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It hurts to be touched.
Before, Homelander had been sensitive in other ways. To smells, to sounds, to sensation. If he let too much of it in at once, he could easily be overwhelmed, but he’d had the option to tune it out. He could be invincible.
Now, he is entirely at the mercy of the world around him, and your touch hurts. You’ve held him still while you peel away painful adhesive, stung his torn flesh with alcohol, pressed cotton into split bruises. You’ve been his caretaker and tormentor in equal measure.
“We should change your bandages,” you tell him, setting the first aid kit on the coffee table.
He stares at you from the couch. Despite how he’s sunken down into it, he’s rigid, hands balled into fists at his side. It makes his muscles ache in ways they never have, but he can’t find it in himself to let them relax.
“We,” he repeats, spitting the word. “We aren’t doing it. You want to do it. So ask.”
You’re tired. It’s written in the slopes of your shoulders, the line of your mouth, and especially in the way you look at him. Still, you have the nerve to look sad. What the fuck do you have to be sad about? He’s the one who’s lost everything.
“I’m not asking,” you say, voice firm, though with that same relentless patience. “We need to change your bandages, or it could still get infected.”
Heat flares in his chest, and his expression twists into something ugly. An infection. This weak, vulnerable existence is so fucking-
“Pathetic,” he hisses. “You’re fucking pathetic, you know that?”
The satisfaction he gets from your frown is fleeting. Hollow. He’s already digging for something to say to get another hit.
“Sit up,” you say. Your tone is maybe a little flatter, but not nearly as upset as he feels. It makes him want to scream. To see you scream, throw things, cry. You should be begging him to let you do this.
“No.”
A long moment passes in which the two of you just stare at each other. For days–maybe weeks, he’s lost track–you’ve coaxed him into every lick of his wounds, sat through his every fit and misery. This has become a routine, and at least that is something familiar to cling to.
“Okay,” you say at last, the sound of it more sigh than a word, and pick up the kit.
He sits up, his animosity swiftly transmuted into apprehension by this unexpected change to the script the two of you have been rehearsing over and over.
“Where are you going?”
You lift your shoulders, one hand drifting out in a listless, noncommittal gesture. “I don’t know. I just need to be somewhere else right now.”
His stomach churns. Anger resurges, burning up his throat like bile. Like fear. He jumps to his feet and catches you by the wrist. It makes him sick that he has to try to stop you in your tracks, how much he can actually feel you pull against him, the muscles in his arm trembling with the effort.
“Where are you going?” he demands again, but you don’t face him. You won’t even look at him. “Answer me! Where do you think you’re going? Huh? What, think you’re too good for me now? You think I’m broken, don’t you? Say it! Tell me what’s so fucking–”
“Stop it!”
The pitch of your voice hits him as hard as the volume of it. It leaves a faint ringing in his ears, his ranting mouth gone slack. Tears stream from your eyes like two rivers undammed.
“What… What’re you–you’re”–he fumbles, his voice breaking. His own eyes burn salty wet. “Why are you crying? What do you have to cry about?” he asks, louder, shriller. There’s no pretense of rage in his voice to hide behind anymore, it’s fragmented and weak. Even he hears the pitchy childishness of it.
“I can’t do this anymore,” you say. The words hit him with cold, horrible dread. “I’m trying, I’m trying so hard to be here for you, but I can’t. You don’t want me, and I can’t–I can’t do this. Every day, you just–it’s like the more I try, the more you hate me,” you manage to say, breathing like each word nearly chokes you.
There’s no singular word for the expression that puts on his face, or for the feeling that blooms in his chest. It’s a horrible patchwork tapestry of hurt, anger, misery, confusion. It drapes so heavily over his heart, he feels like he’s being suffocated by it.
“I don’t–I don’t hate you,” he sputters. “Why would you say that?”
“Oh my God!” you cry, ripping your arm from his grasp to throw your hands into the air. He flinches. “Why wouldn’t I? Why wouldn’t I? Do you even hear yourself? You just told me that I’m pathetic! That I’m pathetic for trying to help you! For loving you!”
The exasperation in your voice makes the hurt all the more raw.
“You don’t talk to me except to insult me, you don’t touch me, you barely let me touch you,” you say, only managing to suck in a ragged gulp of air once you’ve gone breathless. “But the second I try to give you any space, you do this! I don’t know what you want from me.”
The quiet that follows is deafening.
“I…” he trails off, arms slack at his side. He’s never felt more naked than he does at his moment, stripped down to mundane civilian clothes, his whole existence now a raw exposed nerve. “Don’t.”
You only stare. Like a mirror, he can see every ounce of his own misery reflected on your face.
“Don’t leave,” he begs, the pitchy words barely a whisper.
The tight line strung through your shoulders goes slack so quickly, he takes a step forward, half expecting you to fall. Maybe you would have if you still thought of him as strong enough to catch you.
“What do you want from me?” you ask, voice equally quiet.
He hates the way he has to strain to hear you, that he can’t hear your heart, or smell your shampoo from across the house. His entire life, he has known the world as no other person could hope to. He’s known you down to each and every follicle. What he hates is his own burned out body, dulled and halfway dead.
“What I want,” he begins, grasping blindly for the words to explain feelings he doesn’t even understand. “What I want–I want you to–to look at me. I want you to see me, me! and not, not some useless fucking nobody,” he says, the volume of his voice climbing. “Stop looking at me like I’m broken! The–the–the fucking pity party you’re throwing every time you look at me! Stop it!”
It’s your turn to be at a loss. You start and stop a handful of sentences, but with every attempt, you only look more incredulous.
“Is that really what you think?” is what you finally manage to ask, wounded but undeniably angry. “That I pity you?”
“Don’t play dumb,” he sneers, baring his teeth from the proverbial corner he’s put himself in. “You think I don’t see it?”
“I love you.”
Those simple words disarm him so acutely, you may as well have slapped him.
“What?”
“All I’ve ever done is love you. For fuck’s sake, I almost lost you. Do you understand that? I almost lost you! I’ve never been so scared in my life! You don’t get to decide what I feel! You don’t get to treat my love as something ugly because you can’t stand to look at yourself anymore!”
Homelander recoils at that. Your voice is so loud in his ears. He can’t even remember the last time he looked in a mirror. He knows that he’s a mess, that his hair is overgrown, his face bearded and disheveled, but he can’t bring himself to look at it. He’s too afraid of what he’ll see.
What he’ll see.
Deep down there’s a part of you that’s still… human.
Nauseated, he steps back from you, whimpering nonsense under his breath.
…dirty, shriveled, anemic little part of you.
He grabs at his own hair, sick to find it’s long enough to take fistfuls of, and pulls hard at it, screwing his eyes shut, grinding his teeth against the pain.
We gotta cut that part of you out like a cancer.
It’s been done. All that’s left of him is what he swore he would carve from himself forever. He rips at his hair until it feels like he’s going to split in two, until he throws himself to his knees and screams.
“It hurts,” he grits out, pulling harder at himself. “It hurts, everything hurts so fucking much. It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fucking fair!” he sobs, wishing he could tear himself in half. “What was it for? What was any of it fucking for?! They boiled me alive, and it didn’t hurt like this! An oven! I was in an oven! I was in a fucking oven! For this!”
All that’s left of me is this.
His chest hurts. He can’t breathe. The world becomes fuzzy. His scalp is burning–they burned me alive–but he can’t make himself let go. He can’t make himself let go of the pain.
Your hands are gentle atop his. Slowly, you work your fingers between his, easing the white-knuckle grip he has until you’re able to pry his hands out of his hair. He gradually goes slack, no longer resisting your pull.
“Here,” you say, bringing his hands to the carpet. His brows furrow. “Touch. What is it?”
He looks at you strangely, his eyes glassy and bloodshot. The redirection works, his confusion overtaking his previous overwhelm. “The… floor?”
“Yes, but what is it?”
He swallows around the lump in his throat, looking back down. Are you asking him fucking riddles now? He’s too tired to make the wisecrack. Instead, he combs his fingers through the soft strands of the carpet, letting himself ponder the ridiculous question.
“Nylon, probably?” His nose scrunches. He’s always hated synthetic fibers. “Eugh, maybe polyester.”
You huff a laugh. He suddenly remembers how much you used to do that, and how long it’s been since he heard it.
“That’s right. How does it feel?”
“Cheap,” he answers, though it lacks bite. There’s an exhausted hollow quality to his voice. You nod like you want him to continue, and he sighs, begrudgingly petting the carpet. “It’s soft, I guess. Why are you asking me this?”
You point beyond him, and he turns to look. Sunlight spills between the faux wood slats of the blinds that hang over the window.
“What’s that?”
He stares for a long moment. “Window.”
“Mhm, that’s right. Can you see outside? What’s out there?”
Absently, he interlaces his fingers with yours. You used to feel a little cool to him. Not because you ran cold, but because he ran so damn hot. Now, touching you feels more like an extension of himself. It feels the same.
Through the half-closed angle of the blinds, he can barely see the green of trees. Their leaves dance in the sway of winds he can’t hear, no matter how hard he focuses on them.
“Trees… It’s windy.”
“Yeah,” you say. There’s a break in your voice that makes him look back at you. Tears in your eyes, yet you smile.
“Where are you right now?”
He stares at you, understanding dawning in his eyes. He looks around the room, taking in what he’s purposefully been blocking out. His world had narrowed to such a small, interior place, he’d honestly forgotten where he really is.
Not the penthouse. Not the lab. It’s not Vought at all. It’s just a house.
“Your house,” he says, gauging your reaction. Even now, he feels that little prickle of desire to answer how you want him to. A thought occurs to him, and he tries again: “I’m… home?”
Your smile twists, and you make a noise that’s somehow both a laugh and a sob. “Yes, yeah, that’s good. That’s right. This is home. You’re home with me.”
Shame broils hotly in his gut. If he had anything left in him, that might turn to anger. Instead, all he can manage to feel about it is sadness. Morose grief at the realization that he finally has a home, but not the capacity to enjoy it.
“I know they hurt you,” you whisper. He tenses. “And I’m so sorry. I can’t even begin to imagine it,” you say, keeping your voice quiet, taking your time between each carefully selected word.
“And I know you’re hurting now. The stitches, the bandages, the tape, I wish I didn’t need any of it,” you say, and though you’re trying to hold them back, your tears fall despite your efforts.
For the first time since his fall from grace, he’s able to see beyond his own pain, and recognize yours.
“I’m sorry that it hurts. I’m really, really sorry. All I want to do is help you. Can you let me do that? Can you let me be here for you, even when it’s uncomfortable? Even when it hurts?”
Tentatively, he streaks his thumb through the shiny tear tracks on your cheek. Your lashes flutter shut, and you lean into his touch with a readiness and hunger that he feels deep to his core.
He takes it further, cupping your face in his palms. You sag into it, and the weight feels… good. It feels real. The realization of how much he missed this hits him so hard, it knocks the breath out of him.
“God,” he exhales, pulling you closer, pressing his forehead to yours. “Why did I ever stop touching you?”
The noise that wrings from you is made of pure grief. There’s no pretense of laughter anymore, just sobs that yank each breath out of you like a physical blow. He knows that you’ve cried since he lost himself, but this is the first time he’s been faced with it so directly.
The first time he’s accepted that you’re crying for him, and not another version of him that you had lost.
Your hands move as if you want to grab him, but you stop yourself each time. He’s struck by the memory of a thousand tiny rejections. Somewhere amidst all the pain and discomfort of you caring for his wounds, he had begun flinching from your hands, even when there were no scissors or alcohol wipes in them. He’d unconsciously started associating your every touch with hurt.
Christ, how long has he been avoiding you? He can’t put a number to it, but the absence of it crashes down upon him like a wave. The longing that comes with it is dizzying.
“Touch me,” he rasps. Your hands are on him before he takes his next breath. By touch alone, you know where every single bruise and cut is, and how to avoid them. Your fingertips skirt the edges of wounds that are halfway to being scars, lingering on every bit of unharmed skin you can find.
Though he cannot sense your every twitch anymore, there is a thrum in you he’s never felt before. That there could possibly be anything to you that he hasn’t noticed seems impossible, doubly so that he would only notice it now, when he is dulled to such a state, but it’s there, faint and buzzing under his touch.
He kisses you, and realizes that the thrum of you is your strength. He never could have imagined that you could feel like this. He’s always been hyper aware of your fragility, how utterly breakable you were in his hands. Now, you press back into him with such feverish hunger, he actually fucking falls backwards! His head thumps against the soft carpet at the same time you land atop him. His vision spins while you curse under your breath, murmuring an apology.
“Are you okay?” you ask, looking fretfully into his eyes.
Above him, haloed by the ceiling light, you look like a goddamn angel.
Homelander starts to laugh. It hits him like a bout of hysteria; giggles that climb in pitch and frequency until he’s wheezing, his bruised ribs aching. For weeks, his constant awareness of his own physicality has been a nightmare. The neverending aches in his back, the sting of fleshed being stretched wrong, the relentless onslaught of existing in a vulnerable body, it’s all been a fucking nightmare.
For the first time, he doesn’t resent the ache of existence. Beyond all logic, it actually feels good.
It feels like being alive.
You’re laughing, too. He soaks it in like a dying man drinks from the oasis, cupping your face and kissing the sound of it straight from your lips.
“You’re strong,” he tells you with such wonder, grinning wildly to himself. There’s a wound in his side that twinges when he moves, but it’s worth it to flip you over, to pin your wandering hands down. He’s been so resentful of his weakness, but in this moment, he can admit to the satisfaction of feeling his muscles work to move you.
The look in your eyes makes his heart leap. Your skin is flushed so warm, and he doesn’t need to hear it to know your own heart is racing. There’s an awe in your expression that he was certain he would never see again. Reverence that belonged to a version of him that was dead and gone.
“So are you,” you reply, pushing against his grip.
Christ, he really does have to try to keep your hands down. On some level, he knows that should bother him, send him spiraling again, but the thrill he gets at successfully keeping you pinned despite the struggle is far too distracting.
He kisses you, and your hands relax beneath his.
“I love you,” he whispers against your lips. “I love you. I love you. I love you,” he says again and again, punctuating each one with a kiss to your mouth, your jaw, your neck. He wants to etch it into every part of you so that no matter where he looks at you, he’ll never lose sight of it again.
The second your hands are free, they’re upon him. In his hair, in his clothes, grabbing and pulling at every part of him that you can reach. Where he once would have been both an immovable object and an unstoppable force, he now moves with each push and pull.
For his entire adult life, power was the only security Homelander ever knew. So long as he was the most powerful person in the room, he didn’t have to be afraid of what would be done to him. He wasn’t a child anymore. He would never let himself be held down and hurt the way he had been before. Without that power, the world–even you–had become terrifying, and that fear had nearly grown to hatred.
The world spins, and suddenly you’re on top of him. His eyes are wide, his kiss-bitten lips parted around breathless panting. You have the upper hand now, his wrists pinned down to the ground beneath your hands.
“Gotcha,” you say, just as out of breath as he is.
“Good,” he gives back, relieved to let you have your turn with the power. “Don’t let go.”