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your last words before you die are the 3rd line of the last song you listened to. what are we saying ladies?

Chapter 10: Controlla

Sage and Maeve talk it out. Stan reads up on his most valuable asset. And tee hee! Homelander and Reader plan a date for Valentine's Day! What could go wrong?

Sage walked briskly down the hall, pulse hammering in her ears. After that shit show of a therapy session, she'd stormed to her room, and stared herself down in the mirror, gaze hot as lava as she shook, hands gripping the counter.

That fucking Dr. Rangel... Sage's mind churned violently, imaging the therapist's gruesome demise; her face, caved in, bones jutting out like icicles. Homelander, lasering into her skull until her entrails spilled out at her feet. 

Fuck. Her. 

For a moment, the rancor washed over her, dark and molten, and she sat under its plunge, head bowed. It surged through her like electricity, until she'd been burnt out; when she faced her reflection again, her eyes were tired. Extinguished. 

They didn't listen to her, she thought. None of them did. They all thought of her as this arrogant know-it-all, who was only good for spouting knowledge or words they couldn't understand, and so they shunned her. She couldn't find solace in the other women of the Seven - not Second Coming Starlight, or Southern Belle Firecracker, or...

Sage turned on her heel, and left the bathroom, away from that train of thought, and onto the next one, sorting her thoughts and shoving that one toward the bottom.

Fuck her, too.

Sage sighed, disgusted with herself, before striding out of her quarters - and landing solidly into Maeve, who caught her before she could crash headfirst into her armor. Sage struggled out of her grasp, walking faster. Maeve caught up to her in one long bound, matching her pace.

"Where are you going?" Go away.

"To see Stan. About Dr. Rangel. It doesn't concern you."

"Yes, it does. I hate her, too."

Sage let the moment lie, marching to Stan's office, the sound of their boots on the linoleum grounding her. Maeve's boots on the linoleum, she thought, before banishing the thought.

Eventually they reached their destination, only to be stopped by Vought Security. The guard held a hand out, halting them. "Mr. Edgar has requested complete privacy for the next 2 hours. He is not to be disturbed by anybody." Sage furrowed her brow, mouth open in a retort, when the guard interjected, his voice hardening, and his stance turning offensive. 

"He is not... to be disturbed... by anybody."  

The two woman listened from the other side of Stan's office, as the faint sound of pages turning wafted under the door. Sage looked at Maeve, who nodded.

"That's fine. We live here. We can wait for two hours." The guard nodded, watching them until they left, and passed the corner.

Maeve and Sage walked silently to the plaza outside, and a waiter soon appeared with glasses of water. Sage held up her hand, reaching for her canteen instead. The two sipped quietly, the idle chatter of Vought personnel cutting through the icy silence between them.

"It was incredibly  fucked up, to ask me to do that to you," Maeve finally said, setting down her glass. Sage set her jaw. "Well... you did it." Maeve scoffed.

"Yeah - and you put me out after, like I was some whore."

"I would never treat a whore like that."

Maeve looked at her in disbelief, an incredulous upturn on her open mouth. Sage felt the deep burn of regret roil through her; she tightened her grip on her canteen, though she couldn't feel the cold.

"Does it make you feel good? To make me feel this way? To treat me like a toy, instead of facing that you did it because you were scared?" Sage leaned away, a bitter smirk twisting her mouth.

"Taking notes from Rangel?" Maeve rolled her eyes. "You know what? I think you hate her... because she was right about you. You'd do anything to feel like you're a part of a unit, except make any real effort to do so." Sage raised her brow.

"Are you really going to pretend you're anyone to make that point? Like she didn't read you for filth in that session, too?" Sage heard the last word before she said it, and bit the inside of her cheek. Fuck.

Maeve heard it, too; she felt her hackles lower despite herself, and felt the anger fade from her body. The two sat at the table pensively, dismissing the waiter when he came asking for their orders. The wind gusted gently around them and wafted Maeve's hair, the scent of it wisping toward Sage. Lilac. Sage felt a terrible quaking within her, and looked up.

"I'm sorry, Maeve," Sage said quietly, her voice cracking.

Maeve gazed into the raw umber of her eyes, and felt a pulling sensation in her chest, though she remained upright. She let out the exhale she'd been holding and nodded, the hand on the table flexing minutely, towards Sage. She nodded again, frost blue eyes brighter in the wake of a ray of sunlight, that burst from behind the clouds.

Stan sat in his office, the glow of the lamp casting a gentle shadow on his face as he read. The old, leather notebook in his hand was soft and pliable; its surface weathered with pockmarks, the stories of which were lost to time. He leaned forward in his chair, the words echoing in his mind.

04/19/2000

Journal:

Today is... day five of the sleep deprivation trial. I think it's day five, anyway. Mr. Vogelbaum says not to think of it as "sleep deprivation". He says to think of it as a test of my endurance. I said that if it was a test, then I'd pass it. I heard a kid say that on television once, and the adults had laughed, ruffled his hair. I waited, but Mr. Vogelbaum only smiled. No ruffle.

I'm not hungry, I'm not even tired anymore; I told Barbara, and she looked proud of me. I don't know if she was. I wanted her to be. But there's something wrong with my bedroom, I tried telling them. At night, these... centipedes fall from the ceiling, crawl towards me. When I told them, they'd just said that I was so much stronger  than a centipede - so why was I scared?

Last night, one of them actually dropped onto me, and I screamed, lasered a hole in the ceiling, the wall. I heard them talking this morning, about calling off the experiment, and I almost cried. They sounded disappointed in me.

Stan closed the notebook, a sigh blowing through him. Some moments, it had seemed to be only days ago that John was that scared little boy, whose tears had sizzled his cheeks when he used his lasers. He looked at the man before him now on the laptop as he slow-danced with his woman in her apartment, the faint hint of music tinny through Vought's microphones. 

It would have been easy, Stan thought, to let him be, to abandon the project. But he knew better; John had died sometime during the experiments and the torture, and stepped out of that broken shell crystalized. There was no boy named "John", and there would never be again.

Even still, as the thought settled over him, something akin to... remorse? No... regret, lapped at his insides, the dull lick of its fiery burn making him shift in his seat. There would never be the return of a boy named John - but he thought of the boy in the entry, and considered what might have been. He buried the thought.

There would be no Vought, no Stan, without Homelander - and so the boy had been the sacrificial lamb. From his mangled body sprouted the first greenery of Spring, and by Winter, beneath the thicket of trees, lied the husk of his remains. Cold, unyielding - just like the frost in his eyes.

Homelander turned the woman in a slow spin, cradling her close, cheeks touching. Stan sighed. It would be cruel, to the world, he thought, to let them keep up the charade for much longer. 

The woman melted into Homelander's embrace, the feel of his hand at the small of her back steadying her. She could feel his heartbeat against her chest, the sound deep and comforting, that intimate rumble of his voice as he sang into her hair.

Close your eyes, I'll be here in the morning. Close your eyes, I'll be here for a while.

She looked up at him, eyes shining, the words burning to escape her:

I love you.

She reached up to kiss him, tears transferring onto his cheek, the melody wrapping around them both in a tight embrace.

I love you, Homelander thought, brushing her lip with his thumb when he pulled away.

They swayed in place for a moment, the warmth of the apartment making their movements slow and dreamy, when Homelander pulled away to head into the kitchen, kissing her on the forehead as he went. He returned with a bucket of ice that housed a bottle of champagne, and two glasses. He kissed her again on the way to the couch, waiting for her to join him before he focused his lasers on the cork in the bottle, grinning when the woman gasped as it soared into the air, then applauded, kissing him on the cheek.

"What's the occasion?" she asked, clinking her glass to his. He took a sip, eyes dancing. "Well... you know, Valentine's Day is in two weeks," Homelander said, his voice carrying a note of excitement.

The woman's heart raced. Their first Valentine's Day...

She'd never celebrated the holiday before. There had been the schoolyard passing of notes, the conversation hearts. The lonely, bitter tears of high school, of college. And then those two years in the asylum, the lobby hall filled with pairs of patients, medical gowns ghostly in their sway. It hadn't seemed to matter, until she met him.

But, then, he'd never had a real Valentine's Day, either, had he?  she thought. But this year would be different; they'd have each other.

"Two weeks? You big romantic," she teased, though she was just as excited. "What should we do?"

Homelander considered. 

There was dinner, which, of course, he loved - but they could do that anytime. He could fly her to Paris, kiss her atop the Eiffel Tower. Cliché, yes, but it was a cliché for a reason: it was damn effective.

And romantic, he thought shyly. He gave a thoughtful little noise, and looked at her.

"I don't know. Where's somewhere you've always wanted to go?"

The woman pursed her lips in thought, before gracing Homelander with a shy smile. "Well... I've always dreamed of going to Voughtland for Valentine's Day..." she said wistfully. Homelander wrinkled his nose. "Voughtland?" he said, incredulous. The woman playfully tapped his arm.

"Yes, Voughtland," she said, mimicking his tone before her eyes grew soft again. "You know... kissing at the top of the Ferris Wheel, or in the tunnel of love... you knocking down the tower of bottles and winning me a big teddy bear..." she batted her eyelashes at him. Homelander rolled his eyes, fighting the smile that tugged at his lips.

"I can buy you the world's largest teddy bear. Have you seen it? It's the size of your bed - bigger, I think!" The woman set down her glass and slunk into his lap, playing with his hair. 

"Yes... but this would be one that you won for me, because you're just so strong... and your aim is so accurate... you're like a bow and arrow, personified," she murmured, her voice dipping and setting Homelander's insides dancing. He kissed her, hungrily, hands roving up and down her body, mouth hot against her lips, her neck. Homelander growled low into the hollow of her throat, bouncing his hips into her with a mischievous glimmer in his eye.

"Okay..." he sighed in mock resignation, rolling his eyes dramatically. The woman peppered his face in kisses, grinning all the time. "Yay!" she squealed, pulling him into her as she let herself fall back on the couch, kicking her feet and giggling. Homelander chuckled quietly in response, and pressed himself closer, her laugh resounding in his bones.

rb and tell me what’s your most re watched movie.. and be honest