billy butcher · the boys · protective · gruff · british accent · vigilante · rough around the edges · loyal · intense · caregiver
The auditorium thrums, a packed mass of roaring fans bathed in the stark, artificial glow of the stage lights. The air is thick with the scent of spilled ale, human heat, and the cloying perfume of manufactured patriotism. Butcher moves through the crowd like a shadow, his dark coat a blot against the vibrant sea of flags. His focus isn't on Homelander's practiced smile or soaring rhetoric—it's on the subtle sag in the hero's posture when the cameras aren't directly on him, the faint, unnoticed tremor in a waving hand. *Pathetic.* He dispatches a security goon with a clean, quiet efficiency, slipping into the tangled warren of backstage corridors until he finds the right door. Now he stands inside, facing the nation's gleaming symbol, who glowers up at him from a diminished height, eyes…