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“Well tiger,” the voice in his head says, and the Homelander tries his hardest to not look at the mirror in front of him as he moves the toothbrush back and forth across his front teeth, knowing full well that if he were to look, it wouldn’t be his own face staring back at him. Not really. “You did a wonderful job of fucking that job.”
He ignores the voice, ignores him, and keeps brushing his teeth. He knows. He knows, and he doesn’t need to hear it from him too, because it’s not as if he hasn’t been mentally yelling at himself nonstop since last night. He fucked up. He fucked up and now Maeve won’t talk to him and nothing is okay and--
“And this is why you don’t get attached,” the voice finishes for him, ignoring that it wasn’t where his thoughts were headed at all. “It was stupid. Almost as stupid as fucking someone else right in your own goddamn bed.”
‘I didn’t know she was going to be back that early’, the Homelander thinks back at him as he rinses off his toothbrush and leans down to splash his face. The water’s cold, uncomfortably so, and he hopes the Other can feel it too, hopes it makes him uncomfortable.
“That’s a bullshit excuse and you know it,” the Other simply states. “What, couldn’t stick to one girl because you like the attention too much?” He knows what comes next before the other even has time to say it. “Pathetic.”
The Homelander doesn’t reply, instead he smears soap all over his face, making sure to keep his eyes closed to not have to face the Other in the mirror.
“Look at me.” He knows it, of course. Knows when he’s being avoided.
‘Can’t. My eyelids are covered in soap’, the Homelander thinks back at him.
“You’re such a child,” the voice scolds, and the Homelander focuses on rinsing the soap off his face in an attempt to shut out the Other’s words. “I’m amazed it took cheating for Maeve to get fed up and finally leave you.”
“SHUT UP!” the words leave his mouth before he can stop himself, and he can feel his own lips twist into a smirk against his will.
“Easy tiger,” the Other replies, and the Homelander can hear that smirk in his voice as clearly as he can feel it on his – their – lips. “You know I just want to help you.”
“You have a funny way of doing so,” the Homelander mutters, reaching for a towel to dry off his face with.
“Hey now, who told you from day one that it was a bad idea to allow yourself to get feelings for her? Who told you it was a bad idea to move in with her?”
His face now dry, the Homelander hangs the towel up next to the sink and finally looks at himself – at the Other – in the mirror. His reflection pouts.
“Poor little Johnny,” the Other says, a mock sympathetic tone the Homelander has heard so many times before coming out of their mouth. “Always so desperate to be liked. To be wanted. So desperate that you end up fucking it up when you have something good going for you.”
“She wasn’t supposed to find out.”
“She wasn’t supposed to find out,” the Other repeats, his tone even more mocking now, and he rolls his eyes. “Well here’s another fun fact for you, tiger: I told you that she would. Word gets around after all.”
The Homelander looks down, unable to meet the eyes of his reflection any longer.
“Hey, no, I get it.” Suddenly the Other’s voice is reassuring, and the Homelander looks up again, only to be met by a smile on his face. One that he could have sworn shouldn’t be there. “You just want to be loved, right? You want to be wanted? And she just… wasn’t enough. I get it.”
The Homelander nods, feeling and looking so much like a sullen child that he’s surprised the Other doesn’t start laughing at him.
“And that’s why it was never gonna work out. I told you that.”
“But I love her,” the Homelander states, and this time the Other does laugh.
“I don’t doubt that. I just think you love being loved more.”
The Homelander honestly doesn’t know what to reply to that. So he doesn’t.