Chapter Text
As the door clicked shut, the curtains dropped with it.
“Hear that, boy?”
Butcher turned with that rotten little smile, pity smeared over his face like spit-polish on a boot. He took his time crossing the room, setting one foot after the other. The wanker didn’t move. Didn’t even blink. Just sat there with those pretty porcelain doll eyes.
“Not one of ’em wanted ya.”
Then Butcher went still. The silence was worse than a shout, and John, stupid creature that he was, looked up.
And that was more than enough.
Butcher’s hand closed on his throat like a snare. John barely had time to flinch. His fingers locked in hard, thumb driving into the tender place beneath his jaw, and there it was. The pulse, frantic and futile, beating hot against him. The body gave him what the face wouldn’t.
This was everything John was allowed to be now, caught under Butcher’s hand.
He weren’t looking to play with a dead mouse.
“Reckon it’s just you and me, sunshine.”
John struggled to breathe then, and Butcher found he liked the sound of it. Had liked it for days now. That thin little rasp, that useless fight for air. Made him want to take a bite right out of that miserable little face.
“Hop to it, then. Get changed.”
He shoved the cunt’s head aside and smiled down at him. John was gone in an instant, the chair dragged half an inch with him in his wake before it screamed back against the kitchen floor. Just like that, the pretty spell broke.
He could hear the bastard stumbling around in the bedroom. Jumper first. Trousers after. Zip. Heavy fabric hitting the ground. He could’ve looked, if he wanted. Made sure the wanker was doing as he was told. Privacy was done with. After all, dogs don’t understand the concept.
John came out in one of Butcher’s old shirts and a pair of shorts. Nothing else.
Cunt wasn’t allowed more than that. Truth be told, that were more for his sake than the twat’s. He didn’t exactly fancy the ex-supe shedding blond pubes all over his floor like some overbred poodle.
“Off you fuck.”
Bloody hell, he loved this part. Fucking relished it. Couldn’t help feeling that catty little pull in his guts. Knees first, hands after. That distinct knock of bone against floorboard. The way John lowered himself without needing the order repeated anymore.
He moved on all fours towards his “bed,” and Butcher watched every inch of it with his jaw tight. The serpentine curve of his neck. Bare legs under his old shirt, the fabric hanging off him. He had called him a dog, yet those shoulder blades shifted sharp beneath the cloth, sleek, sinuous, like something feline. Still too fucking graceful.
The familiar urge to grab him by the neck rose up like vomit, and he swallowed it back down.
Only clean towel he had, and he’d given it to the cunt. Generous, weren’t he? Butcher’d even let him have one of Terror’s pillows, since nobody else was using them anyway.
John sat there, hands on his knees, waiting. Obedient little bastard he’d become.
“See that, boy?” Butcher moved to the cabinet and took out the black box.
“Not that it’s really necessary.” He brought it over to John and crouched down in front of him. “But it’s the thought that counts, ain’t it?”
He opened the box and pulled out a collar. One with a remote. Meant for medium to large dogs. Bright fucking red.
See, he knew he had to get this one. The colour made his mouth twitch, reminded him something rotten of that costume they’d put out of its misery.
“Same shade as your old one, ain’t it?” He tapped the silver tag. “Had this made special. Just for ya.”
The tag caught the sun streaming in by the window.
JOHN.
A dead man’s name on it. Four letters where the flag used to billow in the wind.
His pup’s throat moved.
There. That little swallow. That flicker of something.
Butcher’s own mouth filled, sudden and stupid, and he had to swallow it down same as him.
“Bird at the shop told me John was a bleeding weird name for a dog.” He took another look at the collar, nail scraping slow over the buckle.
“I said, rescue, wasn’t he? Came with the name already.”
Butcher chuckled, dry as bone.
John knelt in front of him, head already lowered, though Butcher hadn’t told him to. He let it slide. Special occasion and all.
Butcher stepped closer and hooked two fingers under John’s chin, lifting it just enough to make him look.
“Not yet, sweetheart.” He tilted John’s face a fraction higher. “Bit keen, ain’t ya?”
John’s eyes flickered up. Gone again before Butcher could catch hold of it.
He let go and moved behind him. Damp hair clung to John’s nape in pathetic little strands. Butcher pushed it aside with the same two fingers, slow as anything. John shivered under his hand. It made Butcher’s pulse kick. Vicious.
Under the damp hair, beneath the pale of his skin, his own handprint still branded John’s neck. His mark, and it was already fading.
Hence the collar.
Butcher stared at it until his mouth went wet.
All those years chasing the golden cunt through smoke and blood and corpses. All that delightful old hate burning a hole clean through his throat. He gave ‘The Homelander’ his all, didn’t he? His absence of faith, his worst, his best. His body, his mind, all working overtime for that perfect button nose, those dead blue eyes, that smug line of a mouth.
He’d thought that was the point. The hunt. The hurt. The blessed end of it. The certainty that if there was a god, Butcher would find it, drag it down by the throat, and kill it just to feel himself again.
And now he had the answer in his hand.
Not the crowbar. Not the virus. Not even his battle-stained fists. Not all the rage in the world sharpened down to one fatal blow.
A collar.
“Down,” he said.
The dethroned bowed his head.
And there was the ceremony. His king-breaker hands fitted the collar around John’s neck and pulled the strap though the buckle. The tag settled against John’s milky, charming throat.
He tightened it one notch. John’s breath caught, just like it ought to, and Butcher smiled.
A click, and there went Homelander.
A click, and there was John.
Butcher kept his fingers at the back of John’s neck, pressed into the bruises there, old and new.
“There.”
He smiled around the word, all teeth. His voice was almost kind.
“Training’s done.”
He raised a hand and gave John’s already dishevelled hair a mean little ruffle. Then he got up and went to the couch, sat himself between the beer bottles, and brushed crisp crumbs off the stained cushions.
The telly was always on. Had been for a while now.
It had long become a habit. He still had that Vought+ subscription, didn’t he? Might as well get his money’s worth.
Homelander only existed there now. News footage. Pundits. Commentary. Anger, confusion, relief. He had seen it all. All of it chewed over by shiny cunts in suits who didn’t know a thing. That name said like it still belonged to anybody.
They didn’t ever talk about it. John didn’t look at the screen unless he forgot himself. Butcher didn’t look away unless he caught him doing it. Made decent background noise for the both of them, anyway. Else the house sounded too empty.
He took a big gulp from the bottle of bourbon he’d opened yesterday. Letting the bitter of it run down his throat. Felt the familiar, grounding burn. He let the heat pool low in his stomach, slowly thawing the worst of his head. Felt everything get lighter.
John came crawling back with the bowl between his teeth.
The aluminium rim sat caught behind those pearly whites, bright against the wet pink of his mouth. Little painted bones circled the dish like some cheerful fucking joke. Terror’s old bowl, carried now by America’s golden boy on hands and knees.
John lowered it to the floor without a sound, right by Butcher’s left foot. Terror, too, had a good, gentle mouth. His old boy. The memory of that precious tail going mad at his back hit him hard enough to twist something in his lungs.
John had no tail.
Then, his new pup looked up from beneath the mess of his hair, still close to Butcher’s knee. Lips glistening, damp where the rim had been. The bastard did everything worse and better at the same time. There was no love in it all, not really. Just obedience with a blindfold bound tight.
The sight put a hand around something low in him and crushed.
“Needy little thing, ain’t ya?”
He took another sip from the bottle. Later, maybe, not now.
“Terror was stupidly fond of you, you know.” He laughed. “Used to fuck that puppet every day like it was his job.” He’d sworn never to wash the thing. It’s what Terror would’ve wanted.
“Maybe the poor bastard knew he’d been replaced.”
A funnier thought popped into his head then.
“Or maybe his little heart couldn’t take meeting his favourite pin-up.” He smiled into the bottle.
“How’s Terror’s grub, by the way? Lad had bloody expensive taste.”
John swallowed. His voice came strained from disuse.
“…It’s fine.”
“Fine,” Butcher repeated. “Hear that, Terror? Rave review.”
He took another pull from the bottle. The bourbon warmed him proper, but something else warmed under it too. Something with teeth, nosing at the back door. It was exactly what he needed right now.
“Stay.”
John froze like something paused on the telly.
Butcher took the cold takeaway from yesterday and set it on the desk, in the last free patch of wood not occupied by empty mugs and overflowing ashtrays. John hadn’t moved an inch, as always. Good dog, he was. Perhaps too fucking good.
Took the sport right out of it.
He took a big bite of the sandwich. A limp strip of lettuce slid out and slapped wetly onto the floor by his boot. Couldn’t hear half the room anymore without his fancy supe ears, but drop one scrap of human food near him and suddenly the bastard had the focus of a bomb dog. John was waiting for him. The old rule sat between them like a live wire.
Ah-ah. No hands allowed!
“Go on, son.”
The leaf clung to the floor, slick with sauce and dust and whatever else the floor had to offer. John took it with his mouth, lips brushing wood before teeth found green. Butcher sat there with half-chewed bread in his mouth, watching.
Like this limp little scrap was a holiday from Terror’s expensive fucking kibble. The filth seemed part of the treat. A proper meal deal if you asked him. Butcher watched the wanker lick sauce from his lower lip, and the joke went stale between his teeth.
The praise slipped out before he could dress it down.
“Good lad.”
He felt the mutt’s eyes on him then, and decided, he’d earned a little more. Butcher took another bite from the sandwich, chewed slow, then held it in front of John’s face.
“Sat there sweet as church while the boys had their little chinwag. Fuckin’ gentleman.”
The blond’s mouth opened by a fraction, revealing the wet, soft insides. Butcher saw his tongue drag over one sharp canine.
“Earned yourself a treat, didn’t ya?”
Those ghost pale eyes fluttered then. And he nodded once, guilty as sin. The plainspoken imitation of puppy eyes blinking at him.
So Butcher tipped his chin up once. And the doll opened for him, lips dark with spit, tongue coming out to press into the white bread. Still looking at him. Still fucking looking.
Warm, shallow breath ghosted over Butcher’s knuckles. The soft drag of thin lips caught against his skin. Then the sandwich was gone. John’s eyes shut around it, filthy with nothing less than bona fide gratitude.
He shifted a fraction to reach the half-empty Marlboros on the edge of the table. His boot knocked against the empty water bowl. It gave a sharp little clatter. Right. Poor thing was thirsty.
Butcher glanced at the bottle in his hand and gave it a lazy swirl. Still a decent amount left.
Well.
Waste not, want not.
“Fancy some?” With his foot, he shoved the bowl towards the cunt and poured some of the bourbon into it. John looked at him, then at his newly filled bowl, and lowered himself to sniff. His mouth parted, then shut again. One hand twitched against the floorboard before he remembered himself and pressed it flat.
Seemed like the golden twat needed a bit of extra motivation.
“What’s the matter? Too good for it now?” Butcher had him by the hair and forced him lower, until his breath dented the surface.
“Not a drop left, love.”
John dipped his tongue into the brown liquid and jerked back, face pinching tight, throat catching. Bourbon weren’t exactly dog-safe, was it? But Butcher’s hand remained where it was. So down he went again. The bourbon bit, it made the cunt retch, made him fight the liquid back down. Tongue to bourbon. Tongue to metal. Tiny, wet clicks, dragging the liquor up one miserable lap at a time until half the bowl had been licked clean.
Butcher stepped back and lit a cigarette. He was prepared to play the long game. Curious, more than anything, to see what kind of drunk the bastard would make. By the time the fag burned down to the filter, John had emptied the bowl. Not long after, Butcher knew it had taken. He hadn’t given the cunt permission to speak, and he did it anyway. They’d been over this so many times.
John blinked at the telly. One eye, then the other. Once. Twice. His pupils had gone dark, his face warmer than usual. Without the makeup, the flush came up bare in his cheeks. Then something in his face shifted, a little slackness at the mouth.
A spoiled curl.
“…William.”
Butcher understood instantly, and felt something in him brighten. This was a voice he knew how to hate the way soldiers knew their hands around a heavy handgun. Like breathing, like instinct. Muscle memory. No thought required.
He would never admit it, but he was glad they were back at square one. He hadn’t heard John say the name like that in ages. With that special little twist of contempt. That old, familiar invitation.
The blankness had got boring. Nothing to grab. Nothing to bait. Nothing to tear down and watch claw its way back up.
“What… the fuck did you do to me?”
Butcher lifted the bottle. Homelander’s gaze dragged itself to the label.
“…Bourbon?”
“Gold fucking star,” Butcher said, and knocked back the last mouthful.
A pause. Butcher could almost hear the rusted little gears turning. Homelander squinted.
“You have the same awful taste as Soldier Boy.”
“Comparing me to your daddy now, are ya?”
John’s eyes dragged from the bottle to him.
“You smell the same.”
For once, Butcher had fuck all lined up. At a loss for words, he. Homelander swallowed and looked down at his own hands like they were not his own.
“I… I feel like I’m falling, but I’m not moving.”
The smile came easily then.
“Aw. Little bird forgot which way’s up.” Butcher set the empty bottle down. “You’re pissed, love. Happens to the best of us.”
Homelander stared at him, golden and helpless and seemingly, genuinely lost.
“I don’t get drunk.”
Butcher grinned like he was breaking good news.
“You do now.”
Without warning, John rested his face against Butcher’s thigh, words slurring into the fabric of his trousers. He went still. The contact caught him wrong. Then, Butcher relaxed by degrees and let it happen. He was a bit pissed himself, apparently. That, and morbidly curious where the bastard thought he was crawling.
“Thought I was rid of ya,” he said. “Had the exorcism done and everything.”
Homelander nuzzled into his leg. The expression on his face dragged Butcher right back to their first meeting. To the impossible brightness of him. That angel face. All gold hair and bright eyes and clean-cut American exceptionalism.
The devil had been wearing it even then.
“…You missed him.”
Ah. Perceptive cunt as always.
“That the bourbon talking?”
“Homelander,” he said, the name coming strange off his tongue. “You miss him.”
Butcher smiled like the twat had put a knife in his hand.
“Careful now, sweetheart.” He leaned closer, stopping just above Homelander’s head. His voice dropped no louder than a whisper.
“Missed him?” Butcher asked. “I made a fucking grave out of my life and spent ten years trying to put him in it.”
The dimwit cunt dared to look him in the eyes then. And for a brief second, the old fire scathed him. Not the sky-burning twin beams, only coal under ash. Amber and snide. Still hot enough to remind Butcher where all that hatred had earned its name.
“And yet.”
Butcher smiled at him. Which was never a smile, really. More a warning.
Then his thumb found the remote. Homelander knew. Course he did. Clever mutt, when fear had the wheel. His eyes dropped to Butcher’s hand, and the fire in them guttered before the shock even came.
Almost a shame.
Butcher pressed down.
The shock went through him like a hand closing from the inside. White-hot and intimate. Too quick to understand, too complete to fight. His throat jerked under the collar. His spine snapped straight. Every pretty line of him went rigid, lit up and offered.
He made a new sound. The bastard tried to swallow the scream and failed. A sharp, broken cri de cœur, climbing too fast and cracking halfway through, before collapsing into a wet little whimper with barely a species to it.
Human or hound.
Who could really say?
Butcher watched his shoulders lock, watched his jaw tremble. He felt that old Homelander fire go out like a bucketful thrown over a match-flame.
John bowed his head, breathing hard.
“I’m s-sorry. So… sorry,” he got out.
Butcher’s smile never went anywhere.
“Thought so.”
They went back to not speaking.
Butcher had said his piece, and John wasn’t quite capable of answering yet. Maybe the twat finally remembered the rules.
That should have been the end of it.
But not only was Homelander drunk, John was as well. And apparently, neither of them had the sense to leave well enough alone.
His eyes dropped again. Not to Butcher’s hand this time, but to the collar. The thing that had choked him quiet. The tag had twisted slightly from the shock, silver caught against his throat. His fingers twitched. He didn’t touch it. Only looked.
And then something incredible happened.
John smiled. A satisfied smile. Fed, almost.
And Butcher’s finally died. He hadn’t seen the cunt smile since the White House.
“Oi. What’re you grinning at, Austin fucking Powers?”
John’s face emptied, desperate self-preservation. But it was too late. He had already seen. Butcher’s gaze followed him to the collar, then back to the mutt.
The pieces came together, but they didn’t make a picture. Weren’t even from the same bloody puzzle. Butcher’s mind snagged on it, swerved hard, came crawling back, and landed on the only answer ugly enough to fit.
John hadn’t been hiding fear. ‘Cause fear would’ve shown. A tail tucked between the legs always did, one way or another. Fear left a mess behind. Pleasure didn’t. Pleasure knew how to clean up after itself.
Butcher had seen that look before.
On birds with his handprints dug into their hips and their mouths kissed raw, eyes gone stupid after half a night pretending they weren’t gagging for it. Hating him. Hating themselves worse. Hating how well he knew where to put his hands.
Shame always came late. Knickers round one ankle, acting like it hadn’t been lying spread out on the bed the whole time.
Ah.
Well, well.
Who would’ve thought?
“Fuck me, that weren’t fear on your face, was it,”
“No, it’s not–”
“Bollocks. I can see your bleeding tail wagging.”
John swallowed. He didn’t know what to say.
At last, the poodle’s core showed itself.
“What’d you tuck it away for, then?”
The twat’s hand went to the collar. Butcher watched those slender fingers curl around the leather. His mouth trembled before he spoke.
“I know what you want to see.”
Butcher stared at him.
“And what the fuck might that be?”
John looked at the bowl. The floor. The tag at his throat.
“Hell.”
He smiled again, a forced little line stretched across his face.
“So I gave it to you.”
And then he couldn’t help himself anymore. He laughed, proper. First in days, maybe. It should’ve sounded joyous. That was the point, ain’t it. But out of his mouth, it came out snared in the throat. Something from the pit that made him sound more beast than man.
John flinched at the sound. And it only made everything funnier.
“Hell,” Butcher repeated, wiping his thumb over his mouth. “That what this is?”
Butcher looked down at the cigarette between his fingers. The ember breathed red at the tip. Another splendid little idea came crawling in.
If John wanted hell, who was Butcher to disappoint?
“Come here.”
John looked up, his throat tightened by a fraction.
Eyes wide with that lovely shade of fear. The real thing. Another laugh worked its way up his throat, but this one didn’t get far. It caught behind his teeth instead, turning into a smile.
“Come on,” Butcher spat. “Since you know me so bleeding well.”
John came closer. Slow. Still pissed enough that balance made a fool of him. Butcher leaned back on the sofa and watched him crawl into reach. Let him get nice and close before lifting the cigarette.
“Let’s see if you like the fire, then.”
John’s eyes fixed on the ember. His lips parted on instinct, but not enough.
“Open wide, sweetheart.”
Knowing what Butcher had planned, the cunt had the foresight to push his tongue out as far as it would reach. Almost eager for what came next.
The ember hovered above it for one suspended second, close enough that the heat got there first. Butcher saw the moment it touched him without touching him. Saw the wet shine gather in his eyes before the pain had the decency to arrive.
Then, fire met flesh.
A sizzle.
John’s breath snapped once, sharp around the open shape of his mouth. His fingers bit into his bare thighs.
Barely anything, really. A kiss of heat. A red point pressed into wet pink. The sound of it passed between them, small and obscene. Tobacco. Spit. That sweet-sick smell of cooked skin curling up between them. Like a Fourth of July barbecue.
John flinched, but he did not pull back. His lips trembled around the hurt, still open because Butcher had told him to keep them that way. So the noise slipped out bare. A little open-throated ah, high and thin at the edges, breaking into a small, mousy squeak. Pain, maybe. Pleasure, maybe.
Butcher couldn’t tell.
He pulled the dead cigarette away.
The poor cunt stayed there, breathing hard through his mouth.
His eyes shone wet and bright, tears gathered thick along the lower lashes, trembling there, threatening to spill.
John’s whole body shook with the effort of holding still. From jaw to shoulders, shoulders to hands, hands clenched uselessly against his bare thighs. Every last bit of him trying to stay exactly where Butcher had put him.
Butcher’s gaze followed the tremor down. To the short grey pants.
Thin cotton did him no favours. There it was, the unmistakable outline. A tiny dark patch at the front, wet and damning.
He was hard.