Title: the adults in the room
Fandom: The Boys
Rating: PG-13 mostly for language
Content notes: Drug and alcohol use (alcohol abuse), vague reference to canon trauma, food, temptation for infidelity, swear words
Author notes: For the prompt: mamihlapinatapai (n. Yaghan) a meaningful look shared between two people who long to initiate something
Summary: MM and Annie are used to being the caretakers. MM/Annie UST.



Annie walked in to see Hughie sprawled and sleeping on the couch and Butcher snoring loudly in a chair, empty whiskey glasses in front of them. Frenchie and Kimiko were asleep too, cuddling in a corner, likely sleeping off the edible gummies.

MM came in from the other room then, a couple of blankets in tow.

“What’s up, Annie?” he said quietly, with a smile, handing her a blanket.

“Same old,” she whispered with a knowing glance, covering Hughie with the blanket just as MM covered Butcher.

“There’s some spaghetti left if you want some?” he said.

“You do make the best spaghetti,” Annie said. It was nice that they saved some for her. Even nicer that MM had made sure that the team had a hot homemade meal instead of just doritos and beef jerky for dinner.

MM leaned on the counter next to her as she put the spaghetti on a plate and took it to the microwave. It was nice to have some company after a long day with more close calls than she would have liked.

It was calming.

“How were they today?” she asked.

MM gave a shrug. “Hughie didn’t drink all that much, but he was tired. He and Butcher argued a little. You’ll never guess who provoked it.”

She smiled. “Butcher can be a lot.”

“Yeah. Your boyfriend’s boyfriend is a real dick sometimes.”

She laughed, being sure not to wake the others. “Did you have to play peacemaker?”

He shrugged, not a denial. “Frenchie wants to take a vacation with Kimiko and Kimiko is worried about the danger and if she’ll have to kill someone if they’re found, but every time they start to talk about it or basically anything real, Frenchie convinces her that getting high and making out is better than arguing.”

“He’s not totally wrong on that point,” she said, “But it sounds like you were basically baby-sitting a bunch of highly volatile children all day.”

“Yeah, what else is new,” he said, and she laughed again.

The microwave beeped and Annie took her food out and started eating.

“I’m going to move the cute little disasters to the bed, I’ll be right back,” MM said.

“Which ones?”

He laughed. “The ones on the floor, sharing their space with our mice problem.”

She made a face at the mention of the rodents, but said, “Let me help you.”

“Nah, you should eat.”

She nodded. Something about the way he said it made her think that he had been able to see exactly what a shit day had been, despite her best efforts to smile through it.

It was nice, in a way, that someone could read her like that.

She ate as she watched MM carry Kimiko into the small bed in the side room. Kimiko looked small in MM’s arms, fragile even. Annie respected the hell out of Kimiko, as a badass, as a woman, and in every other way. But there was also the part of her that saw how deep Kimiko’s wounds were (deeper than her own even), and saw that her heart stayed as huge and generous as ever, and it brought out a deep protectiveness in Annie, so sharp it almost hurt.

MM came back then and carried Frenchie the same way, with Frenchie mumbling something but not waking as MM gently set him down next to Kimiko.

He came back then.

“Do you want some iced tea?” she asked, getting a glass for herself. At his nod, she filled a second glass, heavy on the ice, for him.

“Hits the spot,” he said, thanking her.

“Spaghetti was good too.”

She rubbed her neck a little, still sore from the day, and he reached out, put his hand where her neck met her shoulder, and rubbed it lightly. “Neck pain is nothing to mess with,” he said.

He had been trying to get her to see a physical therapist about it for weeks.

“So how’d it go with the eye doctor?” she shot back. He had been putting that off for months, she knew.

“Touche,” he said with a laugh. He was still rubbing her neck, and it was working, it was relaxing her muscle. She wanted to moan but instinctively knew that she couldn’t or shouldn’t, but she let him massage her neck for a few blissful minutes.

“Hey,” she said, moving so she could look him in the eyes, “Do you ever worry that we – that they –” She trailed off.

“That we won’t be able to save them.”

“Yeah.”

“Every fucking day. Every fucking night.” There was a wildness to his eyes, pain and fear and stubbornness and a justified rage about it all.

She knew in that moment that her own eyes probably looked exactly the same.

“At least we’re not alone. We’ve got each other.”

She leaned toward him, keeping his gaze.

He leaned in too, for just a second.

Then they both turned their heads away.

She started washing her dish in the sink.

He went to check on Butcher.

Neither of them apologized or explained. They didn’t have to.

She wasn’t the type of person to kiss her boyfriend’s friend.

He wasn’t the type of person to kiss his friend’s girlfriend.

And both of them had fought like hell to keep their dysfunctional little family from going to absolute shit, so neither of them would do something that would tear their family apart. Not for anything or anyone.

She stayed in the kitchen for a while to take a breath, give both of them some space. But then she heard Hughie having a nightmare and Butcher waking up at the noise and knocking over his glass from being startled. She came in, she and MM gave each other efficient nods, and they each got to work.