But damn it, it ain't right

[danzanelfuoco]

THE BOYS 

Hughie Campbell/Butcher (pre-slash)

COW-T #11 (w6, m5)

Il pregiudizio è una prigione, il giudizio è la condanna. Dio benedica gli incompresi. 

 

Hughie swears that he doesn’t feel any different, that he doesn’t flinch anytime the half-screwed light bulb in his room has a power burst and shines a little bit brighter. That he doesn’t need to close his eyes and breathe through his nose every time someone flips a switch and lights up the room - the place they’re staying at is gloomy and murky enough without him keeping every one in the literal dark. 

He’s lying of course, but what can he do?

It is said that when you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes, but it was stupid because right then the only thing flashing in his eyes was Starlight, the way her eyes had lightened up, the brightness, the whiteness that had blinded him to everything else. The last thing impressed in his retina were her eyes, those black pupils surrounded by burning gold, before the pain. Before his death. 

If he closes his eyes right now, he can still see white. 

It doesn’t matter if he’s still alive - if he probably can’t even be killed. It still terrifies him. 

The Boys are symphatetic enough, even more than Hughie would have expected them to be - MM’s asked him if he wanted to talk about it, Frenchie offered some chemical help to forget (Hughie declined both offers) and Butcher… well, Butcher, true to his name, had tried to verbally slaughter and dismember Starlight, assuring him he would do it literally when they get her - which has been a little bit tiring and gruesome to listen to, but comforting in it’s own way and surely better than being the one actually tied to a chair just for being a Supe, with the Boys torturing him in trying to find out a way to kill him.  

Which was probably never gonna happen anyway, but still, he’s really glad Butcher decided he wasn’t better off dead. 

Sometimes Hughie has to cling to the though, telling himself it’s not his fault, he didn’t choose to be a Supe, he didn’t choose to not be human and not stay dead. 

Shitty, isn’t it? Survivor’s guilt and the one who he survived was himself. 

* * * 

It’s not even one of the stupidest things she has done - calling him - because after all she has been cleared of any suspect now, she has proved her loyalty, she has killed him. So Homelander is cutting her some slack now; actually, he tells her he’s so proud, and she’s a good girl, and Starlight has lost four pounds this week and it’s just Thursday. She can’t force herself to eat - not with the smell of charred flesh still in her nostril - and she can’t stop throwing up. Her judgement had been passed and she has been sentenced to be one of them, one of the Seven - right to her core. 

Maybe it’s about self-destruction, but Annie takes out the phone he gave her last time, before everything went to hell, and calls him. It’s stupid, she realizes as soon as she hears the first ring, it’s a prepaid phone and he doesn’t have his voice recorded telling her “hey this is Hughie, I can’t pick up right now, please leave a message”, because damn, he’s not that much of an idiot - even if, of course, he is an idiot, what smart person would just nod and accept his death, what smart person would just forgive her, tell her it’s ok? 

Annie chokes down a sob and brushes away the tears rolling down her checks. 

Hughie is gone and she has no right to mourn him, she has no right to miss him. She betrayed him. 

It’s foolish and it’s pathetic and it’s useless, so she ends the call. 

Stupid, stupid Annie. 

She almost fries the phone with her powers when it buzzes in her hand with an incoming call. 

It’s Hughie. 

It can’t be. 

He’s dead. I killed him. 

She picks up nonetheless. 

* * * 

Butcher walks the whole night, the manila folder plastered in the inside of his leather jacket. He hasn’t read it yet, not past the only thing that mattered anyway, the address. 

Where Becca lives. 

He should have headed to the damn basement they call headquarters right away and stuffed his few things in a bag - no, no, screw it, he should have just gone to her as he was, in the middle of the night, without telling anyone. 

He can still do it. 

He will do it. 

It’s just… so definitive. 

It shouldn’t be so hard, letting go. But all he has ever felt in the blur that were the last seven years is vengefulness and hate and bloodlust. And it was all for nothing. Becca is alive, unhurt and he’s happy, really, he wants her back so badly. It’s just… he can’t help but feel cheated. 

Because under the surprise, under the relief, of seeing her alive… it’s been seven years. And now he’s supposed to get in a car, leave the Boys behind, like it was nothing, and stop hating Supe, stop trying to bring them down alongside with Vought, just because the reason that prompted all this is nil. 

Because Butcher was never the martyr type, he was selfish, he didn’t do things for the greater good, so - was it pointless? 

It doesn’t feel like it. All the sacrifices he has made, all the things he has left behind in the name of avenging Becca’s death - he still did them, even if there’s nothing more to avenge. 

So Butcher is there, with an interior crisis, for the first time in - all his life? 

(No, not for the first time, that honor goes to Hughie - to Hughie being a Supe and Butcher not knowing what the fuck he should do with a Supe he doesn’t want to kill, with a Hughie that he doesn’t know anymore, or at least that he can’t trust to say he knows anymore, even though he does seem the same exact guy. 

And maybe it is all Hughie’s fault again. Because after Mallory’s grandchildrens’ death he didn’t have a problem with leaving Frenchie and MM’s behind and dismantle the Boys, laying low till the next lead. And now… now he has doubts. For Hughie. Fuck. Becca is there and alive and - it’s been seven years, and she has a Supe child and she didn’t even try to contact you and - unhurt and he’s there buying time. Fuck!)  

Butcher brings out his phone and enters the address in the maps. If he hurries he can be at Becca’s by morning. 

It’s the right thing to do, the only thing that makes sense - then why does it feel so much like a betrayal? 

* * * 

They meet at the park and it’s weird, but maybe that’s just an understatement. 

How does someone greet the person that killed him? 

Hughie doesn’t really remember his death, just the light and the pain and then he was back on his feet again, completely fine. Still, he knows Annie has killed him, and it’s ok, - he knows she didn’t have any other choice, because, for how much Butcher likes to bitch in his ears that ‘there’s always a choice,’ and that ‘she could have fought Homelander, instead she sacrificed you because that’s what you are to her, expendable’, it really was a question of survival, his life or hers -  but, well, she killed him. 

Annie looks at him as if she’s seeing a ghost - she is in a way. 

“You really are alive,” Annie covers her mouth with her hand. She hadn’t trusted the phone call to not be a trick. 

“I am,” Hughie nods, sliding his hands in his pockets, shrugging as if trying to occupy less space.  

He looks the same, but doesn’t smile the same, he doesn’t met her gaze for more than a few seconds at a time. 

“How?” She asks and Hughie lets out a mirthless laugh. 

“Looks like my mother and yours have a lot in common.” 

It take her a few seconds to understand but then Annie’s eyes widen. He’s… he’s like her? She doesn’t know what to say. There are too many thoughts running in circles in her head and she just wants to hug him, hide her face in his shoulder and make sure he’s really alive and there. 

She doesn’t, it’s not her place to seek comfort in him, not anymore. 

“I am sorry,” she says eventually. “I know it’s… useless. But still. I’m really -” she presses a hand against her chest, her thumb and index against her collarbones, and closes her eyes, trying to regain a sliver of control over herself. Her breath is ragged and she shouldn’t be the one having a breakdown. 

“I know.”

Then Annie raises her hand, it’s stupid, she just wants to pass it over her face, trying to erase the exhaustion in a pointless gesture -  but Hughie flinches and takes a step back.

It’s a reflex, and somehow it’s even worse than if he had actually decide to despise her for this is something she has embedded in his system when she had electrocuted him. 

Annie takes a step back, horrified. She shouldn’t be so, she knows, she deserves it. Still it hurts like a knife twisting in her chest.
Maybe Butcher was right to shoot her, to try and kill her, to try and kill every one like her. 

“It’s ok,” Hughie says even if it’s a lie and takes a step forward. He’s trying. He’s trying to make it ok, he’s trying to make it like it was before, but it can’t be. 

“It’s not,” she wants to scream, but she still know that they can’t bring attention to themselves, so “it’s not” she whispers. 

“It can be, I knew I was risking my life when I started this. At least I hadn’t been tortured?” He offers even if it’s not enough.

She shakes her head, that’s not the time, “Did it hurt?” 

Yes. “No. Not particularly, at least. But I wouldn’t try it again any time soon.”  

“Seems fair,” she nods and then she doesn’t know what else to say. There isn’t anything more to say. 

“We both know it was the only thing to do. He would have killed me anyway, probably he would have dragged it to make me feel pain or whatever that sadistic bastard does to get off, and then he would have killed you.” 

Annie nods, keeps nodding because she can’t do anything else, she knows he’s telling the truth. “Yes, yes I know. But I need to live with the fact that I was capable of killing someone, and of killing someone I care about just to save my stupid life,” she covers her face with her hands, because tears are pooling in her eyes. 

“Hey, hey, don’t say it like that,” he says and he awkwardly puts a hand on her shoulder. 

She lowers her own hands and stares at it, bewildered, as if she couldn’t even comprehend how he could touch her after everything and it’s just… it’s just too much. 

He should hate her, he should want to kill her, to get revenge - she betrayed him, she threw him under a bus to save her skin and it’s not like her life was somehow more valuable than Hughie’s, not even for the cause - whatever cause they are fighting for this days. 

“I just wish I’ve never come here, I just wish I kept being a Supe in Des Moines, without worrying about killing people to stay alive.” 

“it’s not on you,” Hughie says, because he’s not going to put the blame on anything different than the wrecked society they called the circus they live in. “You need to take a break.”
Annie laughs, bitter, as tears rolls down her cheeks. “Yes, sure. As if I could do it.” 

“Well, you don’t have the chip anymore, do you?” 

“No, but…” 

“I need to meet the boys, we got a tip about someone who knows something about one of the first Supe, someone named Liberty, if it rings a bell?” But Annie shakes her head and Hughie goes on, “You could come with us.” 

“As if,” Annie lets out a broken chuckle. “Your friends are gonna have my skin, and they would be right,” she says but doesn’t refuse. She knows she needs to face them sooner or later if she wants to keep working with them to bring down the Seven. Delaying that moment won’t make it easy, and time doesn’t cure all wounds.  

“Well, don’t worry. I’m gonna protect you. I’m a Supe now,” he jokes, and laughs even as Annie shakes her head, because right now it’s not the moment for a joke.

He seriously hopes Butcher doesn’t try to kill her in the middle of the road. 

But Butcher isn’t in the car, there’s only MM showing up to collect him and his eyes widen as he raises his eyebrows when Hughie leads Star-fucking-light to the their car. 

‘Are you out of your fucking mind?’ He’d like to ask him and then he’d like to shoot her in the chest with something big enough to at least leave a scratch. That bitch killed him. 

And yes, sure, she looks like shit now, no way any other Supe ever felt like that, but still… 

“Oh, no, no, no. That’s not a good idea,” he says and his tone should contrive it all, but Hughie looks so determined, MM falls back and just holds up a hand. “You are a crazy son of a bitch and I need to make a call.”

But Butcher doesn’t pick up his phone, Butcher didn’t even come back to the basement last night and maybe he’s in trouble. 

“He’s not answering.” 

“Do we need to go check on him?” Hughie perks up immediately. 

MM shakes his head. No point in running around the city in circles. If Butcher’s alive, he’ll show up on his own terms. If he isn’t… 

“Come on, we don’t have all day. If she wants to come she needs to keeps her hands where we can see them.” 

Hughie opens his mouth and MM really prays he’s not about to protest because God helps him if he is after what she did, -  but Annie beats him to whatever he was trying to say. 

“Fine by me.” 

So they get in the car and MM really hopes it’s not a mistake that will cost them their lives. 

* * * 

Afterwards, when they’ve learned about this Liberty Supe and they’re back at the hellhole they call headquarters, Hughie comes to him. 

MM’s ready to have his skin - what ever was wrong with him in the first place to ever contact Starlight again, let alone meet with her and bring her on a mission - but Hughie interrupts him before he can even start. 

“Butcher called. I think there’s something wrong with him.” 

“What? What happened?” 

MM’s knew there was something wrong, Butcher not coming with them to gather information, to make sure the person they’re interrogating really tells them everything, to threaten and punch and play the bad cop… 

“I don’t know,” Hughie shakes his head. “He said he had a lead to get Becca and he went for it and now they’re together. But…”
“But?” 

“He was nice. He called me his canary.” 

“Shit!” 

He doesn’t have Becca, she refused or something happened, MM doesn’t know and he doesn’t even care. All that matters is that they need Butcher and Butcher isn’t here. 

So Mother’s Milk does the only thing he can think about. 

“Give me your phone,” he orders, extending his hand and Hughie places it on his palm.
“Here, even if I don’t know why you couldn’t use yours.”

Because MM has tried to call Butcher the whole day now and that son of a bitch has completely ignored him and never returned his calls, but now he has gone and talked with Hughie. 

They are two oblivious idiots. 

MM might not be completely disinterested in what happens between them. If they really take their heads out of their asses and realize they care about each other like that, maybe they could avoid shit like this, shit like Butcher going somewhere to retrieve a woman that doesn’t want to be saved and Hughie inviting for a trip the girl that killed him and, until proven contrary, is still their enemy.  

MM has lost too much for this mission and he hasn’t sacrificed his marriage so that those two motherfuckers can go around and screw it up for something idiotic like this. 

“Let’s just call it a hunch. Now could you give me a minute for this call?” 

Hughie shrugs and leaves and MM press the call button near Butcher’s name. 

He picks up at the third ring. 

“What now? I already said to you everything there was to say.” 

“Becca didn’t come with you, did she?”
“Ah, Mother’s Milk. I should have known.” 

“You never picked up my calls. I had to get creative. So. Are you coming back?” 

“What for?” 

MM chuckles, a mirthless laugh that would end up with a punch on his nose if he only were there right in front of him. 

“You’re giving up just because Becca’s alive and there never was anything to avenge in the first place,” MM scoffs, and he can’t believe Butcher is that much of an asshole, but yeah, of course he has known him for so long and when was he not? He should have seen it coming from a mile away. “But fine, I’ll give you a reason.” 

“I’m all ears,” Butcher says, and he sounds amused, as if he knows that whatever MM could say to try to bring him back is useless and won’t work. 

But it’s not like MM is blind, is it? 

 “He met up with Starlight,” he drops it and he doesn’t even have to say his name. He pauses, lets the information sediments, waits for it to really reach Butcher’s brain, and then he goes on, “She came with us. He brought her to talk with the witness.  She killed him and he’s already gone and forgiven her. Do you really wanna tell me you don’t care?” 

There’s silence, an extremely long silence, and then… “It’s not my problem.” 

“That’s not what I’ve asked,” MM’s smirks.“She’s gonna get him killed, sooner than later.”

“He’s immortal now…”
“Yes, and Translucent was invulnerable. There’s always something that does the trick, Butcher. You know it. We’re only human.” 

Silence stretches and stretches and stretches and the longer Butcher doesn’t say anything the bigger MM’s grin grows. He knows he’s trying to convince himself he shouldn’t come back, that Hughie isn’t enough of a reason. 

Butcher runs out of excuses in his head and doesn’t find one to spit back at him. “You son of a bitch,” he curses and then hangs up in his face. 

Mother’s Milk really laughs this time. 

* * * 

Butcher swears as he gets in the car. 

He swears at Hughie - stupid, Supe, Hughie, who forgave his own killer, how much more stupid and naive can the boy be? - and he swears at MM, who is always right even when Butcher doesn’t want him to be. 

He can’t let Hughie be near Annie fucking January again. 

Butcher can still feel the burnt smell of charred flesh in his nostrils, can still see the carbonized lump that was Hughie after Starlight hit him with her powers. He wouldn’t admit it, but he still sees him in his dreams, sees himself crouching over his body and praying for him to come back again, crying when the blackened skin doesn’t knit itself back to pristine as it did in reality. 

From those dreams he wakes up with a lump in his throat, his chest constricting so badly he can barely breathe - and it’s nothing to worry about, he’s used to it, he got dreams when Becca disappeared and after he saw Mallory’s grandchildren after Lamplighter visited them, and now he has them because Hughie fucking died and came back even if it shouldn’t have been possible. 

But if that damn idiot really thinks that Butcher will really let him go and act as if that bitch hasn’t betrayed him in every single possible way, he’s so very wrong. 

Butcher doesn’t really tell himself the truth - maybe he doesn’t even know it himself. 

MM would laugh and tell him he’s jealous - even though he has more serious reasons to feel like he does than petty jealousy - and Frenchie would just roll his eyes and tell them to get some (with each other, possibly). 

And Hughie would just blush and shake his head, putting us some weird excuses because no way Butcher would ever feel like that for something like him. 

Idiot. 

As if Butcher hadn’t already shown him he cares. 

Because if prejudice is a prison, then why hasn’t the sentence been the same as usual “the only good Supe is a dead Supe.” 

It’s because that was Hughie. 

And Butcher has already accepted that he is that much of a hypocrite when it comes to him.