*Born To Be Yours*
When Hughie rushed over to beat A-Train, Butcher didn’t move.
He leaned against the convenience store’s glass door, shifting the unlit cigarette in his mouth from the left side to the right.
He watched A-Train kneel on the ground, having a tooth knocked loose by Hughie’s fist, and watched that tooth bounce into a storm drain.
He watched Hughie, fist clenched, panting heavily, looking as if he wanted to smash a lifetime of hatred into that ruined face.
He saw every satisfying second of it, yet his eyes kept darting warily to the left, staring at the figure leaning against the hood of the Ford.
As it happened, the man was looking back at him from across the width of the sidewalk.
His hands were shoved in his pockets, standing in a loose, relaxed posture, looking for all the world like a casual, easygoing youth.
*Interesting…*
Butcher took the cigarette from his mouth, twirled it twice by the filter between his thumb and index finger, and then walked toward the man.
His strides weren’t large, the hem of his trench coat fluttering slightly in the hot midday breeze, faintly revealing his trademark crowbar tucked at his waist.
His aggressive posture was deliberate on Butcher’s part, but to his surprise, the other man didn’t even bother to stand up straight.
This indicated one of two things.
Either the guy was an idiot who believed in “world peace,” or he possessed far greater leverage.
Butcher leaned toward the latter.
Before long, he came to a stop in front of the man.
He tilted his head, chin slightly raised, a smirk that was half-rugged, half-crude plastered on his face.
“Oi.”
Butcher popped the cigarette back into the corner of his mouth and jerked his chin toward the corner of the street, where A-Train was still kneeling, beaten by Hughie past the point of recognition.
“The injuries on him—your doing?
You a Supe?”
Butcher spoke as if they were merely having a chat, but his eyes were incredibly focused, not straying even half an inch from John’s mask.
He stared at the mask for a few seconds, then tilted his head, the corners of his mouth curling upward slightly.
“You know what that kid told me last night?
Said he was gonna make A-Train kneel in the street and apologize.
I thought he was talking out of his ass.”
He took the cigarette from his mouth, pointing the filter at Hughie, who was still catching his breath across the street.
“But guess what?
When he rushed over to beat him, his fists were shaking.
You know what he was like the first time he killed someone?
Crouched on the curb and puked for fifteen solid minutes, throwing up stomach bile.”
“If you’re counting on Hughie to kill A-Train, I reckon you bet on the wrong horse.”
Butcher took the cigarette from his mouth, flicked the ash with his thumb, his eyes locked onto the blue pupils visible through the mask’s eyeholes.
“And…
do mind telling me who the hell you are?
I don’t recall our sweet little Hughie having a friend like you.”
As he spoke, the hand Butcher had inside his pocket gripped the handle of his crowbar in a death lock.
He was waiting for John’s reply, waiting for him to slip up.
At the slightest hint of anything amiss, he wouldn’t hesitate to swing the crowbar right into his face.
That was what he called a fucking preemptive strike.
“It’s just a trade.
Everyone gets what they want.
Are you not satisfied with this arrangement?” This story is hosted at g.com.
“Oh?
So you know it’s a trade.
But keeping secrets isn’t exactly good partner behavior, is it…”
Butcher narrowed his eyes as he spoke, gazing into the blue eyes behind the mask.
Then, with zero warning, his hand shot up, grabbing the lower rim of the mask and ripping it upward with violent force.
*Snap!*
The elastic band of the mask snapped instantly.
Smirking crudely, Butcher widened his eyes, eager to see what kind of conspiracy lay hidden beneath this goddamn mask.
Who the hell goes around hiding their face like this?
*Let’s see it!*
Soon, as the shadows receded, a handsome face was gradually revealed under the sunlight.
Blond hair, blue eyes, a clean jawline, looking no older than twenty, with a few almost imperceptible freckles dusted across the bridge of his nose.
But…
that fucking face!
He knew this face all too well.
He had stared at it countless times on television, stared at it in security footage screenshots from Vought’s security department.
On those sleepless nights, he had pinned this face to the warehouse blackboard, crossing it out with a red marker over and over again.
The animal who stood at the absolute center of The Seven, smiling for the cameras; the bastard draped in the American flag, looking down on the masses from Times Square billboards.
It was this exact fucking face.
Even though this face was exceptionally young, presenting a sharp contrast to the older image in his memory.
“Homelander!”
His lips pulled back in a feral snarl, exposing teeth stained yellow by cigarette smoke.
His nostrils flared violently like an enraged bull, huffing hot breath.
“Fucking hell—I knew it!
I knew it!”
Butcher’s raspy voice exploded.
His Adam’s apple bobbed violently, spit flying from the corners of his mouth as he whipped around to face Hughie.
“You see that?!
The exact same face!
It’s him!
This is a fucking Vought trap!”
He gasped for air, his chest heaving violently, before his voice exploded again.
It was pitched even higher this time, the latter half of his sentence dissolving into a raw screech.
“We’ve been played!”
Hughie stood frozen a few paces away, looking as though he were nailed to the spot, his knees shaking uncontrollably.
It was a bone-deep, uncontrollable shudder.
He had just beaten a member of The Seven.
His fists were still stained with A-Train’s blood and shards of shattered teeth, and the heart he had suppressed for months was still pounding wildly from that moment of release.
But now, he looked at the torn mask in Butcher’s hand, and then at the face beneath it—a face identical to the billboard looming over Times Square.
they were truly, utterly fucked!
“Don’t be scared, Hughie.”
Butcher spat on the ground, reached into the inner pocket of his trench coat, and pulled out his crowbar.
The tip of the crowbar was worn shiny, the handle wrapped in non-slip grip tape, clearly having been used more than once.
“I don’t care if you’re a clone or if you took some fucking drug that shrunk you down.
If you look the same, you are the same.
There’s only one thing I care about in this life!”
Butcher raised the crowbar, his knuckles turning white as his eyes widened in raw fury.
“Every single Homelander has to fucking die.”
Butcher didn’t give John any time to react.
The crowbar swung with a sharp whistle, carrying the full weight of his body and half a lifetime of hatred as it slammed down toward John’s head.
But John had absolutely no intention of dodging.
The crowbar struck his left cheek.
The metal clashed against skull, sending a dull, bone-conducted thud echoing through the air.
*Clang!*
Butcher nearly lost his grip, the webbing of his thumb numbed by the sheer recoil.
He could feel the entire force of the blow transmitting through the shaft straight into John’s skull.
He waited for the sound of a shattering cheekbone, waited for half of that face to cave in, waited for blood to spray from his ears.
He couldn’t wait.
But it never came.
John’s head didn’t even tilt.
He merely gave his neck a slight, casual stretch, as if he had been lightly brushed by a twig.
Butcher froze for a fraction of a second, then raised the crowbar again and brought it down.
This time, the crowbar targeted more areas.
It slammed into his ribs, his shoulders, and his neck.
The entire street fell so silent that only the dull impacts of the crowbar hitting human flesh and Butcher’s own heavy breathing could be heard.
“A very comfortable massage…
Are you done having your fun?”
The expressionless John simply reached out a hand, grabbed Butcher by the collar, lifted his entire body off the ground, and casually threw him against the exterior wall of the convenience store.
*Thud!*
In the next second, Butcher’s back slammed hard against the brick wall, the air instantly squeezed from his lungs.
He opened his mouth to inhale, but his diaphragm felt as if it had gone into spasm, refusing to take in any air.
Before he could even slide down the wall, the sound of breaking wind echoed.
John left behind only a blur where he stood, his actual hand already clamping onto Butcher’s throat, pinning him to the wall.
Then, he drove a fist straight into Butcher’s abdomen.
“*Argh!*”
Butcher’s entire body doubled over as if struck by lightning, gastric acid surging up his throat.
A mix of the cheap whiskey he drank last night and the bitter bile of an empty stomach sprayed simultaneously from his lips and nostrils.
John remembered.
It had been a long time since he recalled his past life—the lowliness and humiliation of his final moments.