Chapter Fifteen: Death by Exsanguination and Happy(ish) Endings
As the body count of Olivia's friends, family and even women she frequently took yoga with were slaughtered at Homelander's direction after many rounds of enhanced interrogation techniques failed, at the off-season campground, Olivia and Butcher had fallen back into an easy sleep.
The sun was hours away from rising as Homelander continued to seek out anyone who knew Olivia and Butcher and where they might be squirreled away. Homelander delegated many of the Supes with broken moral compasses to pull, tear and rip answers from men and women of every walk of life, FICO credit score and social media presence.
Just before sunrise, Butcher stirred awake first, not sure what woke him. He was in no way attached to his mother in an unhealthy or Freudian way and she was also not the Greek Queen Jocasta who married and fucked her son, but Butcher felt something inside the moment Homelander ended Connie Butcher's life.
As the sun began to warm the cold northern hemisphere where Butcher and Olivia were cocooned together in the sleeping bag, hours, and hours away, Homelander cradled Connie Butcher's head with his large hands and squeezed.
He continued applying pressure until her skull became a veritable fleshy melon and spewed forth grey matter instead of glistening seeds as her cranium fell apart at the seams.
John frowned down at the blood and other thicker bits splattered across his chest and belly before stalking down the hall to the small bathroom with pastel pink towels and pale-yellow soap pressed into the shape of a seashell.
As Homelander lathered up his hands and washed Connie's blood and shredded grey matter down the drain, back at the campsite, Butcher slid out of the sleeping bag without waking Olivia and slipped out of the tent.
Butcher stretched deeply, his neck, back and knees popping and cracking as he found a tree to take a piss. He frowned as the hot stream of urine steamed as it hit the ground, he felt a stab in his midsection that nearly doubled him over, dribbling piss on his socked feet.
"Goddamnit," he growled as he stood upright, feeling like something had just been taken from inside him, something that spoke to primordial roots, perhaps before even becoming bipedal, that universal sense of loss.
As Butcher tried to shake off the daunting cloak that was falling around him, Olivia stirred awake inside the zippered tent. She groaned as she rolled over onto her back, a piercing headache waking up with her. The muted sunlight was too bright even behind her closed eyelids as every part of her body announced its alphabetical list of aches and pains.
Goosebumps broke out on her skin as the deep ache between her thighs brought back visceral memories of him roughly filling her, struggling to not break her under his urgent touch and frenzied thrusting.
Butcher heard Olivia groan and cough as he returned to the tent.
"How ya feeling princess?" he asked as he winked and tossed a bottle of water towards her.
Olivia tried to glare at him but gratitude for the water overrode everything else.
Butcher watched her drain half the bottle before she replaced the cap and set it aside.
"How are you feeling?" he asked again in all seriousness.
Olivia chuckled and made a face as nausea twisted throughout her gut. "I just need to sleep for a couple days and one of those vats of sports drinks they throw on the coaches at the end of winning the Super Bowl."
Butcher started pulling on his boots as Olivia took a few small sips and counted to ten as hot bile raced up her throat. "I'm going to make some calls, get the fire going," he murmured and moved to her side, reaching up and cupping her jaw with his large hand, the rough pad of his thumb moving across her lower lip as he added.
"Sleep as long as you want," he murmured as he pressed his lips against hers.
As Olivia slept fitfully, surfing waves of nausea, sweating and shivering, Butcher reached out to some friends who served their country, went to war for their country, became maimed for their country and were then forgotten by their country. The men he was in search of spent most of their time at the Salvation Army or in line at soup kitchens and constantly searching for any kind of housing.
Butcher let the engine idle and listened to some of the local news and the increasingly toxic headlines about Olivia and himself. Vought had them now painted as terrorists with homicidal manifestos and were pinning murders to them left and right, the new and unwitting Bonnie and Clyde.
The news of his mother's murder hadn't risen to the top of the news cycle as Butcher continued dialing long remembered phone numbers, some reassigned and some out of service.
Olivia continued to sleep the better part of the morning as Homelander eventually returned to the Vought building. His pituitary gland was wildly overstimulated and ejaculated adrenaline like a horny, uncontrolled teenager with a never-ending erection.
He landed on the graveled rooftop and stared out over the city. John looked down at his bloody hands, he had stopped washing them seven murders ago. He clenched his hands in and out of loose fists, the dried blood tacky on his long fingers.
John hissed as his mind was barraged by a heady slideshow of his marathon bloodbath and double-digit body count. He fumbled a hand down to the tight crotch of his suit and yanked the fabric around until he could pull his cock free.
His rigidity grew painfully harder with each remembrance of ensuring cardiac and brain death. Homelander stroked his thickened length faster with each flashback to organ failure and complete exsanguination.
Homelander leaned back and howled as he shot a hot load of sticky come into his bloody hand, the slick palmful of semen mixing with his stained fingers. A high wind ruffled his coifed hair as he rode the aftershocks of his climax.
As Homelander eventually rested in a sense as he reviewed hours of surveillance footage on multiple HD screens on fast-forward, back at the campground, Olivia rose in the tent that the high overhead sun had warmed while she had laid in a comatose-like state.
She coughed hard and drank the remaining water that had grown tepid and slipped into her discarded clothes.
Butcher looked over and couldn't help but smile at Olivia's disheveled appearance. She squinted as she smoothed her tangled hair back and tied it into a low bun at the base of her neck as she stretched her arms high overhead, a groan slipping from between her lips as she was torn between wanting to simultaneously vomit and eat.
"This'll help love," Butcher murmured as he rose from the fallen log that served as a bench and walked towards her. He handed her a mug of hot coffee, "there's a little extra in here," he said as she accepted the blue and white tin cup.
Olivia let him lead her to the log in front of the roaring fire, she sipped the near scalding spiked coffee and grew toasty as the flames consumed the twigs and small logs.
Butcher waited until he could see her tension ease with the touch of the alcohol before he dropped his arm around her and pulled her against his side.
"Do you trust me love?"
Olivia stared down into her coffee as his question fell around her.
"I'm trying to," she admitted and nervously drained her cup, anxious for the alcohol's numbing wash as he remained still and quiet, only his breathing was evidence of his life.
"Was that the wrong answer?" Olivia asked softly, proud her voice was mostly strong.
"No, not at all love, I want to earn your trust completely but there's something we need to talk about," he murmured and tightened his arm.
"What is it?" she asked and turned as much as his hold would allow, barely able to meet his eyes.
Butcher paused, unsure of where to start. He poured them both another cup of alcoholic caffeine and worded what he had heard on the breaking mid-day news.
Olivia's tears started slowly as Butcher recited the list of memorized names of reported deaths. She pressed her lips together and started to drop her face towards her lap when he set his mismatched cup aside and gripped her chin, bringing her eyes back to meet his.
"I'm sorry I got you into this love," Butcher growled and crushed his lips to her, tasting her breath mixed with the spiked French roast. "But I'm not sorry you're here," he thought but didn't say as he danced his fingertips from her chin down the front of her throat until he could cup his hand over her breast and squeezed until she gasped against his lips.
Olivia dropped her hands to close around his wrists as he started to yank at her clothes and lowered them both to the pine-needled covered dirt in front of the fire.
She blushed and chuckled embarrassingly as she had no chance in stopping his hands, but he let her think she did as he paused his touched and stared down into her flushed face as she stumbled over her words.
"Not so enthusiastic," she managed as Butcher wordlessly softened his grip before he slid her pants free.
He smoothed his hands up and down the outside of her thighs before lowering himself to his elbows above her, "anything love," Butcher grumbled as he pressed his face against the curve of her neck.
Olivia tightened her thighs around his waist as she reached her hands down to the front of his pants and fumbled with his zipper before tugging his hardening cock free.
"Anything," he groaned as she guided the sensitive head of his cock to bob at the entrance of her aching wet center. Both of their breathing rates increased as he slid his thick rigidity inside her, forcing himself to sink himself slowly and fully, stopped only by their intimate flesh kissing.
Their lips met as he drew his full length out before sliding back inside, fucking her with bridled restraint.
As Butcher and Olivia's collective sighs and moans sounded in concert with the sounds of the naturally running body of water and birds, back at the Vought building, Homelander shouted as his eyes glinted maniacally and he threw a young intern through the seventh-floor glass window who reported that there was no chatter anywhere, not even on the dark web about the missing Olivia and Butcher.
"You should be grateful for your fucking lives, my benevolence at this staggering level of incompetence. Find the terrorists, search under every movie theater seat and behind every shower curtain," Homelander shouted until the veins in his neck threatened to burst through the flushed skin.
His eyes grew so bright it was like looking at the sun as John looked over the other interns, some openly crying, others praying and one that had passed out.
"I understand," he finally said and held his gloved hands outstretched. "It must be difficult to be in such a position next to a god. Whoever brings me the two terrorists will receive an executive floor office, personal assistant and triple your current salary."
Many of the intern's fears melted away at the enticing offer, especially after their co-worker just went through the window.
Homelander stalked the halls of the Vought building as the interns gorged on sugary snacks and bottled coffee drinks to push through their fatigue, their futures set if they could find Olivia and Butcher.
As the interns continued to work furiously and Homelander continued to sulk, back at the campgrounds, Olivia and Butcher cleaned up with a brisk dip in the shallow banks of the river before drying off in front of the fire.
"Where to next?" Olivia asked as she rubbed the towel against her wet hair.
Butcher ran a washcloth briskly over his facial hair before answering.
"There's not a lot of help out there when it comes to facing Vought and those fucking Supes," he sighed raggedly.
He recounted all the calls he had made and the endless cycle of dead ends. Butcher didn't know how to grieve for his mom and wanted to bury all of his emotions into Olivia emotionally and physically.
"What does that mean for, for our future?" Olivia asked and turned on the log to face him.
Butcher opened his mouth to speak and then directed his gaze at the scattering of pine needles in front of the fire.
"What is it?" Olivia pressed, her turn to grip his chin and bring his eyes to meet hers.
"I don't throw in the towel or turn from anything," he murmured and reached for her hands, squeezing them rhythmically as he continued.
"I never would've considered this before you," Butcher said lifted a hand to press his lips to her palm.
"What does that mean?" Olivia asked breathlessly.
Butcher sighed heavily, "it means we're going to disappear, become someone else."
He couldn't believe he was saying the words, declare that he was running from Vought and Homelander's reach.
Olivia saw how much it took for him to speak and slid closer to him and drew her arms around his neck, bringing their lips close together before she spoke, her words a hot exhale against his mouth. "I trust that's the right decision," she murmured before pressing her lips to his.
Butcher closed his arms around her and surrendered in every literal and metaphorical sense of the word.
After they eventually got back to coffee and actual food, Butcher explained that through the myriad of his calls while she was passed out, he had secured a pickup point for new identifications and a two-bedroom home with association fees and a gated pool.
Olivia snacked on a bag of barbequed chips and nodded as Butcher explained the route to their new home, the pickup spots along the way and as many details as he had about their future.
"We'll be off Vought's radar?" she asked and dumped the dregs of the chips into her palm.
Butcher nodded, "as safe as I think I've planned for," he said honestly.
Olivia wiped her fingertips clean as Butcher searched her expression. He would've sacrificed a goat to any god in gratitude that she would leap and trust that he would catch her fall.
~~~~ Six Months Later ~~~~
Olivia was filling the stained-glass bird feeder when Butcher snuck up behind her and pulled her up and off her feet.
She squealed as he spun her around and demanded her full attention as his hands yanked her close.
Butcher crushed his lips to hers and kissed her until she was breathless.
"What was that for?" Olivia asked on a gasp when he lifted his lips.
"Nothing in particular love," Butcher said and pulled her to one of the redwood chaise lounges and tugged her down to sit next to him.
"Thank you," Butcher murmured as he raised her hand to his mouth and kissed the warm skin of Olivia's palm. "Thank you for trusting me."