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It was only going to be for 48 hours, Butcher said. As if having to host Homelander in his apartment for a couple of days was a reasonable request in any universe, something that was going to be easy. Hell, he didn’t even manage to have complete control over a washed up porn junkie like Lamplighter. How the hell was he going to manage keeping Homelander entertained enough that he won’t get inspired to leave?
It was a simple enough deal. Homelander would get Ryan if he stayed out of Vought Tower for a crucial 48 hours. Butcher never explained what he was going to do with Vought Tower, but Hughie has the feeling this is going to be an explosives kind of gig. The man isn’t all that subtle. With him it’s explosives, machine guns, or, rarely, the occasional verbal negotiation. Usually coupled with threats of violence anyway. He’s creative in the improv, not the planning stage, and maybe that’s why there’s no grand plan. How Mallory convinced Butcher to execute this plan, and how they decided that dangling Ryan would be enough to persuade Homelander to stay away from Vought Tower, Hughie doesn’t know. Frankly, he has his doubts that if Butcher decides to stage a fifth of November type of event, Homelander won’t bolt out the window and come to his employer’s rescue. Not like Hughie can do anything to stop him. He doesn’t even know what Butcher has planned. But what else is new? He was charged with the babysitting, and everything else is on a “need to know” basis.
“You’ll sleep better if you don’t know the details, lad,” Butcher said, winking, and Hughie objected that no, no he wouldn’t, at ALL, after hearing that kind of reassurance but he knew his objections were going in one ear and out the other. Homelander likely knows more details than he does, and that feels insulting. Hughie wonders if they’ll get to a point in these 48 hours where Homelander would explain it to him out of sheer cabin fever boredom. Right now he’s behaving quite normally- eerily normally, Hughie might say. He’s been planted on the couch for hours, not requesting anything even though Hughie tries to be a good host and offer things periodically. Maybe the supe doesn’t even eat or drink. Homelander just watches Vought News at a slightly obnoxious volume, and takes a slightly suspicious number of bathroom breaks, especially for a supe who may not need water to survive, for all Hughie knows. Hughie goes in to the bathroom just to check if something has been rearranged in that room or if there’s a secret phone Butcher hooked up in there, or maybe a portal to Narnia. He can find nothing remarkable. At one point, and against his better judgment, Hughie creeps closer to the bathroom door while Homelander is in there, to try and overhear if he’s doing some kind of communication, maybe to Vought, right under Hughie’s nose. If he was texting it’d be silent anyway. All Hughie can make out is something that sounds suspiciously like very short moans of effort or pain. Was he listening to Homelander straining to take a shit, right now? Is this what his life has become? Hughie feels the blood drain from his face when it dawns on him that Homelander might be seated on the toilet facing the door and might be staring right him.
“What’re you doing, Hugh?” A gruff voice from inside the small room, echoing off the tiles, right on cue.
“Uh… you okay in there?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be okay.”
“Just- just checking. Sorry, didn’t mean to… well, never mind.”
Hughie staggers back into the living room, trying to will the color back into his face.
Homelander walks out, after running the faucet, Hughie notes thankfully. He wonders if Homelander even takes his gloves off in the bathroom or just washes them like skin.
“You think I’m gonna bolt out of your tiny bathroom window? Trust me, I wouldn’t leave out that way if I had a mind to leave.”
“But… you’re staying because Butcher promised you Ryan?” Hughie just can’t help himself and wants to verify.
“Yeah. And if he has any plans to renege on that, trust me that I’ll take you as first hostage. Butcher seems oddly fond of you. Not to mention our resident blond ditz.”
Hughie thanks his lucky stars that Annie bailed out of keeping him company during this sit-in, just on principle. She would be escalating the situation right now. Hughie sighs. “Not sure Butcher will care about me as much as you expect.”
“Oh he’ll care. He talks a big game about not caring about anyone, but I’ve seen how he talks to you at HQ.”
“Wait, you … you know our HQ?”
Homelander rolls his eyes. “I wouldn’t need X-ray vision to know. Vought Analytics has it bugged.”
“Wait, seriously?” Hughie blanches.
“Yeah, what do you think? I’m telling you because you’re all so pathetic it’s just not a fair fight at all. Consider it charity.”
And yet you’re sitting here waiting for Butcher to decide to hand over Ryan to you, Hughie thinks. “Wait, so… do they have my place bugged too?!”
Homelander takes a cursory look around. “No. Nope, don’t see or hear anything. You’re just not consequential enough, I guess.”
I’m pretty high up in the FBSA! Hughie’s brain protests, but thankfully he keeps his mouth shut.
“So…. does it seem to you like I’m going to the bathroom a lot?” Homelander suddenly asks, and Hughie shakes his head in disbelief.
“What?”
“You asked if I was having trouble. Did you think I was going a lot?”
“Uh…” Hughie can feel sweat that’s broken out earlier start to actually trickle down his back. He tries not to think about the fact that Homelander might be able to see this. “I just… yeah I guess I thought so, but we all have days. Drink a lot of water, need to go more often, right?….” Now he’s just babbling nonsense, and laughing weakly at nothing funny, but in his defense it’s a nonsensical question that he’s answering.
“Sure,” Homelander says in a strange tone and turns back to the TV but looks like he’s lost in thought.
“Can I- get you something? I might start making dinner soon, and I don’t know what your preferences are. We can order in or—“
“Do you have milk?” Homelander interrupts him, sounding strangely urgent.
“Uh… yeah, yeah, I think so, it’s just…”
Homelander brushes past him to go into the kitchen and Hughie trails off.
Great, now he’s actually acting strange. Should he be alerting Butcher? It’s not like he can even say much. He has a code word that basically means ‘come quick, Homelander is in process of killing me,” but nothing less dire than that. He’s not about to start describing that Homelander’s acting weird about the bathroom when the supe will hear him even if he travels over to a different a borough.
“WHAT THE FUCK???!”
Hughie’s entire spinal column gets tense as he hears that voice and then glass breaking somewhere outside. He cautiously approaches the kitchen and just sees Homelander standing there, breathing hard and looking angry.
“W-what happened?”
“YOU FUCKING TELL ME. You had some milk in a jar or whatever it was, but when I cracked it open it smelled like the vilest shit on earth!”
Hughie looks around, thinks for a moment, then buries his face in his palm, not knowing if he’s going to laugh or cry, and worrying that either reaction is going to earn him a lasering.
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS IT, HUGH? You trying to poison me or something? Heard I like milk?”
“What? No… no… wait where is it…”
“I chucked it out the window! Don’t tell me you needed that, it smelled about forty days expired!”
“It’s…”
“WHAT.”
“It’s not milk. It’s … a sourdough starter. Fren- um a friend gave it to me. To make bread. It’s not milk at all.”
“Fucking vile,” Homelander says, but a bit more quietly, and a bit more defensively, realizing the error may have been his. “Don’t just leave that out on the counter.” He throws the fridge door open violently enough that Hughie is nervous that he might tear it off the hinges, but he finds the real milk, inspects it very suspiciously, uncaps and smells it. If Hughie is being honest, he’d probably not going to drink this milk after seeing Homelander sniff it cautiously, from a distance, then bury his nose into the opening to huff it, way more deeply than anyone in their right mind should.
“1% huh.”
“Uh… yeah, Anni- we like the 1%.”
Homelander eyes him up and down critically. “You can probably afford to grade up. But your girlfriend, yeah, stick to the 1%.”
Hughie sighs and shakes his head ever so slightly, trying not to process what his charge is saying. Homelander walks past him back into the living room, back to being glued to Vought News. At least he’s not watching porn. And it looks like Hughie won’t have to worry about making sure to throw out that 1% jug after all, as Homelander drains what is most of a quart in about fifteen minutes.