk with you carry short swords, but they serve no practical purpose, their edges having long since dulled. They are not here to protect you, they are as much a part of the ceremony as your fine clothes.

You shield your eyes as you look up at the staggering height of the tower, but swiftly drop your gaze. Best not to think of what awaits you.

On paper, sacrifice seems a simple thing. Slitting one’s throat upon an altar, floating a burning pyre across the river, or feeding the tribute a concoction of sleeping death and burying them into eternal slumber. Murder can be a righteous thing in the hands of a believer, or so they say.

For you, and those who have come before you, martyrdom is not as effortless as lying down and dying for the cause. The tower presents a trial to you. You must willingly climb the hundreds upon hundreds of large stone steps in order to prove yourself a worthy tribute.

Why you must prove your flesh worthy of consumption is beyond you. You’ve never heard of a farmer who sends his cattle to run laps before the slaughter. It seems a petty thing to demand. Perhaps the Devourer has grown indolent and slovenly in its feasting.

It’s easy to dream up nightmarish images of such an awful creature. A legless winged wyrm with a ribbed body, fat and slimy like an oversized earthworm. It would have an enormous maw with hundreds upon hundreds of jagged teeth, its breath reeking of charred flesh and sulfur. Such a wicked beast would stink like the layers of hell. 

Somehow, tormenting yourself like this is an oddly calming distraction. The more nightmarish it becomes in your mind, the less real all of this feels. It’s just a bad dream.

No one speaks as you reach the base of the tower. There’s nothing left to say. You’re one of a dozen in the last year alone these men have ferried to their death. It almost seems cruel to expect eye contact, let alone sympathy. For that reason, it catches you off guard when one of the older of the three, a man named Hector with a thick set of troubled brows furrowed above kind but bloodshot, watery eyes puts his hand on your shoulder, offering a light squeeze.

The last sacrifice had been his own daughter.

In his gaze you find grief and gratitude in equal measure. Neither brings comfort. You return a small nod and move your eyes back to the ordeal that awaits you. 

The tower is like an optical illusion: the proportions make it seem a reasonable size at a distance, but the closer you walk to it, the more mythical a thing it becomes. The archways curve high above your head, sized for creatures of legend, and the head of the building disappears completely into the sky.

In the center of it, a spiraling stone staircase beckons you. The masonry is exquisitely smooth despite the age of it, carved in an era when magic was a hundred times more prolific than it is now. It’s wide and open, the steps so large that you’ll be taking them one at a time. Worse than that, however, is the complete absence of any kind of protective railing.

If you sway, you very well may fall to your death.

At the center of the spiral stands a pile of debris. As you approach, a rustling catches your attention and you freeze, eying the pile warily. The head of a creature suddenly pops up, startling your heart into a thunder, but after a beat you recognize it for what it is: a small fox, its muzzle dirty. The two of you stare at one another for a long moment before one of the men behind you calls out, “Shoo, shoo now.”

Everyone keeps hushed, as if terrified of disturbing what is yet unseen.

Moving closer, you anticipate you might see a dead rabbit, or perhaps a chicken. Anything would have been a more welcome sight than the gnarled half-eaten body of a woman dressed just like you piled amongst the debris. You gasp, both hands flying over your mouth as you stumble a few steps backwards.

For a horrifying moment, you swear you see your own face in the rotten remnants staring back at you with black, empty eye sockets. It’s the hair that gives away the delusion, however, and with a chill down your spine you recognize the sacrifice who came before you; Hector’s daughter.

“Nadja,” the man groans morosely, the weight of grief in his voice palpable. You move away, towards the stairs, and watch with a morbid sort of fascination as the man weeps over the corpse of his daughter, touching her hair and her clothes, the only parts of her not twisted and rotted with death, the body left for maggots and scavengers. It’s sick, nothing like the beautiful and noble gesture sacrifice is always said to be. You look up at the dizzying height of the spiral staircase, following the line of it until the stone disappears into darkness. Did she fall, or was she cast away, having somehow proven herself unworthy?

In a strange sense, watching the men wrap her body in cloth to be carried home feels very much like playing the part of voyeur to your own demise. You stand at a distance, hand braced upon the stone, unable to shake the dread that you’re witnessing a vision of the future. Your future.

No. You will not be left for the insects and carrion-feeders. You turn your back to the sound of Hector’s weeping and, without another world, determinedly begin your ascent one large stone step at a time. Although you feel the men’s eyes heavily upon you, they remain silent, as if already grieving you.

Do not, you think brazenly, skin flushed with unexpected fires that bring your blood to a boil. Do not dare mourn what isn’t dead.

Those flames burn hot enough to carry you easily up the first several floors, indignantly stomping your way. You’ve heard stories of this tower all your life, but nothing could have prepared you for the true scale of it. Most of it is in a terrible state of decay, full of overgrowth and rot that, centuries ago, may have been wood and cloth.

You stop for a breath beneath the remains of what looks to have once been a vibrant mural. You can see trace evidence of beautiful paints, but whatever it depicts has been brutally clawed from the stonework. You lift a hand up high to trace one of the deep gouges in the stone; the marks are spread too far apart for your fingers to reach, but you can make out five distinct patterns nonetheless, like drag marks from a hand three or four times the size of your own.

Beyond the ruined mural, there are statues, too. You pass a grand monument of a woman who stands over seven heads tall wielding a sword of equal might, the statue adorned with steel bracers. You think she might have been beautiful in the same way a frightening storm is, but the head of the statue is long since gone.

On the next floor, you see upon the ground the ruins of a statue of a mermaid–at least, you thought it was. Upon further inspection, however, you see that the statue depicts a man. He has the lower body of a fish and strange indentations along his ribs, just beneath his bare carved chest. He, too, is headless, torso split horizontally, stone strewn across the floor.

This temple must have belonged to these lost figures, their monuments as desecrated as the rest of the tower. Whoever the Seven was, the world has since forgotten.

You wonder if the Devourer did this, defiled this temple to erase whatever history of heroes came before its tyranny.

Ultimately, you only find six statues. None of them have managed to keep their heads, and some are in worse shape than others. You imagine the seventh might have been destroyed entirely. It’s easier to imagine how or why these things might be than it is to focus on how badly your body aches, how you started this venture with the morning sun barely upon you, and yet you barely feel any closer to your destination as the darkness of night encroaches.

Every limb screams for rest. You stop occasionally, but you feel you must not sleep. Was poor Nadja pitched to her death for sleeping through her trial? You’d rather not find out. You’re not even sure if you would wake with the same angry conviction that drives you forward now, climbing step after unforgiving step. It’s gotten colder the higher you’ve gone, too. There’s a chance if you slept amidst the stone, you would turn to it yourself.

“Grant me strength,” you whisper to whomever may be listening. Be they fae or devil, benevolent or malevolent, it would be a boon to know there was some manner of being on your side.

You lean on the wall far from the edge as you ascend the spiral, too nervous of a fall to look over the edge and gauge your progress. A brisk wind chill has begun howling through the tower, whipping your clothing about and biting at your skin. You hug one arm tightly across your chest, bracing against the cold. At this rate, you’ll make for a crunchy meal not just for your bones, but for the frost you arrive covered in.

Your foot slides on something on the step that shifts and clatters. You nearly fall, heart hammering in your chest as you manage to catch yourself. Looking down, you’re shocked to see a pile of shining gold coins spilling down the steps amongst the debris. There is enough wealth discarded on these steps to see a dozen families fed for years and years to come.

You must be getting close. Carefully, despite the tremble running through your body, you shuffle your way through the mess, kicking it aside when you need to clear more of a path. The sound of rubble and gold and the like falling off the edge of the steps makes you flinch, the prolonged clattering of it serving as a reminder of just how agonizingly high you’ve managed to climb.

The familiar flicker of fire light draws a gasp of relief from you, tears gathered in your eyes from the sheer pain of moving your body forward. You can see shadows dancing across the walls, beckoning you from the cold with the barest hint of a warm draft. You’re practically crawling up the steps now, every part of you aching horribly. The tremble in your body is so severe, you worry you would fall to your death if you continued trying to walk through the hoard of treasures that have spilled down the steps.

You practically sob with relief when you reach the final step, limbs quaking beneath you as you haul yourself up onto the top floor and away from the awful railless edge of the spiraling stairs. You bury your face in the fold of your arms. The mixture of relief and exhaustion is so intense, the rest of the world falls away briefly, and the only thing that matters is catching your breath while you all but dry heave on the floor.

“I’ll be damned. I didn’t think you were going to make it,” purrs a resonant, honied voice, snapping you immediately back to reality. You shoot into an upright position so suddenly your head spins, blinking rapidly in an attempt to clear your blurry vision.

Before you rests an enormous circular hall lit with dozens upon dozens of torches. The walls are lined with beautiful arched windows, and the interior is piled nearly to the vaulted ceiling with obscene amounts of coin, weapons, artifacts and similar treasure. Your gaze drifts towards the center of it all, where the source of the voice awaits you.

As it turns out, The Devourer is no oversized earthworm.

Reclined upon a magnificently carved marble throne, you behold a creature made of equal parts man and beast. Even sitting, his stature easily brings him heads taller than you. He is adorned exquisitely in gold embellishments–jewelry and piercings alike–and rich navy slacks, serving as a fine centerpiece to the lavish, untidy wealth that surrounds him. He wears a crown fit for a king, the jewel of it a radiant blue that matches his sharp predatory gaze. His lips spread into a wolfish grin. You’re utterly bewitched by the flash of his fangs.

“Rise,” he orders you, gesturing with a clawed hand that’s easily the size of your head. His rings shine beautifully in the firelight. “And speak.”

Shakily, you fight to climb to your feet. Worm or not, this man–this creature has been preying upon your people for generations. You remind yourself of the countless lives lost, of the mourning families, of Nadja’s desecrated corpse and the sound of her father weeping over the rotten remains of her. You steel yourself. 

“You who the people know as Scourge of the Skies, Red Death,” you begin, blinking rapidly. Your head began swimming the second you stood. You’ve never been so worn out in your life, and though there are flames here that offer a slight degree of warmth, the cold has sunk deep into your bones. As you speak, your vision gradually begins to tunnel. “Flame’s… Maw… and the Devourer,” you address, fighting desperately to stay focused even as he fades in and out of clarity. “I’ve come to pay my village tribute, and to… to…”

The darkness at the edges of your vision thickens. Your words feel heavy and slurred on your tongue. You sway, feeling your own head slosh like a bucket of water, and before you know it, you’re pitching forward, and the world goes black.

That was anticlimactic.

There was a time he would have been met with awe. Reverence. He didn’t expect you to simply black out.

Scourge, Red Death, Flame’s Maw… Maw. He’s always despised that word in particular, and the ugly imagery it evokes. Just a handful out of hundreds of names he’s been called over the years–if you can call them that. Many border on insults, if not are so outright. The most tolerable name he can remember is Homelander.

They called him that in celebration, he recalls. Those were the last of the days he had any care left for them.

He blows a smoky little raspberry as he stands, hands clasping behind his back beneath his wings. His tail sways idly as he approaches, tentatively intrigued by your splayed form. It’s rare that a sacrifice makes it all the way to the top at all, let alone in a single day. The last one only made it halfway before she decided falling to her death was a kinder fate than him.

Truth be told, he should have reigned hell upon their little village for her insolence. Fortunately for them, her display filled him with far more apathy than it did fury. He crouches down near enough to touch, though he hesitates, hand ghosting just over your body. He tilts his head to the side. Your breaths are shallow in your sleep, a slight wheeze to each one. Your body is clearly overexerted.

Delicately, he slips his hand under your cheek to turn your face to him, examining your features. You’re prettier like this, the tension drained from your expression and replaced with peace. Certainly not the worst tribute he’s been offered. You were at least determined to reach him.

The corner of his mouth twitches.

He won’t kill you. Not yet.

Homelander lifts you up into his arms, supporting your comparatively slight form with ease. You feel as frail as any mortal might, but the weight of you in his arms strikes him with a peculiar sense of melancholy. He takes pause, more closely observing the shape of you cradled in his arms, head lolled against his chest. You fit there nicely, small as you are. He can almost pretend you’ve simply fallen asleep in the crook of his arm; somewhere you’ve always belonged.

It’s an intriguing little fantasy. He hasn’t felt the need to indulge in one of those in a long while. He keeps his eyes on you as he walks you to the collection of pelts gathered on the far side of the room, where he lays you down atop them.

What had you been intending to say before you passed out? Your departing words spin round and round in his mind while he looks you over, lowering himself until he’s on his hands and knees above you. Tributes used to come richly adorned in jewelry and glittering things, but such pageantry has long since vanished. He’s surrounded by enough of it that the absence doesn’t bother him anymore.

The glitter of gold hardly catches his eye these days. He doesn’t call for sacrifices to add to his wealth. He only seeks to quell his boredom. Perhaps you will prove useful for this, at least for a time.

Pressing his clawed thumb lightly to your chin, he tilts your head away and leans in, nosing up the line of your throat, lips barely ghosting your soft flesh. He inhales the salt-sweet smell of you, a mixture of sweat, the dusty stone steps you’ve scaled, and the sweet herbal oil bath your kind always receives before you’re sent to him. The blend is strangely intoxicating on you.

It makes him wonder if you taste as good as you smell. Parting his lips, his split tongue spills past them and drags a slow serpentine pattern from your neck to your jaw. Mmm, fuck. You taste better than you smell, the rich oil you were bathed in still clinging to your skin beneath the salty tang of your sweat.

It would be too easy to devour you. He groans quietly at the thought, nuzzling into the crook of your neck. He’s known few things more intimate than sinking his sharp teeth into warm, pliant flesh. The feel of a pulse slowing against his tongue. The metallic rush of blood down the back of his throat. He hasn’t craved human flesh the way he does right now in years, yet something in the scent of you has ignited that primal aspect of him. Salivating already, he swallows it away and draws back.

Not yet. He still wants to hear what you were going to say.

It makes him smile to see the goosebumps that have erupted on every inch of your exposed skin. He cocks his head to the side and trails his index claw down the center of your chest, dragging down the pretty white fabric of your sacrificial dress, stopping just shy of the swell of your breasts. More goosebumps there, too.

None of it compares to the sound that you make. In your sleep, your brows furrow, and you exhale a noise somewhere between pain and sheer exhaustion, your small hand brushing his as you adjust against the pile of plush fur pelts. His gaze drops sharply, hand lifting tentatively. After a beat, he sets it down lightly atop yours. Captivated, he watches your whole body respond to his touch, turning and curling in towards him like a flora bending to the light of the sun.

Fascinated by your innate reactivity to him, Homelander lowers himself onto his side next to you. After a beat of hesitation, he encircles your wrist with his thumb and index finger and brings your palm flat to the warmth of his bare chest. A tantalizing shiver rolls through your unconscious form. Just as he had anticipated–hoped?–you follow the feel of him, moving completely onto your side and into him, breathing out a shuddering little exhale while the fire that runs through his veins warms you.

It isn’t enough to stop you shivering, though. Shifting, he spreads out his wing and curls that over you, blocking the draft that spills in from the surrounding windows. Only then does the tension in your body begin to ease, warmth chasing out the chill from your bones.

Homelander smirks, feeling inexplicably accomplished over this mundane little feat. He’s never particularly cared for the comfort of his tributes before; they’ve never served as anything more than playthings and meals. You should be no different. He knows you would be a delectable thing on his tongue, warm and wet down his throat, yet the thought of you in pieces–cold and unmoving–instantly vanishes his appetite.

He wants you in a new way entirely. Against him, with him. He wants to taste more of you, drag his tongue along the plains of your body and see how else you’ll react to him. He wants to find the places that quicken your breath. Would you sing your pleasure for him? He’s barely heard your voice, but already he can imagine it vividly.

You would. You will.

He’s begun to pant at the thought alone, smoke wafting from his mouth, his eyes softly aglow with crimson light. The smell of you has filled his senses so thoroughly he feels intoxicated by it, and between his thighs, his cock has begun to throb. He leans closer and nestles into your hair, inhaling deeply, a rumble leaving him on a warm exhale.

His entire body has taken on the heavy pulse of his heart, alight with the most visceral feeling he’s had in centuries. This is more than hunger, more than carnality–you mean something. Never before has he felt compelled to find pleasure in the frail body of a human, yet his blood sings it voicelessly in the back of his mind, his every instinct screaming one word again and again and again.

Mate.

Homelander had given up on the concept of a mate a long time ago, given that he’s… abnormal. Sterile. As an unnatural creature, there could not be a natural match for him. Someone who would call to his very blood and set it aflame. Yet here you are, seeking him as desperately as he once sought you. Is that why you were able to accomplish what so few before you had, pushing your body so clearly beyond your limits?

A low, possessive rumble leaves him. Reckless.

He pets your hair, testing the texture with his fingers awhile before letting his hand roam down the back of your neck, between your shoulders, up over your hip, down your leg. You’re no longer cool to the touch or shivering. He flattens his palm to your back and closes his eyes briefly. He’s never heard of a dragon bonding to a human before. He wonders if you’ll feel it too, recognize it for what it is, or if your mortality will make you oblivious to the depths of it.

It takes every ounce of his restraint not to shake you awake to find out. 

Instead, he patiently learns the cadence of your heart. He commits your scent to memory, weeding out the natural musk of your skin beneath the herbs and oils you’ve been lathered in. Soon enough he’ll be able to pick you out of a crowd by the thump of your pulse alone, track you down from miles away with nothing but the barest whiff of you. 

Not that he’d ever let you get so far from him now that he has you.

All you’re missing now is his scent. Leaning down, he licks a line adjacent to the one he had prior, and then another, mindful of his horns. The sweet taste of you makes him moan. He spends hours with you tucked in against him, idling away the time by learning your body as well as teaching you his. He nuzzles his cheek lightly against yours just so that he can turn and taste that same spot, something deep and primal in him appeased by tasting himself on your skin. 

“My mate,” he half sighs, half growls. 

He can’t wait to meet you.

Consciousness comes back to you in a gradual slew of sensation. Your fingers twitch, flexing in what feels like a lush, thick pelt of fur beneath you. Your whole body is pleasantly warm, as if you’ve fallen asleep in front of a crackling hearth, the cold of those awful stone stairs a distant memory.

The stairs…

Your eyes snap wide open, your spine going stiff. You’re laying on your back. Something wet and hot is dragging along the exposed skin of your shoulder–your dress pulled askew–in repetitive swipes. Looking down, all you can see is a mess of flaxen colored hair and one long, angular horn, the tip of it adorned in gold. The press of what you can only imagine to be a tongue is unnaturally smooth, as hot as settled coal against your skin. The beast gives a growl, and sharp teeth graze your skin. Your throat feels tight, the scream that bubbles up locked behind the tension of your jaw.

Oh gods, you think, beginning to shake. He’s eating me! 

“Good morning,” purrs a familiar voice, the words vibrating against your skin. He lifts his head from your shoulder, though he doesn’t go far. You half expect to see his maw bloodied with your entrails from all the horror stories you’ve been told, but his grin is as clean as it was the first moment you beheld him. Up close, he’s even larger than you had initially realized. His face is well defined, with strong cheekbones decorated with smooth red scales that ascend into his hairline, where a golden crown sits neatly behind his horns. “Mmm, someone got their beauty sleep,” he says, the words a low, pleased rumble. You’re speechless, watching in bewilderment as he cups your face, hand so large it covers most of your neck, too. “You were out for hours.”

Your eyes dart to your shoulder, where your dress has been tugged down, but your skin appears unmarred. Around you, one of his enormous wings is curved over, shielding you both from the light and the cold beyond. You can’t move your legs, and with a glance, you understand why: his enormous tail is draped across both of them, pinning you in place. You look back at him, eyes wide in fear and confusion. You wonder if he’s been with you like this through the entire night. “You’re… You’re not eating me?”

The broad smile he flashes makes your heart skip a beat. His eyes, though sharp and a shade of blue you’ve only ever seen in the sky, are disarmingly human. Beautiful, even. They crinkle at the corners with what almost looks like fondness.

“No.”

“Why not?” You ask instantly, adrenaline making your voice sharp. “Not that I wish for you to eat me,” you say just as quickly. “But do you not–were you not–” He cuts you off with a noise that you belatedly realize is a laugh, the resonance in his chest so unearthly it gives every sound he makes an inhuman quality. “No, I was not eating you,” he says, sounding far too amused for your liking. “Tasting you, yes. And you do taste divine,” he says, leaning in again. You push your head back into the furs as much as you can, but he moves to the side, bringing his lips to your ear. “I knew my mate would.” Mate?!

Your hands fly up to his chest–gods, he’s as warm as hearth stones–as if to push him back, but you may as well attempt to push an oak tree aside. “What?”

He draws back, glancing down at your hands pressed to the bare skin of his chest before his gaze returns to yours, eyes narrowed in distinct pleasure. “Mate,” he says again, deliberately drawing the word out. “Dragons bond only once in a lifetime. Usually to another dragon. Clearly exceptions can be made, and you, precious little thing that you are… appear to be mine.”

His eyes fall shut, he leans in, and with a lurch of your stomach you realize he means to kiss you, his lips pursed and rapidly approaching. Your own lips part and a noise wholly outside of your control escapes you; a scream so shrill and sudden that it knocks even him back in surprise. 

Blinking several times, he gives you a quick once over, visibly expecting to see you wounded and bloody somewhere. He looks back to your face when he finds nothing amiss. “What?”

“I can’t–I don’t know you,” you blurt out, equal parts flustered and alarmed. You can feel yourself burning up, and it isn’t just from the heat of him against you.

“So?” He dismisses, smiling with an array of sharp pearly teeth. “I’m your mate.”

“Humans don’t have those,” you counter, squirming under the weight of his tail. It’s like he’s draped several sacks of grain across your legs. “My lord Devourer, I–”

He scoffs, tail lifting as he shifts, bringing himself up onto his hands and knees over you, his wing unfurling and allowing the sun to spill in, washing you both in its light. “Homelander. If you must use one of those silly names, use Homelander. I’d prefer beloved, though,” he says with a sly lilt to his mouth.

A shiver rolls down your spine. Along with light, brisk morning air has slipped in between your bodies. 

“Homelander,” you repeat, a name you’ve never heard before. It’s a great deal less menacing than the others, but that doesn’t change the fact that he has been eating your townsman for as long as anyone can remember. “I–”

He takes hold of your jaw with just his index finger and thumb, the rest of his fingers curling lightly over your throat. “You talk too much,” he tells you, eyes hooded and hungry. “Are you going to scream every time I try to kiss you?”

“Maybe,” you choke out, fists clenched tightly in the furs beneath you. He leans closer, tilting his head, his nose barely brushing the tip of yours. “I’ve never been kissed by a dragon before. Like I said, we don’t have m-mmm!”

It happens so swiftly you don’t have time to gather the air to scream. He presses his lips firmly to yours, making a noise so close to a moan that, despite the relative chasteness of the kiss itself, you flush with the indecency of it. It feels… hot. The heat of him is nearly too much to handle, like touching your lips to a hot mug of tea, but there is something intoxicating about it. He uses that heat to mold you to him, pulling you closer, his body sinking down against yours.

You’re too dumbstruck by the whole of the situation to struggle–not that it would accomplish much–which leaves you to simply experience it. His lips are tentative against yours, not harsh or demanding. He coaxes yours with his as if to dance, luring you into something that almost feels good.

Your heart hammers in your chest, his warmth pooling in your belly and spreading slowly through the rest of your body like boiled water poured into a lukewarm tub. He’s immovable, inescapable, and to your dismay, not entirely awful.

 “I want to claim you,” he all but growls against your lips, his other hand clawing slowly down your side, tugging at your dress. 

Your heart leaps painfully against your ribs. “Homelander,” you say, though he’s hardly paying you any mind, kissing your cheek now, your jaw, carving a wicked trail with his lips while his hand dips lower and lower, seeking the bottom hem of your dress. Heart racing, you breathlessly cry, “Beloved!”

That gives him pause. He rears back to look down at you, head slightly cocked, eyes bright and attentive. Your breaths are shallow, pulse pounding in your throat. You swallow dryly. “I’m thirsty,” you tell him, which is no lie. Your throat is so dry it almost hurts to speak. “Horribly. And hungry, I’ve not eaten since yesterday’s breakfast. You mean for me to survive, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” he says, expression twisting like he finds offense in your words. “You’ll want for nothing.”

“Then please. Water?” You push, praying that he is more man than beast.

He regards you quietly, eyes subtly darting back and forth. There’s a petulant kind of impatience to his gaze that catches you off-guard, like a boy who’s been told he has to wait before he gets to play with his new favorite toy. “Water,” he echoes eventually. You nod. He startles you when he exhales a little plume of smoke from his nose, reluctantly lifting himself off of you. The chill of his absence is immediate. “Don’t move,” he says, suddenly looking displaced. You’ve caught him by surprise. Perhaps you’ll survive this yet.

You watch him rise to his full height, standing easily eight feet tall. You sit up, pulling the furs over your legs to combat the cold seeping in. The muscles of his back give a mesmerizing flex as he stretches his wings out, the span of them just as jaw-dropping as his height. He wears furs over his shoulders held in place with thick leather straps that cross over his back and chest, emphasizing his musculature as well as the crimson plating that covers his body. Spines run down the length of his back, transitioning down into a tail that’s even longer than he is tall. It moves along the ground in zigzags, almost like a serpent. You don’t realize how intensely you’re staring until you look back up and realize he’s looking at you over his shoulder, those piercing blue eyes keenly set on yours.

The corner of his mouth twitches like he’s fighting a smirk. Something about his expression makes you feel like you’ve been caught doing something naughty. You drop your gaze. “Back in a jiffy,” he says. You look up just in time to see him step off the ledge, those brilliant red wings fanning out behind him. He disappears so suddenly that you can’t help but gasp, sitting up on your knees. You hear the beat of wings against the air, and then a second later see him lift back up into the skyline, twisting in the air before gliding back down out of sight. 

You sit in stunned silence, listening to the fading thrum of his wings. It doesn’t feel real. You don’t know if this is some kind of twisted game he pulls with every sacrifice, or if you’re truly somehow different. You weren’t entirely expecting him to listen to you, but he did. He’s gone, presumably to fetch you food and water. You don’t know how, but you just commanded the Devourer to not only let you go, but bring you a meal.

In hindsight, you’re a little concerned that it was never specified what kind of meal. As far as you’re aware, he primarily eats people.

Adjusting your gown, you haul yourself up to your feet, crossing your arms in a vain attempt to protect the heat of his body lingering on your skin. When that doesn’t work, you pick up one of the several fur pelts strewn on the floor and drape it over your shoulders, sighing in relief. The pelt still holds some residual warmth; a boon over the lovely but ineffective fabric of your ceremonial gown.

In the light of day, you can make out a great deal more detail throughout the lair. The floor to ceiling archways deter you from venturing too far beyond the center, but still there is plenty to investigate. For example, the throne catches your eye immediately. The size of it makes you feel like a child again, navigating a world not built for you. The masonry of it is exceptionally smooth beneath your fingers, save for a handful of deep, jagged gouges that marr the arm rest. Tilting your head, you realize that you recognize these marks: they match those that you’d seen on the ruined murals.

You trace them with your fingers, connecting them now to the draconic claws that, just moments ago, had so delicately followed the curve of your body. He could so easily tear you apart, and yet in that moment you had never known a gentler touch. You pull your hand back beneath the pelt, feeling a shiver roll through you that has little to do with the morning chill.

Mate. That word sticks in your brain like a wad of gummy tree sap.

Circling the throne, you carefully step around the glimmering mess of gold, silver and jewels that litter the stone floor. There’s so much of it that it doesn’t even look real, stacked over itself like forgotten hay bales left to rot. There is more wealth here than you’ve seen in your life. A single satchel of it would keep you comfortable for the rest of your life, and yet here it serves as little more than clutter. As far as you can tell, it means nothing here.

The Devourer stopped seeking material treasure generations ago.

As you explore, part of you expects to find the corpses of all those who have come before you. Dozens upon dozens of bodies stacked up in varying states of consumption or decay, or maybe a monument built of their bones. You find no such construct, though. In fact, nothing about this place seems put together. You can’t imagine the madness that living like this for a week would induce in you, let alone decades.

To the east, movement catches your attention, startling your heart into your throat. It looks like a silhouetted figure at first, but your brain catches up quickly, and you approach the gently billowing fabric. It’s draped over a statue, giving it the illusion of a person, and your curiosity gets the best of you as you tug the drape down off of it.

You suck in a sharp breath. Once again, you find yourself faced with a legend given form– a painstakingly and intricately carved statue in the Devourer’s perfect likeness. It comes as no surprise that this is the only in-tact statue you’ve seen, but what you don’t understand is why it’s even here. If the Devourer was a usurper, some vicious interloper, why would there be a monument to him in the same vein as all the others?

The plaque beneath it reads: Homelander. Son of the Skies, Protector of the Earth.

Devourer, Scourge, Flame’s Maw–these names are all you have ever known, and yet this is the name carved in stone. He was once worshiped not out of fear, but reverence that you can see in every gentle curve of stone.

What happened?

Shuffling closer to the statue, the discarded fabric gathers at your feet. It’s not quite to scale, but it’s a handsome likeness nonetheless. It’s certainly been cared for more than anything else in this place. You wonder if it’s just vanity or if it’s something less obvious. You trace the smooth stonework, letting yourself get a better look at this version of him that’s less likely to eat you.

Objectively speaking, it’s a handsome visage. The resemblance is uncanny, clearly the work of an intensely skilled mason. His jaw is strong, eyes set forward in unerring determination. Tentatively, you touch the lips of the statue. He’d been so certain that he wanted to kiss you. Just the thought of his closeness and heat makes your stomach erupt in a flutter of butterflies.

Mate.

“I thought I told you not to move.”

You barely hear the full sentence, your own scream ringing loudly in your ears. You move to spin around, but your foot catches on the pile of fabric you had dropped to the ground and suddenly your whole body is pitching backwards, the back of your skull destined for the smooth, unyielding stone behind you. Fortunately for your brain matter, your descent is halted just shy of contact, one familiar clawed hand cupping the back of your neck while the other lands at your back, steadying you.

Homelander stands over you, a curious quirk to his brow. With his hand at the small of your back, his claws press lightly through the fabric, effortlessly upholding your weight. He holds you as if you’ve been caught mid dip in a dance.

“Gods, you scared me,” you say, eyes wide. “I didn’t hear you.” You had been so certain you would hear his return based on the sound of his wings when he’d left, but his approach had been terrifyingly silent.

“Yes, I know. It makes me a very effective hunter,” he says, dipping down to nuzzle at your neck, taking advantage of how the pelt has slipped off of your shoulder. He inhales the smell of you, prickling goosebumps all over your body. “I missed you.”

“You’ve barely been gone,” you reply impulsively, awkwardly trying to adjust yourself out of this arch he has you in. No use. His size makes him impossible to maneuver around, and your foot is still tangled up in the fabric that he’s currently standing on.

He gives another one of those rumbling sighs, drawing back to look at you. “You’re supposed to say that you missed me, too,” he chastises you, and though his tone seems light, you’re sure you see a flicker of impatience or irritation in his gaze. Maybe both. Despite how fearsome the sum total of his features make him, you’re once again caught off guard by his eyes. Though the color of them is icy, there’s a distinctly human warmth to them that grounds you in his gaze.

Still, the last thing you want to do is make him angry.

“Oh,” you croak quietly, realizing he’s actually waiting for you to say it, staring down expectantly while he holds you. “I… missed you, too,” you return stiltedly, unsure your hesitant delivery will be satisfactory. Shockingly, his expression lightens, lips curving into a smile. He lifts you off of your feet, untangling you from the mess beneath you and turning around to set you back down on relatively clear flooring. 

“Good,” he purrs, stroking his hand down the back of your head like he’s petting an animal. He seems determined to touch you, but entirely unaware of how to. He cups the base of your skull and tightens the gap between your bodies, enticing you with his warmth as much as he terrifies you with the hunger in his eyes.

You put your hands to his chest, soaking up the heat of him as you vainly try to maintain an ounce of personal space. “Ah, the–the statue, it’s beautiful. Why do you cover it up?” You ask, the words leaving you in a flustered tumble.

He pauses, glancing over his shoulder, looking at the statue like he’s only just remembered it exists. “Oh, that. Mmm. Don’t always like what he has to say,” he replies, fitting his hand over top of yours, pressing it to his chest. You blink. What in the world does that mean? “You humans chill so quickly. I’ll have to light the hearth next time I leave you,” he says, earning a yelp from you as he abruptly lifts you up into his arms, tail slithering audibly along the floor as he carries you back to what you suppose for all intents and purposes is his nest. His touch instantly warms you to your core, making the fur you wrapped yourself in seem like a thin sheet in comparison. Despite your apprehension, you can’t help the way the tension in your body naturally eases with his warmth. Upon returning to the collection of pelts, you see the fruits of his labor.

Literal fruits, in fact.

Homelander has returned with a small bounty consisting of apples, two melons, and even a handful of peaches, all of it held in a beautiful–albeit aged–woven basket. You don’t get the chance to eat those often; the trees they fall from grow high on the surrounding mountains, and the farmers in your village are content enough with the established agriculture that no one bothers to grow them.

In addition, a tall golden pitcher stands filled to the brim with water. You’re once again hyper aware of just how incredibly thirsty you are, lips dry, throat parched. It’s the only thing you care about, clambering towards it the second Homelander sets you back on your feet.

The pitcher is heavy. It appears made of solid gold and it’s three times the size of any you’ve ever seen before. You don’t lift it so much as you just tip it back slightly, sighing loudly as you drink back the crisp, clear water.  You sputter as the flow abruptly increases, water spilling from the corners of your mouth. Homelander has lifted the pitcher to help you drink, holding it one handed as if it’s no more than a drinking cup, his other hand settled upon your waist. He looks thoroughly pleased with himself, eyes half-lidded, lips gently curved upwards. Once you’ve drunk your fill, you push against his hold and he relents quickly, unnerving you with just how attentive he really is. He sets the pitcher back down and watches you wipe your chin dry.

“Thank the gods,” you sigh habitually, finally not feeling as though there’s grit in your throat with every word.

“I’d prefer you thanked me,” he says coyly, his gaze drifting down to where the water has wet your gown. The fabric clings to your skin, sheer where liquid has touched it.

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry. Thank you, Homelander,” you correct. It’s taking every ounce of your fortitude to speak in full sentences with the way he’s staring at you, let alone the idle way his thumb is stroking your hip. No one has ever touched you with this mixture of ease and clear intent, the weight of his hand practically thrumming against you. The magnitude of him is a difficult thing to parse both in terms of his sheer size and the legend he represents. You don’t know how to reconcile him with the monster you grew up dreading.

No one warned you that monsters could be warm and handle you gently.

“Time to eat,” he says, setting the pitcher back down. He takes hold of both of your hips and pulls you down with him as he sits cross-legged on the pelts, the circle of his legs large enough that you fit perfectly inside it, your own legs hanging out over his crossed calves. His tail loops around as well, encircling him and draping over your legs. The underside of his tail is not unlike the belly of a snake, with large overlapping scales that layer down the length of it. It’s just as warm as the rest of him, and feels like an unnaturally soft stone that’s been baking in the sun.

Reaching over, Homelander plucks one of the peaches from the assortment. It looked perfectly average in the basket, but between his fingers it looks almost comically small. With a deftness that you wouldn’t expect from a creature of his size, he begins to slice through the peach with his blackened claws, delicately cutting out a wedge that he does not hand you, but he instead brings it directly to your lips. 

You stare for a moment, struck by the rich red center of the fruit, how the juice of it drips onto his hand in sweet smelling rivulets. You turn to look at him over your shoulder, and he quirks a brow, nodding towards the slice of fruit. You decide that of all the potential battles you have in front of you, this one in particular isn’t worth fighting, and you part your lips, watching him as you do.

His own lips mimic yours, falling apart in quiet entrancement. He slides the wedge between your teeth and watches with rapt fascination as you bite down on it, holding his gaze in an exchange that feels so unexpectedly raw and intimate, your pulse ticks up a notch. You swear he notices it by the way his head tilts ever so slightly, almost as if he’s listening.

“Good?” He asks, voice little more than a rumble.

Gods above and below, it is good. Despite the preternatural heat of his hand, the succulent flesh of the peach retains the morning chill, sweet and cool on your tongue. It’s perfectly ripe, yielding easily to the cut of your teeth and flooding richly across your tongue as you chew. He feeds it to you until it disappears, pressing the last of it in with his thumb, which then follows the line of your bottom lip, smearing the sweet juice on it. You nod and lick your lips, tongue narrowly missing his thumb, and what that does to his expression makes your stomach flip. 

He’s quick to cut another slice to offer you. You repeat this process in silence, the air thick with tension that feels so palpable you’re sure you could swim through it. The sounds of the world have narrowed entirely to the sound of his claw cutting through the delicate flesh of the fruit and the tip lightly scraping the pit inside it. His hands have a sticky shine to them by the time he’s tossing the pit back into the basket, stripped as clean as a bone. 

You chew your final bite, jaw slowing as you watch him take his fingers into his own mouth. He’s unabashed in the way he slurps the nectar off his digits, tongue slipping between them. That’s when you realize that his tongue splits down the middle, dexterously sliding over his fingers to lap up every drop of juice. Not only that, but you spot a flash of gold; the same kind of piercing he has on his ears. Watching him stirs something hot in you, a radiating heat that lights a flickering pulse between your thighs. You audibly gulp the last of your bite, tensing subtly when Homelander looks at you.

Slowly, his lips curl into a devious smile. “See something you like?”

You flush, fighting the urge to look away. Don’t play into it. Change the subject. “What happened to your last mate?”

His expression shifts to something slightly more incredulous. “There wasn’t one. You’re my first, my last, my only. Dragons only bond once,” he says, that split tongue rolling along his sharp teeth, that gold tongue piercing clicking against them. You wonder where else he’s decorated himself with gold.

Wait, what did he say? Your gaze snaps back up from his mouth to his eyes, which are once more set into that self-satisfied slant. He’s closer to you now, and nearing by the second.

My first, my last, my only.

“But I am no dragon,” you say, leaning away subtly, though there isn’t far to go. He’s got you trapped nicely in place, like a butterfly beneath pins. “How could such a bond form?”

“I’m as mystified as you are,” he says, his hand sliding up the small of your back. “I didn’t think a bond was even possible for me. Apparently there’s something different about you,” he says, and you notice a brief twitch of his lip, a flicker that looks just a touch like disdain. It disappears as quickly as it had appeared. “Something special,” he murmurs, close enough that you can feel the heat of his breath on your cheek. 

Your heart races, your capacity for thought slowly disappearing the closer to you he gets. New subject, new subject! You think, frazzled by the warm spiced smell of him. His hand flexes on your hip, claws prickling your skin through your dress. “Aren’t you hungry?” You ask, eyes darting to the basket full of fruit just to his side.

“Yeah,” he rasps, voice so low you feel it reverberate. His nose brushes your cheek, trailing down from your jaw to your neck. You shiver, and the pulse between your thighs grows into a steady throb. He inhales deeply. “I’m famished.”

The world around you spins and the next thing you know, you’re on your back staring up at the aged banners draped along the stone ceiling, the fur pelts warm and plush beneath you. Homelander pins your arms down at your sides, once more poised on his hands and knees over you. His tongue draws a wet molten line from the collar of your dress to your throat, and you let out a soft, nervous cry as his teeth graze your skin.

Perhaps he’s going to devour you after all. 

Oh gods! Gods, gods, gods, please no!

“Wait, wait! Don’t–please don’t eat me,” you plead in a panic, pushing up against his hands with all of your might. He doesn’t yield at all. You may as well be pushing against the stone walls of the tower itself.

He does laugh, however. It’s that same rumble of amusement that travels through your skin and into the core of you. “For the last time, I’m not eating you. I can smell your arousal, though. Practically taste it in the fucking air,” he says, trailing lower down your chest with every word, brazenly nuzzling the space between your breasts before continuing down. A wave of humiliation rolls through you at his words, and you look away. He releases your arms in favor of sliding his hands up your bare legs, pushing your dress up with them. “I’m just going to have a little lick.”

Frantically, you try to grab at him as soon as your hands are free. “Hold on, stop–”

“Enough!” He snarls suddenly, startling you quiet. You swear for just a moment that his eyes flash crimson. You clutch your hands to your chest. “You’ll not be harmed. Understand? Just… let me,” he says tersely, gaze hard before gradually softening as you silence yourself, watching him with wide, uncertain eyes. Satisfied, he lowers back down.

His sharp claws kiss harmless welts all the way up your legs, up to your hips, where he catches the band of your undergarments. He hooks his fingers over the waistband and drags them down, seeming to enjoy the way you pant and writhe under him, your heart racing.

“Have mercy,” you slip in quietly, squirming beneath the hot press of his hands, though you’re no longer struggling against him. “I’ve never–no one’s ever–I’m inexperienced,” you desperately explain, your mind running wild with what his size will mean for you if he decides he wants more than to taste you–to claim you, as he’d said before.

“Good,” he replies simply, pushing your knees up into a bend on either side of his head. “As you should be. As am I,” he says, turning his head to drag his split tongue in swirling patterns on your inner thigh, moaning at the taste of you.

You grip the pelts beneath you, brows furrowing. You stare down at the top of his head in confusion. “You are?”

“I told you. I’ve never had a mate. I’ve never felt the need to put my cock into what I intended to eat,” he says against your skin, erupting goosebumps all over your thighs. That should horrify you, but you’re instantly distracted by the sheer burning heat of his breath wafting over your wet cunt, a gasp slipping from your lips when he eagerly presses his tongue to it.

His tongue feels as smooth as glass, like liquid in the way it contours to your every curve. The split of it rubs on either side of your clit, massaging it between the two sides in a way that makes your knees shake. “Ffffuck,” he groans, immediately pushing his tongue into you, licking up the wetness of you twice as eagerly as he had that ripe peach.

You buck against him, a moan escaping you. The sound only encourages him to plunge his tongue deeper, that golden stud on his tongue brushing hotly against your inner walls. He drags it up and pushes it flush, half inside you and half grinding against your clit before pushing back in deep. It feels unlike anything you’ve ever known, so much better than your own curious, clumsy fingers. He laves attention on you like he’s starved for it, drinking just as thirstily as you had from the pitcher.

There’s no rhythm to the way he moves, no sense of consistency. He slips his hands under your ass and tugs you forward with ease, lifting you to push his thick split tongue even further inside you, plunging it in and out, growing greedier with every dive. He growls low in the back of his throat, tail thudding repeatedly against the floor. Instead of the little lick he claimed he was after, he’s working himself into an obvious frenzy feasting on you.

“H-Homelander, please,” you keen, his relentlessness rapidly building an unfamiliar pressure within you. He’s as sloppy as he is voracious, the wet sound of him obscene and loud in the enormous lair. His claws bite into your ass where he holds it firmly to his mouth, but he doesn’t seem to hear you. If he does, he’s taking it only as encouragement. 

His tongue touches something inside you that makes your whole body jolt. You grab hold of both of his horns, your back arching as you desperately cling to them. You’re certain you meant to shove him back, to struggle. Instead, your body is ablaze as you yank hard on his horns, hitching your leg over his shoulder and riding his tongue with a shaking gasp.

The pressure bursts, and the wave of euphoria that crashes down on you is unlike anything you’ve ever known. You convulse against his mouth, walls tightening around the intrusion. You don’t recognize your own voice in the sounds you make as he continues to ruthlessly fuck you soaked and open with his tongue, his breaths so hot they nearly burn. The waves of your climax feel like they’ll never end, spurred on by every deep, wet thrust.

“Homelander! It’s too much, Homelander, too much, please, please–beloved, please, I can’t, I can’t,” you beg, desperate to get his attention. You’re on the verge of sobs when he finally withdraws his long molten tongue from you. You suck in a shuddering breath, releasing his horns and collapsing back against the pelts, sweat prickling along your hairline.

However, your shallow breaths are nothing compared to the sound of Homelander’s ragged panting. He looks entirely wild, smoke billowing from his mouth and nose, his cheeks flushed a dark red, the lower half of his face shiny with a mixture of your slick and his own drool. He takes his hands from under you and yanks the sash around his waist loose, dropping it to the side. Reaching behind him, he unfastens his pants.

Your mind is still a haze, but even through the delirium, you’re shocked by what you see when that rich navy fabric falls from his waist: his cock is as large as the rest of him, thick and dripping. The underside of it is strangely ribbed, a feature you’re certain is to be attributed to his draconic nature. Not only that, but he’s adorned in gold here, too, with a ring pierced into the head of his cock and studs between each ridge. Your eyes widen.

It’ll never fit.

Nevertheless, he looks entirely undeterred. Homelander adjusts himself between your legs, eyes thoroughly glazed over with lust, and presses his nearly scalding palms to your inner thighs, pushing them into a wide spread and down to the ground. Arousal and fear lance through you like a twin bolt of lightning.

“H-hold on,” you stutter, lifting a trembling hand. “I–” Bending over you, he silences you with a firm kiss. You press your hands to his chest and feel it thrumming beneath your palms, the heat of him more intense than ever. You can’t help but moan softly into it, overtaken by the smell of sex and something akin to burning incense. His tongue slips as deftly into your mouth as it did your cunt. Even after having felt it inside you, it’s thicker in your mouth than you’re prepared for, sliding in deeper, like he means to fuck you with it here, too.

It wholly distracts you until you feel a heavy, blunt press to your wet cunt. You make a half-hearted noise of protest, but his only answer is a low rumbling growl, claws biting into the meat of your thighs as he holds you still, effectively gagging you on his tongue.

His cock is as hot as the rest of him, but a great deal more solid than his malleable tongue. The thickness of it slowly spreads you wide, an aching pressure. You’re not sure if the burn of it is from the stretch or the heat, but either way it’s driving you insane. It’s hot and painful and good, frictionless with how thoroughly he soaked you, and despite your nerves, your cunt is loose with orgasm. It’s as if your body, independent of your mind, is eager to welcome him in.

You make a keening noise, the sound of it muffled in this devouring kiss. You grab hold of the leather straps across his chest and yank on them, twisting at them, but nothing takes your mind from how intense it feels to be split apart on the fat head of his cock.

The sounds Homelander makes in response are downright bestial, low and rumbling from his chest. Your only relief is when the widest swell of his cockhead finally breaches you, just the tip of it settling perfectly inside you. You cry out when he gives an exploratory backwards pull, and then shivers as he begins to rock gently, breathing heavily from his nose as he fucks you with nothing more than the head of his cock.

You’re starting to feel lightheaded, pitchy little noises leaving you with every exhale. Homelander sharpens his pace, breaking the kiss with a loud, carnal moan as he tips his head back. He’s barely even inside you and yet the girth of him is overwhelming, the ridges of his cock stimulating you in ways you didn’t know possible, the fat curved head rubbing against that same spot inside you that his tongue had previously made you see stars with.

Thoroughly overwhelmed by the incomprehensible assault of sensations, tears gather in your eyes. That pressure is building back up in you once more, starting at the base of your spine and slowly crawling up it. Desperate to tether yourself, to feel connected, you move your hand from the strap at his chest and touch his face. To your surprise, that instantly snaps his attention down to you, his beautiful blue eyes lost in a crimson glow.

Homelander meets your gaze, some level of cognizance returning to him, and whimpers, something hidden and vulnerable escaping in that exchange. He bends down, his nose brushing yours, and rests his forehead against yours while his thrusts grow more and more erratic, but never deeper. He fucks you in shallow, jagged snaps until finally that mounting pressure overwhelms you and you come again, simultaneously squeezing him into his own sudden release. 

The flood of him inside you is burning hot, spilling into your core even from here, and he practically roars with it, burying that loud primal cry into the crook of your neck while his body stills, releasing pulse after pulse of thick, hot seed into you.

His breath billows hotly across your neck, the burning scent of him thick in the air. Your mind is so addled by your own euphoria that it takes you time to realize he’s speaking, fervent murmurings against your skin. “M’sorry, still, be still, I’m–don’t move,” he rasps, fractured little noises leaving him in between his words. You choke on your own breath when he sinks in, working you open slowly, shivers pitching up and down your spine. Gods above, he isn’t done.

Surely he doesn’t mean for you to take all of it… Does he?

You moan weakly, pushing your hand up into his hair and grabbing hold, which elicits a rumbling sigh from him in return. It’s silkier than you expected it to be. “Too big, it’s too much, it’s not–it’s not going to fit,” you pant out, screwing your eyes shut tight. While his release had initially softened him some, you can already feel his cock filling back out. Every bit he slips in further, you feel the mess of his release being forced out of you, come dripping down your thighs, slicking the way for the rest of him.

“It will,” he says at your ear, kissing the spot just below your earlobe, then your neck, his tongue slipping out to taste the sweat there before he kisses that same spot. He’s set upon you like an animal, lost to the drive of instinct, determined to fulfill his promise to claim what is his. “It will because it must. Because it’s yours. Because you’re mine.”

Homelander releases a breathy whine, sounding just as overstimulated as you are, nuzzling at your throat while he slowly works his way deeper, practically vibrating with restraint. He sounds as overwhelmed as you feel, but he refuses to stop, to lose. He holds you in place, growling whenever you squirm or struggle against him. The feel of it is dizzying, unbelievably hot and heavy, like fire given form, filling you in ways you didn’t know were possible. You’re feeling it again, the slow rise of that carnal pleasure building to an inevitable climax, and your whole body trembles with it.

You make a desperate keening noise, and Homelander hushes you, kissing your shoulder. “Sshhh, good, you’re doing so well for me. Don’t move yet, it’s almost over. You were made for this, for me. You feel it, don’t you? How easily your cunt opens to me. Nnngh, hah… Fuck, you fit me. You fit me. You do, and you always will,” he pants, voice hitching.

He slides his hands from your thighs to your waist, the press of his claws just shy of painful. With one final move, he lets out a quaking moan as he pulls you down onto the last of it, finally burying himself completely in your snug, come-soaked cunt. 

The fullness of it breaks you–snapping the last tether that was holding you in place–and you come again, your velvety walls seizing up around him impossibly tight before spasming your pleasure around every vein, ridge and piercing he has. You can feel the shape of him so viscerally that you’re sure your body will remember it, carved out in the shape of his cock forevermore.

He cries out with your release, a reverberating sound that you feel all the way down to the marrow of your bones. You don’t know if he’s more in pleasure or pain, but he makes no move to retreat. Instead, he brings you that tiny bit closer, pressing every inch of your body to his. He rides out your pleasure, panting a wet spot into the crook of your neck.

Tears roll from your eyes to your temple, disappearing into your hairline as you breathe roughly. You’re overwhelmingly hot, oversensitized and raw, but as the aftershocks of your orgasm fade, your body steadily loses that quiver. You feel as if you’re melting down into the furs, struggling to even keep your eyes open as a gentle ecstasy sweeps over you.

Once he recovers enough, he lifts himself up onto his hands, and then sits  back onto his legs, his hands on your hips to lift you partially into his lap to keep himself buried deep, hitching your legs around his waist. His eyes are completely glazed over, lips parted around heavy, hungry breaths. He doesn’t look at all sated. If anything, the look of his desire has only intensified, despite his obvious sensitivity. Sliding his hands up your body, he pushes your pretty white dress all the way up over your head, tossing it to the side so that he may finally see all of you.

“Look at you,” he breathes, voice utterly frayed. He stares at you as though you’re a vision sent from the gods, a nymph plucked from the heavens and nestled snugly upon his cock. His hand sweeps down your stomach, settling low on it, where he lightly presses down. You both moan with the pressure, with how keenly you both feel it. “Told you it would fit,” he says, but his voice is not smug. There’s a breathless wonder to it, like he’s awestruck by the look of your body against his.

His tongue rolls out to sweep along his lips. He opens his mouth, and you can see threads of saliva snapping between his sharp teeth, his mouth wet with hunger. He continues to reverently stroke your stomach, his large splayed hand easily covering the expanse of it. “You’ll make a beautiful mother,” he says, a concept you don’t even know how to begin to unravel, but the way he says it makes you feel worshiped. “Perfect. So fucking perfect for me,” he says, a shudder in his voice. His crimson wings spread and curve in on either side of you, the hooked tips of them bracing on the stone floor.

“Mother?” You slur belatedly. You feel dizzy, your body as warm as burning coals and tingling all over. He lifts your legs one at a time, bringing each one up parallel to his chest. They hook over his shoulders as he leans forward, wasting no before time kissing you. His wings support his weight while he grips your thighs, squeezing possessively.

“Mother,” he confirms between kisses, bending you practically in half as he begins to rut against you. He’s not thrusting so much as he’s grinding into you, wringing a low moan from you. “You want that, don’t you? I’ll keep you safe. Feed you. Fuck you. I’ll take care of you, be yours, and you’ll be mine, won’t you? Sweet little thing, fucked happy and heavy with my children. Tell me. Tell me you want that.”

“Yes,” you moan, kneading the furs on either side of you. He paints a beautiful picture in your mind of fresh fruit, crisp water, and this dreamlike pleasure for the rest of your days. Beneath him, any thoughts of the world outside this moment melt away. There’s only the two of you, resplendently warm and living amongst the clouds. “I want it. I want–I want you,” you say, touching either side of his face. He leans heavily into your touch, his eyes falling shut. A soft noise that sounds like relief escapes him as you kiss him, coaxing that long, clever tongue out to meet yours.

The eagerness with which he reciprocates nearly chokes you, his tongue slipping over yours and halfway down your throat before pulling back, practically devouring you in this kiss. In your fever, this consuming passion feels so much like love it makes your head spin, makes you forget where, when and who you are.  He breaks the kiss to moan unabashedly,  shifting to put his lips to your throat, mouthing at your skin like he’s trying desperately not to sink his teeth in. The thought thrills you. You almost want him to.

“Again,” he pants, grip tightening on your thighs. “Say it again, please.”

“I want you,” you say again, more certain now. The desperation in him is disarming, and despite the animalism of him, you can clearly see the man in him now, hear it in the way he pleads for you to indulge him. That and the euphoric spill of pleasure electrifying your every nerve imbues you with some kind of sense of power, and however misplaced it may be, you immediately feel drunk on it. You can feel your body beginning to build back towards that ultimate swell of euphoria again. “I want to be yours. I want you to be mine.”

He groans, dipping lower to suck a mark at the junction between your neck and shoulder. This time, when you feel the brush of his teeth, you don’t shy away. You cup the back of his head and drag your nails down his scalp. Homelander thrusts his hips jaggedly, wringing a throaty gasp out of you. “Keep talking,” he demands, but you hear the plea for what it is.

“You feel good. Y-you fit,” you say, echoing his own words, though it’s getting harder to speak with the way he’s starting to fuck you in earnest, just barely withdrawing before he drives back in, as if he can’t bare to be more than an inch outside of you.  You moan for him, chasing the bliss swelling rapidly between your legs.

Wait… Something really is swelling.

“What is that?” You ask, voice reedy. You whimper. Somehow, it feels as though he’s getting bigger. “What’s h-nnngh, what’s happening?” Your words are starting to slur together again, your mind split down the middle between your mounting orgasm, and the surreal feeling of the base of his cock growing inside you.

“Knot,” he explains between swipes of his tongue. “Keeps every drop of me inside you,” he says, giving a shuddering moan as that swell catches on the rim of your cunt when he tries to draw back. Just when you thought you had adjusted, that swell makes you ache, has you whimpering and squirming under him.

He could have told you it would get bigger!

“Oh gods, it–mmm, I’m–it feels–” You stop and start again and again, writhing, but he keeps you firmly in place, the sound of flesh slapping against flesh loud in your ears as he fucks you harder and faster, spurred on by the quiver of your cunt as your own climax nears.

“Come for me again. Show me that you want it. I want to feel your pretty little cunt squeeze my cock for my come,” he urges, voice reduced to a rough growl in your ear. He sounds like he’s barely holding himself together, every word more strained than the last. “Give it to me. Give yourself to me.”

The tug of his swollen knot bouncing off of your rim and the feel of his thick ridged cock massaging your walls completely overwhelms you. “Y-yes, okay, I’m–oh gods, gods, I’m–I’m coming, Homelander, Homelander!” You call, lips falling open on a silent scream as your throat locks up, a third orgasm crashing down on you with a force that knocks the air out of your lungs.

Homelander muffles his own cry into the crook of your neck, stilling halfway through your orgasm with one final slam. This time, the rush of his release is pressed tightly against your cervix, pooling inside you with nowhere to go, his knot doing precisely what he said it would. The heat of it fills you in hot, rushing spurts, his cock jerking against your spasming walls with every load he empties into you.

A sudden stinging pain makes you gasp, confusion seeping into the euphoria that has thoroughly addled your brain. Fuck, you realize he’s biting you. His teeth sink in as smoothly as a knife through fresh butter, the sting giving way to the sheer heat of his mouth, the stroke of his tongue, and the inexplicable way it intensifies your orgasm.

The room falls deafeningly quiet save for the pound of your own heart in your ears and the heavy way you’re each catching your respective breath. Your arms fall bonelessly to your sides as you pant, your vision slightly blurry. Homelander begins lapping at your shoulder, soothing the spot he’d bitten. Your whole body feels heavy, stuffed fuller than you ever could have conceived possible. All you can do is whine as he adjusts you, gingerly bringing your legs down to settle on either side of him.

You’re not sure how you’ll ever get off of his cock now that you’re on it. His knot feels like a permanent part of you, fitted so snugly that, just as promised, you don’t feel a single drop spill.

Homelander doesn’t stop at your neck. He drags his tongue down to the dip of your clavicle, where it splits apart slightly anywhere it moves over bone. It feels surreal, but somehow different from the first time you woke to him licking you. For starters, you’re not terrified he’s going to eat you. That has an entirely new connotation now.

He moves down further, slinking down into the valley between your breasts, sighing as he pushes them together to lave his tongue between. He’s languid, practically purring with each breath as he savors the feel and the taste of you. You don’t have it in you to feel much more than exhausted, your limbs as heavy as stone, but it does feel good. Your breath catches when he opens his lips around one of your nipples, sucking almost half of your breast into his preternaturally hot mouth. His pierced tongue swirls over your nipple while his teeth flex precariously against the tender flesh. You lurch, letting out a breathy noise.

“Careful, please,,” you exhale, earning a glance up from him. His eyes are completely glazed over, soft and dark in a way that takes your breath away. He hums quietly in some weak acknowledgement before his eyes flutter closed, his throat bobbing with every swallow as he sucks your breast with unexpected gentility.

Watching him stirs a wash of strange feelings in you. With what little strength you have, you bring your hand up to touch his horn, contemplating the texture of it beneath your fingers. You follow the line of it down to his skull, tracing his hairline just beneath the crown that adorns his head, slipping behind his sharply pointed ear. He’s truly incredible to behold up close like this, beautiful without the lens of terror you had been viewing him through.

On some level, you know you should still be afraid, but it’s a difficult feeling to muster when he’s warm and lax on your chest with his cock buried inside you, suckling on your breast as you’re still riding the high of three consecutive climaxes.

You push your fingers into his flaxen hair. You’ve never seen hair this color before except in very young children. In your experience, age always darkens it away to a sandy color, but his is as bright and warm as sunshine. There doesn’t seem to be any part of him that isn’t golden. He exhales a deep sigh as you run your nails along his scalp, nuzzling sweetly against you. You smile despite yourself.

Who would have thought that a dragon might be so very much like an overgrown house cat?

When Homelander lifts his head, his tongue is the last to leave, returning to his mouth with a wet slide across his lips. He’s left your skin shiny with saliva, but he isn’t finished. He immediately lowers himself to your other breast, taking it into his mouth in precisely the same way. You bring your other hand up into his hair and continue to massage his scalp, earning yourself an appreciative little moan from low in his throat, his tail sliding audibly back and forth on the stone floor.

The two of you lay like that for an indeterminate amount of time. You drift in and out of consciousness, worn thin and soothed by the heat of his body seeping into your muscles, fairly certain you’ll never be able to sit up on your own again. Homelander eventually releases your breast with a soft pop and settles his head on your sternum, narrowly avoiding taking one of your eyes out with his horn. You continue to stroke through his hair as your strength gradually returns.

The swell of his knot, too, lessens, but even soft his cock fits snugly inside you. It isn’t until Homelander gingerly lifts himself off of you that it slides out, coming free with a significant gush that soaks your thighs and puddles beneath you. You flush, making a strained little noise. You feel carved out and left hollow by the sheer size of him. His wings withdraw and tuck in behind him while he sits back on his legs to admire the splay of you beneath him. 

“You’re beautiful,” he says, smoothing his hands up and down your thighs. You’ve never felt as exposed as you do in this moment, laid bare under his gaze. Even now, visibly drunk on pleasure and thoroughly satiated, there is an undeniable lingering famine in his stare. He sinks down and slowly spreads your legs apart, leaning in to run his tongue up the crease of your inner thigh. He laps languidly at your skin, earning hitched little breaths and sounds from you as his tongue deftly cleans the mess he’s made of you. He’s much more tame now than he had been, focusing not on overstimulating you, but simply washing you. It’s a strange and animalistic thing to do, but it’s intimate, too. Sweet, even.

Gods, he’s really done a number on your psyche.

Once he’s satisfied with the state of you, he climbs back up and settles on his side, looking at you with his hand poised over you, hovering like he isn’t sure what to do with it. His expression starts to shift, concern seeping into it. “You’re quiet. Did I hurt you?”

You huff a little breath. You’re quiet because you’ve just been fucked within an inch of your life by a dragon’s cock, but aside from that, of course he had. “You bit me, for starters.”

He turns somewhat sheepish at that. “Instinct. I wanted to mark you.”

“You succeeded,” you say, touching your shoulder tentatively.The skin is still raw, but it isn’t bleeding. It doesn’t even feel like it’s going to scab. 

You must wear your confusion plainly, because Homelander is quick to explain: “I sealed the wound. It should be fully healed by sundown.”

“How did you seal it?” You ask, bolder now with how you touch it. It feels like simple indentations, a perfect mold of his teeth.

“My saliva has particular properties. There was a method to my debauchery,” he says, pointedly licking his lips.

You suppose that’s far from the most miraculous thing about him. “That’s convenient,” you say, to which he smiles. It’s bizarre how easily this comes now. You’ve heard of breaking the tension before, but this is certainly the most intense way you’ve ever broken through that initial barrier to more casual conversation. 

Seeing that his hand is still hovering over you, you make a choice and take it, pulling it down to settle on your hip. Relief and excitement flash in his eyes in equal measure, and he takes that as permission to tuck you the rest of the way against him, settling on his side. He rests his head in his palm, propped up on his elbow. You curiously explore the plains of his chest with your fingertips, testing where flesh meets scales. They feel almost like bone, crimson colored protrusions that catch the light as prettily as rubies. They’re smattered along his body in the same way a human might have moles or birthmarks, incidental and seemingly without rhyme or reason.

His ribs are guarded by stiff plates that aren’t as solid as the scales, but look to serve as hardy protection. You let your fingers swoop down the ridges of them, comparing the textures along different parts of his body. It’s fascinating.

“I’ve never seen anything like–” you begin to pull your hand away as you speak, but Homelander takes hold of your wrist, bringing it back to his chest.

“Don’t stop.” You look up at him. His expression catches you off guard. He looks wounded, those fiercely blue and ever human eyes of his intensely focused on you. Swallowing, you nod. He lets go, and you begin to traipse your fingers along his chest again, following the line of the leather straps that cross over it. He lets out a heavy breath. “No one’s ever touched me like this,” he tells you after a long few beats of silence. “Not that I can remember.”

You glance up at him, but he’s staring down at your small hand tracing patterns on his chest. “What happened to this place?” You ask, because that seems politer than asking what happened to him.

“Guess it’s been too long for anyone else to remember. They’re all dead,” he says, the mood of his words difficult to discern. He inhales a contemplative breath, clicking his tongue at the end of it. “Time happened. I used to be something else to my people. I was… war. I brought fire down on their enemies, and they loved me for it. I won them their home. Homelander. There were others like me, but I was the best of them,” he says with conviction, though you sense bitterness in his voice, too. “When all the wars were won, they built this tower. They built monuments to their gods, and they placed us here with them as though we ourselves were relics.”

The end of his tail has begun to slap lightly against the ground. You can feel a slight uptick in the heat of him beneath your palm. 

“They placated me with gold. Adorned me in it. At times they would summon me to festivals. Use my strength to build their stone cities, but they didn’t celebrate me. They had forgotten their love. They treated me as you would any other tool. Something to be taken off the shelf for work and put away when the task is done.”

The seething resentment is more clear in his voice than ever. While you didn’t ask it, it seems he understood what you really wanted to know. You’ve never heard this story before; The Devourer had only ever been a tyrant upon the people. No one ever spoke of a Homelander. No one ever spoke of a hero.

“When treasure failed to keep me impotent and obedient, they tried meat instead. They sent me livestock, as if the simple act of killing a cow would satiate me,” he snarls through his teeth, smoke wafting between them. He sucks it back, tipping his head up slightly in a bit to regain his composure.  “They thought they could control me indefinitely. Out of sight, out of mind. It worked for too long, but only because I allowed it. Because I thought things would change. They never did. So I took their gold and their cattle and their crops and demanded more still. I demanded until they couldn’t ignore me any longer. When they failed to provide, I reigned fire down on them as I did their enemies two hundred years ago, and I gave them no choice but to look at the monster they made.”

His tail cracks like a whip against the stone floor. His anger is so visceral it makes your heart race, but there is more in his gaze than just fury. You feel as though you’re watching him rip apart the stitching over a wound that has been festering for far too long. “After that, they sent people. Simpering peasants who had no fucking idea who or what I really am. They bathed them in oils like slaughtered lambs basted for roast,” he growls, the blue of his eyes fading into an eerie crimson glow. “So I did. I devoured them, and I spat their own blood in their faces. If they wouldn’t have me as a man, they would have a beast instead.”

The Devourer.

You sit in stunned silence, watching as the glow of his eyes gradually fades, though his temperature remains the same. He looks at you, his expression braced, as if he anticipates a specific reaction. Rejection, you suppose. It seems to be the only thing he’s known for centuries. Within his gaze, you recognize a profound need to connect, to feel you, to hear that there might be a single soul in this gods damned world that wants him.

What does one say to such a story? The anger in his voice strikes such a wounded chord, you can practically smell the blood. The rawness of it alone makes your eyes prickle with tears, a lump gathering in your throat. How warped he has become not for the absence of love, but the deprivation of it. It’s clear in the way he speaks of them how desperately he wanted them to still love him.

“I’m sorry,” you say so quietly it’s a wonder he hears you. His expression flips completely, morphing into bewildered surprise.

“What?” His voice sounds small.

“I’m sorry that they abandoned you.”

If his own words are a knife in the wound, yours twist it deeper. He flinches like he’s been struck, staring at you with such bruised incomprehension. He opens his mouth to speak, but it’s as though he doesn’t even believe what you’re saying enough to formulate a response. He kisses you instead, holding your jaw in his claws. “I was good once,” he says against your lips, voice hushed as if he’s confessing a far graver sin. “I’ll be good for you. Let me be good for you.”

The desperation in his voice sets loose your tears. You nod, kissing him just as fervently. Centuries of bloodshed on the back of willful neglect is difficult to stomach, but you believe him. You believe the love that went into this tower–this beautiful prison–that they made for him, and you believe the love that you saw in his face carved in stone. You have no doubt that the wonder of him once inspired all those who beheld them, and that they were fickle enough to grow weary of him. Desensitized and disinterested.

When he rejected their apathy, they rejected his humanity.

Homelander lifts you up into his arms, sitting up, kissing you properly with a hand cupping the back of your head, his arm around your middle. His wings curve in around you, and he kisses you until your lips turn sore and you have to protest, your words melting into muffled laughter. He draws back with a brilliant grin. It’s different from the others you’ve seen; it’s the kind of smile that brings deep warmth to his eyes, crinkling them at the corners. He lingers close to you, stroking your cheek with his thumb.

“I stopped believing a long time ago that you could be real,” he murmurs, unable to stop himself from stealing another quick kiss, his nose purposefully brushing yours. He’s thoroughly starved for every little touch.

“I am. So are you. Not the Devourer, the Scourge, nor the Red Death,” you say, tucking back the stray locks of hair that have fallen over his crown. This, too, had been carved for him. He had been loved once, and as he said, he had been good. There is love in you enough to help him find that goodness again. There’s no reason you cannot live for the being you intended to die for. “Just you. Just Homelander.”

He kisses you, and suddenly you feel as if you’re free falling. From this point on, your life is something new. Something inexplicable and unpredictable. It’s yours, but it’s also his.

All that glitters is not gold, and sometimes the monster in the dark is just your reflection.

phew. thank you SO much for reading. this fic took me almost a full month to write, and it often felt like it was never going to end. that said, i'm already kind of chomping at the bit to write more in this universe. i feel like these two have a ton of potential, and there's just so much more that i want to do with them now that we have the groundwork done. once again, a huge shoutout to the amazing artist @anon-nee, who not only illustrated our dragon boy himself, but these awesome environment sketches as well. please be sure to go give them some love! The Tower of the Seven

The Dragon's Lair