John
"-e's bare-it is-"
"-ander did-h my go-!"
"-esus-no! What the-o, I don't-!"
"-ped apa-ow th-urviv-?!"
White noise.
Voices.
Words.
Incomprehensible.
Sleep.
Pain.
Injured.
Maddie…
Maddie.
MADDIE.
MADDIE
Maddie
…
…
…
The pain…
It burns…
No feeling…
Arms or legs…
Pieces missing…
Heal…
Heal.
HEAL.
Heal
…
…
…
She needs me…
Her voice is…
…so soft…
Her pain…
It doesn't belong…
Wake up.
It's time to wake up.
They need you, wake up.
…
She needs you.
She's been hurt.
Wake. Up.
JOHN!
"AAAAHHHH!"
I'm not sure if it's fear or anger that escapes me when I spring up out of unconsciousness, all I know is that there's gray in front of me and I'm ready to attack.
I hear a constant, stable beeping in my right ear, and I turn my head. A bunch of different monitoring machines are hooked up to me, and it's my heartbeat monitor I'm hearing.
A small, subtle snoring breaks through the haze of beeping, and I turn my gaze to my left instead.
I feel a bit of relief crash through me at first. It's Maddie, her noises caused by her current state of rest upon the visitors couch.
Whatever fucked up dream I just had… seeing her makes me better for a second, as my racing heart starts to settle.
I don't get a chance to relax, though.
Suddenly, she flinches, and the peaceful expression is replaced with a fearful grimach. My eyes widen in surprise, caught off guard by how violent it is at first.
I've never seen Maddie do anything like it.
But then… it all comes back.
All of it.
Her showing up, us talking things out, opening up to each other a bit more… until Homelander showed up.
And what's worse… everything after that comes back too.
The fact that he caught me off-guard, how easily he did it, the way he made me watch him-...
Fuck…
…
All the way up until the fucker accidentally clawed my eyes out…
It's when Maddie starts whimpering that I shake my ass into gear.
I don't even take a second to look myself over, I throw the hospital covers off of me and twist my legs off of the bed. I hop off…
And I genuinely can't stop the horrific scream that escapes me as an absolutely debilitating pain shoots up my entire right leg from somewhere around my ankle.
I crumble to the ground like a sack of rocks, and I can hear the couch Maddie is, or rather was, sleeping in, sliding away with a piercing screech from where my stomach presses against it.. The accompanying sound of Maddie's frightful scream makes me feel ten times worse.
"What the- OH MY GOD!" I hear Maddie swear as it sounds like she realizes what's going on. All the while I'm trying push myself back up off the ground while I regain feeling in my sore leg.
I hear a quick and heavy pair of footsteps come from somewhere outside the room, sounds like a hallway, and I've managed to get myself onto my recovering knee by then. At least it doesn't hurt anymore, the pain's fading by the second.
But my efforts cease a second later, when-
"You Fucking DUMBASS, STAY IN BED!"
Papaw's voice. Screaming at the top of his lungs.
It's frightening to many. Right now, it relaxes me.
Though I do still feel a bit of surprise when I actually find myself being lifted up onto the bed by the man, a grunt of which escapes me.
"Goddamn, your right foot isn't even back yet!" Papaw says as I find myself face to face with his own rough features. He looks livid.
I see fear.
Movement behind him catches my eyes almost immediately, and I meet a pair of horrified blues staring, shadowed by blonde hair.
Maddie…
"Are you alright?" Papaw's concern goes right over my head once she's in my sights, and he lets a rough sigh escape him as Maddie's unusually delicate features go numb with shock.
"A-Am I a-alright? John, did you hear what he just said?!"
"Huh?!"
The new voice is unfamiliar in my ears at the moment, despite an array of footsteps I suddenly hear coming down the hall as I wave off Maddie's concern.
"I'm not my concern right now-"
The slap comes out of nowhere. It's only because it's Maddie that my head jerks to the side.
My gaze passes over one or two people entering the decently sized room, before my head slowly turns back to Maddie in surprise. Her brow is furrowed, her face twisted in anger… though its effect is dulled by the sniffles and the teary eyes.
It's not the first time. I know it won't be the last time. But it still shocks me every time. And the sad part is I can't even blame her.
"Well you are mine!" Maddie's voice is at a much higher pitch than usual, agony raw in her voice as she looks at me aghast. "Do you even know what happened?! Do you remember?! Do you even- no, get off!" Maddie tries to push me away when I reach my arms out to her, and I keep my expression as steady as I can and rest my head atop hers as I refuse to let her go.
"Calm down." I tell her, keeping my voice soft despite the little bit of sternness I force into it.
Maddie continues to ball her tiny fists and slam away at my chest for a few seconds, before they start clenching nothing as her angry shouts and furious curses are slowly replaced by a sad sobbing sound that eats away at everything in me.
"Y-Y-You were ripped apart." Maddie says, whimpering in between the words as I catch Papaw's face out of the corner of my eye. I take a quick glance, and see the feigned anger fading for a much more relieved and weary old man.
Of course that would worry everybody. I can't tell them not to be.
I keep my face as even as I can as unwanted memories pass through my mind, and maintaining my composure right now admittedly isn't easy in the least. But Maddie is here, and she is hurting.
Even if she doesn't like it, she's my top priority right now.
"I'm sorry to say that genuinely doesn't faze me." I admit, though I do try to bring some levity and make her laugh with a small smile. "I've seen, done, and felt worse. A missing foot feels like Tuesday at this point."
"It fucking shouldn't." Papaw growls out, the anger returning with a vengeance as he crosses his arms, and his nostrils flare with that familiar stewing fury.
I look up to Papaw, but I still don't hesitate to give him a sharp glare as I gesture down to the currently sobbing blonde in my arms.
Stubborn as he is, he knows when to take a hint, and backs off.
"Maddie, I know how my healing works." I tell her, keeping my eyes on Papaw for a moment before looking back down at the one I love. "My foot back within the hour. Don't mean it doesn't hurt like a bitch when I drop down onto the stump." I raise my leg and allow myself a quick study of the slowly regrowing.
Anything actually resembling a foot is completely absent when you get south of the shin. But the shin bone's finished regrowing, and the recovering muscle structure follows closely behind in a perfect, bumpy cone around the bone.
Maddie's short, choked laughter tears my attention away from the soon-to-return appendage, and I finally allow myself to release her.
Though not before she nails me again in the chest with one last insult. "Jerk."
My hands remain on her shoulders, and I ignore the false hostility as I meet her smile with a reassuring one of my own.
"I'd never lie to you." I remind her as I allow my eyes to grow a little more tender. I'm aware we have a bit of an audience, but I could give two shits about that for the moment as I once again pull her back into a hug. "I know it was scary, but I'm not exaggerating when I say I'm fine."
"But… John, that's not normal."
"No, but it's true." That's all I can offer as I release Maddie from the hug once more, allowing her to wipe away the now drying tears from her eyes. "It sucks, it hurt like hell when it happened… but it honestly doesn't faze me at this point."
Maddie's quiet for a moment, simply staring at me with an unusually afraid look in her eye, and her voice is soft when she speaks once more.
"So you weren't affected by…"
It takes me a few seconds to examine her words and understand her meaning. It takes another few seconds to examine my own words to try and figure out how she got to that conclusion.
And then the answer hit's me like a freight train.
Of course she's fucking scared, you dipshit.
I want my voice to come out soft and reassuring, but there's no way I can manage that as the look on Maddie's face when… when it happened… passes through my mind.
Instead, what comes out is tired, beaten, and broken as I find myself unable to look at her.
"I wouldn't go that far…"
My eyes continue to examine the marble floor of my recovery room, before I feel a delicate finger loop around my chin and tug my gaze upward, and I see Maddie stare at me with a small frown.
But then… she offers me that beautiful smile.
A smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes.
"We'll talk later."
The words are rushed, with nervous glances around the room and a volume barely above a whisper.
But she tries.
I can't help the disappointment I feel.
The silence is deafening… until Papaw breaks it.
"Well, since you're up, I may as well give you the good news." Papaw says, stepping forward and ending whatever moment me and Maddie had as he gets my full attention. It's now that I notice that the people who entered earlier have all disappeared. "I uh… I uh don't know the fine details, but basically, you're muscles are changing. Growing back thicker, like a beard."
I'll admit, the way Papaw explains it baffles me.
I love you Papaw, but there are still some metaphors you make that don't make sense.
Something I make clear as I raise an eyebrow, jaw dropping open as a questioning gaze overtakes my face.
Papaw lets a sigh of annoyance escape him because I don't understand it the first time, and throws his hand up in the air to display that as well.
"One good thing came out of this whole clusterfuck, and it's that you're stronger for it."
Just like that, the pieces of his old-man metaphors click into place like a puzzle. I should be happy, yet a sigh still escapes me even as I nod my head.
"I hesitate to ask, but I know I need to know." I say out loud with a sigh, though I'm talking more to myself than to either Maddie or Papaw. "But uh… what all's happened since?"
"Well, since you were mauled by a superpowered grizzly, the government has offered special care for the esteemed Juggernaut." Papaw answers as he reaches down and grips the edges of the couch's fold out bed, before he lowers himself down with an exhausted sigh and takes a seat as he looks at me, raising a waiting eyebrow.
It takes a few moments for the unspoken implications to hit, and the look of wide-eyed disbelief on my face says it all.
That's their cover story?! A superpowered grizzly?!
No, hell no, that is not gonna fucking stand.
"Yeah, we'll see a superpowered grizzly when my fucking foot grows back." I huff in disbelief, shaking my head at the fact that they actually told the public that I was mauled by a fucking superhero animal. And from the sounds of it… they believe it.
"That's…" Maddie pauses, and I don't speak a word about it at the moment. Thinking about what happened has to be even harder on her than it is on me, and I will not let her make things about me this time.
Still, after taking a breath to calm her understandably frazzled nerves, she speaks clearly.
"That's the bad news. You're not allowed to kill Homelander."
She sounds a bit more like the Maddie I know. The Maddie who's still stronger than she thinks, even when she doesn't realize it.
That would make things better if not for the absolute bullshit she just told me!
"What?"
Every regrown muscle in my body goes tense the moment the I hear the words, and my response is quick, sharp, and pissed.
"Hey now, don't skimp out on the big details just because you know he's pissed." The rather admonishing tone Papaw takes with Maddie annoys me in a way that it never has before. It's way too soon for me to even begin to figure out why.
Nonetheless, Papaw doesn't hesitate to turn to me and tell me flat anyway.
"Alex is the one who told Edgar about you, John."
…
My mind goes blank.
…
Time slows to a crawl.
…
Nothing else is important right now.
…
Except for that one Fucking Sentence.
…
Alex… knew? Alex… told them?
…
Alex… lied?
…
I want to blame him. I wanna hate him. I want to damn him to the deepest pits of hell and enjoy a bag of popcorn as he burns.
But I can't do any of that.
Because in the end, it wasn't Alex's choices that led to everything. I agreed to go to Vought.
What does piss me off… is that Alex knew. The whole time.
I knew there was something I wasn't being told, something even Alex knew. I figured that much out when he showed up to the damn tower yester-however-long-it's-been.
Something that Maeve didn't tell me.
Just gave vague hints and explanations and assumed I should immediately understand.
They both… fucking… knew…
I'm not ignorant of the implications of Papaw's words. A part of me wishes I could, but I can't blame him for what Homelander did.
Don't mean I won't blame him for keeping the truth from me. He didn't just throw me into the fire, he gave me a can of gasoline for a weapon. If I had known from the beginning…
Well, at the very least, Maddie would've been fine.
"Can't do anything about it now anyway." I say as I twist myself back onto my bed properly, and toss the covers back over my stump in case I have any other visitors. I let a tired sigh escape me as I let my head drop back to the covers, and I can't help the way my eyes wander over to Maddie.
"Hey uh… Papaw, can you give me and Maddie some time alone?"
I make sure he sees the silent plea, if not in my words, then in my eyes.
Papaw raises an eyebrow, and turns to look at Maddie for a moment. When she nods, the old man's expression softens and he nods his head.
"Alright, I'll shut the door. People might be back later if you ain't out yet."
"I'll be out." I assure, but nonetheless, I give him a grateful smile as he stands to his feet and walks over to the door. "Thanks Papaw."
"Yep." And then the door's shut behind him, and Maddie and I are alone once more.
The silence that follows is… well, deafening is one way to put it.
I'd call it suffocating.
Me and Maddie still manage to meet each other's eyes, but neither of us wants to say the first word.
Which sucks, because both of us want to get this conversation out of the way above all others.
After a few moments… I go first.
"This isn't gonna be an easy conversation."
"No." Her voice is soft and lacks any foundation. "It won't."
"How long have I been out?"
"Three days."
Damn. I was hoping for a couple hours, not days. That just make things worse.
"Have you been taking care of yourself?" I ask, although I dread to think I know the answer.
Unfortunately, the fact that she won't look me in the eyes when I say that is less than reassuring.
"You got it worse than me…" She mumbles softly. My brow arches in sadness when she says that, and I suppose that she's right in some aspects.
That doesn't matter right now.
"Physically, yeah." No games, no jokes. Physically, I definitely got the worse end of it, and anyone who tries to argue otherwise is an idiot.
But physical wounds… hell, the fact that I'm even sitting here right now speaks for itself. Physical wounds heal easy.
Mental wounds don't. And we can't deny that.
I did for longer than I thought, and I'm scared to think I still am in a sense. But Maddie's been far stronger than I could ever ask her to be.
It's only right for me to return the favor when she needs it most.
Unfortunately… I'm not sure what else to say at the moment.
"Can… Can you scoot over?" Maddie suddenly asks, turning to me with a weary look in her eye. "Do you… do you think there's room for me?"
Maddie asks. And what gets me is how scared she sounds just voicing the question. She sounds so small and desperate… and I don't have the heart to deny her.
Hell, even if I did, I wouldn't anyway.
Wordlessly, I drag myself over on the hospital bed so that there's enough room for Maddie. She stays rooted in her spot for a moment, even when she stands to her feet, and the small footsteps she takes are filled with too much apprehension.
She turns around and sits herself down on the bed without a word… before she pulls her feet up onto the bed and curls, laying against the elevated top of the bed with her face to the wall.
When she pulls her feet up, my eyes widen when I catch sight of them, and it's only know that I actually begin to study her appearance. Very thoroughly.
Gone are the spaghetti strap shirt and the pink skirt, clothes that were her trademark like the red flannel was mine. Said flannel is now adorned over her undersized frame, and a pair of gray sweatpants poke out from the bottom of the shirt. All culminating in her bare feet, the underside of which is nasty, caked black with considerable build up.
Her usually pristine and wild hair is unusually matted, and it looks like she hasn't run a brush through it in days. Tac that on with her reclusive body language right now…
"You can hug me, you know…" Maddie says, twisting her head so that her eyes can meet my own, and I can see the wish without a single utterance about it.
I twist onto my side, making sure my right foot still stays under the covers, and slowly scoot close to Maddie. When she feels one hand poking the side of her back she's laying on, she lifts herself enough for me to slide it under her until my chest is against her back.
"Let me know if you feel uncomfortable." I whisper to her softly as I slowly enclose my arms around her. However, before I can finish the motion, Maddie shifts, spinning around so that we're now laying face to face.
"I feel safer now than I have in the past week." She offers me a small smile, and presses herself against my chest as I finish closing my arms around her.
She's so much smaller than me, so light in my arms…
Is it selfish that I don't want that warmth to disappear?
"We do have a conversation to finish, you know." Maddie whispers, and I allow a small smile of my own to appear on my expression. If this is how she wants to do it… it's fine by me.
"Yeah… but I'm not the focus this time."
Maddie doesn't respond.
So I speak again.
"I've always thought things were simple… but I don't think just talking through it is gonna fix this one."
"I can still feel him." Maddie admits, her breath hitching as she shudders in my arms. "The medical scans said that I'm completely clean, not even a pregnancy… but I can still feel him."
"He's not here, he won't hurt you anymore." I murmur softly as I lean down and kiss the top of her head. I can't take away her trauma, but I can make her feel safe. "It's just me."
"It was Homelander…" Maddie gasps, shaking her head as she presses further into me and me. "He's supposed to be a superhero…"
Of all the responses that come to mind for that, one's gentle, one's angry, and one's a sad truth.
Why do none of them feel like the correct answer?
I don't want to say anything to Maddie that I wouldn't want said to myself… but she needs support right now.
Something tells me she's starved herself of that while I've been out.
"I can't make it disappear, and I can't take it away." I let my voice fall to a soothing whisper, and I shift one of my hands so that it's now rubbing the back of her head as a stifled sob escapes her. "But I can share the burden, like you did for me."
"I'm scared." Maddie admits with a tremble in her throat. She's far more honest about it than I was.
"I know." I respond with a pained expression.
For all my work, or lackthereof, Maddie finally manages a small, quick laugh. It's forced out between her sobs and it sounds far from amusing… but it's a step in the right direction.
"You're really bad at comforting words." Despite her sentence and the tears that accompany them, she doesn't actually sound disappointed in the least, and she raises her head so that her large, bleary eyes are looking into my own.
All I can manage is a small smile.
"When words fail, actions succeed."
Maddie's smile isn't perfect, but it's got some mirth to it. Honestly, with what I've heard about the effects of sexual assault… honestly, any positive emotion I can get is worth it.
Unfortunately… a thought crosses my mind.
"Are they any bruises?"
When Maddie whimpers and tucks her head back into my shoulder… I have my answer.
"Have they been checked by anyone?"
Maddie shakes her head quickly, her hair brushing against my bare chest in response.
"I don't want anyone to see."
I remember all too vividly the way Homelander was grabbing her. The way her skin turned an ugly shade of red around his fingers.
I glance down towards her hip, and the arm not currently trapped underneath Maddie pulls begins to lift itself off of her.
When my finger does nothing more than brush the inside of the shirt, Maddie's hand snaps to my wrist like lightning and her gaze goes from emotional to fearful in a second as she snaps her wide-eyed gaze back up to me.
Her body's visibly shaking, and her breath comes out in pants as she looks to me for some kind of reassurance.
My brow softens, and my words are as tender as I can make them.
"It's okay…"
She stares at me, too stricken by her fear.
"It's okay…"
Her fingers begin to loosen.
Her gaze never breaks even when she finally releases my rest.
My hand lifts the bottom of the flannel, tucking it behind her back.
Her eyes twist, hesitation beginning to take over.
I grab the thick, grey sweater underneath the much larger shirt, and I begin to lift it up her side.
I barely feel the angry knots against my finger tips, and I freeze.
"Why'd you stop?" Maddie asks, glancing down at my hand when she feels my actions suddenly come to a pause. The way she shrinks back in crushing sadness eats away at me.
She gasps when I continue, and the tips of my fingers brush over the small, hard lumps beneath her skin.
Ugly purple bruises stare back at me, perfect indents of a hand on Maddie's side as her hands tighten atop my chest.
If it weren't for the gloves, he'd have left fingerprints.
Alex better have a damn good reason for keeping me from killing that son of a bitch.
"Are there any more?" I ask, flipping both shirts back into position just so she's comfortable, and wrap my arm back around her as I pull her close to me once more.
Maddie doesn't respond at first, but her hands do tighten up around my shoulders.
"Not outside…"
The meaning's clear enough.
"Do you need to cry?" I ask, softly but bluntly.
A moment of silence…
A whimper accompanies a nod.
"I'm here."
Her hands once again squeeze.
The damn bursts.
Her sobs echo through the room as she cries into my chest, all the while I keep quite and stroke her hair.
I wish to God that I could do something to take away her pain, even if I had to take it all upon myself. But that's not nor will it ever be an option, so all I can settle for is sweet whispers and soothing words as the past couple of days catch up with her.
Her head is small and fragile in my hands, and yet each and every quivering sob against me cracks my heart into tiny pieces
"How do I know you won't leave when you see how fucked I am?" Her voice trembles with the question, and I just wish she'd look at me without feeling like some kind of burden.
"None of that talk. Not right now."
"But it's true."
I can't help but to snort.
"It's not like I was ever playing with a full set." I point out with a surprisingly casual nonchalance, even managing a shrug.
Not like it's wrong.
A smack echoes out as Maddie quickly slaps my chest in response. The giggle doesn't match the action.
"You're fine the way you are." She says, as if she's got reason to assure me right now.
I allow myself to relax at her words.
My response follows more swiftly than I can think.
"And so are you."
"I've got so many issues right now…"
"So do I."
Maddie lets another strangled laugh escape her, even as the tears begin to dry.
She sniffles. "I don't think I'm worth anything right now."
At that, my brow furrows. That… doesn't make any sense. At least, not at first.
But then I actually hear her words, and I find myself pulling away as I look down at her in confusion.
The meaning hits like a freight train.
"What are you so scared of?" I ask her, causing her to bring her puffy, swollen eyes back up to me as she seems to run out of tears. Instead, she quietly sniffles as she meets my gaze.
Her expression breaks, and her voice cracks. "I-I'm scared that my stuff is gonna mess you up even more." Her words are barely above a breath, and she looks so utterly defeated.
My heart breaks when she says that.
Maddie has been raped. She has had her very person violated in the worst way imaginable, and add onto that the fact that she likely watched me get brutalized…
And she's still scared of how all this affects me. Not her.
"We both have issues that we have to work through." I point out, smiling slightly as I unwrap my arm from around her. When she feels me tugging the one currently trapped underneath, she lifts herself so I can pull it free.
I twist so that I'm once again on my back, and I slip my arm under Maddie's head.
She gets the gist, and we both scoot closer to each other so that she's laying on my shoulder, hands resting on my chest. Like when we used to sleep together when she'd spend the night.
"We both have things to deal with. But I want to be there for you through all of it." I tell her as I let my head roll back so that I'm eyeing the white tiles of the ceiling. "Whether we work through things ourselves or get some outside help… I don't want to be alone for it."
"But what makes you think I'm still… still worth it?" She has to pause, and she sounds so unusually suspicious as she asks the question. Despite that, her voice is small and scared, like she fears the answer.
She has nothing to fear.
I look back down to her and meet her tired, scared baby blues. Baby blues that still remain the most beautiful orbs I've ever seen.
"Because you are. The only thing stopping us now is if you think I'm worth it." He tell her, pouring every ounce of sincerity I can muster into my words.
Maddie doesn't even hesitate.
"Always."
"Then what's stopping us?"
Maddie's expression is withdrawn, desperate, and vulnerable as she stares up at me with big blue eyes as she decides for herself that answer.
And then… ever so slightly… she smiles.
And despite the red stains running down her raw cheeks, the way her hair is matted against her tired and exhausted head…
She looks utterly relieved.
Yet.. her voice still quivers when she speaks.
"K-Kiss me?" She poses it as a question, as if that's the most she can ask for.
I lean my head, bringing my face closer to hers until our eyes are almost touching, and the reassurances I've offered.
"Any time you want."
And for the second time in my life, my lips connect with Maddie's.
For the first time though… it's meaningful.
And the way Maddie finally sags in relief through the kiss is enough for me.
There's a tingling where skin meets skin, but it obviously doesn't go any farther than a kiss as we break apart. Maddie rolls herself so that she's more laying on me rather than next to me, but I'm okay with that.
"You know there will be more times where I cry like that, right?"
"Yep."
Her words are quiet and soft, and her throat sounds scratchy from all of the tears she's shed.
My response is nothing more than a gentle reassurance.
"I love you." For the second time, Maddie says it in person. Her throat is scratchy, her voice is raspy, and it's anything but appealing to the ears.
I want to hear it again.
"I love you too."
What better way to respond?
I know when my foot finishes regrowing, I gotta drag my sorry ass out of this bed and get caught up on everything that I've missed.
Oh, and get an explanation from Alex. As for Maeve…
Fuck Maeve.
But for now, I'm content with sitting here on this recovery bed, and holding my girlfriend in my arms until her sorrows drown away.
Maddie's my girlfriend
Despite everything between the initial confession and the actual deal… I still like the sound of that.
And so does Maddie, if her next words are any indication.
"My boyfriend…" She mutters quietly, and I can't help but to chuckle.
"No shit." I joke… only be answered with a light snore.
She's nodded off again.
And unlike earlier… she looks so utterly peaceful.
Homelander's day will come… but undoing some of the damage he has done is a step in the right direction.
And if that means I gotta sit here with a sleeping blonde in my arms… oh well.
Suck it up, John.
You're finally doing something right.
A/N: The fun must come to an end, but that doesn't mean that there can't be a bit of light to see your way.
Now the story can really kick off, at least. John's no longer ignorant, he now has his own vendetta against Homelander.
And there's so much more he doesn't even know.
But alas, patience.
I hope you've enjoyed these last two chapters as the story begins to take off, and I'll see all of you in the next one.
See ya.