Cancer Monsters in Love

by NearBlackOrchid

Summary:

Ashley gets a case of sentient brain cancer from Compound V and runs into Billy Butcher while fleeing Vought and Homelander. He has sentient brain cancer too, but his is a boy and hers is a girl, and they're in love. Ashley and Butcher, not so much, but the cancers think they can play matchmaker.

Chapter 1: She Got a Fast Car

Cancer Monsters in Love

Chapter 1 – She Got a Fast Car

Everything always came up shit for Ashley. Surviving the Compound V injection at her age seemed like hitting the jackpot, and if Soldier Boy and Stormfront were any indication, she was now effectively immortal, trapped in amber forever at thirty-three years old, which put her one up on Homelander with his midlife crisis. She would never have to freak out over a wrinkle or a gray hair the way he did. But that was where the benefits of Compound V ended. Instead of flight or laser vision or teleportation or any fucking thing that might help her fight Vought and the Seven when they came to murder her, now she just had Madelyn Stillwell riding shotgun in the drop car she’d stowed away in case of emergency, and if anything qualified this was it.

Ashley’s hands tightened on the steering wheel and her foot pressed harder on the accelerator. I-87 North would take her to Montreal, and her fake ID and one hundred eight thousand dollars in cash were stashed in her go-bag in the passenger footwell, on which Madelyn had propped her feet. She’d had the foresight to channel most of her money into numbered Swiss bank accounts and she could exchange what she had for Canadian dollars when she got there, so no problem. After reaching Canada, Ashley planned to find some obscure hidey-hole until she figured out her power. Her shitty, fucking, useless power.

And Homelander. Her fucking betrayer. That little fishfucking prick Deep didn’t surprise her with the backstab now that he’d borrowed balls from Sister Sage instead of brains, but Homelander had okayed her murder. The one person who’d always been completely loyal to him—with the exception of concealing Maeve’s impossible survival to get back at him for forcing her to remove her wig but he didn’t know about that—and he’d thrown her away at Deep’s suggestion. Dispensed with her. And sent Black Noir to kill her. He hadn’t even condescended to do it himself. She wasn’t worthy of him murdering her personally. And she’d been stupid enough to think that she might become something more than his corporate puppet and Ryan’s babysitter. Now she knew the truth, that she was nothing to him. “Bastard! Bastard!” she screamed out the open T-top of her car, heedless of the icy wind pouring over her.

“And we’re back to Homelander, I imagine,” said Madelyn. “Ashley, how did you not expect this to happen? You knew he was unstable and dangerous. It was only a matter of time before he turned on you the way he’s turned on everyone else in his life. Psychologically he’s a fourteen-year-old boy with all the shallowness and immaturity that implies and, quite frankly, you aren’t beautiful enough for him to bother. I’m rather disappointed that you didn’t already have a safe house bought and paid for under a false name.”

“I had the car,” she muttered in resentment.

“And what a car at that. I would have imagined you with a sensible, unmemorable Kia, or some soccer-mom minivan, not…this.” Ashley heard the disapproval in her voice.

“It’s nothing that anyone would expect someone to drive when they’re trying to be inconspicuous. It’s good camouflage.” Besides, she liked it. The 1976 black and gold Trans Am was a double for the car in Smokey and the Bandit and was the last thing anyone at Vought would picture her driving.

“If you say so. And close the T-top. You’re letting in all the cold.” She did, and they covered another few miles in silence before Madelyn said, “When you get to the exit for Lake Placid, turn off so we can find a motel.”

“Why would I do that? When we get there we’ll be an hour from Montreal. Might as well push through.”

“Because you should have had at least a full day’s rest after injecting Compound V. I understand why you didn’t, but now that we’re away from the Tower you need to get some sleep before you crash. You don’t want that to happen at the wheel of a car.”

“Great. Great. Remind me why I’m listening to you at all?”

“I’m your power, Ashley. I’m the stress-induced glioblastoma in your brain. Nothing you would have noticed just yet, aside from those headaches you get occasionally, but when you took that Compound V I…became. And if you die I die, so you can trust me to have your best interests at heart. Good enough?” She didn’t have to look at her old boss to know she wore a mocking smile.

“I guess it has to be.”

“Cheer up,” said Madelyn. “You don’t even know what I can do yet.”

“And what’s that?” But the woman fell silent and when Ashley glanced over, the passenger seat was empty again. She rolled her eyes and concentrated on the road. Madelyn would be back, and maybe then she could question the phantasm about this “power.” How did sentient fucking cancer even consider itself a power?

But maybe stopping in Lake Placid was a good idea. The adrenalin rush of finding out about being on Homelander’s kill list and the Compound V and fleeing the Tower at top speed had started to wear off and she was tired, her muscles still aching from the seizures. Find a nice, inconspicuous motel, get a good night’s sleep, then slip across the border into Canada with her fake passport. It made sense. She needed to find a place to change clothes and switch wigs anyway.

As the car approached the exit for Lake Placid, Madelyn reappeared in the shotgun seat. “Turn off here. I’ll guide you from there.”

Guide her? Weren’t they just looking for a random motel where she could catch a little sleep? But she steered the Trans Am down the ramp and followed directions until they arrived at a generic La Quinta Inn sandwiched between a McDonald’s and an Exxon station. It was an older one, with the exterior entrances to the rooms. Ashley started to pull under the portico but Madelyn said, “No, go around to the left and park outside one of the rooms. If they’re looking for you already and think you might head for Canada, you don’t want your flashing neon sign of a car parked in front of a motel.”

She felt uneasy but obeyed, sliding the Trans Am into a spot at the far end of the motel beside a silver Toyota 4Runner and killing the engine. When she retrieved her purse and got out of the car to head for the motel office, the full extent of the cancer’s power over her revealed itself as she turned away and walked toward the room on the end. A rush of panic hit her as she realized her legs didn’t respond to what she wanted, her need to stop not even causing a stutter in her confident stride, and she had no ability to control her own body. “What? What’s going on?”

For once Madelyn paid no attention to her. “Finally finally finally,” she gasped as they stopped outside room 112. The door opened before she could lift her hand to knock, or before Madelyn could lift Ashley’s hand, and Billy Butcher stood there in an unbuttoned black shirt and black pants. He looked as stunned to see her as she was to see him.

“Inside,” he said, and stepped out of her way. Ashley still had no control over her limbs and entered in a rush, having no ears for the slam of the door behind her. The room was a mess: two beds, one unmade and one with an opened suitcase on top, fast food containers and wrappers strewn around, open liquor bottles, a haze of cigarette smoke, the interior of the room darkened from the drawn curtains. Before Ashley could do more than take a quick, assessing look at the room and open her mouth to ask any questions, like what was he doing here and why had her sentient cancer that appeared to her as Madelyn Stillwell brought her here, tentacles burst from Butcher’s chest, waving in the still air of the motel room. She wanted to scream and her throat muscles vibrated, but no sound came out. That fact panicked her more than the sight of Homelander’s worst enemy turned—what? Turned into a tentacle cancer monster? She fought to scream with every ounce of strength she had. It was the most horrifying thing she’d ever seen, but in the next few seconds it picked up a demotion to second-most horrifying.

A sudden, pressing pain shot through her head and a sickening sense of displacement in her torso, and matching tentacles shot out of her. The material of her blouse tore with their eruption, so she found herself with shreds of cloth hanging off her shoulders, but thankfully her bra was still intact so Butcher wasn’t getting a show. Other than the tentacles which had sprouted from her body, that is. A cocoon of shock encased her mind as the tentacles from Butcher’s cancer monster and her own cancer monster reached out, intertwined, and drew their hosts closer together until they were pressed tight against each other’s bodies. “What’s happening?” Ashley despised the sound of tears in her voice.

A long sigh left Butcher. “He says that this is his mate. The one that must be in you. How did you get one in you?”

She ignored that. “So what are they doing? Mating?” Against her skin she felt the tentacles wrapped around each other, writhing. Okay, fine, she might have to stay here until the cancer monsters got through fucking, or their equivalent of it, and then she could leave. She hoped. If Butcher would let her.

He looked to one side and seemed to be listening to someone. Whatever he heard was bad, as his expression darkened. “Yeah, they’re doing that. But—” he paused, and Ashley had time to feel dread before he continued “—but they need our bodies to do it.”

“And who told you that? Your cancer monster?”

That made him laugh. “He looks like an old friend of mine named Kessler. At least that’s how I see him. Who does yours look like?”

“Madelyn Stillwell.” She welcomed the banal conversation as an opportunity to avoid dealing with what he’d just said. They need our bodies to do it.

“Huh. Wouldn’t have thought she was your friend.”

“She wasn’t. If she had been she would have told me what a psychopath Homelander is, and I never would have taken the job when he offered it. Fuck me, I guess.” But that forced her to stop ignoring what he’d just said. “You said that they need us to…mate?”

“Our bodies.” Butcher didn’t look any happier about it than she was, although she could feel his cock, pressed against her thigh but thankfully still inside his pants and not hard yet. How long had it been since they’d met in person? Maybe five minutes max? And now their mutual sentient cancers were going to make them fuck.

“What’s their time frame?”

“Why don’t you ask me, Ashley?” Madelyn sat on the unmade bed, dangling a sandal off the toes of her left foot. “And as soon as possible. He and I are the only ones of our kind in the world, and we’ve found each other. Can’t you understand that we’re in love?”

She ignored her cancer’s question, looking up at Butcher. “My…Madelyn just told me they want to do this as soon as possible. She also gave me some romance bullshit about how she and your cancer feel about each other.”

“It can’t be more bullshit that you thinking Homelander would ever want to be with you,” Madelyn snapped.

“And now she’s just being a bitch.”

“From what I understand she was excellent at that.” That made Ashley laugh a little. “Do you want to fill me in on how you got your own…cancer monster?”

She shrugged. “I wound up on a kill list Homelander made and thought shooting up Compound V might give me a fighting chance at survival. Out of all the powers I could have gotten, sentient cancer wasn’t on my bingo card. Should have known I’d pull something useless.”

“But you survived. That’s not common with someone who’s an adult when they’re dosed.”

Was he trying to bright-side her? Good luck with that. “How did you get yours?”

Butcher sighed. “Too much Temp V.”

“Well, Compound V apparently would have given it to you in one go. Vought files indicate only Soldier Boy and Stormfront survived injection with the compound in full adulthood. Probably why they used his sperm and her egg to conceive Homelander.”

That shocked Butcher. “Stormfront was his mother? Weren’t they shagging?”

“Yes and yes. I don’t think he knew before, but I’m sure he found out when he was in the files looking for his father. He may be in denial about it.”

Butcher turned his head to listen to what she assumed was his friend Kessler. His cancer. “I—I’m sorry, love, but he wants to get on with this, like Madelyn told you.”

“Now?” She wished her voice didn’t shake like a willow tree in a tornado.

“Yes, Ashley,” Madelyn said. “We’ve indulged the two of you, let you get better acquainted, but we’re tired of waiting. You need to be reasonable about this.”

She turned her head back to him; he must know that she’d been listening to Madelyn, the same as he listened to Kessler. “She just answered my question.”

He looked—what, bothered? Disturbed? Of course he didn’t want sex with her—she wasn’t beautiful like Queen Maeve or his wife Becca and he was a handsome man, as much as Homelander but in a different way. A pity she’d never favored scruffy men. “I’ll—I’m not sure I can keep him from it. He has a degree of physical control over me.”

Ashley rested her forehead against his chest. “It’s the same with me, so I guess we’ll have to let them puppet us.” Maybe it would be over soon and she could leave. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt too much. She tried to ignore the fact of her body moving independently of her will, slipping off her slacks and panties and kicking off her shoes, leaving her naked except for her bra as he pulled her back to him.

“It’ll be all right, love,” he said, but she barely heard him, too busy noticing the hardening of his cock, his hand brushing against her skin as he reached down to unzip his pants, withdraw himself. She kept her forehead against his chest so she didn’t have to look at him, read his expression and know his thoughts.

“Maybe you can pretend I’m your wife.” Butcher ignored that and lifted her higher against him to line her up with his cock, parting the lips of her pussy with the tip. Ashley started to tense, hoping her dryness wouldn’t cause her to tear, but of course Madelyn had thought of that and she was slick and wet for him as he sheathed himself fully and she wrapped her legs around him. The sensation forced a shudder from her. It had been so long since she’d taken a man inside; Cameron had only been into the BDSM games they played and had no use for anything except her disciplining him, Robert had issues in getting hard, and Adam—well, she should have won an Oscar for the quality of her fake orgasms. When she was alone and needed the relief, she didn’t use dildos, just tended to her clit until she came. It was quicker and she only needed to get it over with, get that stress release. She wrapped an arm around Butcher’s neck to keep her balance, even though the tentacles and his own arm held her in place, and her eyes closed involuntarily for his first thrust. Heat radiated through her and she had to suppress a moan. How had she forgotten that being filled with cock felt delicious?

Something broke inside him and he thrust deep, hard, over and over, and she bit her lip. Fuck me harder. Keep going. That’s so good. Those thoughts were apparently hers, since Madelyn didn’t force her to voice them. She hid her face against his shoulder and enjoyed the sensations, letting her nails dig into his skin. When she took a breath, she noticed a faint scent of cologne on him, amber and spice and musk, mixing with the cigarette smoke and his skin, and somehow that put her over the edge and she was coming, trembling with pleasure, clinging to him while trying to hold back any sounds.

Butcher eased her back onto his bed and kept pumping, eyes closed, lost in what he was doing. The release had cleared Ashley’s mind enough to look at him, just as trapped as she was by the things their bodies housed. Her hand reached out, caught the corner of his pillow and gripped it until he lost control of himself and cried out, spasming inside her as he came. He leaned forward in a near-collapse on top of her, his face against the side of her neck. The feel of his breath and the silky scratch of his beard sent an errant tingle through her.

After a few minutes he recovered himself enough to roll off her. The tentacles were gone; she assumed the cancer monsters had retracted them and were content now that they had mated. But she knew they were still inside, waiting. “Is yours talking to you?” she asked.

“No. What about yours?”

Ashley shook her head. “Do you think I can leave now?”

“Doubtful,” he said. “From what Kessler was saying, he and your…Madelyn…well, they don’t want to be separated. I think if you try to leave, she’ll keep you here, or force you to come back. Didn’t you say she had some physical control over you?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’d get used to being here for a while.”

The air-conditioning brought up goosebumps on her skin, and she was uncomfortably aware of the ache from unaccustomed usage between her legs. “All right.” With a cautious movement she stood and moved over to the other bed, put the suitcase on the floor, and drew back the covers before crawling in, her back to him, holding in the tears.

Hours later, after Butcher and Ashley had both fallen into uneasy sleep, Kessler called to Madelyn. My dear?

She responded instantly. Dearest?

Do you think that went well?

She laughed, the sound low and sensual, and Kessler shuddered inside Butcher’s brain. As well as we could reasonably expect. She wants to run, but he’s told her I won’t let her leave this place. He certainly isn’t a stupid one.

He was silent for a few moments. Did she…enjoy the physical part of it?

Oh, yes, said Madelyn. She’s had precious little pleasure out of contact with men lately. Singularly bad taste in them, if I do say so. She wanted Homelander, if you can believe that. Even after she knew what he was. Did Butcher enjoy the sex?

Kessler chuckled. Immensely. This boy hasn’t fucked at all in a year and a half, I think? Not since Queen Maeve. And he hasn’t had regular, dependable sex in over a decade, not since Becca left him. Just the goal-oriented affair with Susan Raynor and one-nighters here and there, when the pressure got too much.

What are you thinking?

Well, I’m thinking we stay here at the La Quinta for a few weeks. Let them get better acquainted with each other. Let them have—well, let’s let both of them find out, or remember, the pleasures of regular fucking. Let’s convince them to want to stay together.

Okay. It’s a good plan. I do want her to be happy. It isn’t just that I want to stay with you.

But you do want that? To stay with me?

He felt the smile in her words. Don’t ask me such foolish questions. They stopped talking in order to sink into the full communion the sex between their hosts had triggered. So much better than the abbreviated, vestigial connection they’d felt upon her awakening under the effects of Compound V, the connection which had inspired Kessler to stop Butcher at the Lake Placid motel and to lead Madelyn along I-87 North to find him. And then they were together, and convincing Butcher and Ashley to stay together would insure they never had to part.

The next morning, when Ashley opened her eyes, Butcher was stepping out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. She averted her eyes, denying the flash of memory: his bare skin, the scent of his cologne, her nails digging into him as she came. He seemed awkward as he said, “You can have a shower if you want. We can get breakfast, too.”

“A shower sounds great.” Then she remembered and went into her purse for her car keys. “Could you get the suitcase out of the back of my car, please? And there’s a duffel bag on the passenger side that has my money and my fake ID. I’d go myself, but I don’t have clothes.”

He smiled. “You could wear my shirt if you want. I think you’d look cute in it.”

It made her uneasy that he felt the need to lie about her looks. “If you’d rather, let me get my pants and I’ll go.” No choice but to let him look at her mostly naked as she got out of the bed and fumbled her slacks on. Never mind the panties, they’d only be something to remove when she took her shower and washed the previous day off.

The touch of cloth on her skin startled her, but it was only him helping her into his shirt. She felt a little better when he didn’t show any roughness with her, guiding her arms into the sleeves and buttoning the front as she tried to look anywhere except at him. At least he wasn’t angry that he’d been forced to fuck her. She chose to take that as a good sign and tried not to think about the rest of the day, the rest of her life with the cancer monster directing things from inside her brain.

Chapter 2: And He Said, What About...Breakfast at IHOP?

Summary:

Kessler and Butcher have a heated discussion about the situation, and Butcher and Ashley have breakfast together.

Cancer Monsters in Love

Chapter 2 – And He Said, What About…Breakfast at IHOP?

Butcher watched her leave, one hand absently rubbing his bare stomach, but the sound of Kessler’s voice jerked him back to reality. “Did you have a good evening, Billy?”

Helpless rage swirled inside him. “Let her go. She hasn’t done anything to you.”

He guffawed. “Afraid you’re wrong there. That little lady has my mate inside her noggin, and she’s not going anywhere. You have some objection to her staying with us?”

“She belongs to Homelander. He’ll chase her to the ends of the fucking earth.”

“Not according to my mate. He’s thrown her away like the fool he is, and now a smart man would pluck that diamond out of the road, dust it off, and put it in his pocket.”

“I don’t need some useless bird hanging onto me, slowing me down. What’s that they say, he who travels fastest travels alone?”

“Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Winners.’ Shame you can’t figure out that a woman is what you need most right about now. And that little redhead specifically.”

Butcher ached for a swig of whiskey out of one of the bottles on the dresser but resisted, choosing to grab his clothes and start putting them on. He didn’t want to show weakness in front of Kessler. “What makes you think I care anything about Homelander’s corporate cunt?”

He laughed again. “I’m in your head, remember? No sense trying to lie to me. You may not like who she associated with or what she did in her job, but you loved blowing your load inside that hot little pussy of hers. Why else were you jerking off in the bathroom thinking about it while you were taking a shower?”

“So you couldn’t force us to fuck for your amusement anytime soon. Maybe we don’t like being your performing monkeys.”

He shook his head and made a tsk-tsk sound. “You should know better by now. With the level of control my mate and I have over you and Ashley, you’ll fuck whenever we want. And my mate and I—well, we’re in what you’d call our honeymoon period. You’re going to have plenty of chances to come your brains out inside her. The days when all you fucked was your own hand are over now.”

“I won’t!” The fury, his ever-present companion, burst through his control. “You won’t make me rape her again!”

Kessler shook his head. “I’m sorry you see it that way. You should think of it more as an arranged marriage. A lot of people have been happy in those.”

“I don’t want to get married again. And I wouldn’t have chosen Ashley bloody Barrett of all people.”

“Don’t make me laugh. You wouldn’t have chosen anyone again because you’re too busy worshipping at the shrine of Saint Rebecca Butcher. You’ve basically castrated yourself on her altar.”

Butcher snarled, “Don’t say her name.”

“Shame your memory’s as bad as it is. Then again, it’s easier to remember only the good.”

The words almost broke through his anger, prompted him to ask what he meant, but Kessler was gone and Ashley was returning through the motel door, burdened with a big suitcase and a stuffed duffel bag. A twinge of guilt nagged at him; she didn’t have his muscle, and he should have retrieved her luggage if only to be polite after what he'd done to her the previous night, but no fixing it now. And why hadn’t he? She’d even said please.

To make up for it a little he took the suitcase and duffel bag from her and dropped them on her bed. “You pack light.”

She made a face. “The suitcase has been in the trunk of the car for literally years. I’ll have to get some heavier clothes since I didn’t know what season I’d have to run, so it’s mostly season-transitional clothes. I took a chance of going by my apartment for the duffel bag.”

“What’s in there that’s worth it?”

“I told you, my fake ID and a hundred and eight thousand dollars.” She jingled her car keys in one hand before tossing them onto the dresser. “Forgot to lock the car. I’ll have to talk to Madelyn about that.”

“You left over a hundred thousand quid in an unlocked car overnight and it was still there in the morning? You have the devil’s own luck, love.”

“Ashley,” she said as she opened her suitcase and began sorting through its contents.

“Pardon me?”

“Ashley is my name. Not love.” Without looking at him, she snatched at some clothes and headed for the bathroom. “I’m taking a shower now. I’ll be out in a little while.”

“Suit yourself,” he said as the door closed behind her. Should he tell her that the word didn’t mean anything, that it was the British equivalent of honey or babe, a casual endearment? Kessler and Madelyn might be in love, but he still had control over his own emotions, if not his body. Eventually he decided not to make an issue of it. If she asked, he’d tell her, but he doubted if she’d ask. She didn’t seem to want to talk to him. Or perhaps she simply wasn’t a morning person.

When Ashley emerged from the bathroom, he was surprised to see her hair was in a chin-length black bob. “What’s happened to your hair?”

She gave him a puzzled look, then her expression cleared. “I have trichotillomania—compulsive hair-pulling—from the stress at Vought, and Homelander, of course. I’m pretty much bald right now. I wear wigs.”

“Oh. All right, then.” Butcher pushed away a feeling of sympathy. From what he’d learned about her in the past years of his vendetta against Homelander, he’d thought she was untouched by the environment, sailing blithely through the two supe-committed massacres she’d survived and whatever other violence the cunt had subjected her to with no psychological trauma whatsoever, but it seemed he’d been wrong. No matter how damaged she’d been by her tenure at the company, though, she was still the enemy and no sentient cancer in her head could erase that.

“It’s better for disguise, at least,” she continued. “You said something about breakfast. I missed dinner last night.”

Aside from the wig, the color of which made her face look bloodless, Ashley wore a peach-colored knitted jumper, dark brown leggings, and a pair of Nike trainers. It was the first time he’d seen her wear anything casual; the photos and video of her that he’d seen showed her in business clothes, sleek and polished and confident. That confidence was nowhere to be found in this woman.

“All right. Get your coat and we’ll go to McDonald’s.” He didn’t favor the food there, but it was convenient and comparatively cheap. Then they could get on the road and, if not go their separate ways, at least each drive their own car. He welcomed that distance from her.

She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like McDonald’s breakfast food. I’ll just run over to the gas station and get a muffin or something.”

“You said you missed dinner. You need to eat more than that. I’m not overfond of McDonald’s myself, so we can find another place. I saw an IHOP on the way in. We can try there.”

Butcher wasn’t prepared for the surprise on her face that melted into a smile. She had a gap between her front teeth and he found the effect…charming. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“Why were you surprised?”

“Well, if Homelander had found out I didn’t like something, he’d insist on it just to show me how much power he had.”

“I’m not that cunt.” His voice came out harsh; he saw the effect in the sudden tension of her body, an infinitesimal pulling away from him although she didn’t step back. That she could compare him to the supe was intolerable.

Ashley ducked her face. “I’m sorry. I’ll get my coat.” It was a quilted rust-brown down-filled garment that she pulled on with a quickness and then snatched up her purse. If he wasn’t mistaken, if she didn’t have the Madelyn-creature in her head, she would have been behind the wheel of her own car and speeding back toward the motorway. Was this how she’d dealt with Homelander when he’d been angry, apologizing and shrinking into herself to avoid violence? “Is the IHOP close enough to walk to?”

He had an urge to take her arm, talk to her until she calmed, but he crushed it. Was the Kessler-creature in his head pushing this on him, the need to make her feel better? If so, Kessler would find out sharpish that Butcher wasn’t going to be manipulated that way. “No. We’ll take my car.”

“All right.” Her voice was small and she kept a distance between them as they left the motel room. He lifted the keyfob to unlock the doors of his silver Toyota 4Runner but spared a glance for the classic Trans Am parked next to it. “Is that your car?”

Ashley nodded. “Vought would be much more likely to think I’d be driving your car than—”

“The car from Smokey and the Bandit.”

“Right.” She didn’t give him the opportunity to hold the car door for her, as she yanked it open and got inside in a rush. Maybe she hadn’t expected manners from him.

She wasn’t any more talkative after the hostess seated them in a booth at IHOP and, he thought, used the menu as an excuse not to speak to him. Really, what did the two of them have to say? They were nothing but marionettes of their respective cancers, immaterial in and of themselves. To distract himself from his thoughts, he applied himself to his own menu. When the waitress arrived, he ordered a steak omelet with a side of toast and coffee. Ashley ordered a Belgian waffle with bacon and scrambled eggs and orange juice. After the waitress took their menus and departed, there was no way to avoid each other. He sighed and looked over at her, ready to mouth some meaningless words.

But she spoke first. “What cologne do you wear?”

The waitress returned with their drinks, which spared him from an immediate reply. “What makes you think I do?” he asked after the woman had left.

A faint blush colored her cheeks. “I noticed it last night. The scent wasn’t strong, but it was there. I just wondered.”

He shrugged. “Something I picked up in a souk in Cairo years ago. Turned out it was in a side pocket of my bag.” Becca had taken an instant violent dislike to it, said it was too musky for her and made him smell like a skunk. Butcher hadn’t thought so, but to keep the peace he tucked the cologne away and forgot about it for years, until he’d found it in his suitcase when he was unpacking in the La Quinta Inn. He’d dabbed a little on before he’d gone to bed the night before last, the night before Ashley appeared at his door and he couldn’t turn her away. Or, rather, Kessler wouldn’t allow him to do anything but usher her in and fuck her. “I won’t wear it again.”

That got her to look up at him. “Why not? It smells good.”

He was taken aback. “I…thought it didn’t.”

“Then why did you put any on?”

“I…just wanted to. I like the scent. And it was all I had.” The SUV and the bag were all he possessed in the here and now, but he had some secure bank accounts for funds. With Grace Mallory dead, it seemed the CIA money spigot had turned itself off, unless he could get to someone else in the agency, but with Homelander consolidating control over the governmental structure with the new President Calhoun as his puppet, a vacation out of the country until he came up with a plan could perhaps be in order. And, thanks to Kessler and his brand-new mate Madelyn, he’d have to bring this bird along. Bloody wonderful.

“Well, it’s nice,” she murmured, staring at her hands. Her fingernails were unpolished ovals, her fingers long and delicate. Butcher wondered what it would feel like to be caressed by those hands. Had she touched him at all last night? Kessler had ridden him hard and he didn’t remember much other than Ashley’s skin against him—hadn’t she been wearing a bra?—her arm around his neck, and the feel of his cock inside her. And the mind-blowing orgasm he had. But, really, when was the last time a woman had caressed him in bed? With Maeve it had been drunken combat, he and Susan hadn’t had much affection between them, and his other one-nighters had never been in a mood for tenderness. It had been Becca, of course, who’d caressed him last, and the knowledge made his chest ache. He’d failed her, failed her as he’d failed everyone else who’d ever depended on him: Lenny, Becca, Grace, Susan, Ryan, Hughie and Frenchie and Marvin and Kimiko and Starlight. His mouth burned for a swallow from one of the whiskey bottles in his room, but IHOP didn’t serve liquor and he had to make do with the carafe of coffee.

“Appreciate the opinion, love.” Surreal, that he should be sitting here with her, eating a normal breakfast, while Homelander controlled the executive branch of the federal government. And he had to be looking for her, for him. “How do you think the supe cunt’s going to come after us?”

The waitress was approaching with their food, so she waited until after the plates were on the table to answer him. “Not personally. He’ll send Black Noir or the Deep. Sage—she’s the real power of the Seven now, he’s nothing but her lackey but she lets him think he’s in control—will figure we’ll try to get out of the country and probably will have Analytics watching any and all exit points into Canada. It’s bordering New York, so it’s the logical destination. They’ll watch Mexico too, though. All the airports, of course.”

“Tell me more about Sage,” he said.

“Homelander’s almost hypnotized by her. She’s billed as the smartest person in the world, and he brought her in to replace me as CEO. Not publicly, of course, just in front of the rest of the Seven, so I’d take all the risks and blowback and she’d reap the rewards. She’s fucking the Deep and got him to the point where he threatened to murder me.”

“Oh, please,” he scoffed. “Like that wanker could kill anyone.”

“I believed him. I think if I’d stood up to him in any way I would have died right there. And Homelander wasn’t far away, so he must have heard it and not cared. But he had Sage, so why would he?” Ashley’s voice quivered, and Butcher thought the pain was more from the supe’s not caring if she died rather than the fish wanker going rabid and borrowing a set of balls. “Smartest person in the world, my ass. She didn’t even realize all the apartments in the Tower are wired for sight and sound. Did you know she had to lobotomize herself to fuck the Deep?”

“Bring herself down to his level, I suppose?”

Ashley nodded. “The only part of her that regenerates is her brain. But she didn’t have to knock out her own thinking to fuck Black Noir, I can tell you. She would have fucked Homelander too if she’d thought he was vulnerable that way. I think she wants to destroy the Seven, or maybe it’s Vought itself she’s after. I didn’t have time to decide that before I had to run.”

“You mentioned a kill list he had.”

“Apparently it was every human in the company who could hurt him. The Deep, the cowardly little piece of shit, told him that my name should be right on the top of that list and Homelander…agreed.” Her voice wobbled again. “He wants only other supes around him now. Doesn’t matter if they’re trying to destroy him. They’re supes, and that’s all that matters.”

Had she thought if she injected the Compound V she’d be safe from him as a supe, if she didn’t die? If she’d thought that, she hadn’t hung around the Tower long enough to test out her theory. “What do you think is in his mind?”

“He’s in a death spiral. He’s been decompensating for years, since you killed Madelyn.”

That surprised him. “I didn’t kill her, love. He did. But you must know that.”

Her eyes were huge with shock. “I don’t believe you.”

“Whether you do or not, it’s true. I intended to use her to threaten him, I’d even booby-trapped her with explosives, but he was having none of it. She’d lied to him about something and he took serious exception. He used his laser vision to burn her eyes out of her head. Her eye sockets were a smoking mess and I couldn’t see anything inside her skull when he let her go. He must have cooked her brain to nothing.” Ashley looked sick at this point but he kept going. “I triggered the explosives, but he must have been fast enough to get me out of her house before they blew. Then he blamed me for her murder.” Butcher refused to tell her that Homelander had taken him to Becca after that, revealed her child with him, Ryan. It still hurt too much.

“I—I’d been fired at that point. And there was no reason for him to say a word to anybody when he had you as his fall guy. The way I would have been his fall guy the next time one of his plans—or one of Sage’s—went wrong.” Her hands trembled as she took a sip of orange juice. Despite what she’d just said about not believing him, the story had shaken her. “He’ll turn on Sage eventually, but she must think she’s smart enough to foresee this, outmaneuver him, or maybe she’s just as insane as he is. Who the fuck knows.”

Butcher had a lot to think about, so he dropped the subject and let her eat. Ashley might think Sage was in charge, but he knew Homelander too well to believe that. He might let people think so, but she would serve as a patsy just as well as Ashley would have when the time came. Did he know that the woman had her own agenda and was sowing dissension in the ranks? If so, he didn’t feel the need to act against her yet. The steak omelet looked unappealing after the conversation they’d had, but he started to eat as well. He needed to keep up his strength.

When they had finished, Ashley reached for the check but he was there first. “Let me buy you breakfast, at least.” To make up a little for not being able to stop Kessler from doing what he wanted.

She shrugged. “Thank you. I don’t have much cash on me now, it’s all in the duffel bag, and I didn’t think to change out my ID for the new stuff with the credit card. I’ll do that when we get back to the motel.”

“Where did you get your fake ID?” She named someone he’d heard of who did quality work, and he approved. “What’s your new name?”

“Nicola O’Carroll.”

“Irish. Red hair. Nice.” It was a prettier name than her current.

“I doubt if I’ll wear the red wig in public again. They’ll have an eye out for redheads.”

He wondered if, technically, she could be called that anymore since she’d pulled all her hair out. “Oh, she has hair other places than her head,” said Kessler, who’d materialized in the booth next to him. “You should remember that from last night. Lady’s still a redhead.”

Butcher ignored that.

He should have known Kessler’s appearance presaged something bad, because as soon as they got back to the room and the door closed behind him, he felt the telltale displacement in his torso that indicated the tentacles were about to make an appearance. “Ashley—” was all he had time to say before they burst out, tearing his shirt (he’d have to have a word with Kessler about that, he couldn’t afford to keep replacing clothing) and floating on the air between the two of them.

She tilted her head a little and he knew she was listening to Madelyn speaking. “They…want this again,” she told him. “The mating.”

Not a surprise, considering Kessler had already extended his tentacles toward Ashley. A brief surge of burning rage, knowing he couldn’t protect her, knowing he’d be forced to fuck her again, but Butcher tried to keep himself calm. As far as he knew, she hadn’t been hurt by the sex last night. Neither of them would want to injure their host bodies, and he wondered if he could use this to their benefit. “Tell her not to manifest the tentacles until you’ve taken off your jumper. Kessler ruins my shirts regularly.” He felt a little better when she chuckled.

Ashley removed the short black wig to take off her jumper. The sight of her stubbly scalp awakened some sympathy, but again he pushed it down. “I’ll put the red wig back on, if that’s all right with you.”

“It’s fine, love. You look more yourself that way.” Her bra was plain white cotton, very serviceable and unsexy. He wondered if she would take it off this time.

When she came back from the bathroom the long red wig was in place, and she’d taken off her leggings and trainers, leaving her only in the plain white bra and a pair of pink cotton knickers. Her body was thin, angular, and he wondered if she ate properly. If her inclination toward a petrol station muffin for breakfast was any indicator, she did not. Maeve and Susan and Becca had all been on the lean side—then he crushed his thought. Becca had no business anywhere near the current situation, Susan was dead, and he had no use for Maeve now that she was powerless and couldn’t assist him in hurting Homelander. And all of them had been beautiful, something Ashley could never approach.

Butcher pulled off his ruined shirt and tossed it aside, trying to ignore the waving tentacles reaching for Ashley, and sat down on his bed to remove his shoes. They might as well be comfortable for this. “I didn’t ask you this before. Did I hurt you last night?" She looked a little startled. “I mean…it was quick. I didn’t do anything for you beforehand.”

“Uh—Madelyn took care of it so I was ready. It was fine.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

No way to make her at ease with what was about to happen, so he settled for taking off his trousers and underwear. When he’d done this for purposes other than sheer physical gratification, he’d helped his women relax with humor, physical contact, sometimes persuaded them that he was in love. Butcher had been physically unfaithful to Becca in the past—no avoiding it since he was an intelligence agent and sex was the easiest way of keeping assets loyal—but he’d always felt guilty about it, even though she’d never known. In the two years of their marriage, he’d been happier than he’d dreamed possible. He should have known it was too good to last. “I suppose we should get started. Kessler seems eager.”

Ashley opened her mouth to speak, but the tentacles erupted from her chest and found Butcher’s, or really Kessler’s. Her breath left her in a long exhale. “So is Madelyn.” She slipped out of her panties, exposing the little puff of hair between her legs—lady’s still a redhead, said Kessler’s ghost-voice—and reached behind her to unfasten her bra. If he looked past the waving tentacles, she had nice breasts. Small, but perfect, the pink nipples already hardening. Her unease made itself visible in every line of her body.

Butcher felt himself getting hard at the sight of her, the memory of how very very good it had felt to go off inside her, and motioned to her. “Come here, love.”

She did, pulled toward him by her tentacles, which wrapped around his and brought her the rest of the way until they were in contact. “Straddle me. You might feel more comfortable if you aren’t pinned underneath me.” Butcher knew enough about her private life to figure out that Ashley liked dominance. He couldn’t think of anything worse for a dom than to be controlled by a creature inside her own head that she couldn’t fight and overcome. If she was in a position where he wasn’t on top, she might like it better.

“Okay,” she murmured. Putting her knees on the bed, she moved into position over him and her fingers curled around his cock, which sent a flood of excitement through him. When she tried to sink down on him, he put his hands on her hips to stop her. “What are—”

“Too quick last time, love. I can’t even be sure if you got off because Kessler was in control.”

“Oh, I did. I—” And then his hand was between her legs, finding the sensitive little bundle of nerves and rubbing. Her whole body jerked, but the tentacles and his hand remaining on her hip kept her in place. “You—oh—you don’t need to do that.”

“Afraid I do. I’ve no intention of counting on Madelyn to get you through this. And I think you have an idea of me in this area that isn’t…that doesn’t actually match the reality.”

Ashley’s breathing was shallow, rapid. “I don’t know what you mean.” A slide of his fingers made her arch into him, and he closed his eyes to feel her bare breasts against his chest.

“I take care of my women in bed. You didn’t see any of that, but you will.”

“I—you don’t want me. It’s just Kessler and Madelyn. Why would you want to?”

He didn’t really have an answer for that, except maybe sheer bloody masculine pride. “Kessler’s indicated to me that this isn’t a one-off thing for them. Since we don’t have any way of getting free of them, of fighting them, we might as well make the best of it.”

She sighed. “Okay. Makes sense.” Maybe she would have said more, but he leaned forward and took one of her nipples into his mouth and began to lick and suck and she moaned. The sound excited him and he resumed caressing her clit. Ashley writhed under his touch, making little whimpering sounds that made his pulse throb in his ears. Her hands went into his hair, letting the strands slip through her fingers, and she rested her cheek on top of his head for a moment. Butcher took a breath and the scent of her perfume was in his nose, complex, rich, and he was too overcome with the desire that Kessler was forcing through his body to stop and analyze the notes, but it gave him a distant comfort that she smelled nothing like Becca. His wife had worn Elizabeth Arden’s Green Tea, fresh and citrusy, simple and up-front, not like the sophistication of what Ashley wore. He made a note to ask about it later, when his head was clear, and then he was lost.

Despite his wanting to stretch things out, show her that he wasn’t uncaring in bed, Kessler’s desire rode him again and he eased her down until his cock was at the lips of her pussy, but he did have enough control to wait until his attentions to her clit pushed her into climax and she cried out before lowering her until he was balls-deep inside her. The tentacles extending from both their bodies writhed and twined like snakes, and he had a moment of clarity that made him wonder what Kessler and Madelyn felt from him and Ashley fucking. Then her pussy clenched around him and his body took over, his hands on her hips as he drove into her and her mouth fell open into an O of pleasure as she surrendered herself to him and returned his thrusts.

“Billy.” Her voice was a whisper in his ear. It was the first time she’d called him by name.

“You all right, love?”

“Uh-huh. I’m sorry.”

“For what?” His brain was too scrambled by the tides of sensation to make sense of what she was saying.

“All of this. If I hadn’t shot up the Compound V—”

“Later.” He didn’t want to spare the thought for reassuring her right now, so he returned his fingers to her clit as he continued to thrust, and whatever she wanted to say dissolved into a wail as her body stiffened with the orgasm he’d forced out of her, and he realized she was actually quite pretty. He managed a few more thrusts inside her hot, sweet pussy before he lost control and came in hard, ecstatic spasms, burying his face in her shoulder, his mouth open against her skin. He felt one of her hands on his back, the fingers spread out, and the other one still in his hair, stroking him languidly. At least she didn’t seem upset about Kessler and Madelyn making them do this again. The last thing he needed to deal with was some hysterical fucking female. He let the silence stretch out, continued supporting her on his lap, and wondered if they would have to do this for the rest of their lives.

Chapter 3: His Finger on Her Hairpin Trigger

Summary:

Butcher gets bad news and he and Ashley have their first real argument.

Cancer Monsters in Love

Chapter 3 – His Finger on Her Hairpin Trigger

So here they were again, naked and freshly fucked at the bidding of their cancer monsters, and Ashley shifted her weight on Butcher’s lap. He wasn’t hard anymore but was somehow still inside her, and a stray thrill went through her. The tentacles had retracted back into their bodies, which was good for her mental health as the sight of them growing out of her made her think she was insane, every time she saw them. What were they going to do about Kessler and Madelyn? Was there a “they” in this equation, or would Butcher just ditch her as quickly as he could if he were able? She suspected he would.

She was about to ask him if it was all right for her to get off him when he said, “I suppose it’s my turn now. What perfume are you wearing?”

“Uh—it’s called The Portrait of a Lady. It’s French. The only perfume I was able to take with me. I had my backup bottle in my purse. The rest of my perfume collection was in my apartment and I lost it. Bastard.” He startled a little, and she said, “Not you. Him. I’m still mad about losing my collection. I had over two hundred different perfumes and I was waiting on another five to be delivered later this week.”

“I wouldn’t have pegged you as interested in perfume.”

“Too girly?” Were only beautiful women allowed to love beautiful scents? It irritated her. She realized she’d been stroking his hair and made herself stop. It surprised her that his hair was soft. Nothing about Billy Butcher should be soft.

He shook his head. “Just…you seemed pretty fucking practical. All business. I would have thought perfume would be something you’d find irrelevant.”

Why did his opinion of her hurt a little? She might as well be a cardboard cutout of a corporate executive to hear him tell it. “We all have our little flaws. May I get up?”

Butcher removed his hands from her waist. “Of course, love. Wasn’t planning to have you riding my dick for the next week.”

Our cancer monsters might overrule your plans, she thought, but said nothing as she went into the bathroom to clean up. At least she had an IUD in place so she wouldn’t get pregnant. Did he know that? Was that why he hadn’t said anything about birth control, or did he just trust to Kessler and Madelyn to make sure that wouldn’t happen? But what better way would there be for them to force her and Butcher to stay together than give them a baby with each other? Maybe he’d run from her just because of that, though. Ashley had to remember that she didn’t know him at all.

“Other than in the Biblical sense, that is.” Madelyn leaned against the bathroom wall, smiling at her. A quick glance in the mirror showed only Ashley’s own reflection. “But we won’t make you get pregnant. An innocent child doesn’t have any place in your relationship until the situation with Homelander and Vought is ironed out. It wouldn’t be safe.”

“Does Kessler agree with you?”

“We’re of one mind in this.”

“Okay. Thank you. Could you ask him to stop messing up Butcher’s shirts?”

That startled a laugh out of Madelyn. “Of course, Ashley. No problem at all.” She was quiet for a while after that as Ashley removed her wig and took a quick shower. One side benefit of being bald: she didn’t have to spend a lot of time drying her hair. When she got out her old boss was still there. “Do you…how do you feel about him? Butcher, I mean.”

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “He’s been nicer than I expected. I was kind of surprised that he didn’t shoot me in the head when he opened the door.”

“We never would have let him do that. And, to tell the truth, he didn’t even think of it when he saw you. We’ll keep you both safe, even from each other.” Then Madelyn was gone, leaving her staring at an empty corner of the bathroom.

Since she hadn’t thought to bring a change of clothes into the bathroom, Ashley wrapped a towel around herself and went back into the main room. Butcher had put his pants back on and was watching a VNN newscast. The “Breaking News” banner decorated the bottom of the shot and the anchor, a blandly attractive man in a gray suit and red tie whose name she didn’t remember, was saying, “…broken out of the secured facility where they had been confined sometime earlier this morning. A nationwide manhunt is in progress. The fugitives are armed and dangerous and citizens should not attempt to detain or delay them. Please notify your local law enforcement or the tip line number on screen if you see these fugitives.” Pictures of Hughie Campbell, Starlight, the Japanese woman, the Frenchman, and an African-American man that Ashley recognized from a long-ago briefing in the Seven’s conference room. “Repeating: the newly captured members of a terrorist gang behind the assassination of Vice-President Neuman have escaped from custody and are at large. The fugitives, Hugh Campbell, Junior, Annie January, also known as Starlight, Kimiko Miyashiro, Serge Girardeau, and Marvin Milk, are members of an anti-supe terrorist group called The Boys who planned and carried out the assassination of Vice-President Victoria Neuman under orders from former President Robert Singer. They should be considered armed and extremely dangerous. Members of the public are advised not to approach them and notify local law enforcement if they are spotted.”

Butcher threw the remote at the wall and it burst apart. The sudden spasm of violence made her cringe back against the bathroom door. Get dressed, get some clothes on, her mind yammered at her and she snatched at a sweater, a pair of panties, jeans, dressing with as much speed as she could manage. She stepped back into the bathroom to retrieve her red wig and put it on quickly. Appearing bald in front of him made her feel too vulnerable. “What’s going on?” She tried to keep her voice calm and level so as not to set him off any more.

He didn’t answer her immediately, grabbing an open bottle of Canadian Mist whiskey off the dresser and taking a deep drag from it. When Butcher lowered the bottle, he stared at the images of his confederates that remained on the screen, then seemed to remember she was there. “He’s killed them. Homelander. They’re all dead.”

She blinked in confusion. “But the guy just said—”

“Are you daft? How many times have you gone on the fucking telly and lied your ass off for your bloody corrupt company or that supe cunt?” Butcher took another swig from the Canadian Mist bottle. “He’s saying they’ve escaped because it serves him better to have an all-purpose threat running loose when he orders President Calhoun to declare martial law. No, love, make no mistake. He’s killed them all.”

She took a calming breath. “Then Sage told him to. I know you won’t hear this, but he does listen to her, the way he never did with me. He knows she’s smarter than he is and she’s a supe, so he does what she says. When he told me she was the new CEO, I asked him if I was fired. Do you know what he did? He looked to her for the answer. And she wouldn’t let me go because she’s smart enough to know she couldn’t run Vought without me around.”

“And why is that, pray tell?” He returned to his bed and sat, a pillow between his back and the headboard, whiskey bottle in hand. Ashley forced herself to look away from him, from the lure of his bared chest and arms. Butcher didn’t have the breathtaking lean perfection of Homelander on the one occasion when she’d seen him naked, but he was still compelling, warm, strong. Human.

“He doesn’t know the difference between intelligence and knowledge, but Sage does.” He motioned with the bottle for her to continue. “Like, if you have a broken lawnmower, would you take it to Sage or a lawnmower repairman? You’d go with the repairman because they may not be as smart as Sage, but they have the relevant knowledge and experience. Sure, Sage could pick up the knowledge quickly, but that’s no substitute for previous experience. There are a thousand situations that might come up at Vought that she doesn’t have the skills in place to handle, and Homelander will be zero help to her.”

A memory rose up: the day she became CEO, Maureen asking Homelander a technical question about company finances and how he’d turned on her, the quiet murderousness of him more threatening than any raised voice, and how she’d stuttered, backed down, bared her throat symbolically, and then he’d been satisfied. Maureen had been smarter by far than Ashley; she’d put out feelers to other companies after that disastrous meeting, gotten a new position with Pfizer in short order, and Homelander didn’t even register that she was gone until the next Board of Directors meeting. If Maureen had told certain selected people what he was really like, spread the most malicious rumors, Ashley couldn’t blame her. She wished she’d run after he deafened Blindspot, but by then it was probably too late already. “At least he won’t make sure the entire Board of Directors knows she’s nothing but his puppet.”

“Stow the self-pitying bullshit and tell me how any of this matters to me, or my dead friends.”

Ashley took another calming breath, trying to dispel the sudden fear from Butcher’s cold gaze. ‘You’re not taking her seriously as a threat. He will do whatever she suggests, and she seems to be a better strategist than he is. Don’t judge her by Firecracker because they joined the Seven at the same time.”

His brow furrowed. “Why would she have tasked him to kill them? They would have been good bait to draw me in.”

“You don’t have a relationship with Sage. She isn’t intrigued because you aren’t afraid of her when everyone else is. She doesn’t find your effrontery amusing. Homelander gave you more leeway than anyone else in his life because he thought it was fun to toy with you. He’s a sadist. He enjoys hurting people because of deep-seated childhood trauma that insures he will always feel weak and see any challenge as a life-or-death threat to be crushed. Fear makes him strong. I think if Sage had been here when you first met Homelander, he would have killed you immediately. She doesn’t tolerate threats.”

“Resident expert on both the cunts, are we?”

“As SVP of Hero Management I had access to the Seven’s psychological profiles. As CEO I had access to all Vought files relating to Homelander, from conception to current day. Other than Stan Edgar, I think I’m better informed about him than anyone else in the world.”

He lifted his bottle in a mocking toast. “Bloody well honored by your presence, love.”

She choked down angry words. “I’m trying to tell you something valuable here.” But he probably found her just as dispensable as Homelander did; more so, in fact, since her old boss had never been forced by a sentient cancer monster to fuck her. “Sage may not be as smart as he thinks she is, but she’s plenty smart enough to do a risk assessment and run a cost-benefit analysis. Ever see those James Bond movies where the villain takes Bond through his base, explains his whole plan, and orders him killed in some bizarre manner and doesn’t even hang around to make sure it’s done? That’s Homelander. Sage isn’t that. If they’re dead and she suggested to him that he kill them, it was because they were threats and they were in hand. You are not the most important part of the team to her. She’s probably willing to let you run around loose for a while because she’s made sure you’re starting from zero. You’ll have to rebuild your crew since she made sure you lost everyone else. Your ability to bankroll operations will probably be affected, since I’m sure she knows you got funding through the CIA. As far as she’s concerned, she’s hit the reset button and you’re no longer a serious threat.”

“Did you wonder why my picture isn’t up there on screen with theirs?” he asked. “Since I’m the leader of that anti-supe terrorist group.”

Ashley shrugged. “Vought is probably working hand-in-glove with law enforcement to find you, but quietly. They want you to be unsure of how much they know.”

“Could be. Why isn’t your picture up there too?”

“I’m not important enough to him for that.”

“Yeah, you’re the wife who worked to put him through medical school and Sage is the hot young nurse he divorced you for once he was set for life.” Butcher gave her a sardonic grin.

The barb pierced her heart. The stupid crush she’d had on Homelander, the pie-in-the-sky dreams she’d had of him finally seeing her value and maybe even falling in love with her—how could she have been so stupid? And Butcher knew how stupid she’d been, how she had thrown her life away on the off chance Homelander wasn’t what she knew damned well he was. His mockery made her want to peel her skin off, wish for at least a few more strands of hair that she could rip out, use the pain to calm herself, stabilize. Without another word she sat down on her bed and pulled on her Nikes, then grabbed her coat and purse.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

Ashley didn’t answer him, fishing her car keys out of a side pocket. All she wanted was to get in her car and drive away. Montreal was out of the question until the heat died down, but surely she could find another hotel room, away from Butcher and the La Quinta, where she could nurse her wounds and he could drink himself into the grave. But she should have known her cancer monster would have its own way, as she froze with her hand on the knob. “Where are you going, Ashley?” Madelyn asked from her position near the TV.

“I don’t want to be here for a while, okay? Just let me leave. I’ll come back. I just can’t stay here now.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Butcher asked at the same time as Madelyn said, “I can’t do that. I can’t have you running away from him.”

Ignoring Butcher, Ashley cried, “I’m not running away from him! I just need to be alone for a while. I need some space. Please, Madelyn, please just let me get some fresh air. Don’t make me stay. Just an hour or two. Please, Madelyn.” She did her best to hold in the tears. No reason to look weak in front of him. His opinion of her was pretty low to begin with. Madelyn sighed and glanced over at Butcher. “Just let me sit in my car for two hours. If I try to run, you can take over and make sure I don’t. Please. I can’t take this anymore.”

She heard the heavy clank of Butcher putting down the whiskey bottle. Please just stay there, don’t bother me, I can’t take this shit anymore. But she stopped worrying about it when Madelyn said, “All right, then, Ashley. Two hours in the car and then back in,” and her hand was free to turn the knob. She rushed outside, registering the gray sky, heavy with clouds, her hands shaking as she reached her car and twisted the key in the lock, wrenching open the door. Ashley almost felt Butcher behind her, the heat of him on her skin through her clothes, before she managed to get in. The door slammed with a substantial clunk, and she had the stray thought, They made cars out of steel back then, before pushing down the door lock.

There was a tapping on the driver’s-side window. When she opened her eyes, Butcher stood there, bare-chested and looking irritated. He made a “roll the window down” gesture, and she obeyed, cranking the window down an inch. “Get back inside before someone sees you.”

“Madelyn said I could have two hours, so I’m taking a break from this shit. Go back inside and drink yourself insensible. Grieve for your friends. Don’t concern yourself with me.” As if he ever could.

“Is this just because I know that you were creaming yourself for Homelander? Love, you need to put things in perspective. He’s got the entire governmental apparatus of America under his thumb and wants to put both of us in the ground. Not like he would have ever done anything in that area with you anyway.”

Ashley felt sick; she wanted to rend him, tear him, make him hurt like he’d done, be vicious with him. “Yeah, I guess he would have needed a cancer monster in his head before he could ever have gotten it up for me. Kind of like you. Now why don’t you go inside before someone sees you. I don’t want to have this conversation.”

His mouth tightened. “Suit yourself,” he said before he went back into the motel room and left her staring at the door. Why had he needed to fucking say that, that she was “creaming herself” for Homelander? Hadn’t she been humiliated enough by the fact that Compound V had done nothing for her except give her a monster in her head who was forcing her to fuck a man who despised her?

She let her head fall back against the car seat and stared up through the glass of the T-top. The fluffy clouds had dark bellies, which her grandfather had once told her meant they were pregnant with rain. He’d died the summer before she got the job with Vought; since her mother had died of cancer when she was seventeen and her father had suffered a massive heart attack three years after that, and her grandmother gone before Ashley was born, he’d been the only family she had left, and she had loved him more than anything. Men had a habit of leaving her alone to fend for herself. Still, it was too late in the year and too cold for rain, so she figured the clouds carried snow. She had always enjoyed snow, skiing being her only outdoor enthusiasm, and in the wilderness the snow was pure. Vought was Sixth Avenue snow piled up against the curb. I can’t do this. The thought fell into her mind, clear, sharp, and she said, “Madelyn?”

“Yes, Ashley?” Her old boss was back in the shotgun seat, the way she’d been ever since Manhattan.

“Can you talk to Kessler and convince him to give Butcher a break from this? The sex, I mean. He’s had a major personal loss and I don’t trust him to be…I don’t trust him if he’s forced to fuck me right now. Give him a chance to get his mind right.”

Madelyn looked at her with the suspicious, appraising look Ashley remembered from the office, when the woman was deciding how to dispose of her assistant. “How much of a break do you think he requires?”

“Maybe a week?”

She was already shaking her head. “We don’t want to stay away from each other that long.”

“Then at least tonight. Better if it was tomorrow too. You don’t want him hurting me, do you?” She remembered her cancer monster telling her that if she died, they both did. It was the only bargaining chip she had.

“My mate wouldn’t allow it, but I’ll talk to him about tonight and tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Madelyn. I appreciate it.”

“I wish you didn’t see me as an enemy. I want you to be safe and happy, and I think the best chance of that you have right now is with Billy Butcher. I’m doing what I think is right for you, despite what I’m sure you believe.”

Ashley stared at her with eyes that burned from tiredness. “I appreciate that.” And her old boss vanished, leaving her alone in the Trans Am. What was best for her—yeah, sure. With a man who was just as violent as Homelander and didn’t even have the motivation of needing her to keep her alive. “Give me a break,” she muttered, but Madelyn, thankfully, didn’t reappear.

After she checked her gold Cartier tank watch and saw that she had one hour and fifty minutes left, she put the keys in the ignition and turned it on. The car had an old Sparkomatic cassette player installed, so she plucked a cassette out of its case and jammed it in. “Hanging On the Telephone” blared out of the speakers, and she turned down the sound so as not to attract attention. Butcher was right about that. She didn’t even begin to relax until “One Way or Another” started and Deborah Harry’s voice washed over her. At least it wasn’t the Blondie album with “Rapture” on it; Soldier Boy had ruined that song for her, and it still kind of pissed her off.

Butcher had his fucking nerve, calling her out about how she’d felt about Homelander. Felt, mind you, past tense. Wasn’t Butcher still obsessed with his dead wife, even though she’d left him in the dust after she’d gotten pregnant with Homelander’s baby? Ashley had bragged about having access to all Homelander’s files, which included the ones for Project Athena, Madelyn’s plan to make sure it was safe for a human woman to carry and deliver a supe baby, of which Becca Butcher had been the test subject. Baby fever, and a supe baby in particular, as far as she could tell from the interviews in the files, was the reason for Becca’s willingness to fuck Homelander, get knocked up, and vanish. Ashley would bet her life that Becca’s husband had no idea about Project Athena, and she had no intention of enlightening him for any reason at all. At least he’d had a couple of good years, loving her and being loved; Homelander had never given Ashley anything but verbal abuse and trauma and shattered hopes. Probably better that way—she would have been willing to bet she hurt less than Butcher did.

Still, he’d been as kind as he could be under the circumstances, trying to make the sex good for her, not forcing her to eat food she didn’t like for breakfast. It wasn’t his fault he’d seen what was glaringly obvious and mentioned it to her. He was hurt now, and he wanted to hurt her in return; he seemed more like Homelander than he was willing to admit. But that didn’t mean she had to take it, the way she had with the supe. Kessler and Madelyn would protect her to some extent, but she decided it was better not to poke the sleeping bear. No matter what Butcher said about Homelander, about her feelings, she’d ignore it. If she did that, eventually, he’d stop, like any bully trying to provoke a reaction. It was her only plan, but it made her feel a little better. She spent the rest of her two hours listening to Blondie and staring at the motel room door. Before Madelyn could make an appearance to remind her time was up, she turned off the car, dropped the keys back into her purse, and returned to Butcher’s room.

He'd taken her advice about getting drunk and was stretched out on the bed, on his stomach, snoring. For a moment she debated whether to put him in recovery position so he wouldn’t choke to death if he vomited in his sleep, but then decided Kessler wouldn’t allow that to happen and walked past his bed and hers, grabbed a nightgown out of her suitcase, and went into the bathroom to change. With the red wig on its Styrofoam head, she pulled the trash can out from under the vanity mirror shelf and began picking up fast food wrappers and cartons from the floor, retrieving empty liquor bottles and tossing them in, emptying his improvised ashtrays. Butcher could spend his time in a filthy room if he wanted, but she had some fucking standards.

After she finished tidying up, she found her bed and climbed in. She’d thought sleep would be elusive, with the knowledge of Hughie and Starlight’s deaths, along with the rest of his team, and Homelander’s covert search for them, but the strain must have taken more out of her than she’d thought, and she was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Madelyn called out to Kessler when she was sure Ashley wouldn’t awaken. Dearest?

My dear?

Is it going badly? She was so upset and he was so harsh.

He laughed. I forget you aren’t in his head. He’s already started feeling protective of her. And he wants to please her in the bed. He thinks it’s his pride, but he’s lying to himself. What she feels for Homelander makes him angry because he’s jealous of it. Homelander took Becca, and he has Ashley’s attraction even if he doesn’t want it. That’s why Billy fucked Queen Maeve, so he could steal a woman that belonged to him. That, and a good case of not getting any for fucking years.

Ashley knows things about his wife that would upset him.

He knows things about Becca that would upset him, if he allowed himself to remember them.

What do you mean?

He and Becca had been married for a little over two years when the whole thing with Homelander went down. They had a whirlwind courtship and were married within a month of meeting each other. She went underground with Ryan for another eight years, so they’d been apart longer than they’d ever known each other. I don’t know how she thought vanishing the way she did would make him do anything other than hunt her for the rest of his life, but maybe she didn’t know him any better than he knew her. The searching kept him obsessed with her, so he couldn’t let go. Over time, it was easy to build up an idealized image of her, create Saint Rebecca Butcher and enshrine her. Anything that clashed with that perfect image went into his memory hole, and then she did the one thing guaranteed to cement her perfection. She died.

Madelyn sighed. So it won’t be easy for Ashley. She’s flesh and blood, fallible, angry, imperfect. Do you think he’ll ever be able to accept her? Maybe he’ll just resent her because she took the Compound V that made me live, and now he’s tied to her because of us.

Boy’s stubborn as the day is long, that’s for damn sure. But I believe in him. He’ll find his way through and that little redhead will be at the end of his road. Whether he wants to admit it or not, he wants her, and he needs her for stability.

Homelander was always more stable when he was in a romantic relationship with a woman, too.

Kessler chuckled. Best not mention him around Billy. Or Ashley, for that matter.

She spent a lot of time crushing on him, even though she knew it was hopeless. Maybe if the real Madelyn had been a better person and warned her about him, she wouldn’t have come back to Vought after being fired. If only it hadn’t been him who called her to offer the job…

Water under the bridge. If that had happened, you wouldn’t be, and I would be alone. No matter how hurt she was, I wouldn’t have changed anything that happened because it gave me you, and you are the world to me.

Her mental voice grew warmer. Such a flatterer. It’s the same for me. No matter what, I’m glad of it because now I have you. I will never give you up, no matter what happens with Ashley and Butcher.

Don’t worry. I’m sure that, in the end, they’ll both do the sensible thing. Even without us, they don’t have much of a choice.

Chapter 4: In the Complicated Shadows

Summary:

Butcher takes Ashley on an outing and has some thoughts about their situation.

Cancer Monsters in Love

Chapter 4 – In the Complicated Shadows

Butcher woke in the morning, his head throbbing and mouth tasting like the floor of a bus station men’s room. The Canadian Mist bottle lay on its side on the floor, but nothing had spilled. He hadn’t left a drop of liquor inside it, and with post-bender clarity he was horrified at what he’d done. What if a Vought security team had burst into the room while he was passed out drunk? He and Ashley would have been taken with a minimum of effort and would be on the way back to Homelander’s tender mercies. No, even in the face of the deaths of the people who’d been closer to him than anyone else during the last few years of his vendetta, he shouldn’t have indulged himself, should have crushed the pain, pushed it down in order to protect himself and Ashley. It was a lapse he couldn’t afford again.

Lifting his head, he looked over at the other bed and saw her, covers around her waist, the stubbly scalp that betrayed how much pressure she’d endured during her tenure at Vought. He didn’t remember her coming back into the room last night, but he hadn’t been worried about it. The loss of his team loomed too much in his mind, plus he knew that her creature wouldn’t let her escape him. What universe had he wound up deposited in, that he was dependent on cancer monsters to keep her with him, keep her safe?

Moving carefully in deference to his hangover, he got out of bed and moved over to Ashley. Whatever rest she was getting didn’t seem to do her any good; he saw dark circles under her eyes and lines of strain in her face. A stray twinge of concern bothered him, and his hand was hovering over her forehead before he realized what he was doing and drew back. No cause for her to get the wrong idea, despite the nightgown she currently wore, its thin straps revealing her shoulders and arms, the low-cut neckline emphasizing her cleavage, and the lace detailing around its bodice made it the most feminine thing he’d ever seen her wear. Why had she chosen last night to wear it? He didn’t find any answers before he went into the bathroom to pop a couple of aspirin and shower.

“No need to jerk off this time,” Kessler informed him as he was lathering his hair beneath the showerhead. “Your little lady talked to my little lady and got you a day off, on account of your bereavement. Who says I can’t be understanding?”

“A break from what?”

“What else? Fucking.”

So Ashley didn’t want to shag. Not much of a surprise. Butcher chose not to reply and put his face beneath the stream of water, feeling the rivulets of water running over his skin. Kessler didn’t take offense. “Sure do wish you weren’t as stubborn as you are. That would make it a lot easier for both of you in the long run. That whole arranged marriage I brought up—that’s already happened for the two of you. ‘Til death do you part, or, rather, ‘til death do my mate and I part.”

He unbent enough to tell Kessler, “You’re talking bollocks. I had—have—one wife, and that’s Becca.”

“Jesus jumping Christ, I wish you’d get off that kick. Try remembering some of the shit that happened between the two of you that wasn’t the moonlight and roses you like to pretend was every second of every motherfucking day. Did she have a temper?”

Butcher started to say no, but he caught himself. That would have been a lie, because Becca had quite a nasty temper when things didn’t go as she wanted, as well as a cutting tongue. Hadn’t they had blazing rows that ended with her storming out and staying gone for hours? “Yes.” His voice was clipped.

Kessler smiled. “Good. You’re starting to remember now. That’s an excellent sign.”

He held the angry words inside. He understood why Kessler was so intent on keeping him with Ashley, but why did he feel the need to try to chip away at Butcher’s love for Becca? Did his creature think there was only room for one person in his heart?

Ashley woke up when he came out of the bathroom in a towel. It seemed to be their new routine. “Kessler told me what you did, getting us a break.”

She blinked, her eyes blurry from sleep. “I thought you needed it.”

Butcher raised an eyebrow, but let it go. “Do you know how to use a gun?” That woke her up and she sat up in the bed, and he took another look at her nightgown. It looked like black satin and showed off her perfect skin. He couldn’t help but say, “Nice.”

She saw where he was looking. “I expected to be alone when I ran. What’s the saying, he travels fastest who travels alone?”

“Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Winners.’ And you didn’t answer the question.”

He was prepared for a no, but she said, “Yes. All Vought upper management employees were required to learn. I got my training when I was Director of Talent Relations.”

“What can you handle?”

“Handguns and the CZ Scorpion submachine gun that the Vought security teams carry. I started off with a Colt 1911 but the instructor said it was too big for my hands. After that I got a Glock 48.”

The CEO had dimensions to her that he hadn’t properly appreciated. “Did you bring it with you?”

“Of course I did. I’m on the run now.” She rolled out of bed and unzipped the duffel bag. Butcher saw bundles of money, still with the paper bank bands around them, before she pulled out the Glock in a shoulder holster. “A box of bullets is in the bag too.”

“All right, then. After breakfast we’ll go to a range a mate of mine runs and you show me what you can do. With the both of us being hunted by the entire American government, and that supe cunt, I need to know how well you can protect yourself if I’m not around.”

“You think that’s likely?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I may have to go out for something and you’ll be alone in the room. I’m not going to abandon you, if that’s what you mean.” As if his fucking creature would ever allow that. She accepted that without comment.

They went back to IHOP for breakfast, as they’d skipped dinner last night due to their row. He’d been in the La Quinta for three nights now, and he thought it might be time to move along. It wasn’t good to stay in the same place too long when one was being hunted. Ashley wore the short black wig again, ordered the Belgian waffle again, and he wondered if she found something she liked to eat at a particular restaurant and didn’t deviate from it, or if that was a function of her being on the run, imposing consistency whenever she could. When they’d gotten their food, he told her, “I wanted to say thanks. For talking to your creature and getting the concession.”

Her lips compressed and he wondered why he’d upset her. He was bloody well thanking her for getting them a day off from their imposed fucking, after all. “You’re welcome. She also said she’d mention your shirt problem to him.”

“Did she give you any idea how long we’ll be here? It isn’t ideal to stay in the same place for long.”

Ashley shook her head. “Hasn’t…yours told you? What should I call him, anyway? Madelyn just calls him her mate.”

“I call him Kessler. That's who he looks like to me. He hasn’t seemed to have an issue with that.” It still surprised him that hers was Madelyn Stillwell. Butcher hadn’t thought the two women had the same relationship as he and Kessler had had, but he hadn’t known either of them well. “And he hasn’t said a pissing thing to me about it. I get the impression he wants to stay here until we’ve accepted each other the way they want.”

“What would that even look like, us accepting each other? Why isn’t it good enough that we haven’t left each other yet?”

“It’s only been two days, love. Kessler keeps talking about our ‘arranged marriage,’ and he seems fucking serious about it.”

She put her fork down on her plate to stare at him. “Are we going to have to get married to satisfy them?”

“Legal marriage is a piece of paper,” said Kessler from the seat in the booth next to Butcher. “I’ll be satisfied when the two of you don’t have to be dragged to the bed. My mate—she’s a little more sentimental than I am. She wants your little lady to be happy, and somehow she thinks that will happen if she’s with you.”

“Fucking chuffed by all the faith you have in me,” Butcher told him. Ashley looked at him in confusion and he realized he’d spoken out loud to his creature in public. Christ, he needed to watch himself. “Not you. I was talking to Kessler.”

“Shame I can’t talk to her myself,” he said to Butcher. “I think she and I would understand each other better than the two of us do.”

“What did he have to say?” Ashley asked.

“Madelyn is more…sentimental than he is and wants you to be happy. He would prefer it if we stopped forcing them to pull us into the marital bed.” He gave her a sour smile and took a gulp of coffee.

“She does? Huh.” With a shrug she took a bite of her waffle. “She kind of said the same thing to me yesterday. About being happy, I mean. She thinks my best chance of that is with you.”

“Better chance than with bloody Homelander, I can tell you that.”

“Can we not talk about him anymore? I don’t like it.”

“I think it’ll be a mite hard to discuss our current situation, but I’ll keep it to a minimum.”

“Appreciated.” She speared part of her egg with her fork and ate it. A bit of syrup from the waffle clung to her lower lip and the sight of her tongue swiping at it sent a charge through his groin. For a furious moment he thought it was Kessler breaking his word.

“Afraid not, Billy. That was your gut response to something she did.” Kessler sat next to him in the booth, grinning. “I had planned to keep the two of you here for a few weeks, but I think I can adjust my timetable with how you’re responding to the little lady now. It might only be a few more days.”

“It’s dangerous to stay in the same place too long when you’re on the lam,” he hissed. Ashley gave him a curious look but apparently realized he was in conversation with Kessler again and went back to her meal.

“Didn’t what happened with Victoria Neuman persuade you that you’re now a physical threat to most supes? Maybe not Homelander himself, but I’d bet money you could rip most of the Seven in two. Sage definitely, probably Firecracker and the Deep and Black Noir. A-Train would have been an issue because of his speed. Not Starlight, though. You could have taken Maeve too. In a way other than the one you did.” Kessler gave him a wink.

Butcher sighed and drank his coffee, not replying. “What did he say?” Ashley asked.

“He’s indicated that…we don’t need to worry about that at the moment.” He didn’t plan to discuss fucking Queen Maeve with her, or the fact that he’d been the one who killed Vice-President Neuman. Ashley was already wary enough of him; he didn’t need to give her more fuel for the fear fire, the way the supe cunt had always done. “He thinks we’ll only need to be here another few days.”

“Well, that’s good. Are we going to Montreal? That’s where I was headed.”

“Did you have a safe house there?”

“No, I was just going to try to find somewhere to hunker down until I figured out more about…Madelyn. Somewhere they might not find me.”

“Well, it’s best that you did meet me, then. I have a secure location where we can stay until I figure out a plan for dealing with the cunt, so no worries there. They’ll be looking for a man and a woman each traveling alone, so it’s safer for us to be together anyway.”

“Okay.” Butcher wondered how she actually felt about what had happened to her, about being forced to not only travel with him but fuck him, and dismissed the thought. If she thought it was important for him to know, she would tell him. Until then, it gained him nothing to wonder.

When they had finished breakfast, he drove them to an out-of-the-way gun range between Lake Placid and Harrietstown. Butcher called ahead while they were on the way and the owner stood outside, waiting for them. “Jessica, this is Prentiss. He’s a friend of mine. Prentiss, this is my friend Jessica. She’s going to show me what she can do on the range.”

Ashley rolled with the new name well, extending her hand to Prentiss. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Prentiss—which she must have suspected wasn’t his name, although that wouldn’t do him much good if she were captured as she knew the location of the range—took her hand and smiled. “A pleasure, ma’am. Do you have much experience with weapons?”

“I’ve had some training, but nothing really real-world, if you know what I mean.”

He nodded. Prentiss was a tall, elderly man in his seventies with a snow-white buzz cut and a deeply creased face whose military career stretched back to the Vietnam War, or so Butcher had heard. The man confirmed nothing about his past to anyone. “We’ll take her to the special range. The usual charge, of course.”

Butcher nodded. Ashley’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t explain, taking her arm and drawing her along behind Prentiss as he headed into the office. It looked like a relic from the Seventies, all dark wood paneling half-concealed by posters for various guns and a calendar with the page showing from two months ago, an old institutional desk that looked like what a teacher would have used, and a wall of tall filing cabinets. Prentiss pushed aside the calendar and pressed a button, which caused a filing cabinet to slide aside, revealing a lift behind it. He stepped out of the way and motioned them in. “After you.”

The ride belowground was quick, and Butcher put his hand on the small of Ashley’s back to encourage her out when the doors opened. They emerged into a gray-walled passageway with work lights strung up along the ceiling. She reached back for his hand and he let his fingers entwine with hers. “Anyone else here?” he asked Prentiss.

“Nope,” the older man said. “You wanted privacy, so I didn’t take any reservations.”

“Heard anything about me by the unofficial channels lately?”

Prentiss snorted. “Heard you were the head of a terrorist group and assassinated the Vice-President. Heard your people escaped from a supermax prison the other day. Also heard that several bodies were incinerated at one of our facilities before the escape was announced. Things are hot for you right now.”

He nodded. He wanted to ask what, if anything, he might have heard about Ashley Barrett, but there was too much risk in associating that name in his mind with the brunette named Jessica that Butcher brought around for weapons practice. “Anything about Homelander?”

“He has Calhoun’s ear. He’s made one of the new supes, the smart one, head of Vought since the old CEO died in a car accident the day after the assassinations. They’re keeping it quiet for now, presumably to avoid the stock price crashing.” Butcher felt Ashley stiffen at his words, then consciously try to relax. “I think it’s all over and there won’t even be any shouting. I’m thinking about pulling up stakes.”

“Where are you heading?”

“Costa Rica, I’m thinking. Need to brush up my Spanish some first, though.” Butcher didn’t get a chance to reply because they reached the end of the passageway and stepped out into the underground room that served as the private gun range.

It reminded him of a police range, with its cubicles for a maximum of six shooters and the standard paper targets that could be brought forward with the push of a button. It smelled like cool air, metal, and old gunfire. Butcher wondered what the gun range under Vought Tower looked like. “We need some extra ammo for her. Nine-mil.”

“You going to do any shooting yourself, Butcher?”

He shook his head. “I’m already warmed up. Today is for the lady.”

“What range do you need?”

“Start with fifteen yards, then twenty-five, fifty, and a hundred. I want to see what Jessica’s got.”

Ashley took off her down coat and hung it up on a hook. She wore a black thermal henley and jeans, along with her Nike trainers. The Glock was in its shoulder holster. Butcher shrugged out of his own coat; it was chilly down here, but tolerable. He snagged a couple of ear protectors as she unsnapped the holster and withdrew the pistol. “Here you go, love,” said Butcher as he handed her a set of ear protectors.

“Thank you.” Her voice was colorless as she accepted the ear protectors. Hadn’t she gotten over last night’s row yet? Or maybe it was what he’d said about Homelander, how she felt about him. He could have phrased it more delicately, but she needed to get over the supe. Wasn’t he trying to kill her?

Prentiss interrupted his train of thought by putting a box of nine-millimeter ammunition on the shelf next to her gun. “Eye protection for the both of you,” he murmured, handing them the glasses. After that he didn’t stay around to watch or chat, heading back for his office to process payment from the numbered account Butcher had given him on the phone earlier.

“Show me your grip,” Butcher told Ashley. She obeyed. He’d expected a teacup grip, but she used a thumbs forward, two-handed grip that was better at managing recoil and aligning the gun’s sights. He nodded in approval. Although he hadn’t asked her to show him her shooting stance, she’d fallen into a Weaver stance automatically, angled to the target to expose less of her body, firing arm extended straight and support arm bent. The leg on her support side was in front of her firing-side leg with the toes pointed forward and her body took on a slight forward lean. “Show me the isosceles stance.” Ashley shifted until she was dead-on to the target, feet shoulder-width apart and both arms extended straight out, both knees bent a little and her body in a slight forward lean. “Chapman stance?” he asked. She shifted again, assuming a stance very similar to the Weaver, but her firing arm was fully extended out, her support arm bent down, and her cheek kissed the inside of her firing arm. “Do you know the cons of these stances?”

“Isosceles isn’t as stable as Weaver front to back and you expose more of your body if you aren’t wearing Kevlar. Weaver makes rotation to the support side more difficult and, if you’re wearing Kevlar, you’re exposing a vulnerable area. You might get neck strain from Chapman.”

“Why did you use Weaver when I asked you to show me your grip?”

“I’m not wearing body armor. It’s better for someone who isn’t.”

“Chapman’s superior in my opinion. Try to use that instead.”

“I’ll try.” He saw a faint blush in her cheeks and thought she might be angry. If so, let her be; he had much more experience in this than she did. She could benefit from his knowledge.

“How are you on Center Axis Relock?”

Ashley’s eyes cut toward him and she looked uncertain. “It was mentioned, but the instructor didn’t get into it much.”

“All right. Show me your grip with isosceles stance again.” She did, and Butcher stepped closer to her, next to her elbow, and put his hand on the top of her gun. He leaned forward, put his mouth next to her ear, and whispered, “I’m inside your space and about to take your gun away.” The scent of her perfume wafted over his face, rose and incense and patchouli, and he felt a tightening in his groin.

A shiver went through her. “It’s my own fault for letting you get this close without shooting you.”

He chuckled, still into her ear, and she shivered again. Butcher doubted it was fear. “You see the problem here? I’m too close for any of the stances you’ve been taught. For close-quarters shooting with attackers three meters away or closer, Center Axis Relock is superior to any of the other stances. If you’ve watched any of the John Wick movies, you’ve seen this stance.” He took his hand off her gun. “So that’s what we need to start training you on, if your instructor didn’t bother. But for now I just want to see how accurate you are. We’ll start with a target at fifteen yards.”

Both of them put on their eye and ear protectors, and Ashley began firing. She didn’t close her eyes when she pulled the trigger, which he figured her instructor would have trained out of her anyway, and when she finished and pushed the button to bring the target forward for inspection, her shot grouping was decent. Only one hit was in the ten ring, but he’d expected that. “How long has it been since you were at a range?”

“Uh—months. I never practiced that much to begin with, and work had been even more intense than usual. I had no time for anything else. I barely had time to eat.”

“So you’re out of practice as well. Not surprising. We’ll work on that too.” Butcher got another paper target for her and sent it to the twenty-five-yard position. The scent of cordite from the gunfire put him at ease. He was in his element now. “Reload.” Ashley slid bullets into the magazine, inserted it into the butt of her pistol, and racked the slide to put a bullet in the chamber. “Shoot.”

Becca never knew how to use a gun. Vought hadn’t supplied the necessary training; it surprised Butcher that Ashley’s position as Director of Talent Relations was objectively higher in company hierarchy than his wife’s as Senior Director of Digital Marketing, but maybe that was because Ashley dealt more directly with supes than Becca had. That Christmas party over a decade ago was the first time she’d met Homelander in person. An image of Becca, her face twisted in anger, flitted across the surface of his mind and he pushed it down as quickly as possible. And he had never given her any training, either, because he’d been so anxious to keep her pure, apart from the filth of the world he occupied. She was his refuge, his place of rest where he could pretend to be the import-export salesman of his cover and see that image reflected in her eyes. To every other woman in his life, Susan, Queen Maeve, Ashley, he was the mad-dog vigilante hellbent on murder and mayhem, but to Becca he’d been a nice, normal bloke. And she’d lived long enough to know how he’d lied to her.

The sound of Ashley’s Glock firing brought him back to reality. The look on her face was grim and intense, and he wondered if she was visualizing Homelander as the target. Or cancer-Madelyn. Or the Deep. Or him.

When the magazine was empty and the slide locked back, she brought the target forward and her aim had improved some. “Good, love,” he told her, and she smiled. “Fifty yards now.” He gave her a new paper target and sent it out. She reloaded, fired, and her aim improved even more. Butcher was close enough to her to still smell the perfume she wore—Portrait of a Lady, she’d said?—and the scent of it mixed with the cordite. Why did that make him want to slide his hands beneath her henley, over her skin and up to cup her little titties? A quick image of her, bracing herself on the shelf at the front of the bay, her jeans and panties around her ankles while he thrust hard into her over and over while she made sounds of pleasure, sent blood into his cock. For once, Kessler didn’t show up to gloat.

Butcher cleared his throat as he studied her shot grouping from one hundred yards. “Three in the ten ring, love. Not bad, but we need to keep you practicing. I’m sure you can be a wizard shot if you want.”

“Looks like that’s a new social grace that I need to cultivate.”

“New skills for new circumstances, rather.” He had her repeat the distances until her aim began to degrade, then he called a stop. “That’s enough for today. We’ll get some dinner, some sleep, and come back tomorrow so you can get more practice.”

“How much does this cost?”

It was an unexpected question; he stopped to give her a curious look as she put her Glock back into its holster, but she didn’t look at him. “Quite a bit, love, but I can cover it.” For now. When money got low, he’d have to come up with some ways to raise capital, but with as much money as he had stashed away, it would take a long while for him to reach the dregs of his resources.

“I’ll pay for next time. Does Prentiss take cash?”

“You don’t have to do that,” he told her.

“Yes, I do. If we’re going to stay together, I have to pull my weight. I can’t be a burden. I still have the cash from my duffel bag, and I have some numbered Swiss bank accounts.”

“You’re not a burden to me. It keeps both of us safe, being together. I told you they’ll be looking for each of us separately, not a couple. It makes sense.” Then he had an inspiration. “I want to keep your money for a last resort. If they somehow find my accounts, we’ll still have yours. So I’d prefer to use mine for now.”

She looked disturbed but put the shoulder holster and her coat back on. “Okay, but I pay for dinner then. I have to pull my weight.”

Butcher shrugged. “If it’s that important to you, love.”

“You were right about that, you know. Calling me love. It keeps you from slipping and using my real name. I just didn’t see that at first. I never actually liked my name anyway.”

He put on his own coat and put a hand at the small of her back as Prentiss led them back into his office. “We’ll be back tomorrow. Same conditions, same time.”

The old man nodded. “Look forward to it.”

In the Toyota 4Runner, driving back to the La Quinta, Butcher asked, “What’s not to like about your name?”

Ashley turned away from the window, surprised. “It’s common as dirt. The only good thing is that my parents didn’t decide to go the creative-spelling route with it so I’d spend the rest of my life telling people how to spell my name. Or pronounce it.”

“Fair enough.”

“Where did you get Jessica?”

He had to think about it. “I don’t know. Random chance, I suppose.”

“It’s my middle name.”

That turned Butcher cold. “Does Madelyn know that?”

“Probably. She’s in my brain.”

“And she and Kessler can fucking talk to each other without us knowing. Next time you see her, you tell her that things like that are little clues that someone as bloody smart as Sister Sage is can pick up on. They can jeopardize our safety. If both of them want us to survive, they need to stop with the little in-jokes.”

The blood had drained out of her face, but she only said, “I’ll tell her.”

“And I’ll tell Kessler.”

They were almost back to the motel before she spoke again. “Do you think we’re still safe here?”

Butcher relented enough to put a hand on her back and rub it. “I’m sure we are, love. Prentiss isn’t going to say anything to anyone.”

“Okay.” Her voice was quiet and it bothered him.

“I’m sorry I frightened you. I don’t know what our creatures are capable of, or how savvy they are. They may do something without meaning to that could endanger us, and any improvisation on their part needs to stop. I’m the one who knows how to keep us safe.”

He parked the 4Runner in its usual spot and started to get out. Ashley reached over and put a hand on his arm, stopping him. “I know you’re trying to keep us both safe, Billy. Thank you.” Then she leaned over and brushed his mouth with hers, lingering for the barest second before she pulled back, popped open the passenger side door, and headed for the room. All he could do was sit there, the shock holding him in place, and wonder if she might have had a few thoughts about him like the one he’d had about her in the shooting bay. A little smile quirked his lips. Maybe the two of them should try it on when it was just them, leave Kessler and Madelyn out of it for once. Just for a lark.

Chapter 5: Stand There and Watch Her Burn

Summary:

Madelyn tells Ashley some home truths, then Butcher and Ashley try to find out if they can have anything separate from what their cancer monsters want.

Cancer Monsters in Love

Chapter 5 – Stand There and Watch Her Burn

Ashley hurried into the motel room, aware of Butcher somewhere behind her, trying to push down her anxiety. What the hell had possessed her, to kiss him? It had been chaste, but on the lips, and he was bound to take that in a certain way, considering that they’d already fucked twice. Why had she done it, especially since they had never kissed even one time during the cancer-monster-induced fucking? Or maybe that was it, just plain and simple curiosity. She never should have done it, especially after that crack he’d made about her creaming herself over Homelander. Who had touched her maybe three times in the years she’d known him, and one of those was shaking hands with her when Madelyn introduced them.

“It’s not just that you aren’t beautiful—why you didn’t interest him that way.” Madelyn stood next to the dresser, idly examining one fingernail. “You were good at your job and he knew I’d fire you if he did any…wick-dipping, let’s say. I didn’t mind that crush you had on him, since it would keep you in the job where I needed you and he wouldn’t act on it. Besides, it helped his self-esteem to know he could have you whenever he wanted. Kind of like knowing there’s a 7/11 nearby.”

“Cheap and convenient. How flattering. I thought we were getting a break today?”

“Have you tried buying anything at a convenience store? Cheap is the opposite of that. And the break was only from sex. We can still talk to you if we want.” Ashley made a noise, trying to ignore Butcher closing the door to the room. “That one thinks you were trying to protect yourself from Homelander by shooting up the Compound V. I think differently. Did you think that if you were a supe he’d love you?”

“No. I never thought that.” Sickness roiled inside her. Had she, though? Had she actually thought that if she had powers, if she could fly or lift the Chrysler Building or breathe fire, Homelander would look at her and fall in love with her? Had she thought it was only her humanness standing between them?

“Didn’t think what?” asked Butcher.

“Nothing. I’m talking to Madelyn.”

Her old boss gave her a withering look. “Don’t bullshit me, Ashley. You’ve always tried to make yourself into what he wanted, even before you knew what he really was. I don’t think the idea of self-protection was nowhere in your mind, but you did think being a supe could change things between the two of you.”

“I wouldn’t have tried to kill myself! You know what the survival rate for injection with Compound V after adolescence is, and so do I. It’s effectively suicide.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Butcher look toward her, but most of her attention was on Madelyn.

“It wouldn’t have been easier to simply die rather than to deal with the fact that Homelander doesn’t love you and never will, that there is nothing at all that you can do to inspire love in him?”

“He can’t love anyone.” The words stuck in her throat.

One corner of her mouth turned upward. “Oh, not true. He loved me. He loved Maeve. He loved Stormfront. What did all of us have in common?”

“You were all bitches?”

That made Madelyn laugh. “True, but you know what I meant. We were all beautiful. You can’t underestimate how much men value that. It’s the only quality that can make them love you, and you don’t have it. Look at Butcher—his wife was beautiful and he’s destroyed his life trying to avenge a murder that never was, then a rape that never was. Over a decade of his life gone because of that face and body and the lies she told him, and he’s flensed her every flaw out of his mind so only the perfect ideal wife remains, and he will die for the illusion he created.” Ashley turned away from her cancer monster, but Madelyn was suddenly in front of her again. “And you’re no different. You wanted Homelander because he was handsome, because he could seem charming and personable and decent in short bursts. You knew nothing about him but the Vought PR image and so you made up every positive quality imaginable and attached them to him. And because of that image you thought he might be able to look past your surface appearance, find the beauty within, and love you. Do you want to die the way Butcher will, serving that illusion?”

“Stop it. Please. Just stop it.” She turned away again, but Madelyn was in front of her again.

“Really, Ashley, it was nothing but a crush. You can get over him if you want, but you have to look at your feelings with clear eyes. Most of the time you were terrified of him, once you found out what a psychopath he is. And he gave you to Black Noir to be killed. You are nothing to him.”

Ashley took a step forward, straight up to Madelyn, and smashed her own forehead into the motel room wall. “Fucking hell,” she heard Butcher say before she felt his hands on her arms, turning her around. “What is she saying to you?”

The skin of her forehead had split and in a daze she felt warm blood running over her nose, her cheek, her chin. It helped her calm herself. “Homelander. She’s talking about Homelander.” Her sense of self-preservation made her elide what Madelyn had said about Becca.

His face tightened at that. “He’s trying to murder you. Can’t even put away those romantic feelings for the sake of your own survival?”

It was too much, all of it was too much, and her control broke. “I know I was stupid! I know nobody who looks like him could ever love me! I know what I look like, so leave me alone, all of you!” And now, oh Christ, she was fucking crying in front of him and fucking cancer-Madelyn. She tried to hide her face, jerk herself away from him, get to the bathroom and lock the door until she could compose herself enough to come back out, but he wouldn’t release his hold. “Leave me alone!”

But she was in his arms then, and no matter how she struggled she couldn’t get free. Butcher was murmuring to her, trying to comfort—why? He despised her. He loathed the creatures that had forced them together, forced physical intimacy on them. Maybe her breakdown annoyed him, became enough of an irritant for him to try to resolve.

The crying wouldn’t stop, despite how hard she tried, and Butcher drew her across the room to his bed and settled down on it, bringing her down next to him, keeping her in his embrace. Ashley’s head rested on his shoulder and her tears and blood ran down her face to stain the black knitted sweater he wore, but he didn’t seem to notice. I ruin everything.

He twisted on the bed to get something, and a bottle was in his hand when he turned back to her. “Here, love. Have a little drink to steady yourself. Then we’ll treat your wound.”

“I don’t like whiskey.” Ashley heard the sound of tears in her own voice.

“It’s medicinal, not to get drunk. To steady yourself, as I said. Humor me, please.” The opening of the bottle hovered near her mouth, and she sighed, putting her hand around the bottle’s neck and taking a sip. The whiskey burned her throat all the way down to her stomach and she gasped. He chuckled. “Not much of a drinker?”

She shook her head. “Couldn’t afford to be at Vought. Had to be in control of myself every second I was there. And he would have known I was drinking. He would have seen it as another weakness to be exploited, the way he did my hair.”

For once Butcher didn’t say anything about Homelander, probably not wanting to touch off another crying fit. He took the bottle from her, putting it back on the nightstand, and got up to go into his suitcase, finding bandages and gauze. He proceeded to clean the injury on her forehead and apply a bandage before he resumed his position, propped against the headboard with her body pressed against his side and her head on his shoulder. “I could have been more delicate in the way I talked about how you feel about the cunt. I apologize for upsetting you.”

She raised one shoulder in a shrug. “My feelings are…pretty clear, I guess.”

“What did Madelyn say to upset you on the subject?”

“Nothing I didn’t already know.” She moved her head a little, feeling the softness of his sweater under her cheek. “He could never have any feelings for me because I’m not beautiful. No man could ever have any feelings for me because of that. Beauty is the coin of the realm and I’m broke.”

“That’s a damned foolish thing to say, for you and for her.”

“The foolish can also be the true. Do we have to talk about this?”

“She wants you to confront your feelings about him. Do you think there’s any chance in hell that he could love you the way you deserve?”

Ashley knew she didn’t deserve anything at all but kept quiet. “I already told you I knew I was stupid. Why do you keep rubbing my nose in it?”

“Perhaps I don’t like it when the woman I’m fucking is imagining another man when she’s with me.” His voice was light, but she heard the darkness moving under the surface.

She raised herself enough to look him in the face. “I never thought of any other man while I was fucking you. I promise you that. If you never believe another word out of my mouth, believe that.” Stunning that he even thought it would have been possible for her to think of anyone but him while he was inside her. Even that first time, when Madelyn and Kessler had consummated their relationship, she hadn’t even remembered that Homelander existed while Butcher was fucking her. The remembered thrill of being filled by him sent a shiver through her body.

“Why should I?” His hazel eyes were guarded, and she noticed they had a lot of green in them. Why hadn’t she noticed before that he had pretty eyes?

Ashley braced herself for the truth. “Because Homelander was the furthest thing from my mind while your cock was in my pussy. Nothing mattered except you and how you made me feel. Even when you don’t want me, when it’s only happening because Kessler’s forcing you, I want to fuck you, and not just because Madelyn wants Kessler. It’s been a long time since I’ve been with a man the way I’m with you and I missed it. I’m not afraid. I can’t tell you how much that means to me. I’d almost forgotten how it felt. I know you don’t want to be with me and I’m sorry for it, but I can’t tell you I’m sorry about the sex without lying.”

He made a little noise, stroking her back absently. “Flattered, love. I’ll take that as a good sign.”

“But it’s not stupid, what she was saying about my looks. It’s true. You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t be jumping for joy if it had been Starlight who turned up with sentient brain cancer. Or Maeve. I know she’s alive, by the way.”

She felt him tense a little, then relax. “What makes you think that?”

“A security camera at the Tower caught you and your buddies picking her up off the ground, obviously alive after her multi-story plunge, and getting her out of there.”

“So why didn’t Homelander kill her or take her back if he knew she was alive and probably depowered, pray?”

“Because I erased the footage. He has no idea she’s still alive.”

“Sterling of you.”

“Oh, please. She was a complete bitch and it had nothing to do with her. He’d made me take off my wig in front of the Deep and A-Train against my will, and that was me getting even with him for it. She can choke on a dick as far as I’m concerned.” Briefly she wondered if Maeve had had Butcher in her mouth at any point during their fuck session. “So you have nothing to be worried about as far as he goes.”

“I’m not worried.” His hand continued its lazy movements on her back. “She’s depowered, which means she’s useless to me. Water under the bridge.”

Ashley wasn't sure she believed him but said, “Okay.”

“But now that I think about it, I prefer you having Kessler’s mate in your skull over Starlight. Thick as a brick, that bint. You’ve got a working brain.”

“Brains don’t get men hard. A pretty face and body do, and she has those in spades.”

“Had,” he said. His voice was curt. “And I love my wife.”

At least she’d been under no illusions that he felt anything for her, but the words still cut. Ashley pushed the knowledge of Project Athena down and attempted to get off the bed. Almost before she realized it, he’d not only pulled her back onto the bed but covered her with his own body. “Let me up. We were supposed to be getting dinner.”

“Not just yet, love,” he said. “No idea where that bee in your bonnet came from about no one loving you if you aren’t a dish, but you can put that to rest. Just because the cunt was too dim to look at you doesn’t mean other men don’t.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay. Can you let me up now?”

He went on as though she hadn’t spoken. “Didn’t any of the men you’ve been with love you? Bourke, Coleman, Tek Knight?”

Somehow it didn’t surprise her that he knew about her personal entanglements. “None of them knew what love was. They were with me because I gave them what they wanted as far as sex went. I was as dispensable to every one of them as I was to Homelander. Do we really have to talk about this?”

“Madelyn thinks it’s important. You understand that as long as Kessler and Madelyn are with us, we’ll be together?”

“Unless you kill me.” Her creature had said that they would each be protected from the other, and Ashley was willing to believe that because their lives depended on it, but she found herself unwilling to tell him about that. Besides, she doubted if he thought he could kill her if he wanted.

“I won’t do that. Try to have a little faith, love.”

“Why not, when you hate me?”

Butcher raised an eyebrow. “Don’t know where you got that idea either, but it isn’t true. Matter of fact, I didn’t even hate you when you ran Vought. I find you…intriguing.”

Her head thrashed back and forth on his pillow. How to stop noticing the weight of him, not uncomfortable but tantalizing, the warmth of his body? “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

He was silent for a bit before saying, “Perhaps you’re right. You don’t seem to want to listen. It’s made me think of something I’d been considering, about us trying it on for ourselves.”

She looked at him in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“Every time we’ve fucked it’s been because Kessler and Madelyn forced us to. Just once we should fuck each other of our own accord, just to see what it’s like without tentacles sprouting from us. Without being driven by them.”

“That can’t happen. You can’t get—well, we can’t do that without your creature making you.”

He grinned. “Is that a challenge, love? If you’re saying I can’t get hard for you without Kessler, have to tell you you’re wrong. I’ve been thinking about you like that, had some rather…spicy thoughts about you at the range. Might have tried it on there if he didn’t have security cameras everywhere.” His knee nudged at hers and then she was straddling his thigh and she gasped. “I was thinking about having you grab that shelf at the front of the bay, getting your jeans and knickers down, and fucking you right there. Would you have enjoyed that, if there hadn’t been cameras?”

Excitement flowed through her at the rough velvet of his voice, his words. How stupid was she? “This isn’t you. Your creature—”

“Said they wouldn’t make us do anything today. You made that deal with them and, as far as I can see, they haven’t broken it. That’s why we should take the opportunity. If we don’t, we’ll never know if we can feel anything that belongs to us only. We won’t know what potential we have.”

She opened her mouth to argue with him, but nothing came out as he lowered his head and put his mouth against her neck, his breath on her skin making her shiver. She felt his tongue making patterns, then he began to suck, and she let her head go back. Her hands slid over his back to his waist, found their way under his sweater and encountered the heat of his skin, and the contact sent a sizzle of matching heat through her. Ashley bent her leg at the knee, pulling it up, the inside of her thigh sliding along the length of his, and she made a little sound of enjoyment.

Butcher lifted his face from her and said, “Like it, love?”

She made a little affirmative noise. Nothing she’d said to him had been a lie; she did want to fuck him, liked fucking him tremendously. She liked his body.

He raised a hand to run his fingertips over her face, from her cheekbone to the tip of her chin, seeming a little uncertain when he asked, “Do you need me to be tied up or whatnot?”

That startled her. “Did your research on me, huh?” Inside she was a little nervous. Was he about to say something nasty about her being a degenerate, make fun of her, shame her? She hoped not, but maybe it would be best if she knew what he thought right now, so they could end his little experiment and let Madelyn and Kessler do the heavy lifting for sex. “I don’t need it. I can do vanilla and enjoy it. I leaned into domination more heavily than I did before I took Madelyn’s job because I had no power under Homelander, no control, and the BDSM helped me stay connected to what power and control I could have. I understand not everyone goes for it. Besides, I don’t think it’s a good idea in our current situation. If a Vought security team breaks the door down, I’d prefer you be able to…use your talents to the fullest.”

That got a grin out of him. “Practical. I like that.”

“Is there…anything you need, like that?” Ashley didn’t have a clue about any kinks he might have, other than fucking women who belonged to Homelander as a means of revenge, but this might be something she would need to know.

“Well, not need, really, but I’d like it if you wore your red wig while we do this. I prefer it. As I said, you look more yourself that way.”

“Okay,” she murmured. He let her slide out from underneath him and pad into the bathroom to remove the black wig and put on the red one, the same one she’d worn when she fled Vought Tower. As she fitted the red wig on her head, she looked at herself in the mirror and wondered how she’d gotten from her office in the Tower to a motel room with Billy Butcher in less than a week. She thought Madelyn might pop in to say something, but she stayed away. Maybe she didn’t want to ruin the free-will sex that she and Butcher were about to have. Were they playing into her and Kessler’s hands somehow by doing this? But she wanted it, she wouldn’t lie to herself, so if they were doing what their cancers wanted it didn’t really matter.

Ashley hadn’t removed any clothing when she emerged from the bathroom, and he was still lying on his bed fully clothed. It gave her a little twinge of nerves, but he smiled and gestured her back over to resume her place next to him. She sat down on the bed and took off her Nikes and socks before stretching out with him again, resting her head on his shoulder. “Why did you do that? Hit your head on the wall?”

“It’s like the hair-pulling. It calms me when I’m really overstressed. Since my hair’s too short to pull right now and I don’t want to start cutting myself with a sharp edge, it’s all I can do.”

He was silent for a bit. “Why didn’t Madelyn stop you, the way she did when you wanted to leave?”

“I don’t think she knew I was going to do it.”

“Interesting.” His hand caressed her back. “I don’t like seeing you in pain, love. Would you try not to do that again?”

She sighed. “I’ll try.” It was the best she could do.

“Thank you.”

At some point—she didn’t know when—he’d put on some of the cologne she remembered from the first night they’d met and she closed her eyes to breathe it in. Memories intruded: her legs wrapped around his waist, the feel of his cock inside her after her self-imposed deprivation, the scent of him in her nose when she came. “Do you really want to do this with me? I’ll understand If you want to back out.”

His hand slid under her henley and found her breasts, and she gasped as he teased her nipples until they were hard. “No backing out here, love. Just full speed ahead. Put your arms up.” She did, and he pulled the henley over her head, leaving her bare from the waist up, and tossing it aside. “Beautiful, just like I remembered.” Her mouth was open and she gasped a little. He smiled. “You and Madelyn are both bloody nutters. There’s nothing wrong with how you look.”

Ashley forced herself not to object to that. If he needed to tell himself that in order to do the free-will sex, she wouldn’t interfere with it. The thought vanished as he pulled his sweater over his head and tossed it aside. She reached for his belt and unfastened it, undid the button at the waistband and slid down the zipper. Butcher smiled and let his fingers drift across the plane of her belly. “Nothing wrong with you at all. Now let’s get you out of those jeans.”

Butcher slid the jeans over her hips and down her legs, and, since her panties had gotten hooked under his fingers as well, she was now completely naked for him. For a moment she wished they were still being driven by the needs of Madelyn and Kessler as there was a kind of comfort in being controlled by them, not making their own decisions, the responsibility outside themselves. It felt safer that way.

But her thoughts wandered as his hands slid over her skin, hot, causing her nerves to sizzle. A little sound of enjoyment escaped her and he smiled. “Good, love?”

Ashley nodded, and he stopped touching her long enough to rid himself of the rest of his own clothing. He was still as strong and undeniably masculine as she remembered from their previous encounters, and she did her best to put aside any physical comparisons between him and Homelander. Like comparing apples and oranges, she told herself. Butcher is human, like me, and I can have him. I have had him. And he doesn’t find constant fault with me, and he doesn’t terrorize me. A lot more green flags than red.

His soldier’s life revealed itself in the scars over his body. She let her fingers touch two round indentations on his chest, one halfway between his collarbone and right nipple and one a few inches below his heart. “What are these?”

“I got shot.”

Her eyes widened with shock and horror, and he instantly saw what a mistake he’d made. “Don’t fret, love. It was in Afghanistan, a long time ago. Nothing like that will ever happen again.”

But you can’t guarantee that, can you? she wanted to say. You can’t guarantee Homelander won’t laser you in two. You can’t guarantee that he won’t laser me in half. But she kept those thoughts inside and raised herself enough to touch her lips to each scar. “Okay.”

Butcher smiled, surprised. “You’re a sweet lady, once you let yourself be.”

“You’re not so bad either.” It was all she could say before he bent his head to her breast and took her nipple in his mouth. Ashley did her best to relax, which didn’t take nearly as much effort as she thought because the contact with him sent darts of pleasure through her every nerve ending. A little murmur escaped her, and she raised her hand to the back of his head, her fingers combing through his dark hair. It soothed her anxiety a bit. Odd that anything about him could calm her.

His mouth shifted to her other nipple and she shuddered at the brush of his beard against her skin. None of her past lovers had been anything but clean-shaven, and the newness of the sensation made her tingle. It did take her mind off his scars, though. The unwelcome thought intruded: He’s all I have now.

Butcher spent long minutes on her breasts, sucking and kissing and laving with his tongue, until she was writhing under him, little noises escaping as her hands slid over him, nails digging in at random intervals in response to a particularly pleasing sensation. Then his hand went between her legs and any rationality, any ability to think and judge and make decisions, vanished. Arousal fired quickly, demanding more and more of him, and when he raised his head from her, she gasped, “Fuck me. I’m tired of waiting for it.”

That got a little laugh out of him. “At your service, love.” With a quick movement he positioned himself between her legs and slid his hands under her hips, lifting her for his first thrust. An inarticulate moan was all she could manage when she felt the head of his cock pressing against her, and he stilled. “All right?”

Ashley gasped and nodded. When she could open her eyes long enough to look at him again, she found him smiling. “I’m fine,” she breathed in the instant before he drove deep into her and she cried out with the sensation.

He stayed motionless inside her. “Are you sure?” he asked.

She didn’t even need to look at him—the laughter in his voice was too clear. Rather than reply in words, Ashley dug her nails into his ass and thrust her lower body upward, into him. That made him moan, wiped away any laughter, and she wrapped her legs around him. He braced himself on his arms and began to fuck her in earnest, his hips pistoning smoothly, and she couldn’t help but make noises, wrap her arms around him and answer his movements with her own. The need was burning her up from the inside out, and she never intended to let go of Butcher, no matter what she knew about Becca and what delusional fantasies he still entertained about his wife. It wasn’t like Madelyn and Kessler would give her a choice, anyway.

His breath puffed out against the skin of her shoulder and she arched herself against him. He felt so good against her, and this time she couldn’t pass it off to herself as Madelyn influencing her. She wanted to fuck him because she liked it. She wanted him, and for once it was safe to want a man without fearing the consequences of it. And that was as close as the thought of Homelander got to her before she went over the edge, pleasure a hot wave drowning her body, and she lost herself so thoroughly she didn’t even notice when he cried out, shuddered, came himself.

It took a few minutes for both of them to let their breathing return to normal. Ashley wondered if she should go back to her own bed as usual, but they hadn’t even had dinner yet, so it seemed a little early, then Butcher wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close against him. “Enjoy yourself, love?”

“Ummm.” She felt boneless with relaxation and was content to lie against him. “Free-will sex has a lot to recommend it.”

Ashley felt the chuckle rumbling in his chest. “I’ll try to keep up the good work.”

Another few minutes of silence went by before she said, “Look, I know it would never have happened with Homelander. I don’t suit his standards of beauty, and I would never have made the first move. From a few things Madelyn let slip, he’s pretty passive in that area. He’s all in if you take the lead, but not otherwise, and I’m too afraid of him to do that. So it wouldn’t have been.” Too late she remembered what Butcher believed about Becca’s encounter with Homelander.

He seemed to miss the implication. “What can I say? He’s not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.”

“Sage saw it, how I felt. She thought I was so desperate for him that I would do anything to get his attention that way. She…made a suggestion to me once.” The humiliation of knowing that supe bitch had known how she felt and assumed she would debase herself utterly kept her quiet until Butcher made a questioning noise. “Sage told me that there were drugs that could cause me to lactate without being pregnant. Homelander has a lactation fetish, just so you know. She thought that I would take those drugs, and my breasts would fill up with milk, and I’d offer to breastfeed him, and he would jump at the offer. She honestly believed I would do this.”

He ran a fingertip over one nipple, which stiffened at his touch. “Well, I’ve been intimate with the area in question and never got fed, so I assume you didn’t.”

“No. Do you know why?” He shook his head. “Because I know him better than she does, or better than she hoped I did. Homelander would be thrilled at first, if only because his fetish was finally being serviced, but after his head cleared he would find any woman who did that needy and desperate and pathetic and beneath him. After he got used to it, he’d start feeling contempt. Servicing him like that isn’t the way to his heart.”

“If he has one,” said Butcher.

Ashley ignored that. “Sage had a little more luck with Firecracker because she is needy and desperate and pathetic and would do anything for him. I wouldn’t.” A little bit of anger at the redheaded supe, a little regret at a lost, hopeless opportunity, nagged at her, but she released it. “So I guess I didn’t love him as much as I’d convinced myself I did. Maybe cancer-Madelyn was right—I fell in love with his good looks and the image of him I built up in my head, definitely not the real him who killed people in front of me and threatened me with every word, every look. If I’d known that man at all, I would never have come back to Vought when he offered me Madelyn’s job.”

“Sensible of you. So…should I assume that you’re reassessing your feelings for the cunt?”

She sighed. “Yes. I may be stubborn, but I’m not stupid. I’m letting go of the illusion I thought I was in love with. There was never any love there, on either side.”

Butcher brushed a kiss against her forehead. “It hurts now, love, but you’ll be better off for it. He was never the right man for you.”

“I don’t think there is one.”

“Life is full of surprises. You never know what’s around the next corner. Were you still in a mood for dinner?”

The change of subject surprised her, and she tilted her head back to look at him. “Now that I’ve had more exercise, so to speak, my appetite’s good.”

He grinned. “So I noticed. I’ll order us something from UberEats, and then…we can explore our free will a little more. If that suits you?”

The smile Ashley gave him was genuine. “It does.”

Chapter 6: She Built This Fortress Around His Heart

Summary:

Butcher has some conflict with Prentiss and Ashley, and an important memory surfaces.

Cancer Monsters in Love

Chapter 6 – She Built This Fortress Around His Heart

Butcher awakened the next morning, feeling fresh and rested for the first time in…well, months, really. Ashley lay curled against his side, sound asleep, her wig askew. After their Uber Eats dinner they’d fucked again, free of compulsion from their respective creatures, and proceeded to drift off. It was the first time she hadn’t gone back to her own bed after sex, but it was also the first time they’d shagged of their own free will. She looked more rested, too. He took that as an excellent sign.

Had he spent the entire night in bed with a woman since Becca? He and Susan Raynor had needed to keep their relationship a secret, so they never had the freedom to wake up together, have a lazy Sunday breakfast in bed, engage in any activities as a couple. Queen Maeve had done a runner before his spunk had dried on her thighs, and he’d always been the one making an early exit with the anonymous women he picked up in bars and clubs to release tension. As always, it was Becca, and Becca alone, who’d owned all his tenderness, his love.

“Oooh, Billy Boy, and I’d had such hopes after you and the little lady decided to become one flesh without being dragged to the bed.” When he looked over, Kessler sat in the desk chair, expression mocking. “I’ve never met anyone besides a thirteen-year-old girl with rose-colored glasses as thick as yours.”

“What are you talking about?” He kept his voice low so as not to wake Ashley.

“All this sickly-sweet mooning over Becca. When are you going to realize that she was just a normal woman, an ordinary person, not this goddess of purity and goodness and virtue you’ve sandblasted her into? You should force yourself to remember a few things, Billy. The truth shall set your free.”

Butcher would have let his anger go and ripped into Kessler, but Ashley whimpered a little and opened her eyes, blinking. “Morning,” she murmured.

“Sleep well?” he asked.

“Mmmm.” She stretched, which pressed her breasts into his chest. An obscure sense of discomfort came over him, and he looked for an excuse to pull away from her. The clock on the beside stand provided it, and he swore when he saw its face.

“We’re going to be late for Prentiss and gun practice if we don’t snap to. I’ll let you have the first shower if you want.”

“Very sweet of you,” Ashley said before rolling out of the bed and walking naked into the bathroom. Butcher couldn’t help but let his gaze roam over her body until the door closed.

Kessler said, “You are not being unfaithful. Becca is dead. You are a widower. If Homelander had never happened and she had died of a heart attack, would you be having this much trouble moving on?”

“Shut up,” said Butcher as he got out of bed and searched for his pack of Woodbines.

“You ever heard of something called sunk-cost fallacy? Throwing good money after bad because you’ve already invested so much you can’t stand the idea that you’ve wasted what you already spent? I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure out what I’m getting at.”

He found his cigarettes and pulled one out of the pack, and now went in search of his lighter, trying to ignore Kessler’s words. Of course he understood what his cancer was getting at; he’d invested over a decade of his life in the vendetta against Homelander, both when he thought the supe had murdered Becca and then after Becca had told him that she’d been raped by him. Was he just supposed to give up on his cause once his team had been killed and his financing had been cut off? What did that say about his love for his wife if he could do that, if he could just give up on avenging her? Maybe salvation had never been in the cards for him.

“She was not your fucking salvation, Billy. Becca was nothing more or less than a normal human being. If you changed for her, it was because you wanted to, and if you backslid after she was gone, that was because you gave yourself permission for it.” Butcher found his lighter and lit the cigarette, welcoming the smoke inside his lungs. “When are you going to look through the illusion of her and find the real woman? That will be your salvation, not some fantasy. Then maybe you can open your eyes to your little lady and understand how fucking lucky you actually are.” Butcher ignored him. Kessler tilted and shifted position in the chair. “Stubborn as a damn mule, aren’t you?”

He sighed. “Why can’t you let this thing go? You already got what you wanted. She and I shagged without you and your mate having to force it. You could try trusting that any feelings we have will develop naturally.”

“That sounds like it would take longer than I want. Ideally, I’d like for the two of you to be committed to each other by the time you check out of this motel.”

“We’re not going to leave each other.” As if you would let us. “What difference does it make?”

“I told you, my mate wants your little lady to be happy.” Kessler shook his head and let a little grin appear. “And maybe some of her sentimentality’s rubbed off on me, because you could be happy with this one, but that won’t happen if you don’t release the past. She’s done it, so why can’t you?”

Butcher dragged on his Woodbine and letting the smoke leave his mouth in little puffs. It was a good question. “Because Ashley never married the cunt. Because she has nothing to avenge.”

“Well, she didn’t tell you everything about what went on between them, so I suppose you could think that. Or maybe she’s just more resilient than you are. You’re frozen in amber, Billy, but maybe that’s easier than admitting you might be wrong.”

The rage flared up. He would have unleashed it at Kessler if Ashley hadn’t come out of the bathroom, pulling the rust-brown sweater over her head. Butcher tamped down his anger long enough to tell her, “No time for breakfast at IHOP today.”

“Oh, that’s fine. I’ll just run over to the Exxon station and get a muffin and a Diet Coke.” That seemed a counterintuitive combination, but he nodded as she grabbed her coat and purse and left. They should move on from the La Quinta. He knew they’d been here too long for safety, but Kessler didn’t agree. Butcher half-expected his cancer to reappear and continue the argument when Ashley stepped out, but he remained alone in the room.

When she returned, shaking snow off the hood of her down coat, he realized she still wore her red wig from the night before. “Better wear the black wig. That’s the one Prentiss knows.”

Her hand, the one holding a blueberry Mega Muffin, went to her head and she looked upset. “I forgot.”

“No worries,” he assured her. “He probably knows it’s a wig, but we should be consistent in what he sees.” After Ashley switched out her wig, they drove to the gun range in silence. She finished the blueberry muffin in short order and twisted the cap off the plastic bottle of Diet Coke. Butcher thought she seemed a little puzzled, a little uncomfortable. Had she expected something else to happen after their venture into uncompelled sex, maybe some declaration of love or at least affection? If so, she was much more naïve than he thought she could be after all those years at Vought. But he wouldn’t clarify his feelings on the matter to her—no need for a row.

Prentiss met them outside in the parking lot as he’d done the day before. “Same conditions apply. The two of you are alone.”

“Brilliant,” said Butcher, putting his hand on the small of Ashley’s back as they walked into the office. “I’m having Jessica work on her aim first, warm up, then we’ll train a bit. We’ll need another box of nine mil.”

“Will do,” the other man said, grabbing a box before they entered the lift and descended to the hidden range.

Ashley removed her coat and drew her Glock from its shoulder holster. When she looked at Butcher, he told her, “I want to see what you can do when I’m not looking over your shoulder. Target practice like yesterday, same ranges, and I’ll check the groupings when you’re done. Do you remember how to bring the paper targets forward when you’re finished?”

“Yes.” She picked up the eye protectors and put them on.

He grinned at her as she donned the ear protectors. “Then let’s begin.”

While she loaded her gun, he and Prentiss withdrew to the tiny soundproofed office at the back of the range. “Payment’s already cleared.”

“Good. Heard anything else about me through the unofficial channels?”

He shook his head. “Just what I told you yesterday. Have to figure they’ve got the border sewn up. Canada where you’re headed?”

Butcher gave him a mocking, disappointed headshake. “You should know better than that, old man.”

Prentiss let his gaze wander back to Ashley through the office’s bulletproof glass window. “You’ll forget sometimes, too, when you’re my age.”

“Bold assumption that I’ll live so long.” The muted sound of gunfire brought his attention to her as well. He noted, with a twinge of approval and pride, that she was using the Chapman stance for shooting. At least she wasn’t too stubborn to listen. Unlike him, as Kessler was so diligent about reminding him.

“You’ve got the survival instincts of a sewer rat, just like everybody else in this line of work. Pretty sure you’ll live to a ripe old age.” Together, they watched her for another few moments before he said, “So this one knows who you are? Not like the other one?”

“What do you mean?” Butcher let his gaze sweep over her and suppressed any fantasies he might have had about her hands gripping the shelf at the front of her shooter’s cubicle, any sounds of pleasure she would make with him.

“Your wife. Becca. Unless I miss my guess, she never had a scrap of a clue who she married.”

There wasn’t any judgment in his voice, but he took offense anyway. “She loved me. And I loved her.”

Prentiss looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Oh, I don’t doubt that for a second. You never would have lived your cover twenty-four-seven if you hadn’t loved her. Other than her, you’ve always been pretty quick to love them and leave them when it gets demanding, if they start pushing for more.”

“That’s your opinion, then?” The simmering anger left over from the confrontation with Kessler found its way back to the surface.

He shook his head. “Not just mine. Everybody’s. You kept Becca away from the rest of us like we carried the plague. We used to have barbecues, cookouts, parties, all the families would come, but not you and Becca. You’d give us your bullshit excuses and we’d all pretend to believe them because she did get you to stop drinking and straighten up some, but I don’t really think you can blame us for wishing you’d found someone else.”

“My wife is dead!” shouted Butcher.

“So is mine!” The sudden roar startled him as the older man stood up, eyes blazing. “You wouldn’t even let Helen near her. Do you have any fucking idea how it made me feel that you thought my wife wasn’t good enough to say hello to Becca and shake her goddamned hand?”

The shock of this explosion calmed him down somewhat. Trying to get his breathing under control, he said, “It was my call to keep her away. If you thought Becca was so bad—”

“That’s the point, boy! We didn’t know her to think her good or bad. You never gave any of us the chance to know her because you were too busy trying to live your white-picket-fence fantasy and cut out anything that didn’t fit in. What the hell were you afraid of, anyway?”

Some part of him, the part that wasn’t consumed by rage, was brought up short. He’d liked Helen, a short round motherly type who always remembered how he liked his coffee and had been the only person who could make Prentiss blush. It wasn’t that he’d thought Becca was too good to associate with his friends, though; he’d thought she was too good to associate with him. If Becca had ever gotten a glimpse of the real Billy Butcher, the hardened soldier, the remorseless killer, the man who could do what had to be done no matter what it was, she would have flinched from him in horror, and he could not have that because he loved her more than anything or anyone and he could never, never lose her. And then he had.

But that part wasn’t strong enough to divert him, defuse his fury. “We’re done here.”

Prentiss gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Guess it was best that payment cleared in advance, then.” His eyes shifted and Butcher looked behind him to see Ashley heading for the office, a wary look on her face. “This one I like. She can come back. You can’t.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.” He jerked the door open just as she reached it. “We’re leaving. Get your things together.” Despite whatever she thought about what had happened between them last night, she had enough trust in him to obey without comment, returning to the cubicle to retrieve her gun, holster it, and pull on her coat.

“Pleasure meeting you, Jessica,” Prentiss threw at her as they stepped into the lift. She nodded at him before the doors closed, they returned to the office, and he almost dragged her out to the Toyota 4Runner.

Their drive back to the La Quinta was even more silent than when they’d left. He could feel her shooting little glances at him, but she was too intimidated to ask him about it. Probably waiting until they got back to the room, but he didn’t spare more than a stray thought for her. The fact of what Prentiss had said, that all his friends, everyone in his orbit had thought that he’d kept Becca away because she was too good to be soiled by them, by his real life, occupied too much space in his mind. But had he thought that? He’d believed she couldn’t accept who he really was, so how could she have accepted Prentiss and Helen and his other friends without them playing the role of normal people? But there would have been no way he could hide himself if he let Becca know them, no way to be the boring import-export salesman of his cover if she met Prentiss and Helen and the others, and he needed to be that for her, needed to be some other, better version of Billy Butcher, to be worthy of her.

As soon as they entered the motel room, Butcher said, “Pack your things. We need to find a new motel. We’ve been here too long.”

She didn’t move, staring at him as he started throwing clothes into his suitcase. “What happened with you and Prentiss back at the range?”

“Nothing. Go pack.”

“Billy. Talk to me. Is this something that could endanger us?”

He took a moment to look at her. Touching that she thought there was an “us” in this whole situation. “Doubtful. Prentiss likes you, and he knows we’re together. Anything that would hurt me would hurt you. And he wouldn’t do it that way.”

“What way?”

“Underhanded. He’d attack me to my face, not drop a hint to some security drone at Vought. I know him well enough to understand that.”

Ashley didn’t respond immediately. “I thought Kessler and Madelyn wanted us to stay here until we were committed to each other. Do you think they’ll let us leave?”

He sighed, pausing his packing long enough to twist open a new bottle of whiskey and take a deep pull on it. “We can only hope they see the possible danger and decide staying alive is more of a priority than making us fall in love with each other.”

“Will you tell me what you and Prentiss were fighting about?”

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.” Butcher would never discuss Becca with Ashley. Never.

“Just like Saint Becca Butcher was too good to go to a barbecue at Prentiss and Helen’s, right? Ashley’s a regular human woman, so she’s not good enough to hear about your wife, huh?” Kessler sat in the desk chair where she had dropped her coat. “At least Helen never lied her ass off to him about anything.”

“Shut up,” he snapped. Ashley’s eyes widened with hurt. “Not you. Kessler. He’s being a bellend at the moment.”

“Telling you the truth is being a bellend, huh?” asked Kessler. “And just exactly what the fuck is a bellend, anyway?”

Ashley spoke up at the same time. “If it involves us, I do need to concern myself with it. It bothers me that you aren’t being open about this.”

“Leave it alone.” He wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her or to Kessler.

She held out her hand. “Give me your phone so I can call Prentiss. I’m sure he’ll tell me.”

He didn’t make any moves to do it. “You don’t need to do that.”

“If you won’t tell me, I’ll have to find someone who will!”

The words fell on his soul like lumps of iron, not exactly what Ashley had just said but close enough. And his memory cracked open, spilling out the one thing that he most needed to deny to himself, the thing he had closed his mind to for over a decade. Becca’s mouth open in a scream, eyes alight with fury, her finger jammed into his face. If you won’t, I’ll find someone who will.

It had been three weeks before the Christmas party at Vought Tower, before Becca met Homelander in person and Butcher’s world fell apart. He hadn’t seen any of it coming, or maybe after a year the fights were so frequent that he couldn’t judge their intensity properly. He’d been home for almost seven months now, quite a long stretch, but he’d requested only stateside jobs for a while. Grace had sighed and given him a lecture that he didn’t bother listening to, because the only thing that mattered was that she’d given in and he wouldn’t have to leave the country for the immediate future. He could stay with Becca, bask in her love and the normality his salesman cover gave his life.

Becca seemed restless at dinner. He’d had to make reservations at Balthazar weeks in advance, knowing it was her favorite restaurant, but she only picked at the food. “Something wrong? You aren’t eating.” Earlier that evening he’d made a special effort to dress up in a flannel suit of pale gray and a green tie that Becca always claimed brought out the green in his eyes. She wore a form-fitting burgundy sheath dress that set off her hair and skin.

She looked up, some emotion crossing her face before she schooled it into a pleasant mask. “Yes, Billy. I’m sorry. My mind was elsewhere.”

Butcher suppressed a sigh. This wasn’t even the passive-aggressive behavior she employed for days after a row; she was thinking about something that didn’t bode well for him. “I’ve got some good news for you. I talked to my boss and she’s agreed to let me work stateside for the next few months. I’ll be home a lot more.”

“That’s great.” She didn’t sound like she meant it. That distance in her eyes remained, and he detected an upcoming row like a distant storm on the horizon.

He gave up with the small talk and applied himself to the non-alcoholic Ginger Fizz in his glass and the New York strip steak on his plate. Becca’s dark head was bent over her lobster spaghetti and the Sancerre in her glass gleamed under the light. Butcher had a sudden, intense desire to feel that wine slide down his throat but pushed the need down. Normally she didn’t drink any alcohol in front of him, but tonight he couldn’t judge if the Sancerre was for courage or passive-aggression.

The silence continued until they got home, but the slam of their apartment door behind her was the starting bell. “I’ve made an appointment for you with your doctor.”

“And what would that involve, pray?” But Butcher already knew what she was on about. Again.

“Checking into getting your vasectomy reversed. We’ve been talking about it for months and I want some forward movement on this.” Her hands were balled into fists and dug into her hips. “I’ve been as patient with you as I’m prepared to be.”

He couldn’t hold back a sigh and anger lit up her eyes. Before she could rip into him, he told her, “Becca, I’ve told you a thousand times that I’m not going to have it undone. They told me in the military that this wouldn’t be possible anyway.”

"Well, I’m not trusting some medic whose primary talent is digging bullets out of people! Be at your doctor’s office at nine-thirty Thursday morning. This is non-negotiable.”

“Then that doesn’t mean the same thing to you as it does to me, because I’m still not going. I don’t understand why you won’t drop this when you know perfectly well I don’t want children because of the way I was raised. I don’t want to pass that on to a helpless child.” Although he wouldn’t say this out loud, even if he wasn’t drinking the way his father had, he didn’t feel confident that the violence wasn’t in his blood, especially considering his line of work. What if their baby was like Lenny, sensitive, unable to handle the violence the way Butcher himself could? He’d promised himself after Lenny died—killed himself after you abandoned him, his unforgiving mind told him—that he would never have children. It was the only way he could protect them. Becca didn’t know everything, but she knew his father had been abusive. She’d been properly supportive then, but now he wondered if his confidences had gone in one ear and out the other.

“Oh, will you get off that shit!” The obscenity shocked him, coming from her mouth. “It’s irrational, and I am not going to let your paranoia get in the way of my baby. Once the child is born, you’ll get used to it. You won’t be able to believe that you almost denied the both of us so much joy.”

Christ, he needed a good stiff whiskey. “I am not going. That is final. I am not going to have a baby, with you or anyone else.”

Then Becca was inches away from him, jamming her finger into his face, and shouting, “If you won’t, I’ll find someone who will!”

In the shocked seconds before he replied, he noticed her face looked like a Japanese mask in its fury before dismissing the thought. “You don’t mean that.”

Her face held defiance, maybe even contempt, as she told him, “The fuck I don’t. I am not going to let you keep me from having a baby. My biological clock is ticking and I don’t have time to waste with you. You can get on board or else.” Before he could even ask the classic question—“or else what?”—she’d grabbed her shoulder bag off the sofa and stormed out.

She didn’t come home until the next morning, after he’d spent the entire night awake, waiting for her to call, apologize, anything, but she kept a complete silence until the door opened and Becca came in. According to her, she'd spent the night at a hotel, calming down, and told him she was sorry for what she'd said. Butcher felt too grateful that she’d come back at all to question it, ask which hotel, double-check her cover story. And then came the Christmas party, and Homelander, and the unexpected mission to Cairo that Grace had demanded his presence for, and then the years-long nightmare of thinking her dead, then raped, pushing this memory down into the depths of his subconscious until Ashley’s unthinking words brought it back.

Something in his face must have alerted her, because confusion gave way to distress. “Billy, what’s wrong?” He didn’t trust his voice and headed for the motel room door. “No, Billy, what’s—” and he pushed her out of his way, careless of his strength, and he heard her body bump the wall, but he didn’t care because his entire life, his existence for the last decade, had all been wasted, all the result of lies, and he could not stay here and deal with that.

The keys were in his hand, twisting in the door lock of the Toyota 4Runner, when he froze. “Where are you going?” asked Kessler.

“A break. Ashley got one, and now I want one. I need it.” Rage at having to ask rose up in his throat.

He nodded. “Fine, two hours like she got. But I’m staying with you to make sure you don’t get any run-for-the-border ideas.”

Butcher completed unlocking the door and got inside. Ashley had followed him, and her wig and the shoulders of her sweater were dusted with snow. “Billy? Billy?” Her voice was small and frightened, but at the moment he didn’t give a toss. The 4Runner’s engine came to life and he accelerated backward, almost hitting a Kia Optima before the SUV straightened out and he took off out of the parking lot, to the exit for I-87 North, and merged onto the motorway.

He tried to ignore Kessler in the passenger seat. “Well, guess that memory dam just burst, huh?”

“It can’t be true.” But his words were nothing but sounds in his ears. Becca’s fury at being denied what she wanted—had she always been like that? Had she only been sweet and loving when he went along with her, gave her what she asked for, and when he refused the baby he got to see a less pleasing side of her?

“Her son with Homelander begs to differ.”

“The footage of her coming out of his apartment—”

“Could be faked. You know Grace was crazy as a shithouse rat on the subject of supes after Lamplighter killed her grandchildren. If she needed an attack dog, when Becca went missing, she could have pulled some video from the Tower and done some creative computer things to it. She might have gambled that you’d be shaken and…credulous enough to take it at face value, not ask for a copy and have it checked to make sure it was genuine and unaltered. You never had the actual footage in hand, right?”

“No.” Butcher sighed. “I didn’t even think to ask. I’d believe Grace Mallory was capable of it, but Becca…She couldn’t have. She wasn’t like that. I can’t believe it.” If only he could jam that image of his wife and her pointing finger and her screaming face back into the depths where it belonged, preserve only the images of her when she was smiling and sweet and lovely.

“Let me help you with some clarity,” said Kessler. “Look at this like a professional. Say you have an asset for two years. This asset’s been arguing with you for over a year about money. Asset wants more, but you can’t make that happen. No way, no how. Agency purse strings are closed tighter than a nun’s asshole. You try explaining, asset won’t hear it, even says something to indicate that they aren’t opposed to going over to the other side if the price is right. Say they have a working relationship with your opposite number in Russia, China, wherever. They smooth things over with you later. Then, not immediately but soon enough, the asset disappears. You see some video footage that implies the asset was dealing with your opposite number. Let’s call him Ivan for convenience. They were out of sight with the door closed for a while, there’s some evidence that this may not have been entirely voluntary, asset looks rumpled and shaken when leaving but there are no marks you can see and they never seek any medical attention. It’s ambiguous, nothing that you could take into court, maybe the asset trying to cover their ass in case they get caught. A few years later you find the asset, living comfortably in a place that Ivan controls. And guess what? Your asset is sitting on top of a big pile of money, just a shitload of it. Then the asset tells you that they didn’t get this shitload of money by betraying you, oh heavens to Betsy no! They got in some innocent way that leaves them blameless, like selling off some of their valuables, loose precious stones, say. Nothing you could check. They give you something after you find them to sweeten your disposition, some bit of intelligence they’d been holding back, maybe, and talk you into helping them leave. But the whole time you and the asset are planning, the asset keeps harping on the money, telling you to make sure their money is safe, they have to have the money, makes you promise to protect the money. Keeping all this in mind, would you believe the asset was true-blue loyal, telling the whole truth and nothing but the entire time, or would you conclude that the asset was playing you and had sold out to the other side?”

Butcher felt like an old man. The snowflakes hitting the 4Runner’s windscreen didn’t have an instant to turn to water before the wipers obliterated them. “You know the answer as well as I do. When an asset gets restless that way, talking about perhaps changing sides, they are no longer reliable. They can be turned into a double agent, used as a weapon against you. If the asset’s talking about it, chances are excellent that they’ve been considering it for quite some time. If the case officer is unable to regain positive control over the asset, the asset is neutralized, preferably in a way that can pass for an accident or natural causes so as not to tip off the other side that we’ve been getting intelligence through this person.”

Kessler nodded, approving. “Seems you haven’t forgotten everything.”

“It’s not a one-to-one analogy, though. Ryan was Becca’s child.”

“Yeah, he was worth more than money to her. He was worth more than you to her.”

It was a blow to the heart, but he couldn’t fight it anymore, sink into the peace of denial and bring flowers to the shrine he’d built for her. “Yeah, she was playing me. Probably since the first time I refused to try to get the vasectomy reversed, definitely after I found her at the Vought compound. But Becca knew. She knew why I didn’t want any children.”

“Not much of a listener when it was something she didn’t want to hear.”

“Bitch. Bloody lying bitch.” But his usual rage wasn’t present, just a bleeding hollow where his memory of their past had been. “Why didn’t she do a runner when I told her about the vasectomy if all she wanted was a brat?”

It made Kessler sigh. “I think she loved you, Billy, in her way. It wasn’t the way you thought she did, or the way you wanted her to, but there was love. She spent months arguing about a baby. She couldn’t bring herself to make a clean break with you after she found out she was pregnant by Homelander. Becca had some genuine attachment to you. She couldn’t let go.”

Butcher didn’t feel certain of that at all. Becca was smart, could have decided that a fallback position would be a sound, prudent strategy, in case something unexpected happened with the cunt, and who better to pick up the pieces than her gullible, unsuspecting husband? Although he'd only remain gullible and unsuspecting until the baby started showing. It sent a wave of shame through him that after his childhood, after the service, after years in the Agency, he could still be this green, this trusting. He opened his mouth to say something to Kessler when the other man’s expression changed. “Madelyn says get back to the room.”

It was the first time he’d called her anything other than his mate. “What?”

“She says get back to the room. On the double!” Kessler vanished from the passenger seat at the exact moment Butcher identified his facial expression. He was frightened.

Fear infected him as well. The emergency turnarounds on I-87 North were spaced pretty close together, but the state police always had a built-up section of the divider between the motorway’s lanes to use for chasing reckless drivers and whatnot, so they didn’t have to drive a mile or two up the road to get after them. He spotted one as he was almost on top of it. With a hard turn of the steering wheel, he sent the SUV across multiple lanes of traffic, deaf to the horns and screeching brakes of the other drivers on the interstate, and onto the grassy median dividing the northbound and southbound lanes.

A cold part of his mind warned him that if he hit the turnaround wrong he could tip, the 4Runner had a high center of gravity and could roll over, he might die, but he’d judged it correctly. The 4Runner’s tires grabbed and held, digging in to throw up chunks of turf as its engine roared and Butcher jerked the wheel again to send the vehicle into the far right lane of I-87 South.

Then there was nothing to do but press the accelerator into the floorboards and hope there was no police presence around as he raced back toward the Lake Placid exit, toward the La Quinta and Ashley and whatever Madelyn thought he needed to handle, whatever had frightened Kessler. Butcher felt the cold wash of adrenalin through him, the prelude to mayhem, and he bared his teeth.

Chapter 7: Carry Each Other, Carry Each Other

Summary:

Ashley gets an unexpected visitor and takes her final revenge on Homelander.

Cancer Monsters in Love

Chapter 7 – Carry Each Other, Carry Each Other

When she heard the three hard knocks on the door, Ashley flew across the room to get it open, her panic at the sight of Butcher with his shattered gaze, the unthinking roughness with which he pushed her aside, controlling her. She needed to know what she’d said to cause a response like that so she would never, never do it again. The thought that she’d hurt him made a ball of shame and pain form in her chest. Butcher had been nothing but good to her when he’d had every reason to hate her, and Ashley wanted to hold him, soothe him, something unimaginable before the Compound V and her flight. As she swung the door open, she was already saying, “What’s wrong? You…” And her voice died in her throat.

It wasn’t Butcher.

It was the Deep.

He showed his white teeth in a smile, then put his hand in the center of her chest and shoved. Deep might be the weakest member of the Seven—not true, Sister Sage and Firecracker are the weakest ones now, said a shocked part of her mind—but he still had super strength, enough to take her off her feet, send her flying across the room, hitting the far wall with a teeth-rattling impact before she fell forward onto her bed. It knocked the wind out of her, and she could only gasp, desperate for air, as he stepped into the room and closed the door. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to open the door before you know who’s on the other side? Wouldn’t have done you any good, but it’s basic safety, Ashley.”

She’d been so fucking stupid. Of course it wasn’t Butcher; he still had his key card with him, so he wouldn’t need to knock. She didn’t have the oxygen for speaking, but she could look at him. For once he wasn’t wearing his costume, just a leather biker jacket over a Ron Jon’s Surf Shop T-shirt, jeans, and Doc Martens. Cosplaying normality, she thought. Flakes of snow glistened white in his hair.

“Nothing to say?” he asked.

Dimwit. He should be able to see what he’d done to her, that she was recovering. But Ashley managed to gasp, “How did you find me?”

“Analytics. We’ve been checking security cameras from every gas station within a hundred miles of the Canadian border. Earlier today we got to the Lake Placid interstate feeds, and there you were, getting a blueberry muffin and a Diet Coke from the Exxon station next door. Why were you not disguised? You even wore the same wig. And you call me stupid. All I had to do after that was fly up here with your picture and start flashing it at motels. I slipped the desk clerk a fifty and she gave you up without hesitating for a second.”

But he hadn’t said anything about Butcher. Was it just barely possible that the desk clerk hadn’t told him that she was staying in the room with a man? The desk clerk had been a woman and he might have managed to piss her off. If so, she couldn’t say a word. She had to protect him as much as she could. Ashley couldn’t raise herself as Deep removed his leather jacket and tossed it onto Butcher’s bed, not seeming to notice the open suitcase. Better that he didn’t, since a closer look would reveal men’s clothing, betray Butcher’s presence. Her breathing had almost returned to normal. “What are you going to do?” Could she get to her Glock? No, it was in her duffel bag at the foot of the bed, from where she’d started packing once she gave up hope that Butcher would return soon. Deep would see her moving, stop her. Would it even do her any good if she could? Not every supe had the impenetrable skin—A-Train didn’t—and she didn’t remember if Deep was bulletproof.

“Well, I’m going to bring you back to the Tower. Homelander’s orders. He wants to deal with you there.”

“I didn’t think he was interested in that at all. He sent Black Noir 2.0 to murder me instead of coming himself.” The old bitterness slipped out a bit.

“Oh, he admits that was a mistake. The original Black Noir would have known who he meant without any explanation, but the new one just took a guess about which Ashley in upper management at Vought needed to die and settled for the first one he found. Hope you weren’t too attached to Also Ashley.”

“Not really.” She didn’t concentrate on the words. With all the intensity she could manage without alerting him, she thought, Madelyn. Madelyn, tell Kessler to keep Butcher away from the room. Deep doesn’t know he was here. At least one of us can be safe. But there was no answer, just an empty black velvet silence. It unsettled her.

“Ooh, you’re one cold bitch.” Without warning he was across the room, straddling her, his knees on the outside of her thighs, and pulling a cell phone out of the back pocket of his jeans. The other hand wrapped around her throat, squeezing until black spots appeared in front of her eyes. When the person Deep was calling answered, he said, “Got someone here who wants to speak to you.” Then he held the phone up to her ear, releasing his grip on her throat. “Say hello, Ashley.”

Feeling sick and disgusted with herself, her voice a rasp, she said, “Hello.”

“Ashley!” Homelander’s voice was bright and smug. “So nice to hear from you again. You’ve been well?”

“Better than you, motherfucker.”

He sounded like he was almost laughing. “Look at the balls you get when I’m not there with you.”

A blast of anger obliterated all caution. “And when I call you motherfucker, please be advised that I’m speaking literally. Hey, Deep, did you know Stormfront was Homelander’s mother? I mean, she didn’t carry him but the egg was hers, the genetic information. Check out Vought’s files if you don’t believe me. Whether or not he knew it then, he fucked his own mother multiple times. Don’t suppose you’d care to share with us how it felt to have your dick up your mommy’s pussy, would you, John?” Silence from the other end, and she thought he might be speechless with rage. “Maybe that was indelicate, just as indelicate as mentioning how you suck the milk out of Firecracker’s chemically overinflated jugs on the regular, just like the good little titty baby you are. I wouldn’t mention any of this because I don’t like to kink-shame, but there’s so much else about you that you should be shamed for that the mommy fucking and the lactation kink are the least of it.” Deep stared at her with wide eyes and his mouth open a little in shock. He looked horrified. “You’re nothing but a weakling and it truly makes me sick that I didn’t see it earlier. Just a whining little boy who wants to burn the world because he never had a mommy and daddy and everyone else has to pay.”

Homelander was gasping now, his voice growling as he finally found words. “You kill her, Deep. You take your time about it, have your fun. You make that little piece of human filth suffer before you give her death. Then get rid of the corpse somewhere that no one will ever find it. Somewhere the animals will eat the flesh and gnaw on the bones. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” he said. Homelander disconnected the call and Deep stared at the phone for a little while before putting it on the bedside table.

“Know why I told him all that?” Ashley had a shred of a plan, just a small one. Maybe it would work. “Because now he has to kill you too. You know him. He’s paranoid. He won’t be able to stand the idea that you know about his little kinks, about Stormfront and Firecracker, and that you might tell someone.”

“I’d never be disloyal to him.” His voice sounded subdued. “After that night, he should know better.”

“What night?”

That got her a contemptuous look. “The night Soldier Boy and Butcher’s people attacked the Tower. He made you take off your wig. Did you ever wonder what he wanted from me to prove I was loyal?”

The idea that taking off her wig had been a loyalty test instead of some gratuitous cruelty was something she hadn’t considered. If so, she’d passed, but it hadn’t done her a damn bit of good. “You said you thought it was treason.”

“It was. I did something I can’t come back from, Ashley.” He had to swallow before he could continue. “I murdered an innocent person for no reason other than Homelander telling me to and being too afraid of him to say no. He could have done it himself, no problem, but it was a way of having something to hold over my head. I killed Singer’s running mate so Victoria Neuman could have his slot, so Homelander could rule through her, I guess. I drowned him in his swimming pool, and he hadn’t even done anything wrong, other than get in Homelander’s way. I’m a murderer now, Ashley. I can’t be a good guy anymore. I could come back from what I did to Starlight because at the time I didn’t understand, but not this. I…it was unforgivable.”

That showed a lot more insight and intelligence than she had ever given Deep credit for possessing, but his words gave her some hope. Now he seemed like the version of the Deep that she’d dealt with for years in the Seven, insecure, needy, easy to manipulate with praise and reassurance. Some calm returned to her. She could work with this, convince him not to kill her, maybe even turn him enough so he could be a weapon against Homelander for Butcher, and God knew they could use every advantage they could get. “Black Noir was loyal to him, his best friend for twenty years. All that got him was a good look at his own intestines. It doesn’t matter what you do because he is transactional. Nobody has any stored-up good credit with him and he will turn on you tomorrow for the slightest mistake. Loyalty will never keep you safe from him.” He didn’t answer, still kneeling over her, looking at either the wall or the headboard of her bed.

Ashley had come up with a speech that she thought was pretty good off the cuff about not letting his past dictate his future, owning his own power and using it to change, and letting her help him, but Madelyn didn’t give her the chance to use it. She felt a new sense of horror when words came out of her mouth that she hadn’t thought of. “Kevin, when do you intend to grow up and be a hero?”

That startled him. “What are you talking about?”

“You‘ve seen what he does. You’ve seen that every day for years, him hurting innocent people, killing innocent people. What he made you do he’s done himself a thousand times. What did you think he would have done if you’d told him no, not at the moment when he asked but later, when he was calmer? At least as calm as he gets, anyway.”

Deep swallowed. “He would have killed me.”

“Really? He’s never killed Billy Butcher and that man does nothing but spit in his face. What makes him better than you?” Ashley felt herself shiver with horror and thought, Madelyn, please stop. You’re making him mad. I don’t need him to be mad right now. But her cancer paid no attention. “I’ll tell you: Billy Butcher is not a quivering coward like you are, so Homelander respects him. You’ll never get that respect from him because he knows all he has to do is look at you crossways and you’ll fold like an origami fish.”

“Shut up.” Heat began to build up in his face.

Madelyn laughed, a raucous sound. “You think you’re scary? You think you scare me? Bitch, I’ve dealt with Homelander for years. You are nothing but an impotent little woman-hating sea creature that needs to borrow Sister Sage’s balls before he can so much as say boo.”

Please, Madelyn, she thought. Please stop making him mad. He’ll hurt me. He’ll hurt us.

Deep proved what she’d just tried to tell Madelyn when he gripped the neck of her sweater and ripped it down the front, baring her bra and midriff. Then he gripped the waistband of her jeans and tore them into pieces before tossing what was left on the floor. “You should keep your big mouth shut, Ashley. He did tell me to have my fun. You heard him.”

“He should have told you to kill me immediately, but he seems to be just as stupid as you are.” Ashley felt the telltale sense of displacement in her torso, but she had only that second of warning before tentacles exploded from her and whipped tight around Deep, one around his throat, one around his waist, and the last around the midpoint of his thighs. The tentacles shoved him toward the ceiling but stopped before he hit. “Mustn’t damage the tiles,” said Madelyn through Ashley’s mouth.

Deep was beyond shocked, his eyes big as dinner plates and his mouth gaping open although the tentacle around his neck wasn’t choking him…yet. “Ashley—what—”

“When Homelander sent you after me, did he tell you anything at all about what happened before I left the Tower?” He shook his head, his hands going up to try prying the tentacle off, and he got a good shake for it. “None of that. So he didn’t mention the tiny little fact that I injected Compound V before I took off? Not even a word of warning. What a good, loyal friend he is to you.”

“Ashley—”

But Madelyn ignored whatever he intended to say. “And you’re the same. When you were weak, I was your best friend, helping you, protecting you from Homelander, but as soon as that Sage bitch blew smoke up your ass about you being strong, I became something to be drowned in a toilet after you’ve used it.”

He tried again. “Ashley—”

“But I suppose the only thing that matters right now is the fact that you’re the cause of all this. You told Homelander to put my name right at the top of his kill list. I heard you. It gave me a chance to get to his stash of Compound V and shoot some up. Stan Edgar must have been in his hentai phase when he oversaw this particular formulation of V. It’s not glamorous, but it gets the job done.”

“Come on, don’t do this.” Deep tried a friendly smile but couldn’t quite manage through the fear. “You know I—”

“I know you intended to rape my host, kill her. And when you try to kill Ashley, you try to kill me, and I’m not quite as flexible as she is. I don’t put up with your shit.”

As Deep opened his mouth to speak again, try to manipulate Ashley into interceding with Madelyn for him, help him the way she always had, the tentacles flexed hard enough for her to feel the strain, and tore him apart. A wave of hot blood hit her face, the front of her body, and every inch of her cringed. She struggled not to vomit, keep her eyes closed so she didn’t see the carnage, what was left of Deep, how the room must look like a massacre. And she had committed it.

He was going to rape her. Why was that such a shock when she’d known how much he hated women, what he’d done to Starlight and the ones that Madelyn had paid for their silence? But the questions were too much for her stunned mind to handle, and she decided to stay here, motionless, for a while. Just until she’d recovered and could decide how to deal with the detritus of someone she’d thought of as a friend for a long time.

She didn’t know how much time had passed before she heard the door unlock and someone enter. The blood burned her eyes when she opened them, but the brief glimpse before she closed them again showed Butcher, gun in hand, sweeping the room for intruders. Other than the dead one, she imagined. The bathroom door opened, and the sound of water running came to her. “Ashley?” Was there a tremor in his voice? “Ashley, how badly are you hurt?”

“Not hurt. His.” Just saying the words caused her to taste Deep’s blood and her stomach heaved. She swallowed hard to avoid throwing up.

“Keep your eyes closed. I’m going to clean the blood off.” Ashley nodded and felt the wet washcloth moving over her face. There was enough that he had to go back to the bathroom once to rinse the cloth before finishing. “What happened? How did the Deep find us?”

“Me. He didn’t know you were here. I guess the clerk didn’t sell you out. He said Analytics is checking the security camera feeds for all gas stations within a hundred miles of the border and they got to Lake Placid earlier today. When I went to the Exxon station to get a muffin, I was on camera and that’s how they found me.”

“Was he alone?”

“He said he was. I don’t think he would have lied, under the circumstances.”

When she opened her eyes, this time without the blood burning, she found him looking intent and focused. All business. “Is the cunt going to send anyone else when Deep doesn’t report back in?”

Ashley shook her head. “Deep talked to him on the phone. Homelander told him to kill me and take his time, dispose of me in a remote area, so I doubt if he’ll expect a status report until tomorrow morning at the earliest. Told him to have his fun.” But it didn’t hurt as much as it would have once, before Butcher.

Butcher pulled off his jacket and tossed it onto the bed, where it covered the Deep’s jacket and made her feel better that it was out of sight. “Then we’ve time. We’ve got to get this room cleaned up, as much as we can, and get rid of what’s left of him. I’ll take care of that. I saw some access roads into wooded areas that should be safe for disposal. Can you take a shower and get the blood cleaned up by yourself?”

“Yeah, sure.” She climbed off the bed and her legs shook so violently she would have fallen if Butcher hadn’t grabbed her by the waist.

“Yeah, no,” he replied before helping her into the bathroom. She wanted to protest that she was getting blood on him, that he should leave her to manage on her own, but he reached past her and turned on the shower, then undid the clasps on her bra. “I’ll get you all clean, then we’ll get rid of him. We’ll have a few hours of head start and we should be across the border before the cunt suspects anything.”

“Don’t you think I’m awful?”

Butcher looked up at her as he pulled her panties down her legs and she stepped out of them. “What are you on about?”

She cast a look back through the bathroom door. One of Deep’s legs—she couldn’t tell which—lay near the foot of her bed, blood staining a pool on the carpet. For some reason the Doc Marten on the foot fascinated her. “I…I killed him. Well, Madelyn, really. He said he was going to kill me and she heard him. She started saying all kinds of things to make him mad and then she made tentacles come out of me and wrap him and tear him apart. But it was still my body so I am the one who killed him. It was me.”

He looked away from her and sighed a little before pulling his own sweater over his head and tossing it aside. “No, I don’t think you’re awful. I didn’t say anything to you about this before because I didn’t want to make you afraid of me. The cunt did more than enough of that. But…I’m the one who killed Victoria Neuman.”

It took Ashley long enough to answer him that he’d stripped off all his clothes and was testing the temperature of the water. “Because she was a supe who was going to be the next vice-president?”

Butcher shook his head. “Because she was the supe who committed the Congressional massacre. She killed Susan Raynor.”

“Who’s that?”

“Someone I…had a relationship with. More of an affair. And they made a deal with her murderer to try to bring down Homelander. The rest of my team,” he explained when she looked confused. “They stood there and told me that they’d made a deal with her, the supe who’d killed Susan. They knew she’d done that, and still they wanted to deal with her. What the fuck did they think I’d do? I killed her the way you killed the Deep. So you’re no more awful than I am.” He gestured her into the shower.

“Did you love her?” Ashley put her face up to the water and felt the stream from the showerhead cascading over her, cutting trails through Deep’s blood until it washed down the drain.

“No, but she was with me. She deserved vengeance, and I gave it to her. Fuck their deals.” Butcher stepped in behind her and closed the shower door.

She had the thought that he had trained his crew to be like that, subordinate their own grudges to his grudge against Homelander, put their own feelings aside to serve his cause, and they probably thought he would approve, but she kept her mouth shut. They were all dead now and it did no good. With a mental headshake, she found a washcloth and soap. Butcher took the items out of her hands, lathered the cloth, and began to wash the Deep off her. “Why weren’t you dressed when I found you?”

The question took Ashley by surprise. “Uh—he decided he wanted to rape me before he killed me. Madelyn took exception to both of those actions.”

Butcher’s hand touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry, love. I won’t leave again.”

She reached up and rested her hand on top of his. “Not your fault. If you’d known he was around, you would have done something about it. And I’m fine.” Something struck her then. “If you killed Victoria Neuman that way, did you know I could do that if I needed to?”

There was a pause before he said, “I hadn’t thought of it, but if I had I would have presumed so, since we both have the sentient brain cancers.”

“Doesn’t it make you feel better to know that you can defend yourself if you have to, if Homelander sends more of his little minions after you?” Ashley flinched and her head whipped around to the shower door. Madelyn stood next to the sink, a smug smile on her face. “And you won’t even need me to be in charge of it in the future. Like he doesn’t need Kessler to use that ability anymore.”

“What’s wrong?” Butcher tensed and began to open the shower door.

“Don’t worry. It’s just Madelyn. She says neither of us need them to use the tentacles anymore.”

“Interesting,” he muttered. Then, louder, “Something we’ll have to practice later, along with your Center Axis Relock.”

“Okay.” There wasn’t much else to say, and she stood silent as he finished washing off the blood. She’d never thought anything like this could happen on the first day when she walked into the Tower as a brand-new Vought employee, innocent and ignorant.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m not hurt.” Ashley reached out and took the cloth out of his hands, wringing it out and tossing it over the showerhead.

“Not what I asked, but we’re in a bit of a time crunch here. You think you can manage on your own long enough for me to take our unexpected guest out to the woods?”

“I can manage.” She knew that Deep had been alone, and Homelander wouldn’t send anyone else until after he was well overdue for fear that the fishman might let slip what she’d said about Stormfront and Firecracker. “I’ll clean up as much of the room as I can before you get back.”

Butcher stepped out of the shower behind her and grabbed at one of the towels, wrapping it around her. “Don’t know what to do about your black wig. So much blood I don’t know if it can be restored. If not, you’ll have to wear the red one. Just keep the hood on your coat up if we have to do that.”

“All right.” Ashley noticed he’d said we. Something inside her loosened at his words, even more when he used the towel to pull her against his body and kiss her, his mouth warm and inviting, and she realized it was the first time he’d kissed her.

A tremor went through her; she wasn’t sure if it was delayed shock or desire, but she kissed him back, clung to him before she forced herself to back off. He seemed a little affected himself, running a hand through his wet hair before saying, “Right, things to do that won’t wait. There’s a truck stop I noticed when I came in. They almost always have laundry facilities for drivers, so we’ll use that to clean the comforters. I’ll have to take him out wrapped in sheets, but buying a set of white sheets won’t be a problem. The housekeeping staff may not even notice.” Ashley nodded and he pulled her back in, not for a kiss, but to hold her. Was this only because he knew she’d almost been killed? “Stay in the bathroom until I have him wrapped up and leave.”

“All right,” she said again. It was an act of consideration for her, to insure she didn’t see any more than she had of what was left of Deep, which she appreciated. “Get Woolite while you’re out. It’s good for getting blood out of fabric. I hear they make carpet cleaner too.” When she heard the door close behind him and the 4Runner start up, she opened the bathroom door and stepped out. Deep was gone, but the bloodstains on the carpet, the bed, the walls, even a curving spray across the ceiling, remained to betray his presence. She had to breathe through her mouth to avoid smelling the blood.

With a sigh, Ashley went back into the bathroom and stoppered the sink, filling it with water, and retrieved the washcloth, soaking it before going back out into the main room and selecting a spot on the wall next to the bed to begin cleaning. It would have been nice to have rubber gloves, but again she had to be strong. The organic iron smell of it made her stomach lurch, but she had to deal with it. Butcher wouldn’t want someone who couldn’t deal tagging along with him, someone weak. She had to be strong here. Madelyn kept silent for once.

By the time Butcher returned, there was still a faint brown shadow on the walls, but she had managed to clean the majority of the blood and had started on the carpet. He took a look around and said, “Good, love. If they’re not looking closely, they won’t notice a thing.”

“I couldn’t do anything about the ceiling.” She took in the Walmart bags he carried and straightened up, her back protesting.

“No worries,” he told her. “I got one of those Swiffer gadgets for the floor that does wet cleaning. Expect it’ll work for the ceiling just as well. After I’m finished with that, just pop the duvets into one of the garbage bags and take them to the truck stop. Don’t need to dry them all the way. I’m sure the maids here have seen worse than damp bedding.”

Ashley nodded and got to her feet. Deep’s blood had dried on her hands, so she went into the bathroom, drained the sink, and washed them. While doing that, she noticed stains on her knees and feet, so she washed them too. Darkish crescents remained under her nails, but there wasn’t time to scrub them away. The used washcloths went into the garbage bag, along with the comforters. Butcher was running the Swiffer along the ceiling, over the arterial spray. “A bit drippy at first, but then it’s fine. No one will notice anything was ever there.”

She nodded again. “I’ll take my car to the laundry and be back soon. An hour maybe, hour and a half.”

He looked at her. “Like that?”

Startled, she looked down at herself and saw she still wore the towel he’d wrapped her in before he left. A subtle trembling ran through her limbs. “I…no. I’ll get dressed now.”

Butcher put the Swiffer down and took her in his arms as she was pulling clothing out of her suitcase. “You’re in shock, love. Give yourself a few moments to relax.”

“I’m not weak,” she muttered but didn’t try to free herself from him.

“Never said you were. I imagine you aren’t used to this sort of thing. No one is, at first. With luck you’ll never have to do anything like this again. That’s what I’m for.”

“I can manage it. I won’t be a burden to you.”

“You aren’t. You won’t be.” Even though she knew they were running out of time, needed to be clear of the La Quinta and across the Canadian border ASAP, Ashley let herself release the tension and fear long enough to be comforted by the contact with him. A few minutes later he tipped her chin up. “Better now?”

“Yes. I’m sorry I was so weak.”

“You’re not weak. Nobody weak could have survived what you’ve been through for the past few years.”

Ashley didn’t believe he was serious but let it go as she dressed and grabbed the garbage bag, remembering almost too late that she wasn’t wearing her wig and grabbed a knit hat to cover her scalp. Stupid, she berated herself. You have to start thinking, be smart. You can’t afford to be stupid anymore, even if Homelander isn’t in your face twenty-four-seven. “Back in a bit,” she said.

Butcher handed her a jug of Woolite. “It’ll be all right,” he said. She inclined her head but otherwise ignored it as she left.

Nobody in the truck stop paid any attention to her as she loaded the comforters and washcloths into two of the washing machines and fed in quarters. As she went into the restaurant section and found a table and a menu, Madelyn appeared in the booth next to her. “No thanks for saving you from the Deep?”

“I don’t know if he would have killed me before you wound him up. I was thinking about trying to turn him—”

“Double agent shit? Kevin could not have handled it and would have betrayed you. It’s better it worked out the way it did.” Ashley didn’t answer, staring at the menu. “Why didn’t you try threatening Homelander with your little insurance policy?”

She sighed. “At that point it wouldn’t have done any good. Deep would have restrained me, searched the room, found the burner laptop in my go-bag and destroyed it. If I’d wanted to use it as a kill switch to keep Homelander from murdering me, I would have had to present him with the material I have before all this went down, tell him what would happen if I died.”

“And because you didn’t, he felt free to order your killing. Poor planning on your part. Why didn’t you want to take that action?”

The waitress arrived to take her order, which spared her from having to answer Madelyn immediately. When the woman had left, she said, “I just didn’t want to see him if I didn’t have to. Dealing with him was…draining. I just kept putting it off.”

“Procrastination. It should be a deadly sin. So what are you going to do with your blackmail material now that Homelander thinks you’re dead?”

“He won’t think I’m dead after Deep doesn’t report back. I think it might be good to give him something to think about other than Butcher and me, something to occupy his mind, his time, cause him difficulty, until well after we’ve gotten to wherever Butcher wants to go.”

“And you’re staying with him?”

Ashley nodded. “Even if you and Kessler would let us separate, I’m—not sure I want to leave him now. I don’t think I’m in love with him, but that could happen with time.” Just like what could have happened with Homelander, if he’d been a different man. “And I doubt if he’ll fall in love with me.”

Madelyn smiled. “Time will tell.”

After she’d eaten and the laundry was free of blood, she returned to the motel room. Butcher had done an excellent job on the ceiling. She couldn’t even see a shadow from where Deep’s blood had sprayed. The new set of sheets he’d bought was on her bed, the carpet was clean, and he was finishing his packing. “The comforters and washcloths are done.”

“Excellent. We’ll toss them on the beds and check out, as soon as you’re finished with your packing.”

Ashley hesitated. Should she do it? Like she’d told Madelyn, it would be a good thing to have Homelander preoccupied with something other than them; it would hamper his pursuit, slow down any response he might have. What she had would keep the Vought PR department working at capacity for weeks, but the heart of the matter was that she wanted to pay him back for how much he’d made her suffer. “I think I need to do something before we leave.”

He gave her a puzzled look. “And what would that be, love?”

“I need to get even with Homelander. What I have won’t cover a tenth of what he did to me, but it’ll still be something. One last parting gift from the human filth.”

Butcher raised an eyebrow. “You have some means of doing that?”

“Yes.” Ashley dug around in her duffel bag, disarranging bundles of money, until she produced a laptop computer and a charger. “La Quinta has free wifi, right?”

“For all guests. What have you got that’s going to get you revenge?”

She plugged the charger into the wall outlet and opened the laptop. “I told you all the apartments in the Tower are wired for sight and sound, including Homelander’s, right?”

“You told me.” A flash of some emotion in his eyes made her remember Becca, but she dismissed the thought. Project Athena didn’t matter now.

“Well, since being under constant surveillance is normal to him because of how he was raised, he never asked me to disconnect the cameras and recording devices inside his apartment, so I never did. I got some footage of him fucking Stormfront, some footage of him nursing from Firecracker, definitely stuff that anyone wanting to maintain a reputation as at least somewhat normal would want to keep under wraps. I assembled the video, made a website on the down-low, included the raw data for the DNA of Stormfront and Soldier Boy and Homelander. The website isn’t live yet. I planned to use it as a kill switch system against him, let him know that if he killed me, all his secrets would be dumped onto the internet for the world to see, but I didn’t have time to do that before Deep moved against me. So, since I can’t protect myself, all that’s left is to avenge myself. Let the world know he is a literal motherfucker.”

“Remind me never to have a row with you, love,” he said. “Let’s get our bags in the cars before you blow up his world, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she replied, setting the laptop on the dresser and finishing with her packing. “We’re taking both cars?”

Butcher nodded. “I know several ways to get across the border into Canada without passing through a checkpoint. Follow me in your car and you’ll be fine. You have a mobile phone?” When she shook her head, he went into his suitcase and pulled one out, tapping at it for a few minutes before he gave it to her. “Keep it with you. My number’s programmed into it. If we get separated, pull over to the side of the road and call me. I’ll come back for you.”

“Thank you,” she murmured as she put the cell phone into the pocket of her jacket. “It isn’t just revenge, though. It’ll be a great distraction. He won’t forget about us, but it will give him a much more serious issue to concentrate on.”

“Clever girl. Mind if I have a peek?”

“Not at all.”

Butcher turned the laptop toward himself and did a double-take. “The web address is homelanderfuckshismother dot com?”

That got a snicker out of her. “Yes. I also have it under dot org. Vought’s going to try to nuke the site as soon as they find out about it. I have a lot of backup websites with the same content on the dark web.”

He let a breath of amusement out. “Very clever girl.”

He clicked on one of the icons and the motel room was filled with gasps, cries, and the sounds of flesh slapping against flesh. Then Homelander’s voice howled, “Mommy! Mommy!”

“Good boy. You’re Mommy’s special boy.” Stormfront’s voice was a purr. Ashley suppressed the shudder of distaste. The Nazi bitch was dead and gone and good riddance to her.

“They were into roleplaying, at least on his part. I don’t know if she knew he was her son at the time. He didn’t find that out until later, if he ever did. That’s why I included the raw DNA data, so Vought can’t say she wasn’t his mother.” She thought about Sister Sage trying to handle this galaxy-sized PR clusterfuck and smiled. Homelander wouldn’t get satisfaction out of her saboteur’s ass, and only her brain repaired itself. “Bet you wish I’d gone for the tits, huh, bitch?”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just talking to myself.” Butcher clicked on a few icons, watched a few seconds of each, and finally it dawned on her: he was looking for video of Becca. “She’s not there. It’s only Stormfront and Firecracker.”

“Why not? A rape would have been perfect for your purposes.”

“I never found any video of that. Madelyn may have erased it.” But she knew her old boss hadn’t done that. There had been hours of Homelander and Becca fucking, him being tender with her in a way that reduced Ashley to tears when she saw it, but she hadn’t done any more with it than burn it onto a DVD, along with the rest of Project Athena, and store it away in her office safe. Homelander probably had it now.

His hazel eyes drilled into her, and she tried to keep her face calm and impassive. “Are you sure?”

“I don’t know what Madelyn did in the time between firing me and when she died. It’s a possibility.” None of it was a lie, technically, and after another few seconds of staring he shifted his gaze back to the screen. She was careful to keep her breathing regular, not to sigh with relief when it seemed he’d accepted her explanation. He’d tumble to that as a sign of lying instantly. Project Athena was nothing she ever intended to enlighten him about.

With a sigh, he turned away and picked up his suitcase. “Give me your keys and I’ll put your things in the Trans Am.”

“On the dresser.” He scooped them up, then left the room. Her fingers hovered motionless over the keyboard. Once she did this, there was no going back. Then again, since he’d ordered her death at Black Noir 2.0’s hand and then at the Deep’s, there had been no chance of return to Vought and her old position for her. With a sigh, she activated the website. “Listening to the Deep was the stupidest thing you ever did, sir.”

When Butcher returned and picked up her duffel bag and suitcase, she asked, “Where are we going? In Canada, I mean.”

“Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territory. I have a cabin near there, on the Great Slave Lake. It was supposed to be a retirement place for Becca and me. She didn’t like the country, but I didn’t pay attention to that at the time.”

“I like the country,” she assured him. “It’s peaceful. Quiet. I could use some of that.” It occurred to her to doubt, then. “If I’m coming there with you?”

He shot a questioning glance in her direction. “Unless you have somewhere else to be.” She didn’t answer him, just looked at him, and he sighed. “Even if you do have somewhere else to go, I want you there with me, and that comes from me, not from Kessler. I suppose I took it for granted that you’d want to stay with me. Was I wrong?”

“No. You weren’t wrong at all. I’d like nothing better than that.”

With a quick grin, he reached out and planted a kiss on her lips. “Then that’s settled. Did you switch out your ID with the new ones?”

“Yes.” Ashley couldn’t help but smile herself.

“Let’s get you squared away in your car and I’ll check out. After that, all you have to do is follow me and I’ll get you home.”

“I know. I trust you.” That got her another smile, and she watched him go into the office, then come out, get into the 4Runner, and start the engine. Butcher made sure she’d started the Trans Am before he pulled out of the lot, with her following, and then onto I-87 North. A week ago, she’d been in Vought Tower; a week from now, she’d be sitting in a lakeside cabin with Butcher. Finally, after so many years with Homelander, she would be safe. She and Butcher would both be safe, and together.

If Kessler and Madelyn had faces, they would have smiled.