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Hughie could see Butchers fingers tick on the steering wheel, which was pretty normal when the guy was pissed or nervous.
He could only show that tic around Hughie, he subconsciously must’ve felt most comfortable around the boy—but it was a surprise to see him do such a thing in front of Annie, too. But of course, he was still wearing that stoic face, despite something else bubbling under the surface.
“The hell are you staring at?” Butcher finally spoke.
“Sorry,” Hughie replied and averted his eyes. I was staring?
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” The Brit huffily said, felt like he was being stared at like some specimen. Annie’s eyes looked back and forth between the two, but she decided not to say anything.
A beat of silence.
“Something wrong?” Hughie looked back at Butcher again, of course, it was like him to not just drop something. Butchers hazel eyes darted over at the other man, then away. Even more silence.
“No. Just peachy.” Butcher sighed. Maybe he would’ve spoken more if Annie wasn’t there, or maybe if he wasn’t such a stubborn cold bastard. Annie wanted to say maybe she could just pop in some headphones if they wanted to talk, but she got a feeling that suggestion would’ve gotten Butcher pissed.
“Just be careful around that cunt.” ‘That cunt’ was Homelander, the maniac Hughie was going to show his face around again—after ‘Starlight’ broke it off with him publicly and sort of dramatically. They all knew the asshole wasn’t gonna take something like that well, Butcher kept cursing Tinkerbell out over and over in his head, but damn Hughie would never stop defending her if he uttered a ‘cunt’ at her. And would never not be angry at Butcher for it.
Hughie raised his eyebrows a little. “..I got this, don’t worr-“
“This is your stop. Get the hell out.” Butcher quickly interrupted, having stopped the car around Vought Tower..a few blocks away. The car had screeched to a halt, he needed to kick these two the fuck out before this got even more uncomfortable for him. He was already feeling even more hot under the collar, sweat from his palms slicked the leather of the wheel. He couldn’t rely on Hughie to just talk himself out of the focus of laser eyes, even though he was a clever boy. He couldn’t rely on Starlight to protect him either, she was a supe—still one of The Seven. Even if the two lovebirds weren’t together anymore, Hughie was still someone that could be used against Annie.
But at least Maeve proposed something to him to level the playing field. For him and Hughie, he just hoped he could convince the boy to jab himself and let the blue shit enter his veins.
“Oh,” Hughie mumbled and awkwardly clambered out of the car, followed by Annie.
“You don’t have to worry, Butcher,” Annie said, well-meaning, but was just ignored. Typical.
The Brit was about to step on the gas as soon as they closed their doors, but Hughies voice quickly followed after Annie’s. “She's right, you know. Hes not gonna do anything—“
‘How the hell can you tell? You a psychic?’ Butcher wanted to yell at him, but instead just said: “Just shut up.”
Hughie closed his mouth and pressed his lips into a thin line.
Butcher finally let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding, and let his shoulders loosen. He gave a smarmy smile, eyes completely avoiding Annie, staring straight at Hughie solely. “You can take care of yourself, I know it. You don’t need daddy to hold your hand, go out and be a big boy, then.” Completely ignoring the fact he called himself ‘daddy’, put his sweaty hand on the gear shift.
“Just..take care, okay?” Hughie could recognize that weird look in Butchers eyes. The anticipation that something bad was coming, but not knowing exactly when it was happening.
“Yeah yeah, ‘kay, love you.” Butcher didn’t even realize what slipped out his mouth til about five seconds later. His eyes widened and his body stiffened, both Annie and Hughies brows shot up with surprise.
“Uh..” Hughie opened his mouth to say something-
“No I don’t!” The car suddenly was gone in a cloud of smoke, leaving the couple flabbergasted. Never before had Butcher wanted to blow his brains out so badly.
Hughie just stood there, looking at where the car once was…Annie watched him and clicked her tongue awkwardly, then chuckled. They shared a look, the man was just wondering what the hell just happened. Did they have a shared hallucination? Was it a dream?
“‘No I don’t’…?” She smiled a little in an almost I knew it way. Suddenly Hughie felt as hot and clammy as Butcher must’ve felt in that car. So it was real.
Hughie just broke out into nervous laughter and pushed his hands into his pockets. “Let’s just uh..” he mumbled and cued for them to start walking, clearly not wanting to talk about that.
He’d never bring it up again though, neither would Butcher.
Almost never, every time he’d bid Butcher a goodbye, he’d tack on a ‘no I don’t’ at the end—just to see his face get red with either embarrassment or anger..even if they were officially together and the moment had long passed, Butcher hated to be reminded of his less than stellar moments.