#maevlander

"I hope you're proud of yourselves."

Butcher and Maeve freeze, both recognizing the voice all too well, before having turned towards the door leading out to the hallway.

"The Flatiron. How romantic," Homelander says, strolling into the room, hands behind his back, cape billowing behind him as he surveys the tall ceiling, eyes running over the dimly lit space before focusing in on the pair in front of him. "Didn't expect you to put up so many pictures of me, William."

Butcher chuckles. He's pretty drunk, and even the cunt's abrupt entrance isn't sobering him up, so he doesn't have a retort at the ready. "Eyes on the prize, I guess." 

Maeve is still propped up against M.M.'s desk, still in Butcher's arms, still seated on Butcher's cock, her breathing growing completely erratic. "Come on now, don't go kegeling my cock off," he mutters to her and perhaps ill-advisedly turns away from Homelander and resumes what his body wants to keep doing– slamming his hips up and forward.

"Oh, I'm sorry, am I interrupting?" Homelander asks in a stupidly theatrical tone, with a stupidly theatrical gesture of hand on chest.

"Yeah, mate. Join in if you're lonely or fuck off."

Homelander clicks his tongue, and Butcher feels himself suddenly pulled back and lifted off his feet. He's so drunk it takes him a second to realize that Homelander is holding him up off the floor by the collar of his duster. Butcher tried to kick backwards, futile as that would be, but Homelander tosses him over his shoulder with no effort, no strain, as if Butcher's made of fucking styrofoam. He lands on the floor, groaning at the sensation, wondering if landing like that would hurt a lot more if he wasn't drunk. He gets back on his feet shakily, swaying a bit. He's been in a bar brawl or twenty over the course of his life. Muscle memory makes him want to lunge and grab the supe and slam his face into the edge of one of these desks over and over until there's nothing recognizable through the bloody pulp. It's an impossible fantasy, as usual.

Homelander certainly doesn't register him as any sort of threat, isn't paying the slightest attention to him. He turns to Maeve, stepping closer until he's in between her thighs where Butcher had been, brushing her hair back from her face. 

She tries to scoot back across the desk's surface to put distance between them, but Homelander grabs her by the legs, pulling her back.

"Let go," she says wearily, batting his hands away when he keeps trying to touch her face, but Homelander doesn't relent, pulls her in even closer, then runs a finger along her exposed pussy. "Take your filthy gloves off at least, if you're gonna assault me."

Homelander rolls his eyes. "Assault? Such words. I'm not the one who's cheating."

"I'm not your girlfriend," Maeve growls at him.

"I’m well aware, Maeve." Homelander asks in a saccharin tone. "No, I mean that poor long-suffering lesbian love of your life Elena. Or did you switch teams yet again?"

Maeve shakes her head, looking at him incredulously. "I'm bisexual. Get it through your fucking skull." 

"Tsk, Maeve. Bisexual doesn't mean you need one of each, you know. Maybe I should go find Elena, helpfully let her know that her partner is having a secret tryst with a handsome dark stranger. Or maybe…" Homelander is beaming exactly the same way he does on television when the occasion calls for it, and it almost looks friendly. "Maybe I should just put her out of her misery. That way you don’t have to sneak around behind her back."

Butcher could probably take advantage of Homelander's distraction and leave out the back, but that's just about the last thing he wants to do, so he shambles forward toward the two of them. "Look, cunt. She don't want you. You’re really overstaying your welcome. Take a hint and kindly fuck off."

"This your type? Reeking of smoke and depression?" Homelander asks Maeve as he points Butcher out with his thumb, and she says nothing. Homelander chuckles but there's a note of annoyance in his tone when he turns back to Butcher.  "You think she enjoys what you've got to give her? 'Cause I'll tell you, Maeve and I… we go way back, and she's a total freak in the sheets. She'd crush you in two if she ever did the things that we got up to together. You wanna show him–"

But Maeve takes advantage of his distraction and just manages to slip out of his grasp and makes her way across the room towards the couch. "You know one thing he can do that you can't?" she says, at this point probably just hoping to buy time. "Get fucking drunk and be fun." She grabs the Smirnoff off the table and takes a long swig as if to punctuate her words.

Homelander frowns. "Don't you think you've had enough?"

"No, I'm way too sober for all your bullshit," she spits back at him. 

Butcher wonders if it's a stupid plan he's formed in his mind, but he wants to try it anyway. He tries to walk back to one of the desks, stumbling as he goes.

"A fine pair you two make," Homelander says, turning back briefly to look at Butcher before turning back to Maeve. "I'd kill the two of you, but it's a little too pathetic."

Butcher gets a bottle of Jim Beam out of the desk drawer. It's a very specific bottle he marked with a dot on the cap, and he hopes he's getting it right because his vision is swimming a little bit.

"If you're gonna stay and palaver so much, you're gonna drink," he says, pushing the bottle into Homelander's chest as he walks past him before also collapsing down on the couch.

"Whiskey?" Homelander wrinkles his nose. "You do realize this isn't going to do anything for me, right?"

Butcher shrugs. "Just loosen the fuck up and drink some. Live a little. You're not on the clock."

"There is no clock. I work 24-7 because some of my teammates don’t pull their weight," Homelander responds, nodding his chin at Maeve who has finished the bottle and is just sitting with a thousand yard stare pointed at the wooden floorboards.

"Does something bad happen to him when he drinks or something?" Butcher asks Maeve, chuckling, pointing to Homelander with his thumb.

"Nothing happens to me when I drink. You think I can withstand any poison and some ethanol's going to affect me?"

"Ethanol." Butcher cracks up and he knows he's cracking up way too easily, but it seems to be getting on the cunt's nerves at least.

Maeve perks up out of her despondent stare. "Then why're you so reluctant to try it if it doesn't affect you? I've never seen you drink. For all I know you can't handle it. Maybe we would have stayed a couple if you were normal about drinking."

"I was nothing but normal about your drinking!" Homelander suddenly raises his voice. "Did I ever tell you to stop? I should have. You have a real problem, you know."

"Oh I know," she says. "Maybe I wouldn't have needed to drink so much if I could stand being around you," she adds quietly, but of course Homelander can hear it loud and clear.

"And you think you're such a joy to be around? I tried to ignore it. I was so embarrassed for you. But I thought if I can't get drunk, maybe I can't judge you for wanting to get drunk. But I should have gotten you to stop. You'd be a functional member of the Seven instead of a washed up has-been. Maybe we'd still be together."

"You're a fucking buzzkill, mate," Butcher grumbles. "So many words and you still haven't taken a sip."

"Drink it," Maeve demands. "Drink it or I will."

Homelander laughs incredulously, holding the bottle closer to his chest as if to prove he'd never let her.

Maeve is undeterred. "If you don't want me drinking, and you say it doesn't affect you, then fucking drink it."

"He ain't gonna do it," Butcher says, nudging Maeve's ribs.

"Because he's a fucking coward," Maeve says, staring squarely at Homelander. "It's not on-brand for the boyscout persona."

"I don't care about the fucking brand," Homelander says, stepping forward so he's really standing over them, and rationally it's a troubling situation, but Butcher's got just enough liquid courage and dumbed down sense of humor to bring his hand up between his eyes and Homelander's crotch. 

"Put some shorts over that wetsuit or something, boyscout. I'm surprised the networks let you on daytime television in that getup."

Homelander rolls his eyes.

Maeve laughs. "He's scared of the taste. Butcher, you have any mixers to water it down for him?

"Maybe I'll just give him ginger ale. Can he get that down, ya think?"

"You're both so juvenile." Homelander twists the cap off and takes a huge swig. He grimaces as he gulps down what's in his mouth.

Butcher laughs. "Looks like you're affected to me, cunt. Looks like 'baby's first bourbon'."

"I said I was resistant to poison, not to things tasting vile. Sorry I don't enjoy pouring garbage down my throat."

"Yeah, yeah…" Butcher waves at him dismissively. "Never been drunk my arse. You need to drink more than a finger to get drunk, ya know."

"I don't. get. drunk, William. Why is this so hard for you to imagine?" Homelander says, and then clearly trying to prove it, downs the entire of the bottle, throat working up and down, before wiping his mouth, setting the bottle on the table and crossing his arms, looking at the two of them on the couch as if he's accomplished something. "Don't feel a thing," he adds, both annoyed and triumphant.

Butcher's laughing, shaking his head. "Holy fuck mate. Didn't think you'd finish it. You'd better hope it doesn't affect you."

"It doesn't," Homelander says curtly. "Satisfied, Maeve?"

"Kind of, actually," she says.

"You downed that like a pro. You want some more?" Butcher asks.

"No thank you," Homelander mutters. "Not sure why you need to keep so much alcohol around anyway…"

"And you're still not drunk, and still just as much of a drag," Maeve mumbles.

"Not really my choice, Maeve," Homelander says, and Butcher almost feels sorry for him when he notices the tone, because for a moment it really does sound like Homelander wishes he could get drunk in solidarity. 

Butcher's still looking for signs– any signs of incapacitation. Is it possible that nothing pharmaceutical affects this supe cunt in the slightest?

"You want me to take you home…?" Homelander asks Maeve. He just doesn't give up, Butcher realizes. By hook or by crook, he's trying to get into her pants tonight. Butcher doesn’t know how long he watched them go at it before barging in, so maybe he's still all worked up.

"Home? You mean Vought Tower?" she asks dismissively.

"Yes, Vought Tower. Where else do you call home?"

"Anywhere else, probably?"

Homelander shakes his head, then stops, eyes swiveling around. Butcher recognizes it when he sees it. Someone realizing they're more drunk than they thought.

"Fine, I'll just…" he keeps trailing off. "I'll just sit here until you're ready to go home then…" his words are strange and slightly slurred, and he doesn't seem to be able to finish his sentence, shuffles over to the end of the couch, lands on it clumsily, not even bothering to pull the cape out of the way. "What the fuck did you…"

Maeve bolts to her feet. "What's wrong with him?" she asks, more wary than relieved. "What was in that bottle?"

"Bourbon," Butcher says, shrugging nonchalantly. 

Maeve stares at him incredulously.

"Alright, and about 5 grams of carfentanyl but who's counting."

"What is– Is that like an opioid? How did you know it would have an effect on him?"

"Didn't," Butcher replies.

"Ugh," Homelander moans and lays his head back so he's staring at the ceiling.

"Is he gonna like… OD?" Maeve asks, staring back at him.

"How the hell should I know! He downed enough to kill thousands of people, but I don't know how that scales for you lot."

"And why the fuck do you keep that in your desk drawer?"

"For just such an occasion," Butcher says. "What do you want me to say. For a rainy day when I gotta knock someone out cold."

"Remind me to never help myself to anything in your house," Maeve says, approaching Homelander.

"You g..uys are… gonnnna… pay," Homelander slurs when they enter his field of view, peering down at him cautiously.

"High as a kite." Maeve comments to Butcher. "So? Now's your chance. Did you have an actual plan?"

"Not particularly," Butcher says to her, but he realizes she's right. The time to act is now, because who knows how long this will last. If only Butcher could sober up before that happened. "Didn't really think I'd get this far…"

"Great. So we'll just sit and watch him shit his pants when he can't navigate opening his fly and hope he dies of embarrassment? That the plan?"

"Maeve… I swear… I'll burn your entiiiire hick hometown … to the ground.."

Butcher laughs. "Whoa, a mean drunk."

"Nnnot… drunkkk…" Homelander slurs under his breath.

"Just mean then."

Maeve straddles Homelander and grabs a fistful of his hair to bring his head up. His body moves like a limp noodle at this point. "Hey, I didn't poison you. The more you threaten me, the more reason you give me to kill you tonight," she says. 

Butcher really doesn't have a coherent idea, and the alcohol in his system hasn't worn off yet, so he rummages through the weapons cache and ends up still choosing his trusted favorite.

"A crowbar?" Maeve grimaces when she sees it. "Are you high too?"

"Just gotta satisfy a lifelong dream," Butcher mutters, and just when Homelander turns his head to look at him, uses all his strength to smash it against his face. Nothing happens to Homelander's face of course, and pain radiates all the way up Butcher's arms, as if the bones in his body are reverberating with the loud clang the metal made as it met something much harder than iron.

Maeve sighs, grabs the crowbar out of Butcher's hand and smashes it along the side of Homelander's head with much more force than he could muster. This time the crowbar shatters, the broken off bit launching through the air, the other half still in her hand.

"Owww," Homelander grumbles, a couple of seconds late. "Maaaeve… whattt the fuckkk…"

"Yeah, what gives Maeve?" Butcher echoes the question. "I was thinking at least I could try rearranging his guts with it or something."

Maeve smiles. "Given what I know about him, he might enjoy it."

"Maeeeve…" Homelander says her name, probably trying to go for a menacing warning tone, but he's still slurring so it sounds more like a plea.

"Oh I thought you wanted me to tell Butcher what we got up to in bed, didn't you? Well some of my favorite memories of you are spread out under me, whining but taking every size and shape dildo that I could find on Vought marketplace."

Butcher snickers, feeling like he's in primary school, but it's pretty funny when he's still tipsy.

Maeve gets up from her perch on top of Homelander and goes to rummage in the crate of weapons herself. "No, none of this, none of this is gonna do anything to him."

"I can still try," Butcher grabs the bulky M134 like a chain saw and unloads several gatling-rapid rounds into Homelander's body at point blank range. Of course the cartridges just bounce off his body at nearly the same speed. 

"Convinced now?" Maeve asks, one of the cartridges that bounced off and hit her now in the palm of her hand. "You're gonna kill yourself or get the police summoned before you kill him. Hey! Watch it!"

Butcher doesn't manage to get out of the way, but does shield his head with his arm. Which would have been entirely useless if Homelander's lasers were anywhere near their usual full power. As it is, they singe his coat, and Butcher feels a smarting pain in his forearm from the slight burn before the lasers flicker out again. He starts laughing in both relief and disbelief at how close of a call it was.

"Maybe stay away from him if you're still drunk and can't pay attention," Maeve tosses his way, still looking through the weapons case, but looking unimpressed.

Butcher walks back behind the couch to be out of Homelander's field of view. "Just didn't think he had it in him… his pupils look so fucked up, and I just assumed if he can't walk he can't possibly laser.."

"Don't underestimate him. Maybe he's coming out of it already."

Butcher's adrenaline-fueled grin fades. He's wasting time, certainly. Maeve brought him a whole handful of Temp V vials. What better time is he saving them for?

He undoes his belt, tightens it around his upper arm, and waits for the vein to bulge.

"What... is that?" Homelander mumbles.

"What's what," Maeve asks him irritably. She's moved on to looking around the room for less conventional weapons that might be more effective against someone Homelander.

"I donn't know… like V… but ranncid…" he mumbles, wrinkling his nose. He attempts to turn his head toward where Butcher situated himself to take the injection. At least he still seems incapable of getting his body to move in any coordinated fashion.

Creepy bloodhound, Butcher thinks as he taps the air bubbles out of the syringe he's already filled with the green compound. He injects and tries not to gasp. The Temp V doesn't feel any better than the first time he tried it, but at least he's prepared for the sensation of fire traveling up and down his entire circulatory system.

He blinks, feels the heat building behind his eyes, and finally approaches Homelander.

Homelander is managing to hold his head up, but just barely, neck swaying a bit. "Can we j-just… just talk for a… second?"

He sounds less out of it and delayed than he did a few minutes ago, so they have to act and act swiftly. Butcher hits him with the yellow laser with as much violence as he can muster. Butcher doesn't really know how he controls the heat, or if he controls it, for that matter– but it seems like the more vitriol he feels, the hotter it emanates.

"That's your power?!" Maeve sounds incredulous, and for the first time less irritated and more concerned. "Jesus."

Homelander's eyes widen, and they look that much more eerie when his pupils are constricted to pinpricks. For a second Butcher thinks Homelander's body has actually caught on fire, but then he realizes it's just the suit burning all around it. The lasers are extremely hot, so it's not a matter of strength– the couch cushions go up in flames although Butcher never aimed at them. He's definitely going to need to replace the couch– if these headquarters survive the night at all.

"What… did you do?" Homelander asks, and his tone is confused, disturbed, but still far too nonchalant for Butcher's tastes. The fact that Homelander can sit in a pyre of burning upholstery and carry on a conversation is pretty disheartening.

"You wanna burn the whole place down?" Maeve asks. "It's not going to do anything to him. Put it out."

Butcher relents and gets the fire extinguisher, spraying the foam around the couch and the floor which had started to blacken but not burn yet. Good to know this old building has faulty smoke detectors. 

Homelander is staring at him, and Butcher stares back. Homelander's suit is almost completely burned off and Butcher has never seen this much of the supe's skin. 

"You didn't answer me," Homelander intones, but now he's managing to enunciate when he tries.

"About what."

"What…" Homelander licks his lips, trying to gather himself "What did you do to yourself?" Homelander repeats.

"Take a wild guess."

Homelander's eyebrows pinch and move upward distrustfully, and that's the most focused expression he's managed since slumping down on the couch.

Butcher grabs one of the plates off the weight rack that MM set up in the corner of the big space, but he already knows it won't do much damage– it feels far too light in his grip. He slams it over the top of Homelander's head anyway, and at least he gets a quiet unhappy moan.

"William… it's not gonna…" Homelander mumbles. "I'll forgive you if you just… stop all this."

Butcher tries going back to the old tried and true and just punching the supe hard in the face, but Homelander partially blocks and diverts his fist by bringing his arm up to his face– a move he didn't seem capable of making earlier. Homelander still winces when Butcher's fist collides with his nose, which means he's hurting, but Butcher's not sure how much more damage he'd have to do before coming anywhere close to life threatening.

Butcher tries anyway, and starts choking Homelander with both hands.

Homelander's eyes bug out a bit, and it does look like real fear, so at least Butcher gets that satisfaction. "Let's just…" Homelander's fingers scrabble at Butcher's hands, but he's still weak and uncoordinated and can't do much at all. "Let's be reasonable here…Maeve… if you don't stop him from hurting me, I'll… I'll come after Elena and everyone you love."

Maeve rolls her eyes but sighs and shrugs. "Fine. Deal." She motions Butcher away. "You heard him. Fun time's over."

"You actually believe him?" Butcher asks.

"I don't have a choice but to believe him," Maeve mutters, unhappily.

"Well I don't," Butcher says and renews the effort he's putting into his grip.

"Doesn't matter," Maeve says, and grabs his arms, managing to pry them back. She might be stronger than Butcher, even when he's on Temp V. "We're not gonna kill him at this rate. So I gotta play the game his way."

Homelander's mouth thins out into a wide smile and then spreads open into an ugly grin once he sees that he's finally managed to convince her. It's so smug Butcher is completely reinspired to find loopholes in their agreement.

"Fine," Butcher says, but goes over to the weight rack again, this time pulling out the bar for the barbells. MM was going to kill him for all the property damage, but at this point Butcher couldn't make himself care.

"I told you… don't let him…" Homelander mutters to Maeve when he sees Butcher approaching him, tapping the bar against his other hand.

"You said she's gotta stop me from hurtin' you, and I ain't about to hurt you." Butcher bends the bar easily with the super strength coursing through him, and twists and wraps it around Homelander's torso such that his arms are locked with elbows bent in front of him, Homelander making only the feeblest attempts to avoid getting his hands trapped like this.

"The fuck are you doing…" Homelander asks, and his tone is almost pleading, groggy and tired, as Butcher seats himself in his lap, pulls out a Sharpie he's had in his coat pocket. "... Maeve…"

"I'm not hurting you, you bloody crybaby. Now hold still." Butcher can feel his lips press together in concentration as he starts to annotate Homelander's face with variations on CUNT, SLUT, MURDERER, and COCKS GO HERE →

"Maeve…" Homelander whines but she ignores him.

"Are you still drunk or is your handwriting always that bad?" she asks, looking over Butcher's shoulder.

"Both can be true," Butcher replies.

"Just stop… what are you writing…" Homelander whines again, his wrists weakly struggling against his metal bonds. It's something Butcher assumes would be trivial for the cunt to break out of in his sober state, so he considers it an early warning system for his strength returning.

"It's less writing and more just drawing dicks in random places," Maeve says. "Don't worry, he sucks at it. Some of these barely even look like dicks."

Homelander tries to laser Butcher again, but now that he's V'ed up it's even less effective.

"Behave yourself," Butcher says, taking the briefest of pauses in his graffiti art to grab Homelander's jaw and tilt his face upward. Homelander closes his eyes quickly when Butcher's Sharpie descends towards them.

Maeve snorts. "He's gonna kill you."

"Everyone can use a little eyeliner. Look how fetching he looks with 'em little outlines!" 

"You're both out of your minds…" Homelander mumbles unhappily once Butcher finally pulls away. "Are you still drunk?"

"Can't speak for her, but I am," Butcher grins.

"I'm topping up," Maeve grabs a bottle of vodka and waves it around at Butcher. "This one safe? No supe roofies in this one I hope?"

Butcher shakes his head and she comes over and situates herself on the less burned part of the couch, and takes sips straight out of the bottle until Butcher asks her to share. It's probably not a good idea to get more drunk at this point, but it feels more fun and takes the edge off the disappointment of getting Homelander right where he wants him and still being unable to do anything more than punch him and scribble on his skin.

Butcher's run out of real estate to mark up on Homelander's face, so he looks further down, where a lot of the suit has been burned away, only scraps of sleeves and pant legs remaining. "You ever seen him out of the suit like this? New one for me."

Maeve shrugs. "Yeah, from time to time. He liked to keep the top on during sex but I'd see him take it off before going to bed when I let him stay over."

Homelander swivels his head to face away from both of them, but Butcher pulls him back by the chin.

"Maeve I swear…" he says, his voice strangely trembly.

"Shut up. No one's hurting you," she says, rolling her eyes.

"Beg to diff–" Homelander doesn't manage to finish his sentence before Maeve's moved in and locked lips with him. He gasps, makes to move away, except there's not much room to move anywhere.

Butcher moves off of Homelander's lap to the other side to give her space, and she does move in closer, sticking her knee between Homelander's thighs. She knows exactly what she's doing, moving her leg forward until it's grinding right up against Homelander's cock. She's got the height advantage over him when she's standing on her knees and he's seated, and he has to tip his head back as her tongue keeps exploring deeper. Butcher feels a hint of jealousy sprouting up in his chest, but he sits back and watches.

Maeve finally pulls away and takes another sip. "You don't think I can get the… whatever's in his system secondhand, right?"

"Depends on how deep you plan to plumb his mouth," Butcher says, realizing his tone sounds peeved only after he says it.

Maeve smirks and leans over towards him, and locks lips with him, her hand tracing his jawline.

Butcher can taste the vodka in her mouth, and fights back with his tongue when he feels her being pushy, and it's one of the best feelings– wrestling for control with someone strong. He almost forgets where they are and whose face they're making out in front of until he hears "You two definitely suit each other." muttered right near his ear, just as narked as he sounded moments ago.

Without missing a beat, Maeve takes her hand off Butcher's face and plasters her palm over Homelander's mouth as a way of shutting him up, but they don't go on for much longer.

"Ow!" she yells, pulling her hand away as if it's been burned and slaps Homelander across the cheek. But he must have nipped her lightly because she goes right back to kissing Butcher and doesn't protest when Homelander leans his face in and tries to get in on the action.

It's awkward navigating three mouths in one make out session. Homelander clearly tries to push himself toward Maeve, tries to monopolize her, but Butcher's having none of it, and the most effective way of blocking Homelander out is going on the offensive and monopolizing his mouth. It's different from Maeve's soft fleshy lips and the warm, vodka-burn in her mouth. Homelander's lips are tougher, not chapped, but dry and leathery compared to hers, and the inside of his mouth is strange, cold, almost tingly, and Butcher starts wondering if Maeve was right to ask if there's any way to get secondhand exposure to the drug still apparently coursing through him.

"So is that it?" Maeve asks when Butcher finally pulls apart from Homelander, realizing Maeve's mouth hasn't been in the picture for a while.

"What?" Butcher asks.

"Is that the end of the show? Because I liked it. And so did he, apparently." Her eyes dart downward toward the knee she has wedged in Homelander's crotch, his cock longer and stiffer than when Butcher last glanced at it.

He stares up at Homelander's face, cheeks flushed, breathing heavily, staring back at him. Cunt could barely move, but it looks like it was all systems go below the belt. 

"So are we doing this?" Maeve asks, and Butcher wonders if she's just horny or if this has been her MO with Homelander: divert attention when she's in danger. It's probably both.

"Hello?" she says, obnoxiously. "Did you catch his brain delay?"

"I don't have… brain delay…" Homelander mutters, sounding more indignant than slurred at this point.

Butcher grins. "You fucking supes. Let my guard down with one, now I gotta fuck two?"

"You don't have to stay… you know…" Homelander intones slowly, annoyed.

"No he definitely stays," Maeve cuts in. "And you are going to shut the fuck up as much as possible if you want this."

Does he want this? Butcher is a bit skeptical, but seeing Homelander immediately clamp his mouth shut says otherwise. Then Butcher wonders if he wants this. By all accounts it seems like a piss-poor consolation prize in lieu of getting to kill his nemesis, but Homelander's not the only one who's gotten hard, and Butcher isn't thinking entirely with his brain anymore. Something about the opportunity to see Homelander pliant and limp as a noodle under him is equal parts repulsive and irresistable.

They stretch Homelander out to lie across the length of the couch. Maeve plants her knees on either side of his head, and seats herself on top of his face in a move that looks well-rehearsed. Butcher is much less sure of what to do on his side. He brushes his hand briefly across Homelander's cock, and it's warm and has a pulse. Butcher's not sure what he expected, but not something that felt so similar to his own and he quickly pulls his hand away, especially when he hears Homelander moan in response to being touched. He's not interested in seeing this cunt get off. Butcher glances at Maeve, wondering if she'll give him a hint of what's best to do but her eyes are already half lidded, and she looks entirely lost to the pleasure of riding Homelander's face, working her hips backward and forward ever so slightly.

Liquid courage helps Butcher overcome his conceptual disgust at getting intimate with someone who's ruined his life. He spits into his palm, and smears it into Homelander's ass crack, searching for the ring of muscle by touch. One part of his mind is dreading finding it, screaming at him that this entire night is madness and it better be a bad dream, and that there's zero reason to do any of this, but another part is curious and can't pass this up, and has never been stopped by 'zero reason'. His middle finger dips inside, and Butcher's glad he's on Temp V when he feels the way Homelander's body seizes up and tries to reject him.

"He can take it," Maeve assures him, apparently taking temporary interest in what Butcher's up to, maybe because Homelander's mouth loses its rhythm whenever Butcher makes a move. "Just shove in there and his body will accept."

She's right. Homelander's body relaxes, until Butcher adds another finger. Every addition meets resistance, but is eventually accepted. Butcher's drunk with power, and barely registers that he's managed to coax his entire hand into the heat of Homelander's body. Homelander moans and writhes and tries to move away, but Butcher's hand is inside and there's no getting away from it.

Butcher watches Maeve violently grind down on Homelander's face, apparently close. She's still got her shirt on, but Butcher reaches across with his free hand, lifts her shirt hem, and tweaks her nipple. Maeve gasps and plants both hands in front of her on Homelander's chest, moaning up a storm, voice shaking because every one of her muscles seems to be trembling with orgasm. Butcher watches as her head sinks down, her long red hair hanging down, messy, brushing Homelander's chest, close enough to his cock that Butcher feels Homelander's legs tense and his ass bear down on his wrist violently. 

Maeve steps off to the floor once she's satisfied, legs still shaky, and Butcher stares at what she's left behind on Homelander's face– chin and mouth glistening, nose twitching because there's some on it too.

"Ya good?" Butcher asks when he sees Maeve totter over to the table to grab the bottle again.

Maeve gives a dramatic, drunk thumbs up. "His only redeeming quality, honestly," she says, gesturing vaguely to her crotch. She walks back to the couch, standing over them, staring before taking a sip again. She lowers her hand down as if she's about to stroke Homelander's erection, but stops just short of contact. Homelander makes an odd choked sound of frustration, wrists straining in the metal confines.

"Oh, he took your entire hand?" she asks once she finally notices.

Homelander's body has made peace with the intrusion, but Butcher ups the ante now, balls up his fist inside him, feeling his inner walls stretch around his hand. Homelander gasps and arches, trying to escape again. "Hurts…" he manages to mumble now that his mouth is no longer occupied.

"Oh really? My heartfelt apologies," Butcher mocks him, pulling his fist out, which causes more whimpering because Homelander's muscles need to stretch even more to accommodate the fist on its way out.

"Haven't done this with him, I take it?" Butcher asks Maeve.

"I have, but my fist's smaller than yours. And he was whining and fussing about mine too."

Homelander gasps when Butcher jams his fist back inside him, and now that he's no longer distracted by Maeve, tries to inch away, and tries to kick in Butcher's general direction when that doesn't work, but his motions are all slow and weak and Butcher easily catches him by the ankle and drags him back closer.

"Gonna smack you around if you don't behave," Butcher warns him.

Maeve slides down to her knees on the floor, face more or less level with Homelander's. "Love to see you be able to take it," she whispers.

Butcher realizes this is a whole other gambit of hers when Homelander's eyes move to meet her gaze, watering with discomfort, but now also strangely resolute.

"Do you feel good?" she asks, and Homelander nods almost reflexively, sensing that that's the answer that will get her to lean in and make out with him.

Butcher keeps fisting him, and it feels grand. He can feel the tension of Homelander's muscles, can feel that his body isn't happy with the intrusion but can't do anything against him when he's V'ed up. It's not as good as burying a knife in him to the hilt over and over, but it might be the next best thing.

And the cunt doesn't make a peep now that Maeve's chatting him up and stroking his hair and praising him for how much it turns her on to see him like this.

Butcher doesn't know why it takes so long for him to realize that she's manipulated both of them– managed to give both of them what they wanted to reduce the threat of violence to her loved ones, and he does feel a bit lousy knowing he may be in the same category as Homelander, an angry man who can only be appeased by getting distracted and forgetting what he was angry about. But it worked.

Butcher can't take it anymore, pulls his hand out, unzips the fly of his jeans and jacks off over Homelander's body, streaks of milky white landing all over him. Black graffiti on his face, white graffiti on his body– it all satisfies some fucked up urge in Butcher to disrespect Homelander, to leave his marks all over him. Homelander doesn't seem fazed though– only looks to Maeve pleadingly because his hands are still tied up and he needs her help.

She brings her hand near his cock, hovering over it again without touching.

"Quit fucking around…" Homelander growls impatiently, and even manages to thrust his hips up to meet her hand, feeble as the motion looks.

Maeve relents, jerks him off. Homelander makes such a dramatic sigh of relief once her hand lands on him that Butcher is tempted to punch him in the mouth for acting so content. But he keeps his hands to himself. He's not going to upend the delicate balance Maeve has struck between all three of them. He watches Homelander come, the sights and sounds seared into his memory forever now whether he likes it or not– the hips jutting forward, the almost falsetto pained-sounding moans, the row of bottom teeth showing as his jaw moves and his lips curl back, the eyelashes fluttering with violent speed, Homelander's face still defiled by all the permanent marker, and Butcher's sloppy eyeliner work still making him more attractive than Butcher would ever like to admit. 

They all fall asleep apparently– that part is pretty blacked out in Butcher's hungover memory. When he wakes up it's broad daylight and both supes are gone. For a wild second Butcher wonders if it was all one long alcohol-induced dream he had after drinking himself into oblivion at HQ– until he gets up off the floor and sees all the damage they've done to the room still there, including the barbel that Homelander managed to break off to free his hands lying on the floor beside him.

Did he and Maeve leave together? Did Homelander have any reason not to kill them once he woke up and the opioid effects were gone or diminished enough? Butcher glances towards the one security camera MM had installed in the corner and sees that it's been smashed to pieces. Figures. He'll never know what happened.

He feels nauseous, so when Frenchie and Kimiko enter through the side door he's still sitting on the floor, trying to recall where they keep the ibuprofen.

Frenchie stops whatever inane conversation he was having with Kimiko and stares around the room, cracking up. "Que s'est-il passé ici?!" Apparently he's too surprised to use English.

"Rough night," Butcher grumbles, as if that explains anything, finally willing himself to get up off the floor.

Frenchie and Kimiko are both laughing at him and at this point he's starting to wonder why. He goes out into the hallway to use the restroom and finally sees himself in the mirror, "FUCK YOU WILLIAM" scrawled across his forehead in handwriting Butcher knows well from all the autographed items constantly being resold on eBay and Voughtsy.

"Cunt," Butcher whispers as he tries to scrub his face with soap, seeing he's making very little progress and just barely smudging the writing. He won't even try to understand why Homelander had enough time to write something on his forehead but not try to laser him in half, temp V or not.

Later in the day, MM is still not over lamenting how many things he's ruined in their beautiful new HQ, and Butcher knows he's being annoying by not explaining much about what he knows, but he's not sure he can readily explain any of it, and would rather not even try.

“I don’t remember New York City shutting down because of a little snow in recent years. Don’t we pride ourselves on infrastructure? Don’t tell me they can’t clear the roadways. And come on, Vought should be one of the last places to shut down because of a little weather!”

“John, it’s literally the weekend. And there’s like three feet of snow on the ground.”

“They said 29 inches.”

“Well however much it is, it’s enough for them to declare an emergency.”

Homelander leans his forehead against the glass staring down. “If it’s really so dangerous, why is Central Park full of people sledding?”

Maeve cocks her head. “You really don’t know what to do with yourself on a day off, huh.”

“Nooo...” Homelander drags out the word, trying to be patronizing but Maeve is unfazed. “I’m just saying. I could clear the roads in an hour all by myself if the mayor or governor thought to ask.”

“I’m sure you could.” Maeve rolls her eyes.

“What, you don’t think so? I could melt Manhattan in a fifteen minute flyby.”

“Yeah, people will be delighted to see you light every street on fire.”

“I wouldn’t be setting anything on fire.” Homelander sounds defensive and it makes Maeve smile.

“Nobody asked you to melt anything,” Maeve says, groaning. “Why can’t you just give things a rest and let people enjoy a snow day?”

“Because it’s dangerous! Ambulances can’t get through. Just because there’s a snow day you think people stop having heart attacks?”

“I never knew you were so concerned about people not being able to get to the hospital. Maybe you should go on runs for the hospitals yourself then. Airlift the people having heart attacks.”

Homelander makes a scoffing sound, still staring intently out the large wall-window, the poor people who dared to go sledding on a Saturday not knowing that they were being scrutinized and judged from 90 floors up and 10 blocks away.

“So saving people is beneath you, but standing there bitching about how few people came into work today isn’t? You can really tell you never got to experience a snow day in childhood, Mr. Grinch.” 

Homelander turns toward her sharply at the last part. Maeve wonders if she’s gone too far now that his gaze has been torn away from the rabble on the ground and directed at her. It's never a good idea to bring up his childhood. But he cracks a smile instead of getting angry at her bluntness and walks over to the bed, sweeping his cape off to the side before sitting down.

“Fine, Maeve, enlighten me. Tell me what makes snow days so fucking magical.” The sarcasm in his tone is off the charts, but his gloves are off and Maeve has learned to recognize that that’s a sign that he wants intimacy, no matter what he says or how it sounds. She cautiously slides her hand into his and she can see an endearing uncertainty and neediness flicker across his face, his expression settling into something softer.

“It’s nothing complicated. You’d wake up in the morning and pray for the robocall to your parents’ landline to tell them school was out. And if you were lucky enough to have a snow day, you had the entire day free to play in the snow.”

“Like, what, build snowmen?”

Maeve smiles at the defensiveness of his tone. He’s so intent on proving to her that he didn't miss out on anything important. 

“When you’re little, yeah. Snowball fights, snowmen, snowforts. When I was a bit older, my dad would take me skiing sometimes.”

“Is skiing fun?” Homelander asks, looking away from her and staring off into a corner of the room, but still holding her hand.

“Yeah. I haven’t done it in a while. But when I was seven, I got my own skis and everything. It’s cheap thrills for a kid, I suppose. You can speed up like all hell if you go down a steep enough slope."

“Would you like to go skiing?” Homelander asks, and despite some misgivings Maeve realizes that she would like to. She relents and says yes. Anything has to be better than being cooped up in the Tower having an argument in her apartment about why people have no work ethic.

Homelander seems to brighten right up when she asks to go. Maybe Maeve underestimates how lonely and lost he feels without a daily agenda, without a script telling him where to be and what to do for most of the day. She's saved him from unstructured time.

“You’re going in that?” Homelander asks, wrinkling his nose slightly at the civilian winter clothes she's changing into.

“You don’t really expect me to ski in my skimpy uniform, do you?”

Homelander shrugs. “I’m just going as I am.”

“Yeah, you won’t be the only douchebag on the slopes wearing spandex, so you might as well.” Maeve looks him over. “You don’t think you can leave the cape at home?”

Homelander gives her a look that says she must be crazy to suggest that.

He flies her in his arms all the way to New Hampshire, where there’s plenty of snow but no blizzard going on, and where the slopes turn out to be more crowded than either of them would probably like.

They have to rent skis of course. Maeve is about to pay for both of them but the employees frantically shake their heads, and assure her it's on the house and that it’s such an honor that she and Homelander have decided to grace their humble ski resort with their presence. Maeve is pretty sure they wouldn’t have recognized her had her partner in crime been wearing anything slightly less conspicuous than full regalia.

Homelander looks skeptical when he’s asked to try on ski boots. As if the boots he came in with are any less of a fashion faux pas, Maeve smiles to herself. The poor teenager helping them starts to visibly sweat when Homelander waves him off dismissively after he offers them helmets. The staff are starstruck and ask for selfies with the two heroes, and a picture of the two of them to hang up on the bulleting board. Homelander and Maeve indulge them for a few minutes before finally heading outside with skis and poles in hand.

“Why are these boots so awkward?” Homelander asks as he follows her out of the lodge and into the snow.

“Because they’re not for walking,” Maeve grumbles. Homelander watches and mimics her as she puts the skis on. She should be grateful that he’s humoring any of this at all. Even if she’s wondering whether she’d enjoy this outing a lot more alone, there is something entertaining about seeing Homelander navigating mundane everyday life with none of his usual self-assurance.

She leads him to the ski lift, the people in line behind them clearly debating whether these were real celebrities or just really good cosplay. Homelander ends up signing a few autographs before Maeve tugs him forward to get in position for the lift.

“So this is just to bring people up the mountain?” he questions, looking around and swinging his skis like a bored kid. And maybe that’s what he is, Maeve thinks.

“Yeah,” she says. As they ski down the small ramp at the top of the lift, Homelander is clearly just taking his cues from her. Maeve hasn’t done this in so long that she hesitates and turns toward the intermediate difficulty slope. Homelander simply follows. He glides with relative ease for someone who’s never been on skis before. Then again, Maeve realizes that he’s not really skiing. As they head down the slope, she decide to stop abruptly. He glides down a little bit past her before halting and skiing himself backwards up the slope to stand in parallel with her.

Maeve smirks. Just as she thought. “Quit being creepy.”

“What?” he asks, and seems genuinely confused.

“What you’re doing isn’t skiing. Stop hovering and put your full weight on the snow.”

Homelander shrugs and visibly settles himself deeper into the snow’s surface.

“Skiing is about getting momentum from sliding down the mountain on two thin pieces of wood, not flying around pretending to ski.”

Maeve expects him to roll his eyes or get defensive and snarky. But Homelander just stares at her and even nods slightly as if she’s some guru dropping knowledge on him.

“You pivot and turn abruptly to stop. You can use your poles to help push off and change direction.” He’ll get annoyed at being tutored at some point, right?

But Homelander still nods. And before Maeve can push off herself, he starts down the slope, looking much less smooth this time, apparently testing things out, trying to do it by her rules. She still suspects he’s using his powers when he stops and looks back at her as if to ask ‘did I do it right this time?’ She skis down to join him.

“Yeah just like that. You’re getting the hang of it.”

They finish the run and get back on the lift, more and more of the crowd at the bottom wisening up to the fact that they’ve got a celebrity among them, but Homelander signs fewer autographs this time before getting on the lift again.

Maeve's getting strangely emotional, sitting here, legs dangling far above the treetops, feeling like she’s gone back in time, almost forgetting who this is. Homelander isn’t her dad. They’re nothing alike, even if she hates both of them. And yet, sitting here in the lift chair takes her back to the times she misses so much, before her dad impressed upon her that becoming part of a Vought-sponsored team should be her goal in life.

“Sorry, I know the lift must be boring when you can just ski up the mountain,” Maeve says. She doesn’t know why she’s apologizing.

Homelander shakes his head. “I don’t mind. I like sitting here with you.”

When he wraps his arm around her, Maeve can’t believe she starts crying. Homelander looks confused and retracts his arm.

“Did- did I hurt you?” he asks, and there’s not an ounce of disdain in his voice, only worry.

“No, it’s nothing,” Maeve says, laughing it off and furiously wiping the tears away. “I just remembered the last time I went skiing with my dad. We never really got along. But I did like to go skiing with him.”

Homelander looks at her, and– even though he can’t possibly understand how she feels– uncannily enough manages to look sympathetic, and she doesn’t even flinch when he wraps his arm around her again, squeezing her closer.

The moment is only ruined by a wolf whistle from the chair behind them.

Homelander’s head starts swiveling back but Maeve pushes his chin back so he keeps facing her. She doesn’t even mind when he takes that as a prompt to start kissing. It’s gentle and feels maudlin– the way he prefers it and she doesn’t. When he’s like this, she can almost forget how violently possessive he gets over her, can almost forget how Vought forced her to hide her sexual past and pretend Elena doesn’t exist. Can almost forget how she was forced into a relationship with him– first a PR one for the ratings, then a “real” one, still for the ratings. Can almost forget that Madelyn Stilwell volunteered all sorts of tips about how to navigate his capricious mood swings and exploit some of his strange vulnerabilities, which made Maeve wonder what sort of relationship they had and may still be carrying on. No, she won’t think about any of that while they’re sitting on this ski lift together, the air cool and crisp around them, his skis overlapping with hers.

She decides to go down the black diamond side this time. People gawk. Maeve feels invigorated, brave, fulfilled, and heads over the bumps so fast that she does end falling into the snow ungracefully. Homelander skis up beside her, looking concerned even though she gets up laughing, wiping snow from her face and hair with the back of her gloved hand.

“You okay there?” he asks, clearly not worried that she hurt herself, but maybe a little worried at other skiers witnessing this. There is someone who stopped further up the slope and whipped out his phone, probably filming all this.

“Yeah. Falling’s part of the fun,” she says. “You should try it sometime.”

“No thanks,” he bites off tersely.

“Yeah, wouldn’t want to get that cape wet,” she mumbles under her breath as she starts heading down the slope again. She knows he heard her, no matter how quietly she said it.

They keep skiing even after sundown, just like she used to do when she was a child, not bothering to take a break for a meal. Truthfully, she has no interest in walking into the lodge cafeteria and creating a commotion of people wanting selfies and autographs. Homelander is just taking her cues, following her around like a puppy the entire time. He doesn’t deign to fall over, not even for her sake, but he takes the lift up each time, never insisting on being an asshole and skiing up the slope or flying to show off. She suspects sitting on the lift with her is actually his favorite part of this whole escapade leaving Vought Tower for the day.

“Still bitter about the snow day?” she asks playfully on one of their more silent trips on the lift when he seems lost in thought.

He’s staring off into the distance with a strange look on his face, then seems to look down and study his skis. “I did have snow days as a child,” he says. “They just weren’t very fun.”

She tenses a little bit. When Homelander reminisces about his childhood it’s often the death knell of any fun, normal interaction between them, and a turn toward a morose angry mood. But he looks calm. 

“When there was a snow emergency, only a skeleton crew would come to work in the lab. Nobody interacted with me. Most of the scientists would stay home. The whole building was much quieter than usual. They never did experiments on me on those days, I guess, but it wasn’t a good tradeoff. I’d sit there listening to the snow landing on the roof of the building, without really knowing what it was. I’d only seen it in pictures and movies. I didn’t even imagine that it’s something wet.”

Maeve feels herself shudder and quickly pretends it’s because she’s cold, prompting Homelander to hug her in closer. He even wraps his cape around her, and she knows he hardly ever uses that for anything so utilitarian. She’s not going to let him know she shudders whenever she hears yet another tidbit about his lab days and realizes anew that the way he was raised means he can never be a balanced, pleasant person, and that it’s a miracle that he can mimic people enough to blend in. Vought have managed to raise an alien creature on earth.

Homelander leans his head in even closer and whispers “Can we have sex tonight? When we get back?” in a wheedling tone, and she nods automatically without even thinking, terrified of him and at the same time full of pity.

A smile spreads wide on his face and he releases her from the embrace as they near the top of the lift and prepare to ski off.

“Maeve, be serious,” he says. Oh god is he actually pleading with her? Why can’t he just see that they have nothing in common, that she’s smoking to annoy him, and that she’s specifically chosen a costume he won’t wear so she can tell him how lame and cowardly he is?

“What am I supposed to be serious about? You wearing a cheerleader costume for Halloween?”

Homelander purses his lips. “If I wear this in public they’ll think I’m a pervert.”

“Good. They’ll be right.” She’s really pushing it. She better be careful lest he decide that it’s easier to laser her in half than break up with her. But the grinding of his jaw stops and to her horror instead of walking out in a huff, he puts his hands on the bed and crawls forward, insinuating himself between her legs, nudging them apart and rubbing his cheek along one of her inner thighs. She tries to draw back but he just follows her body.

“If you really want me to, I’ll wear it. Just for you.”

Jesus, he’s in this kind of mood today? The ‘I’ll do anything for you’ knight in shining armor mode? Maeve really doesn’t understand what he sees in her. She’s not only not trying to be a good girlfriend, she’s actively acting repulsive towards him. And yet here he is, looking up at her with puppy dog eyes so she’s actually tempted to pat him on the head even though he’s a 33 year old man whom she’s seen do despicable things while out on missions together. Whom she’d already firmly said no to on the topic of marriage, despite the fear that he might kill her for it.

“What do you mean just for me? In the bedroom?” It’s not a good compromise at all, but Maeve does want to see him wear the outfit.

“Mmhmm,” he mumbles, making a trail of tiny kisses up her inner thigh, getting close to her boyshorts. He’s hated boyshorts ever since he found out that’s what they were called, so she wears them every day to annoy him. But he’s stopped complaining. Whatever she tries to do to annoy him, he just seems to get used to ignoring. He’s infuriatingly adaptable that way.

“Okay, fine, put it on just for me,” she says with resignation.

Homelander goes into the bathroom to change. Of all things to be weird and shy about, he still doesn’t seem to like her watching him removing the top piece of his suit. As if she doesn’t notice the contrast between the foam padded uniform and the smaller, leaner version that emerges out of that stiff structured shell unless she sees the undressing happen in front of her. Maeve wonders if she should be thankful he has never complained about any part of her body, given how many hangups he appears to have about his own.

Homelander walks out of her bathroom, red white and blue uniform on, “USA” in bold bright letters across the chest (Maeve was kind enough to at least keep that theme consistent). He’s still smoothing out the pleated skirt. Maeve has to admit the feminine getup actually makes him look muscular and manly, because even though she got a large size, his biceps are something a woman would find hard to achieve, and his calves have an unmistakably male musculature.

“Where’s the wig?” she asks.

Homelander looks up at her with a deer in the headlights look. “I… you want that too?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Maeve says coldly but gets up off the bed. “Here let me help you with the makeup too.”

Homelander follows her back into the bathroom, looking a little bit lost, probably wondering why she wants all this from him. If none of the other hints Maeve has dropped about liking women have ever sunk in, she’s sure this one won’t either. She puts the wig on him, tucking his real hair into the scratchy cheap mesh, a blond long bob with bangs and falling just below the chin. It doesn’t look half bad on him, somehow, despite being a cheap Halloween item. Maeve makes him sit down on the toilet lid and picks up her minimalist makeup bag. He doesn’t move a muscle as she does his face. She finds it surprisingly hard to do it for someone else, all her motions feeling strange when not directed by a mirror image. But she enjoys watching Homelander sit there so obediently, ramrod straight, face impassive, only moving his eyes when she instructs him to look up at the ceiling to get his upper lashes done, or to smack his lips to spread out the lipstick.

He glances in the mirror as they walk out of the bathroom but doesn’t seem to have any opinion on her work.

“Now you can eat me out,” Maeve says, spreading herself out on the bed, taking her underwear off and tossing it on the floor. Homelander’s nostrils flare– it’s yet another thing she finds disturbing about him, the fact that he can detect her arousal and visibly inhales it deeply. At least right now they’re in the privacy of her bedroom, but he’s done it when they’ve been out and about, and she was fully clothed. She’s never called him out on it, because she’s not sure he’s aware others can see him doing it, or even that he’s doing it at all.

Homelander doesn’t put any effort into acting in any way female, but when he hooks her legs over his shoulders, buries his face into her folds, and starts sucking and licking her clit like she’d taught him all those years ago, it suddenly doesn’t matter. Looking down at him in the wig and silly cheerleader outfit she can suddenly pretend this is someone else entirely, even a different gender, and it’s an amazing turnon. Maeve leans back and moans in pleasure, and Homelander redoubles his efforts, unaware of her little mental infidelity. She’s soaking his face and he, good boy that he is, doesn’t pause much at all, sometimes running his tongue further down to slurp up what’s spilling out of her, drinking it up as if he’s parched. She’s sure he wants to bury himself deep inside her, but he knows not to make a move until her say so. That’s another bit of good manners she’s trained in him.

“You’re such a good girl,” Maeve moans out, wanting to grab him by the long hair and pull but thinking better of it since the wig will probably slide right off.

Homelander doesn’t seem fazed by the particular words she's using in praise of him and reapplies himself with more fervor, sucking on a large area while still flicking his tongue across her sensitive spots. Maeve’s eyes are hazy with pleasure but she still watches the pleated skirt slide or bounce a little bit whenever Homelander has to shift to rearrange himself. She comes loudly, gripping the sheets, squeezing his head between her thighs with crushing strength. Any mortal wouldn’t survive that kind of pressure but she knows Homelander enjoys getting his head trapped in this orgasmic vise of hers.

She was going to be cruel. She was going to put on a strapon and make him get up on her cock and bounce around on it. She was going to make him do a cheerleading chant in falsetto and spell out her name and any number of other ridiculous things. But when she looks down and sees those same puppydog, now eyeliner-lined eyes looking up at her not just hopefully but lovingly, she can’t do it. He’s so clueless and pathetic, she can’t even mock him like she wants to.

“May I?” he asks, and oh how dopey and hokey he sounds with that formal question, and she can’t deny him.

Homelander picks her up with ease, and seats her on his cock as he’s standing. Maeve doesn’t like the position– all the boring aspects of missionary, but none of the comfort of being on the bed on her back. Her feet don’t even reach the floor so she’s dangling awkwardly, held up by him, at his mercy, and with a constant reminder of how weightless she is in his arms. But she won’t tell him she hates it, because that would mean she’s lied about the five hundred previous times.

“Oh Maeve,” he says, hiking her up higher so he can bury his face into her chest. Maeve sometimes wonders if he’s a boob man but has tragically resigned himself to her B cups because she’s the only one strong enough to withstand unbridled sex with him. “I love you.”

Maeve cringes. Maybe this is the one aspect where he easily take on the traditional female role– pining for a connection, openly talking about love, naively hoping it will get reciprocated even though he’s been unquestionably rebuffed. She thinks about this as he lowers her down, easily sheathing himself into her relaxed, still aroused body, fucking up into her with ugly low grunts and inelegant jerky motions. But the wig is still on, and rather than look at his twisted, pained looking approaching-O face, Maeve chooses to focus on the blond tresses framing his face bouncing to and fro with each thrust. She focuses on the tremble of his eyelashes– already dark and enviably long to start with– now garishly enhanced with mascara. And for a moment she can pretend this is a stranger, an athletic, strong, but still feminine stranger, who’s giving her the ride of her life. Maeve can’t remember the last time she came on his cock, but she beats him to the punch this time, another orgasm rocking through her and causing her entire body to shake in his grasp. He notices and grins weakly, before returning right back to his pained, scrunched up face as his own pleasure hits him.

They lie side by side in her bed afterwards, and he doesn’t make a peep about her vaping, just all smiles and cocky little winks from time to time. She didn’t realize how happy her finishing around his cock would make him.

“You make a pretty woman,” she says, trying to reemphasize what it was that revved her up so much. “Maybe you should wear that every time we have sex.”

He snorts. “Didn’t know you were a lesbian.”

“I’m bi, actually,” she says, wondering what on earth possessed her to finally tell him bluntly. Apparently she feels intent on testing how much he’ll put up with from her.