Jennie & Wade | Wednesday Evening (slightly backdated)

[x-deadpool.livejournal.com]

Wade brings Jennie some food and they decide that he needs dance lessons.


Wade had grilled a chicken. Actually, he'd grilled several pieces of several different chickens and then left half of them on a plate in the main fridge downstairs with a sign that said 'eat me i'm delicious' on it. The rest of them he'd brought upstairs with a bunch of hamburger buns and a bag of miscellaneous condiments and a couple bags of chips. It wasn't high class but it would probably help him feel a little less like gnawing his own arm off.

Knocking on Jennie's suite door, he listened to his stomach rumble and considered taking a bite out of a piece of chicken right there.

"Yes, yes I promise next week," Jennie said, pinching the bridge of her nose as she listened to the Dance Mom on the other end of the phone. Little Everly NEEDED her ballet, God forbid she miss even a class. Jennie opened the door and blinked at the man standing on the other side of it, and smelled the plate of chicken on his arm. Her stomach gave an audible gurgle.

"Sure. Listen-- Suz? Got to go, emergency came up, yeahuh-huhbye--" she thumbed the 'end' button with an audible sigh of relief. "Jesus Christ helicopter parents are the worst" she ushered Wade into her kitchen. Her room and it's living area had changed with the new world, becoming less spartan and more homey. Now it seemed like she actually lived there. She moved a decorative fruit bowl from her tiny kitchen table and went to the fridge.

"Wade, what do I owe the pleasure? Want something to drink. I have-- beer. And seltzer. And gin?" she made a face at the contents of her fridge.

"Beer's good," Wade said, putting down the chicken, then buns, and the bag of everything else he was carrying. He had Cheetos. Cheetos were delicious. "Figured I'd stop by in person. Say thanks for the info you gave me about..." He paused and frowned, then shook his head. "Y'know, things."

Jennie turned around, two microbrews in hand. Her lip twitched. "Yeah," she handed one to Wade. "Can we talk about it, you know--" she gestured. "Since we already know?"

"I guess," Wade said, opening the bag of buns and grabbing one before slapping a chicken breast onto it and then trying to find some lettuce and a tomato slice in the bag of stuff. "I mean, as long as you're relatively certain your room's not bugged. Probably best to just... speak vaguely, though. In case."

"Far as I know it's not," Jennie said, slipping into the chair opposite him. "Still," she shrugged a shoulder and began helping herself. Much of the day had been spent learning about her new life, and sorting the things with the dance school and not thinking about the people who were not on the lawn with them this morning. Her grief was there, but dulled from that earlier time, and in it's absence a fierceness was growing behind her ribcage.

"I'm sorry," she said after a minute. "This is your first time with... a loss of this magnitude, right?"

"Mercenaries don't usually develop close ties," Wade said, then he paused. "Or well, I never used to. I guess other people might. It's easier to leave when you're not leaving anyone behind."

So that would be a yes. "You really can't help that here, people tend to grow on you. Like a fungus." Or a certain Australian, who'd spent the better part of the afternoon wandering zombie-like in and out just to see if she was still there. "Even when it's the last thing you want."

She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, again. You know. I've replayed that night a million times over, and--" she sighed.

"I believed you when you sent the text," Wade said, shrugging. Then he gave Jennie an almost rueful look. "Don't dwell on it." Compartmentalizing was definitely going to be his key to success here. Of course, every time he felt like he was almost on an even keel, he remembered that Molly was gone and god help him, cooking in the kitchen had been difficult. Nothing was where it was supposed to be and Lorna was gone, so there was that. "Anyway, thanks for telling me when you did."

"Trying to do my best when strapped to a bed and drugged out of my mind," Jennie said, polishing off the rest of her sandwich. "This is a road I've been down before and I dunno, it would have made me feel better." She took a drink of her beer. "And I don't feel any guilt for what I ended up doing."

"Nah, they deserved it," Wade said, already working his way through sandwich number two. "Sometimes people need killing."

"I know I'm not supposed to agree with you, but damn straight," said Jennie with a nod. She began building her second sandwich.

"Good talk," Wade said. Then he took a huge bite out of his sandwich, oddly pleased with how this conversation had gone.

Jennie, somehow, burst out laughing, feeling much better. "I don't know why, but I feel I should fist pound you. Thank god someone doesn't think I'm a psychopath."

"Sociopathic tendencies at worst," Wade commented, offering his hand for an obligatory fist pound.

Jennie began to giggle. "Oh man, I have no idea how to handle any of this. Fuck my life," she put her sandwich down and tried to regain her composure, but the giggles began anew.

Wade quirked a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I just keep telling myself it could've been worse. And it could've been. Doesn't keep it from stinging."

Jennie took several breaths to get herself under control. Hysteria could happen later, who knew? "You know, this isn't my first time. Losing people like this. I had a team back in England, and one day.. I didn't anymore," Jennie's eyes grew haunted. "I don't know how I survived, only that it turned me into a ghost this last year. As far as I know, in this world, it's the same." Jennie sighed. "I can't do that again, I feel like my skin's going to fall off, you know?"

"Yeah," Wade said, nodding. "Like salt in the wounds. You want me to see if your English team's still out? You can give me a list. If you don't hear back about that, then you know. If you, then you know that, too."

"They're where they were, as they should be, I checked," Jennie's eyes unconsciously traveled to the wastebasket where the pay-as-you-go phone lay in ruins. "I won't let grief make a ghost out of me. I'll do what I need too, and--" she took a breath, "I'll live too."

"Good plan," Wade said, finishing off his second sandwich and reaching for the Cheetos. His eyes followed hers to the waste bin, noted the shattered phone, filed the information away for later, and then he started munching his puffed corn and powdered cheese snack. He couldn't think about his own grief - it turned too quickly to anger.

Jennie smiled at her gaffe, normally she wouldn't be so sloppy, but she was eating grilled chicken sandwiches and cheetos with a mercenary in her kitchen after her world had blown up around her, she'd could be forgiven.

"So can I interest you in a class at my school? I teach ballet, modern and hip-hop. I have an adult class, and Pete Wisdom took ballet. Made him extra graceful."

"What, you can't recognize my already stellar poise and technique?" Wade deadpanned, tossing a Cheeto in the air and catching it in his mouth. "Do you teach swing?"

"Lindy hop," Jennie said, "It's swing's grown up child, lots of throwing people in the air," and if she didn't have a class in it there would soon be one.

"Sweet," Wade said. "I'm down. What're your rates?"

"Affordable," Jennie said with a purr. "And for dinner, I may even give you a discount."

Wade ate another Cheeto before nodding. "Sign me up."