#ireasks

But you didn't scream. You sat in your chair trying to breathe and started making calls. The first ones to friends and family because you DID need to calm the fuck down. Because you knew you'd be spending a sleepless night and would need someone to talk you through it. The next ones were to Vought officials, because by hour 35 you've gone beyond keeping calm to cold certainty that this isn't really the routinary scenario they've tried to feed you. You kept your cool. Years of customer service have taught you people respond better to weary, continuous insistence than to angry outbursts

It makes no difference.

So, by hour 40 you've dragged yourself to John's condo in Vought Tower. You've been talking for four hours straight and you've been awake for the better part of two days. You broke down in front of Ashley and she, half-terrified, half-pityingly suggested you come up here. She'd personally keep you informed, she assured you.

You stare at the cold, empty rooms. HIS cold empty, rooms. Not a single ounce of his personality in them. Not a single personal object to remember him by if... if this is it...

You storm into his bedroom, furiously rifling through his toiletries, his clothes, thinking of the many conversations you've had with him about privacy, not giving a damn about your own hypocrisy here. All his personal things, the books you've given him, civilian clothes he's bought at your request, the brush he uses when he's not being professionally styled... they're all at your place.

There's a couple of dirty super suits in his laundry hamper and you get it now. You get his Proustian obsession with scent, you get how one stoops to this, desperate measures and everything. You don't dare think you'll be able to tell him when you see him again. You give his bed a wide berth, because that you've shared, not a week ago. If you have to lay down on the bed you fucked in you'll start screaming and never stop.

Homelander suspects they've let him go because he looks PISSED. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't even have let them near him. He was long past the days when he would tolerate nervous people in lab coats prodding at him anxiously. He especially did not wish to tolerate them now, jittery and ready as he was to just go, get out of here, get to you and make sure you were alright. He was fine of course, of course. Nothing to worry about. These little medical cocksuckers should have taken the fucking hint on the first round of tests, but they had said contamination risk and he had, gritting his teeth, allowed them to do whatever needed to be done to keep you safe.

By the time he's done with the shower and tests and a fresh change of suit he's already worked himself up into fury. He is deeply considering who among the medical team is disposable and would have gone through with it for sheer stress relief if Ashley had not chosen that instant to break into the medical bay. Now THIS he couldn't be expected to put up with.

"No, no, no," he cuts her off, pointing at her warningly. "Whatever it is, it can wait. I've got, whatsit called, paid leave after an incident. It's company policy. Stop. No. I don't fucking care. Deal with it without me."

He takes off before he can hear Ashley's protests, already heading to your apartment. He knows he'll get some peace and quiet there at least. And he's positively itching to see you after your time apart. Who could have told him he'd become such a sentimental fool over you? He chuckles to himself and stays the course. All he needs is a hot meal, a good fuck and two or ten hours in your arms and he'd be good as new. You'd even be proud of him. First paid leave he'd ever demanded.

But you aren't home when he gets there. The place in disarray, the phone ringing, a cold cup of coffee and the faint stench of your fear around it. He's unprepared by how much this wounds him, like the bottom's dropped out from under him and he's been set adrift. He'd felt like that the first time he had flown, with how little control he'd had over it.

He stops himself dead, refusing to be this pathetic, and reaches for the old familiar anger. Ever ready for him to pick up and hammer you with it as soon as you deign to show yourself. He tells himself it is this, and a liberal dose of SPITE, that makes him leave (flee) this place before you make it back (not the hurt at your absence, the fear). A place, that for all its lack of luxuries, feels more like home than his fucking tomb of a condo ever did.

He's not crying when he makes it to Vought Tower. His eyes are defiantly dry. His hands hurt from being clenched so tightly (Homelander is routinely the only thing that can hurt Homelander). Oh you will hear him as soon as you show your face, oh little lady you've earned yourself a fucking problem, he thinks to himself furiously. (He refuses to glance at the mirror on his way in, refuses to even consider whatever he would propose he do about you.) He's more than enough to put you in your place, more than enough to make sure you never forget what you OWE him.

Your heartbeat hits him first.

Then the salty aftertaste of your tears.

He turns around, bewildered for a second, and is met with the sight of you, his dirty cape wrapped around yourself like it could protect you from the world (John knows, oh he KNOWS what that looks like). He freezes for a moment, mouth dry, the pit of his stomach clenching in some unknown but powerful emotion. He drinks in all the details (drinks them up like a man dying of thirst, consumes them before he can even react). Your little, white-knuckled hands clenched around the fabric. Your eyes, screwed shut as if sleep is a monumental task requiring all your effort. God knows how long you've been here, asleep, FINALLY asleep. He knows because of the coffee and the dark circles under your eyes, peaking from behind his cape, he knows from the sharp smell of your cortisol, pumping steadily through your sweet veins to signal stress, sleep deprivation, worry...

For him.

He feels himself smiling, the edges of his mouth tugging against the exhaustion (and fear, fear he will never admit to) of the last couple of days. He wants to watch you like this forever, wants to savor your anguish, your LOVE for him, so clearly delineated by the bittersweet taste of your despair.

But he also just wants you.

He gives you no warning, just gathers you up in his arms, and chuckles cruelly at the scream of fright you give out. He's kissing you with no time for explanations, licking the tears off your face, as you protest, as you cry again, relief coursing through you like a drug. You try to hold unto the cape slipping from your shoulders as he carries you with one hand under your ass while using the other to stop you.

"That's enough, little lady," he says through that too-wide smile full of sharp teeth you love so much. "You don't need that anymore, you've got the real deal. And the real deal is going to teach you not to worry your silly little head over me. Nothing can hurt me, remember?"

Nothing.

Granted... maybe he had switched positions too often, unable to get that good angle that just made his mind go blank. Maybe he'd ignored a couple of anxious questions about how he was feeling (but was it really his fault when your sweet, anxious voice made him so fucking hard?) ... Maybe he'd asked you to moan filth in his ear one too many times without being able to get you to say exactly what he'd needed to make that tight, broiling knot in his chest go away...

You were usually so good at that. You usually liked it.

I'm not your fucking stress ball, you had hissed angrily, smelling so much of arousal that it made him dizzy. Did you really need to get into it right now? Did you always need to be making mountains out of fucking molehills with him? Besides, you didn't have to get pissy AT HIM, because you'd had a bad day. He knew he'd fucked up the moment the words left his mouth.

You were angry cleaning now. Unpacking and dusting the seemingly endless boxes of books you'd moved into his condo. They'd filled him with a thrill of delight at first: your things in his home. He'd fucked you against the bookshelf he'd bought specially for all those little pieces of yourself you had surrendered to him. But now he just resented the excuse they gave you. The little fortress of private time (away from him) they represented. He hovered outside it, irritably clicking his tongue against his teeth, knowing he might need to apologize, dreading it anyway.

But you rescued him, as you so often did, and he near smiled at the thought.

"You can come help me, if you want."

He did want to, very much, and did not even try to cover his schoolboy eagerness when you handed him a dust rag and a pile of books. He'd asked you often why you didn't just have one of the various assistants always running around Vought do this... but now he thought he understood. There was something about the resinous smell of the new bookshelf, the prickly aroma of old books and the soothing murmur of your voice telling him this one goes here, hand me that other one, that seemed to unclench something inside him. He still felt bone-deep exhaustion, but he no longer wanted to break shit about it.

"You can just tell me when you've had a bad day, you know?"

He didn't let his hands stop, but rather scoffed and looked away, trying to forestall the inevitable. Predictably, you did not let him.

"Oh for crying out loud! Give me that!" You said, a part of you still smarting from the stupid fight, exasperation cut short the moment you reached for the book he held and your hands touched. He couldn't help it, couldn't stop being pathetic for you for a second. Apologies might be buried deep and hard to come by, but this was easier. It was infinitely easier to grab your hands and maneuver himself into your arms. Because you had never denied him this. He didn't know what he would do if you ever did.

He soaked in the warmth of your breasts, the steady beating of your heart, packed it away, secured it against the day it'd all be finally gone. When he felt your hands bury themselves in his hair he almost sobbed in relief. He did hold you closer, squeezed as hard as he dared, mindful always of your fragility, let himself draw in a ragged breath at the scrape of your nails against the back of his neck, pulling apart the strands of his hair along with the strands of himself. If he could have buried his face in your ribcage, crawled inside, he would have.

"I'm sorry," he whispered furtively against your neck. Your sharp intake of breath he hoarded as well, along with the weight of your lips on his hair, your sweet fingers touching his jaw so feather-light that they made him groan.