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It starts with a bottle.
Not the kind of bottle made for cradling milk into infant mouths, though Homelander’s hands have been (forced to be) wrapped around many of those lately. No, instead this one’s glass, cheap whiskey, the label half-peeled from sweat and agitation. It rolls off the bar counter and shatters beneath his boots.
A man in a red hoodie had sneered at him. That’s all. No real offense. No threat. Just a curl of the lip and a muttered snark remark, “You think you’re still America’s hero?”
Homelander didn’t remember moving.
He remembered the pop. He remembered the feeling of wet blood.
The way bone split through skin like paper, how his hand gripped the man’s jaw and pulled, twisted. The skull came off like a bottle cap.
And now there’s a body slumped against a dumpster in the back alley of some no-name dive on 42nd. Blood glistens in rivers down the brick wall. Bits of brain cling to his gloves like chewed-up gum.
He’s breathing heavy. Stumbling. Slick with panic. Or maybe it’s the liquor, but either way, he presses his palms to his eyes and slurs, “Fuuuck…”
Then, a low chuckle bounces through the alley.
“Christ.”
A familiar voice behind him.
Gravel and smoke and disapproval bundled up in a Union Jack t-shirt.
Butcher.
“You out here auditioning for Dexter or summat?” the Brit drawls, stepping over the puddle of claret with boots that should’ve been burned a long time ago. “What the fuck did you do?”
“I…” Homelander sways, spots forming in his eyes.
“I didn’t… I didn’t mean to… he was mouthing off and I…”
Butcher grabs his elbow, knuckles white. Firm. Grounding. “You’ve got brain matter on your cape, you pillock.”
Homelander whimpers. Honest-to-god whimpers, like a child who spilled juice on the carpet. “I think… I think I cracked his skull like a peanut.”
“You think?” Butcher yanks his face closer. “Oh, sweetheart, no one survives when you think.”
Silence. Except for the steady drip-drip of red on concrete.
“…You gonna tell on me?” Homelander’s voice is quiet, sounding a lot like a petulant child.
Butcher sighs, running a hand through his face.
And then, he kneels beside the body. Starts shaking it down - checking for ID. Wallet. Watch. Anything traceable. “Nah,” he mutters, almost to himself. “Not tonight.”
Homelander blinks, taken aback. “What?”
“You heard me. We’ve come too far, haven’t we?” Butcher says. “Too many secrets. What’s one more?” He grimaces. “You owe me, though.”
“I always owe you,” Homelander says, voice thick, warm. Cheeks flushing a dusty crimson.
And Butcher pauses. His fingers still bloodied from rifling through the man’s jeans. He looks up at Homelander.
There’s something in those eyes. Something feral.
“…You like it,” Butcher says. Not a question. A bitter truth.
Homelander doesn’t even attempt to deny it. “You’re still here,” he answers instead.
They burn the body. Butcher’s got contacts, an incinerator in a meat packing plant, closed for the weekend. He makes Homelander scrub the alley with bleach. Makes him wrap the corpse in tarp. Makes him work for the silence.
At the end of the night, Homelander sits on Butcher’s couch, wrapped in a towel, the scent of smoke and blood still clinging to his hair. He stares at the floor, his knees drawn to his chest like a boy punished.
Butcher cracks open a beer. Tosses one toward Homelander, who catches it mid-air, reflexes still precise despite the haze of blood and grime.
“You’ll have to bury this one,” Butcher mutters. “Deep. Not even Vought can spin this.”
Homelander nods slowly. “You won’t leave me?”
Butcher snorts. “Nah, mate. Not until you burn the whole damn world down.”
He clinks their bottles together.
And the night ends with laughter, low and bitter. Two men, broken in ways no one will ever fix — and now, complicit in silence.
The sky above them is still red.
—
The sound was what started it again.
Homelander hadn’t made it ten blocks before someone whistled, just a whistle. That’s all.
Could’ve been admiration. Could’ve been mockery.
Didn’t matter. His vision was already clouding with the static-rage of a heat coming on, primal and starved and wild.
By the time Butcher got the alert - a flashing Vought dispatch ping and a grainy aerial photo of Homelander with gore-slick hands, five were already dead.
Seven, if you count the dogs.
“Fucking Christ,” Butcher mutters, spitting his cigarette out as he veers off the motorway. He smells it before he sees it: musk and blood and syrupy heat-slick, the kind that clings to the inside of your nostrils like glue.
The alley is a mess. Torn limbs. Shredded denim. A tongue on the ground, bitten clean off.
And in the middle of it all - Homelander.
Slumped against a wall, thighs spread, pants low, trembling. Blood up to his elbows. Slick painting his thighs. There’s a look in his eye. Half-drunk, half feral. His mouth is parted like he’s been panting for hours.
“…Billy,” he says, in a breathy, need-choked whimper. “I think…I went into heat.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” Butcher crunches through bones to reach him. “You’ve painted half of Midtown with someone’s intestines.”
“I couldn’t stop…” Homelander claws at his cape, as if trying to tear it off. “They touched me…one of them tried to pin me, like I was just…just a hole—”
Butcher crouches, exhales like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. Then he cards his hand through Homelander’s hair, much to his disdain. “You’re a walking weapon, mate. You know what heat does to your kind. Should’ve locked yourself in a goddamn vault the moment your belly started clenching.”
Homelander whines, eyes wide-as-dinner plates. “I didn’t want to be alone.”
“You’re not,” Butcher mutters. Then winces. Realizes what he’s just admitted.
A beat.
Another.
The silence is broken by Homelander’s shrill giggle.
Homelander leans forward, forehead pressing against Butcher’s chest, hair brushing his clavicle. “You smell good,” he mumbles. “You always do when I’m like this.” His breath is hot and foggy - damp, needy, tinged with heat . “You make the ache go away.”
Butcher tenses. He wants to push him off. Wants to scream. But Homelander’s leaking through his ruined uniform now, and his slick is laced with blood, and there’s no hiding the purr in the omega’s throat.
“Fuck’s sake,” Butcher groans. “You’re like a rabid cat in heat. Killin’ folks, makin’ a mess, and expectin’ me to clean it all up.”
“I killed them because they weren’t you,” Homelander breathes, nosing at the underside of Butcher’s jaw. “Because they tried to take what wasn’t theirs.”
There’s a moment. A long, taut moment.
Then Butcher grits his teeth. “Alright. Let’s get this over with.”
He yanks Homelander to his feet, bloody boots slipping in viscera. “You get one knot. One. And then we’re torching the scene and flying to Vermont. Somewhere quiet. No people.”
Homelander beams. Giddy. Drunk on heat and the promise of his alpha.
“But you clean up this one,” Butcher snaps, gesturing at the carnage. “I’m done mopping your messes.”
Homelander presses close, groaning as his slick coats his thighs. “But you’re so good at it, Billy…”
Butcher sighs again.
Deep. Long.
He’ll never be free, will he?
Not from him.
Not from the scent.
Not from the blood.
And not from the way Homelander moans when he finally gets what he wants.
—
The nest was a ruin.
Flannel shredded.
Sheets soaked.
Slick dried in smears on the wall where Homelander had clawed.
And in the middle of it, Billy bounced him.
Rhythmic. Cruel. Tender.
All at once.
Homelander’s thighs were trembling. Heat-drunk, neck exposed, his mouth hung open in a soft, silent scream as Butcher fucked him deep enough that the floor beneath them creaked, as if trying to crawl away from the force.
“Billy…Billy…Billy,” he gasped, voice high and wrecked, hips stuttering now with every bounce. “Don’t stop…don’t…oh fuck—”
Butcher didn’t.
He kept going, hands digging into the omega’s waist, pulling him down, driving himself up until the knot popped and lodged deep, locking them together with a wet squelch and a guttural groan.
Homelander screamed.
The way he arched, the way his stomach bulged, just slightly, as that thick cock spread him wide…
He looked transformed.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Butcher rasped, breath ragged, eyes clenched shut. “Tight little hole… Took me so fuckin’ greedy—”
Homelander sobbed. Eyes brimming. Arms limp around Billy’s neck as he trembled in the aftermath.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to kill them. I was just—burning. Inside. I couldn’t think. I wanted you. I always want you.”
Billy exhaled through his nose, slow.
Then, he kissed him.
A real kiss. No blood, no teeth. Just cracked lips pressed to slick-smeared ones. A kiss with the ruin of the world behind it.
Homelander melted. Cried openly now, body shaking in Billy’s arms.
“I’m not good,” he wept. “I’m not good, Billy. I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve you.”
Billy didn’t argue.
Didn’t disagree.
He held the sobbing omega tighter. Knot still buried in that tight cunt, still pulsing in aftershocks.
His voice, when it came, was low. Rough.
“You’re mine,” he said. “That’s all that fuckin’ matters.”
They cried.
One from guilt.
The other from the ache of loving something he knew would destroy him.
Outside, sirens wailed somewhere distant.
Inside the nest, nothing moved but the rise and fall of breath. And the slow soft swell of heat finally spent.