#oh--deer

"You want to take a nap with me?"

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So many people were telling me the things I was experiencing were normal or just dehydration

And yet I fit so many of these symptoms

Like near everything

To a T

You're a reporter with one of the many news stations in the city. 'Always first on scene to anything involving Homelander' has been your tag line since you started. And somehow, despite your competitors attempts, it rings true. You've always been a pretty big fan, not that anyone else besides you and your camera man need to know that, but you always do your best to hide it behind a professional front. You're good at your job. You show up, get the facts, and your ratings stay high enough to keep your position. And you get to speak to the city's top (and prettiest in your opinion) hero while you do it.

Homelander never pays much attention to the cattle he deals with day in and day out for conferences and the like. No one has ever caught his eye, not the regular run of the mill journalists, nor the ones with bright clothes and sparkling makeup that the terrible lighting bounces off and has him wanting to bore holes through their skull. His eyes could do the trick in no time. His sensitive hearing doesn't take pens scribbling on paper and chewing gum being smacked well. And the flashes of cameras pushes him one step closer to the edge and the people one step closer to death's door.

The most appealing thing that comes out of the crowd is the praise. All eyes and attention focused purely on him, the hero, the savior, the one that deserves to be looked upon like a god. So he withstands them. Vought would wring his neck if he didn't. Not that it would do much.

No, Homelander doesn't find interest in a single one of those nameless and faceless little ants. At least, he didn't think he did, not until you don't show up first, or second, or at all to one of his rescues... if you could call it that. When he looks out upon the crowd and doesn't see you, front and center like always, he realizes that at least one of those reporters isn't faceless to him.

You never have been.

He's become so atuned to your presence that the mere absence of it twists his insides like a pretzel. It's all second nature to him, the way you hold yourself, the way you speak, and the way that, even if you think you're doing a great job hiding it, your wide eyes always observe him with sparks of joy and amazement.