Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want

34

"Great, we lost one of our chances. Now what?"

The Boys didn't know what to do. The shapeshifter had to fuck it all up, in the worst time possible. Starlight was frustrated, and Butcher knew it wasn't her fault. Meeting on Times Square was a good choice at the time, so Homelander would not hear their plans. He would take a bit of extra time to find Nina among the crowd as well. But now, they also had the shapeshifters to worry about.

"So you guys don't know where they come from and where they will attack next?", asked MM.

Starlight nodded, "we managed to get that one locked at the Tower and we are trying to find a way to interrogate it."

Hughie was worried about Annie, her face showed that she was losing hope. She continued. "It was impersonating Maeve and it was as strong as Maeve too."

"Fucking hell," said Butcher. "So it knew you were there?"

"I have no idea," Annie shook her head. "Maybe it just wanted to cause havoc and blame the Seven to ruin Vought's image. But that never works out. It was a coincidence that I was there."

"I think we should let the woman go," said Hughie. "Annie has been trying to contact her and when we managed to get her to talk to Butcher, a lot of people got hurt."

"But she's the one who's closest to him. Like Stillwell and Stormfront were," said Butcher.

"Yeah, and them dying just sent him over the edge," Starlight sighed. "We don't know what it could happen if Nina died."

"It's not working out," said Hughie. "We need to come up with other plan."

"You guys worry about this woman too much," said Butcher. "Or maybe Hughie is trying to protect his girlfriend again."

"It's not that," Hughie seemed annoyed. "It's a dead end, Butcher."

"Besides, I'm pretty sure they are on a relationship right now," said Annie. "If something happens to her, there's a good chance he will get more unstable. He threatened to break my neck because I went out when he locked the Tower up."

"I don't think Annie should be talking shit about Homelander to his girlfriend," said Hughie. "It could put both of them in danger."

"You also weren't much of a gentleman on the phone," said Starlight. "You started arguing with her and hung up on her without telling her anything."

"Well, sorry. It's not easy to tell a stranger that she's working for the cunt who raped my wife for three hours."

Everybody fell silent. No one had stopped to think about the fact Butcher was the one to tell Nina what Homelander did. He did bad things to a lot of people, but the way he treated Becca just to spite Butcher was cruel. She was still missing. He refused to believe she was dead. Apparently, most of his family and her family were convinced that she would never come back. The uncertainty was eating his insides. It was the main reason why he wanted to bring Homelander down. If he never saw Becca again, at least he would avenge her. He would make Homelander pay for every single crime he had ever committed. For Becca, for the people he humiliated. He needed to suffer as much as he made people suffer. Butcher left through the front door, maybe to drink. He wanted to be alone, and the Boys understood why.

-

Butcher didn't return for a few hours. MM went out after him, to make sure he was okay. Hughie, Annie, Frenchie and Kimiko were sitting on the sofa, watching TV, or pretending to.

"I feel bad for him," Hughie said. "I know he's being mean, but..."

Annie remained silent. She knew what Homelander was capable of, the sight of Supersonic's mangled body would sometimes come back to her in nightmares. But Butcher seemed to get worse as time went on. It felt like he had no regard for none of the Boys' lives, neither his own. She suspected he wouldn't even care if one of them was fatally injured, as long as he had the opportunity to screw Homelander. It was a selfish way to avenge his lover, and it sometimes seemed like Homelander and Butcher had a few things in common. Both bitter men, egotistical in the pursuit of their objectives. She would never tell him that, but she knew that if Butcher had Supe powers, he would be as cruel as he saw fit, to those who opposed him.

"But...", said Frenchie. "He's the one who keeps things going. Sometimes I hate it, but without Monseiur Charcutier we would be lost."

"He wouldn't care if we died, Hughie," said Annie. "I told him Nina was not a bad person, and he didn't care about that at all."

"I mean...", Hughie sighed. "She is dating Homelander. There's a big chance she could become one of the casualties. It won't be exactly clean when we take him down."

"If...", said Frenchie. "If we take him down."

"What do we do then?", Asked Hughie.

"We wait," Frenchie shrugged. "We just have to wait."

Kimiko was listening to conversation, and feeling for both Annie and Nina, in a way. She pushed the woman away from a shapeshifter and it was the only contact she ever had. She knew Butcher could be unstable, and she was over the fence with him. She didn't know whether to comfort Annie or to confront Butcher with the way he was treating her. She was mistreated for years while being forced to serve in benefit of the Shining Light Liberation Army, and the Boys were like family to her. A dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless. Homelander wasn't directly responsible for her brother Kenji's death, but he would probably treat her like a cockroach if they ever crossed paths. She understood Butcher rage, but it didn't have to be like that. None of the Boys had to die. If they did, Kimiko would blame herself forever.

Frenchie noticed Kimiko looked sad and worried and signed to her.

Don't worry, mon coeur. Nothing will happen to us.

She smiled sadly, and signed back.

How can you be sure of that?

Frenchie sighed. He didn't want to lose hope.

Because I believe in my heart that it won't.