#humdrum

We’re having beans and franks. Again.

COCD Day 13: Lyric!

“Come, come, come, come, come along now

Run away from the hum-drum

We'll go to a place that is safe from

Greed, anger and boredom

We'll dance and sing 'til sundown

And feast with abandon

We'll sleep when the morning comes

And we'll rise by the sound of the birdsongs”

- Come Along, by Cosmo Sheldrake

This song has always made me giggle bc of Carry On, so I figured it would be a good fit for this prompt. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 3

Homelander x reader slow burn that loosely follows the events of the series. The reader is an NYC transplant working as an archivist at Vought.

Story will eventually contain smut, dark themes, heavy angst, detailed descriptions of depression etc. Minors DNI, 18+.

Warnings for this chapter: brief nudity I guess

Track list:

Bite the Hand - Boygenius

Penny Sweets - winter aid

I’m your man - Mitski

He came back the same way he’d arrived—without a sound.

One moment you were alone at your desk, still trying to shake off the afterimages of that tape you had seen a day before. The next, he was standing there again, just like the first day you saw him.

The blood was the first thing you saw. Not his face. Not his eyes, just layers of sticky, suffocating blood.

It was soaked into the collar of his suit, streaked down his arms, drying in patches on his gloves and his boots. You had no idea if any of it was his, you were pretty sure it wasn’t.

He looked… wrong.

Not angry. Not pleased. Not even smug, just cold and empty like somebody took the batteries out of him.

You opened your mouth, but didn’t know what to say or if you were supposed to say anything.

He held something out to you.

The tape.

You took it from him, the cold plastic now between your fingers in bed again, and tried not to shudder at the transfer of untried blood from his gloves to your fingertips.

It didn’t feel like he gave it back.

It felt like he was returning something he didn’t want to carry anymore.

The blood made your skin stick slightly to the door handle when you slid it open.

You riled it away like you were clocking out of a job, filing away what was left of someone’s childhood.

When you turned around, he hadn’t moved.

He was just standing there, at the edge of your desk, looking at you like a child lost in a shopping mall.

You didn’t know why he was still here or why he even came back in the first place.

“Come on,” you said, before you could stop yourself.

Your voice didn’t sound like your own. Thin. Hollow.

You didn’t know what you were doing—not really. Your hand found his again, he let you take it.

He followed you.

Not a word.

—

The elevator ride was the worst part.

It was one of those high-speed, whisper-quiet models Vought used for the executive floors. You weren’t even supposed to be able to press the button to the penthouse. But when he stared at the panel, it lit up, retinal scanners or some fancy Vought tech, no doubt.

You stood beside him, stiff as a board, trying not to breathe too loudly. The space felt too small, too quiet. His cape still dripped blood onto the polished floor and you considered how many times the building janitors had to clean up the aftermath of a Supe’s mental breakdown, no questions asked.

You didn’t look at him, and he didn’t look at you.

You didn’t ask where the blood came from, but your mind filled the silence for you. Did they scream? Was it fast, or did he make them remember everything they’d done? Were the same people even working there anymore—or did he go and massacre the lab’s new workers for the sins of its past?

You stared straight ahead and tried not to think about the people on the tape. You failed.

The floor numbers blinked upwards. Too fast. Too slow.

The doors opened with a soft chime.

You’d never been to the top floor before. You hadn’t even realized there was one above the executive suite.

His penthouse was exactly what you’d expect if someone told you it belonged to Homelander—but nothing like a real home. It was cold, cavernous. Bleached white and navy, everything trimmed in gold and red and an almost comical overabundance of flags. A giant eagle statue loomed over the sitting area like a hunting hawk.

To be honest, you were surprised there wasn’t the real, live thing up there.

It felt staged. Like a theme park version of a home, something you’d see at Vought-world.

He didn’t pause. Just walked past the glossy foyer like he was on autopilot.

You followed, hesitating at the door to the master bath.

“Can I…” you started, then stopped. What were you asking permission for?

He looked at you over his shoulder. And nodded.

You weren't sure what gave you the nerve to keep moving.

Maybe it was the blood. Maybe it was the silence.

Maybe it was that little boy’s scream, still echoing in your skull like a siren you couldn’t turn off.

You turned the water on first.

The sound filled the silence in the bathroom, steam already beginning to rise. Everything in here gleamed. The marble. The mirror. The massive walk-in shower with glass doors that stretched nearly to the ceiling.

You turned to him, gesturing to the suit but unsure how to tell him he needed to strip.

His gaze didn’t shift as you walked over to him and reached out to figure out how to get the layers of blood soaked fabric off of him. You hesitated before touching him, almost expecting some kind of electric shock when you made contact.

His cape hit the floor with a wet, heavy sound. Like a carcass.

You tried not to flinch.

The blood clung to the fabric, seeping into the grout. It would stain. You wondered if anything he touched didn’t.

He didn’t resist as you peeled the fabric away. You didn’t want to think about how close you were. Or how warm his skin was under the fabric. Or what he’d just done with those hands.

Up close, it was surreal. All that blood, and underneath—nothing. No wounds. No bruises. Not even a scratch or scar in sight.

You looked at his face.

He wasn’t looking at you. He wasn’t looking at anything.

You stepped into the shower with one foot as you fiddled with the dial. Stranger’s showers always felt so foreign to you, and this one was certainly no exception. You turned on the water and tested it with your finger to make sure it wasn’t too hot, too used to your own human sensitivities.

You stepped aside as he entered the glass enclosure, in the back of your mind unsure of how he could stand to be in something so eerily similar of the confines of the lab he grew up in.

The water hit his skin, streaming off him in waves and washing off the remainder of blood that wasn’t crusted to his skin.

You knew he was the furthest thing from fragile, but he didn’t seem like it, not in that moment.

You didn’t know if you were helping him or waiting to be hurt—

Maybe both.

You scrubbed his skin in slow circles, watching the pink water trail down his chest, over his arms. His eyes fluttered shut, just for a moment.

Not in pleasure. In something else. Something… quiet.

You didn’t speak. Neither did he.

He didn’t touch you, he didn’t stop you, either. Despite the intimacy of the moment, it felt sterile, something akin to cleaning your kitchen counter. You moved like a nurse prepping a patient for surgery.

By the time you reached his face, your sleeves were soaked through, your own clothes clinging to your skin.

You raised one hand to wipe the blood from beneath his eye and that’s when something… changed.

From anyone else you’d expect a more emotional response, especially after… well, you weren’t exactly sure what events had passed from the last time you saw Homelander, but given the sheer amount of blood on him, and those tapes-

Those tapes.

Well, whatever had happened it was certainly a traumatic event for someone.

There was no sobbing, no gasping. Just a kind of folding inward, like something inside him gave out. His knees hit the tile with a sickening thud. You didn’t expect the sound. You didn’t expect any sound at all. He folded in on himself like something brittle.

His head touched the soaked him of your shirt, and you went perfectly still, like a deer caught in headlights. His breath was warm through your shirt, unsteady, human.

That scared you more than anything.

His arms limp at his sides, he looked like a child.

You didn’t speak. Hesitant, you brought your hand to rest on top of his damp blond hair.

You just stood there, soaked to the bone, blood and water pooling around you both.

In that moment, he wasn’t the monster smiling on cereal boxes or the glowing-eyed god in the skies.

He was just a boy who never got out of that laboratory.

And you didn’t know how to save him. Or yourself.

—

It was quiet when you left.

No words passed between you—not even a glance. He didn’t tell you to go, and you didn’t ask if you could.

You weren’t sure how much time had passed. Twenty minutes. An hour. Maybe more. The water had stopped at some point. Your clothes had dried in patches. The hem of your shirt was still damp where he’d pressed his head.

You didn’t say goodbye. That felt like the wrong word for whatever this was.

The penthouse door clicked shut behind you.

The elevator was still waiting, as if it knew you’d need it.

You stepped inside, and this time the silence didn’t feel heavy—it felt hollow. Like everything had already been said without a single word spoken.

The blood was gone from your hands. You’d scrubbed them in the marble sink, but it felt like it was still there. Under your nails. In the creases of your knuckles. In your mouth, metallic and imagined.

The elevator dropped like a stone, smooth and fast.

You stared at your reflection in the mirrored walls. You looked like someone else. Someone who knew too much.

You didn’t remember walking through the lobby, or down the garage steps. Just the soft slam of your car door as it closed out the rest of the world.

You sat in the driver’s seat with the engine off, fingers slack on the wheel.

The silence was different here. Realer, maybe. Your own.

A strip of dried blood curved around your wrist like a bracelet. You wiped at it with the heel of your hand and it smeared.

You didn’t cry.

You didn’t feel anything yet. Just tired and empty.

There was a hum in your ears, like static. Like the tail end of a scream.

You let your head fall back against the seat and closed your eyes.

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