[Dreams of the Waking Man: Fifth Dream] Perfect Little Punching-Bag
by popular demand, the first of the pair of 'undeleted' scenes (very slightly modified from the deleted version). every manly fiber of my being cringes at writing such unadulterated chick-flick material. just so you know. (YES, moriarty, I KNOW, i know--"but lex, you're bi!"--liking other boys doesn't make me a frigging girl.)
warnings: MAUDLIN CRAP (potentially lethal flangsty sap overdose). slash. au with 616 references. spoilers for some arcs of C&DP, and Messiah War. language: pg-13 (primetime tv plus s*** and f***).
pairing: Nate/Wade.
timeline: some weekday between the 12th and the 20th of November, 2011.
disclaimer: marvel owns Cable & Deadpool, disney owns marvel.
notes: 1) title comes from Pink's song "Please Don't Leave Me," the lyrics to which pretty much sum up the Nate/Wade dynamic. 2) it occurred to me, out of the blue, that the stuff i've posted from the arc really makes Nate seem like almost as big a jerk as he's been in the comics lately...i really don't think of him that way, so part of the idea behind approaching his side of Wade's relapse was to show that yes, he really is a big enough martyr to believe that Wade being 'broken' is his fault for failing at 'fixing' Wade. presented here with an actual threat of Wade leaving of his own free will (and possibly forgetting all about him), he finally has to get off his ass and stop with the fence-sitting attitude of 'yeah, i like him, but maybe he's not that great a guy.' 3) on certain phones (which shall remain nameless), you can choose some numbers to set on a speed-dial setting that lets you call the number by turning on the phone and holding the button that corresponds to the number (i'm not describing this well...you could just turn on the phone and hold down the 1 button to immediately dial whoever is set to your first speed-dial slot). but to call 911, you'd still have to hit 9-1-1 and the call button in order to dial...so for those phones, speed-dial is a lot better if you're losing consciousness and have the right kind of friends. (i guess you could set 911 to one of your speed-dials, but that'd just be weird and jinx-y.) 4) certain strong emotions have been known to disturb the sleep of the X-Mansion's resident telepaths. hence the arrival of Emma and Rachel. 5) true fact: Outlaw's long golden locks are as fake as her big perky boobies. we've only seen her without her wig at home, and only in the company of Wade or Alex.
Perfect Little Punching-Bag
I forgot to say out loud
How beautiful you really are to me
I can’t be without
You’re my perfect little punching-bag
And I need you
I’m sorry
~Don’t Leave Me, by Pink
It’s early enough that only Nathan and a few others are awake. He has the suspicion that Hank is still awake, having tinkered with something-or-other through the night. Scott (like Nathan) has always been an early riser. Laura and Logan wake with the sun for most of the year, and get up around six in the winter-Laura pretends this has nothing to do with their animal nature, but Logan doesn’t bother to pretend anymore. Technically, X-Force still has other headquarters elsewhere, but since M-Day they mostly stay in the mansion. Some industrious young student has been making mountains of scrambled eggs and still shows no sign of stopping.
Nathan feels inexplicably muzzy as he accepts a plate and thanks the boy.
“Keep ‘em comin’,” Logan grunts, already halfway through a full plate of eggs.
There’s an electronic tone of a cell phone, and everyone looks at Nathan.
Blinking, he realizes that he left his phone in the pocket of the hooded sweatshirt he’d pulled on to ward off the morning chill. He hopes he didn’t miss any calls the evening before while it was lying forgotten at the foot of his bed. By the second ring, he has it out and stares at the display.
Wade, it says.
He frowns, but immediately answers. For Wade to be awake at six thirty is not entirely unheard of, but it’s certainly unusual. “Wade?” he says, feeling slight worry creep up on him. “You’re up awfully early.”
Across the table, his father makes a face and Logan snorts-one of the few things Scott and Logan have in common is a level of annoyance with Wade’s general presence that borders on homicidal rage. Nathan has come to accept the fact that Wade has that effect on most people.
There’s nothing but silence on the other end of the line, and Nathan suddenly fears that Wade has called because he needs help. Just the other day, Wade had been telling Hope, ‘Speed-dial is better than 911-only two buttons, and the people on the other end are more helpful.’ “Wade?” he says again.
~I…I, uh…~ comes Wade’s voice at last, low and hesitant, and maybe a little weak.
“Take a deep breath,” Nathan says. “It’ll be all right. Go slowly. One fact at a time. Is someone hurt?”
~I don’t think so.~
“Are you okay?”
~Define ‘okay.’~
He doesn’t like the sound of that at all. He stands up from the table and walks toward the door a few paces. “Are you bleeding?”
~No.~
“Are all your limbs attached?”
~Pretty sure.~
Nathan lets out the breath he’s been holding. “All right. Thank the mother for that much, at least… What’s wrong, then?”
When Wade speaks again, his voice wavers. ~Know how you fixed my brain, right after the thing with the Skornn and the spear and lots of people thinking you were dead again?~
He certainly does. Being able to look into Wade’s mind had let him know that his interest was keenly reciprocated and that Wade, in fact, associated all his strongest feelings of care, loyalty, and trust with Nathan. Repairing the damage to Wade’s brain was what made him start to fall in love with Wade, and what gave him the courage to attempt to pursue a relationship with him. “Yes?” he replies, fearing that any worries connected to that time will be, if not world-endangering, then relationship-endangering at the very least.
~I think it maybe might be kinda sorta un-fixing itself.~
Nathan clutches the cell phone and has to stagger back to the table and sit down.
He was so sure he’d done it right. He was so sure that everything would be better, that Wade would be able to think clearly and remember properly. Afterward, Wade’s priorities were still skewed, his morals were still questionable, and he held some inconvenient grudges over Nathan’s busybody nature, but his brain worked.
Nathan passes his left hand over his face, rubs the cool metal against his forehead.
Once again, he has failed at fixing Wade.
If he ends up with three eyes, or one leg, or something like that, you’re not gonna be allowed to fix him anymore.
Yes, Hope has said more than once that Wade’s brain ‘doesn’t work right,’ but he always thought she was talking about his sociopathic tendencies.
~Nate?~ Wade quavers, sounding like he needs an answer that only Nathan can give. Like a kid who rear-ended somebody on the first day driving with a new license, and only Dad knows what to do.
“I’m here,” he chokes out. “What makes you think your brain is ‘un-fixing itself’?”
The silence stretches again, and Nathan starts to think Wade is too afraid of getting in trouble to admit to what’s been happening. He almost says something banal and reassuring, but he doesn’t know yet what’s pushed Wade to this point, and he doesn’t want to make more misunderstandings when they’ve finally started to get somewhere. “Wade, if it’s bad enough to upset you like this and make you call me in the middle of breakfast whan you would normally be asleep, I need you to tell me what it is.”
~I’m losing time again.~
Scott shifts. “Anything that’ll require a jet and a team?”
Nathan almost answers, but Wade is talking again, babbling, spilling it all out-so Nathan quickly waves a hand at his father to be quiet.
~I just lost thirteen hours, according to the morning news crew. I lost most of yesterday and all of the day before. I came around at curtain call for a show I don’t remember seeing, and Hope was there, Nate, oh god, I can’t even remember what we did or what happened or how we got there or anything. I mean, for fuck’s sake, if I could forget where I left you when I was flying around the damn world to save you…if I could kill somebody and not even remember seeing him before…~
Wade sounds like he’s crying. Nathan can understand-if he blacked out with Hope, he knows he’d be terrified, too.
He wants so much to just say ‘it’s going to be okay,’ but he knows Wade is looking for a solution, for some reassurance that he’ll keep Hope safe.
Emma and Rachel have appeared in the kitchen doorway. Rachel looks sleep-mussed and only half-aware, Emma looks impeccable as always, but they both practically radiate concern at him when he glances their way.
~I know I should’ve told you sooner,~ Wade suddenly goes on. ~I should’ve told you the third time, when I was finally sure it was really happening again.~
Nathan blinks quickly, fighting the stinging in his eyes.
It’s happened several times. Not just the two Wade mentioned before.
~I was worried you’d stop trusting me around her, but I don’t even care about that anymore, I just want her to be safe. I know you promised her you guys would be back Saturday, but make something up. Tell her I’m sick. Tell her I had to work. Tell her anything-well, I mean, not anything; don’t tell her the truth.~
Nathan only realizes he’s been biting his lip when he tastes copper on his tongue.
~I know that sounds horrible, and it’s really selfish, but I don’t want her to be scared of me, I wouldn’t be able to take that.~
He shakes his head. “We’ll figure something out,” he says thickly. “Wade, I…”
But Wade interrupts him.
~Don’t. Please, don’t apologize.~
Nathan squeezes his eyes closed and presses his fist to his mouth. Wade knows him so well.
~You tried. You always tried so hard to fix me. It isn’t your fault if somebody up there likes me better broken. I’m sorry about Christmas, after you guys went to all the trouble of inviting me ‘n all, but I don’t think it’ll be a good idea.~
“Wade-” he tries to say, but the brief beep of a disconnected call is his only answer. Very slowly, he folds the phone closed and sets it down on the table and stares at it.
“What are you going to tell her?” Laura asks quietly.
“I don’t know,” he admits, and has to clear his throat before he can speak again. “I’m not very good at lying to her. And I’m very bad at telling her that she can’t see him. I promised her we’d go back on Saturday. They were going to go ice skating.”
“And who says they won’t?” Emma says, sliding her hands over his shoulders.
“I’m sure they’ll have a lot of fun with him worrying the whole time that he’s losing his damned mind again!” he snaps without meaning to.
“It’s never worried him before,” scoffs Logan.
Nathan slams his metal fist into the table and entertains a brief fantasy of trying to see how many plasma charges it would take to blast Logan’s face off.
Hank clears his throat meaningfully. “Logan, I think you’re forgetting that there wasn’t a small girl in his life before. You yourself were on the verge of abandoning the mansion when you feared you were going too feral for the safety of the children.”
“For now, just eat and think,” Laura suggests. “Even humans are still wired so that the brain works best when walking or chewing are involved.”
“Laura’s right, dear,” Emma says. “Go on, eat your breakfast.”
He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t feel like eating. He feels sick.
But he’s been a soldier all his life, and his body will eat when he tells it to. So he picks his fork back up and returns to the dull, mechanical motions of conveying eggs to his mouth, chewing, and swallowing.
I should’ve told you sooner.
Nathan should have noticed it.
Since he and Hope got back, there’s been something…not-quite-right…on the edge of perception, something a little more reminiscent of the old Wade than he’d come to expect after repairing and stabilizing the half-rotted morass of Wade’s memory. He wasn’t truly aware of it because he’d been away for so long, long enough to forget how hard he’d fallen, how head-over-heels he’d been, how enamored and obsessed and unjustifiably over-concerned.
He went so long without Wade that he forgot what Wade was supposed to be like when he was (his approximation of) well.
Nathan chews his eggs slowly, thinking things over.
He imagines Wade crying alone on that awful couch of his, or maybe making a mess in the apartment he’s started to obsessively clean in case Hope is allowed to stay over. He remembers all the times he carelessly put a bullet through Wade’s head, or telekinetically exploded half his skull. He remembers the tone of frail optimism every time Wade would ask (in his roundabout ways) where the line was, how far he could go, how low he could sink before Nathan would just stop bothering with him, the meandering string of ‘would you still try to fix me if I did this?’ scenarios. He remembers the ghoulish Wade being ripped in half, the mindless Wade face-down on the stained tiles, the lonely Wade still smiling all by himself in a world of nothing left to hope for but death.
He doesn’t know what to do, but he’s got to do something. He can’t let Wade cut himself off. He can’t let Wade just…leave. Sending him away was different-sending him away never hurt like this.
His stomach twists in knots.
“I’m sorry,” he excuses himself, and leaves the kitchen.
He goes outside to pace in the gardens. All at once, he feels that Wade shouldn’t be left alone right now, and decides to call Outlaw (Sandi won’t be up just yet, and she works too hard for an unexpected early wake-up call).
~Outlaw here,~ she answers with a slight yawn.
“Did I wake you?”
~Cable? Shucks, honey, it’s no big deal. Caught me between alarm snoozes, ‘s all. I oughtta be up ‘n about by now anyhow. What’s up?~
“Wade is…” He doesn’t know quite how to say it. He wants to think of a delicate way, a way that will let Wade pretend to be strong…but Wade has already been dealing with this all by himself for too long. “Well, he isn’t sick, exactly. His memory has…gone back to being less-than-perfect. He’s…he sounded very upset. Could you do me a favor and go check on him? I don’t know that he could really do anything lasting, but he might try to hurt himself.”
~Huh. Finally copped to it, did ‘e? Hell, he’s been forgettin’ all manner o’ stuff the past couple years. You don’t wanna know how many times we had to remind him you were dead before it finally stuck for more ‘n a day. I can tell ya, that caused more ‘n his fair share of tears, and I’m a bit surprised Sandi didn’t take it outta yer hide when you came back.~
Nathan chokes on a breath. She’s right; he doesn’t want to know how many times Wade asked after him and had to be told he was dead and experience it again as if it were the first time. “Please, Outlaw,” he says. “He’s so afraid he’ll hurt Hope that he’s trying to cut himself off. Please. I don’t think he should be alone.”
~Then why are you talkin’ t’ me instead o’ drivin’ yer half-metal ass down here?~ she demands sourly. ~I’ll get myself over there to him, but you damn well better be scootin’ his way fast, or I’ll find you.~
“I…” He grins wryly. “Thank you. I’ll have to wake Hope up and think up some kind of excuse, but then I’ll be on my way.”
~Damn straight. Seeya in ‘bout an hour, then.~
He stops by the kitchen to ask Scott and Emma to keep an eye on Hope for the day.
He still doesn’t know what he’ll tell Hope.
His feet feel heavy as he climbs the stairs to the second floor of the mansion. For politeness’ sake, he knocks on her door before opening it.
It’s a big room for such a little girl; a huge bed, a cavernous closet, an old mahogany armoire with faeries and unicorns carved into its surface. Flowered heirloom quilts, a Tinkerbell nightlight, a poster of She-Hulk, a little shelf of fairytales bookended by unloved pastel plush animals. In such a big room, with such a small collection of personal things, it’s obvious which items are beloved favorites…the Baum and Barrie collections have deep creases in their spines, a thin spot has been worn on the throw rug where she likes to pace, and the patched and re-patched red and black figure of Dollpool is tucked against her chest even in her sleep.
“Is it time to get up already?” Hope mumbles, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “It’s still dark out.”
Slowly, Nathan sits in his usual spot beside her, near the head of the bed. “I know it’s early. You can go back to sleep after this, until Emma comes to get you for classes.”
“You’re going somewhere?” she asks.
“I know I promised we’d go skating on Saturday…”
Her eyes are intent in the dimness. “Something’s wrong with Wade.”
Of course she knows. She has an acute sense for Nathan’s moods, after all. “He’s…sick, that’s all. He doesn’t want to get you all germy.”
She doesn’t believe him. She’s making one of those unimpressed skeptical faces that he knows she learned from him. “So you’re going to go see him without me and bring the germs back instead?”
“You want me to leave poor Wade all by himself when he’s sick?” he tries with a pout.
“Don’t be a dummy, Nathan, you can’t just leave him all alone like that. Go take care of him and stuff. And if you’re mean to him while he’s…’sick’…I’ll think very, very bad words about you so that Emma gets all stern.”
He huffs a laugh to keep from crying. “I won’t be mean,” he says, and feels his voice crack despite his best efforts. “I promise, I won’t be mean.”
She hugs him tightly. “Well, if you promise, then I believe you.”
So Nathan tucks Hope back in, kisses her brow, and goes to his own room to get properly dressed. It’s early enough still that the traffic is light, and he arrives at Wade’s apartment without having figured out what he can possibly do or say.
Outlaw answers the door, dressed in jeans and a turtleneck. Her hair is quite short, and he remembers that Wade once said she usually wears a wig. She jerks her chin toward the couch.
Wade is there, channel-surfing. He looks like he hasn’t slept. He looks like he’s been crying all night.
When Nathan tries to go to him, Outlaw stops him with a hand on his arm, deceptively slender fingers digging into his bicep.
“Ain’t much warnin’,” she tells him. “If he’s gonna lose the time, y’might never know until he does. Sometimes he’ll forget it and then remember it three days later. Sometimes he’ll snap right back and know he’s forgotten, ‘cause he was in the middle of somethin’ before. Used to be, he just didn’t care, took everythin’ as it came; but with Hope around and you finally pullin’ yer head out yer ass and yer foot out yer mouth…” She shakes her head slowly and aims a frosty look at him. “You just remember-you hurt him, and me ‘n Sandi will hunt you down.”
“You’ll have to get in line behind Hope,” he jokes feebly.
Her hand tightens. “I swear t’ god, Nathan Summers,” she hisses. “That boy has cried too much over you as it is. If you fuck this up, you better leave the country and never come back, or you’ll start t’ think ol’ Apocalypse was gentle as a lamb compared t’ me-I swear t’ god.”
He regards her placidly. “Then let’s both hope I don’t fuck this up.”
She leaves without another word, even to Wade, and Nathan carefully shuts and locks the door behind her.
Slowly, he walks to the couch and sits down.
Five minutes later, Wade looks at him with raised eyebrows. “Oh,” he says. “Hey. When’d you get here?”
“Five minutes ago,” Nathan replies.
“Mm.”
“What are you watching?”
“Well, I’m…” Wade pauses, frowns at the TV. “Y’know, I can’t remember. My head kinda hurts, it’s the damnedest thing.”
“I love you,” Nathan blurts.
“Sure,” Wade dismisses, flipping away from a commercial for another all-in-one mini-blender.
Nathan pulls Wade close, holds him so that he can feel Wade’s heartbeat a few inches below his own.
After a little while, Wade shifts, leans up, kisses Nathan’s cheek. “I musta fallen asleep or something…when’d you get here, babe?”
“Six minutes ago,” Nathan tells him, fighting tears.
“What’s wrong?”
But he just shakes his head.
“Not telling? Why, somebody die?” Wade chuckles and tucks his head under Nathan’s chin. “Least it wasn’t you this time.”
And Nathan doesn’t know what he can say to that, so he doesn’t say anything.
.End.
merianmoriarty has my formal permission to pimp my fics on various comms (if/when i ever abandon deviantART, i'll go ahead and join the comms myself and take care of getting things posted in the right places). no one has permission to re-post this ANYWHERE, but feel free to share or link.
« [Dream 4] Family ● [Dream 6] Relapse »