#juicebox

Maeve wanted to wipe that stupid grin off of his face. It was seriously making her mad.

“You’re dating her now.”

He had the nerve to chuckle and blush like a schoolboy: “Well, I haven’t asked her officially, but we did kiss.”

It was magical, it was better than the movies, her lips were so soft and she was so gentle and soft to him, like a cloud; he wouldn’t say that out loud, at least not to her. “... And she likes me.”

“Of course she likes you. She thinks you’re this poor, overworked superhero that has never done wrong.” Maeve rolled her eyes. “I don’t care about this. Don’t keep me updated.”

His expression changed to that sassy bitch face of his.

“Whatever suits your boat, Maeve.” He shrugged, acting like her words didn’t matter to him in any way, before stomping out of the room. Queen Maeve sighed and opened her purse, taking out a canteen bottle and drinking a long sip.

Hughie had been staring at people’s necks all day. Every person that passed next to him on the street received the same treatment: his eyes going all goggle mode and staring intensely at the visible veins on their necks, almost burning them into his retinas. For the first time in his life, he had realized how fragile humans could be. It’s like they were held together by thread, hopes and dreams. Much like most of the devices he used to sell at the electronics store. One wrong move, or one bad decision and—

He gulped, feeling incredibly evil at the fact that he had just imagined the little old lady in front of him exploding into a bloody mess of guts. Like Translucent.

Like Translucent.

God. He still felt the smell of metal in his skin, no matter how many showers he’d had already... And not metal as in electronics, metal as in blood. 

He swallowed again, shaking his head as if that helped get the bad thoughts away, but it only made him look slightly insane to the other passerbies. He tried his best to stop thinking about gore while the doors of the convenience store opened with a little ‘ding!’

As he entered, the warm air of the air conditioner slapped him on the face. The constant humming of the hot dog machine making the wieners rotate, combined with the sounds of the cash register and that weird sound that fluorescent lights always emit made him a little sick. Even though it was so painfully normal, the fact that it was so mundane made him feel physically ill. Like he didn’t belong there anymore. Because he had killed a person.

Although he technically didn’t see the murder happen, he could imagine Translucent’s eyes staring at him. Shaming him. For being a killer. Not even any killer— a supe killer.

Hughie didn’t notice the cashier greeting him. But it was okay, since she wasn’t interested in it either, too busy looking at her phone. He walked straight to the refrigerators and stared at the display, feeling his hand itching to grab something, anything. So he took out an energy drink, even though he wasn’t that keen on energy drinks at all. God. Everybody knew he wasn’t an energy drink guy, why did he grab that can if he didn’t even like how they tasted…? Anyone could see that he was so awkward at being a human being, but why? Did they realize he was a killer now? What if everyone around him could see the blood on him? What if he accidentally wore the blood stained clothes when he got out? What if—

“Oops.”

Hughie looked down, a string of apologies leaving his mouth without even realizing. He had almost stepped on someone’s foot.

“Gosh, I-I’m so sorry, geez, I wasn’t even looking—” His eyes took a second to focus, too nervous to even think properly. When he finally recognized the figure he had almost stepped on, he felt even more guilty. It was a small woman, holding a basket close to her chest. His eyes went to its contents: a can of coffee, a packaged sandwich, two cartons of milk… And right over those, a pair of eyes that looked right up at him. For some reason, he felt incredibly embarrassed when he saw her smile.

“It’s okay. That happens to me too, when I’m distracted.” She shrugged, and he nodded once. Twice. Thrice.

“Uh, yeah. Um, distracted.” As he rubbed his neck for some reason, she kneeled in front of him. Huh…?

Oh, she was picking up something she dropped. He quickly knelt too, helping her grab a few cartons of apple juice.

“Thank you. Those little boxes like to run away all the time. Slippery things.” She spoke a little funny. It made him more at ease. Like he could actually breathe properly now.

Jesus, he seriously needed to talk to normal human beings again. Butcher was not a normal human being and it was starting to take a toll on him. Hughie sighed and, as he stood up, put the energy drink back into the fridge, moving to the next refrigerator and taking out an orange juice. That was more like him.

He stared at the bottle, smiling to himself. He didn’t realize that she had been staring at him too, and smiling as well. In her mind, he seemed a bit distraught. And if she was honest, she had realized it as soon as her eyes had laid on him— at one point he looked on the verge of a panic attack. Poor guy. She turned on her heel and walked to the cashier, taking out the things from her basket and grabbing a chocolate bar.

“Hey, sorry if this is weird, but… Can you give this to the guy that’s over there, when he comes to pay for his things? The tall, nervous guy with the green jacket, yeah. Actually, you know what? You too can have one. Take this one, it’s on me. Yeah. Have a nice day too!”

She waved goodbye to the cashier, not noticing the magazine rack right over the entrance, where a smiling photograph of Homelander in a magazine cover had been staring directly at everything that had happened, the words “HUNKY HERO” in bold letters right over his blonde hair.

…

When Hughie came out of the convenience store, he felt completely different. Almost like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. He smiled, looking down at the chocolate bar in his hand, and wondered how he could repay the nice gesture.

“Maybe a chain of nice favors.” He said to himself, thinking about the possibilities. People can be as nice as they can be cruel, he thought.

At Vought Tower, Homelander was thinking very deeply as well. His eyes went back and forth, from the zinc covered box to the wall, to the Deep, who just had to be the bearer of bad news and brought the god forsaken box to him. He didn’t want to open it again. Not because it grossed him out— because of the message.

“COMING FOR YOU”

Right over Translucent’s remains. Homelander was completely used to seeing human remains, that part wasn’t bothersome. Also, he didn’t even like Translucent. He was annoying, he thought too highly of himself and he was a weird pervert (high words coming from the other weird pervert of the group). It was the fact that they were his teammate’s remains. And he, Homelander, was the leader of the team. So it was a direct attack. Those words, they were definitely directed to him… Were they not?

Just who the fuck had the balls to threaten him, the Homelander? The number one hero in the world? The strongest supe?

Anything the Deep at that moment said went into one of his ears and came out of the other, his mind too busy with potential outcomes.

Was this strictly personal? Or perhaps it was more so directed at Vought in general? And… How could someone be so ballsy to be so sure they could kill him? He couldn’t stop asking himself that. Even though he wasn’t sure if he could be killed, actually. It was both interesting and terrifying. But he wouldn’t let either of those emotions show in his face.

He knew the correct course of action would be taking this to Madelyn. But a big part of him (huge, actually) wanted to fly over to the small apartment in the outskirts of town and tell her everything that had happened. He felt sure enough that he could even confide in her all of his doubts and fears, and she would listen and comfort him.

“Is Stillwell here today?” He spoke over Deep, who was rambling about who the fuck cares.

“Uh— yes, she is, I think. I saw her this morning.”

Homelander sighed. He had to do the right thing, right? Even if he didn’t actually care about the transparent degenerate. The more he thought about it, the world was a little better without him. The possibility of that invisible sicko peeping on her was getting on his nerves, even though it was completely impossible now. Because he was a mangle of organs and blood.

“Oh, Jesus.”

Madelyn turned away right after seeing the contents of the box. Homelander took a deep breath and folded his arms, waiting for her to speak.

She didn't. She barely had the strength to side eye the box again, closing her eyes and sighing deeply.

“This is a direct attack on me.” He muttered, to which she stared at him like he had a frog head instead of a human one.

“Jesus.” She repeated, wondering how this man was so calm and even took the opportunity to make it about himself. Maybe he was right. Maybe this was a message for him. “We’re going to have to make this public at some point.”

“Make Ashley say that he’s on vacation or some shit like that.”

Stillwell sighed. “Some shit like that.” She repeated in a low voice.

The Homelander raised his eyebrows: “Excuse me?” He was visibly annoyed. Stillwell felt her entire body turning still, not used to this treatment from him.

“I’ll have the marketing team think up a few ideas of how to write up… this.” She scurried away, not before taking one last look at the box and its bloody contents.

After that, it took about five minutes for Homelander to be right outside her house. On her balcony, to be exact. He slid the door, not before knocking over the glass gently, too gently, as he had been pleaded to by her (because she was starting to lose hair at the fact that The Homelander was appearing inside of her house way too often, without any notice).

“Come on in!” Just hearing her voice made his eyes feel watery, but he wouldn’t know the exact reason why. The moment his eyes met with hers, she knew. She always knew: “Oh dear, something happened to you.”

Nothing else. No “what happened?”, not even “are you crying?”. She never pried. She just tapped the space next to her on the couch, waiting for him to sit, and found herself quite surprised as the Homelander laid his entire body next to her, like some sort of oversized dog. He rested his head on her lap without even asking, and put her hand on top of his hair. She understood the signal and ran her fingers through his blond locks. Slowly. Gently. As she always did.

His voice came out as a whisper: “One of my teammates died.” He did not go much further than that— he felt like she didn’t deserve to know the gory details; the box, the message, the feeling of being threatened that lingered in his head.

“God…” She muttered, never stopping her soft caressing. He closed his eyes, a few stray tears damping her pajama pants. She didn’t care.

The more time he spent in that position, the more he realized he didn’t really care at all about Translucent. At one point he even felt a bit annoyed at the fact that there was going to be a huge commotion about him, just because he fucking died, but those feelings quickly disappeared when he heard his beloved teacher speaking with that teacher voice that seemed to calm him down every single time:

“Losing a coworker must be so traumatic. I can’t even imagine how you must feel, John… I’m so sorry.” She sounded genuinely sad.

And, still resting his head on her lap, he smiled. Because she was sad for him.

He would’ve spent more time there, but a goddamn call from the goddamn Deep had to force him to fly back to the Vought tower, not before giving miss teacher a nice kiss on the cheek (he felt a little shy to give her a kiss on the lips, for some reason). He didn’t realize he had flown right over the man responsible for Translucent’s murder, who was gingerly walking back to his house.

Both of these men were thinking about the exact same woman. 

One of them didn’t even know her name. The other one was physically incapable of not thinking about her, every second of the day. 

One of them had just killed a man. The other had to experience the consequences of said murder.

Neither knew that, soon, the paths they’re taking would bring them to each other.

Hewwo owo uwu iwi

if you saw my reply to one of the asks, maybe you noticed the next chapters' title >_>

here's a little sneak peek. well, when i said "i can fix him" i really meant it. im trying my best to actually give this story a happy ending... which means im seriously trying to make homelander have something at least close to a happy relationship with the MC. maybe it'll change in the future though. it depends on how things go down the fanfic road.

i thought that, if there were a bad end, it could go right after chapter 9: and that's exactly what i did!! so yeah, i plan on continuing the fic with homie trying to learn how to be good for the MC, but there will also be a conclusive bad ending where he just goes all yandere and shit. you can read both or just choose whichever makes more sense to you personally. i hope this decision doesn't suck!!

i promise i will try my best to continue writing homelander's development in a logical way. it'll probably be very flawed but it'll be worth it to see him genuinely trying to better himself! i just love his character so much... i know he's an absolute shit but i want to let him be happy, at least for a while...

also if you're wondering how the hell can someone get so soft about a literal war criminal / serial abuser: i don't really understand it either but like a month ago i had this dream where he was in love with me and he was so pathetic and lame and desperate and needy and i woke up being in love with him. yes this has happened to me before. no i don't know why. yeah i know it's bad. no i don't plan on stopping bc i can literally just write whatever i want. this is fandom, people stan problematic assholes!! so yeah