![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
x-deadpool.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsWade's still not coping very well. David attempts to help. The results are inconclusive.
Wade had tightly leashed his emotions, those pesky things he usually refused to acknowledge, and begun working through every single kata he knew from every martial art that utilized them. He'd started at dawn. It was three in the afternoon now and he hadn't paused more than the kata required - not once. It wasn't fatigue that caused his muscles to tremble - it was anger, a rage unlike anything he'd ever experienced before.
It coiled low in the pit of his stomach, a poisonous plant, roots insidious and creeping, that had invaded and set up shop. It curled upward, tightening in his chest and making it difficult to breathe as he moved through form after form, senses stretched to their farthest point, skin crawling with the sure knowledge that the world was wrong and there wasn't one goddamned thing he could do about it. The fronts he put up for everyone else didn't work for him. Nothing was as wonderful as he pretended it was.
So the mercenary moved, forcing himself not to clench his jaw or tense his muscles, not to physically give in to the feelings of helplessness and pain ricocheting through him. He controlled his breathing the way he'd once taught Molly to control hers and then he forced himself to finish the kata he'd begun just before that thought hit.
Blue eyes tracked his movements silently, their owner sitting unobtrusively by the side as he waited for Wade to pause. Then before the older man could start another kata, he tossed a bottle of water at that pretty brown head, expression as impassive as ever.
Wade caught the bottle without looking at North. He stayed very still for a moment, reveling in non-movement after hours of constant motion, then uncapped the water and took a gulp. "Thanks," he said, his voice expressionless. If he let emotion color any part of his outward interactions with people, he'd straight up lose his shit.
As a man of already few words, David had become downright taciturn since everything had gone down the water cistern. He shrugged and rolled to his feet, gaze unreadable as he stepped onto the mats, limbs already stretched and hands already wrapped from the hour he had spent pounding a worn punching bag.
The mansion gym was unfamiliar to him, having done little more than peer in to look for people -- such as Jean, on one such memorable occasion. It was large and bright. Too bright for two old soldiers who had seen far too much and lost more than one could keep track of. But in this instance, David knew that Wade's fresh pain had cut more deeply to the bone than the numbness that had blanketed him and was keeping him from thinking too hard and looking too far inward. It kept David safe and sane. So he did not question it.
But Wade. Wade looked like his face could have been cut from stone. Expression hard and muscles deliberately relaxed. Too relaxed to be natural. David's own expression shifted, a tinge of regret. Not for himself, but for his friend who had been generous with his affection and open with his care.
David was glad he had been loathe to form many such connections.
"Don't do that," Wade said, voice quiet. It was easier to keep himself from shouting if he made himself speak softly. "Don't. You know better than anybody else what happens if I let this go." And it was true. The level of destruction Wade could rain down on anything and anyone if he gave himself free reign would appall most of the people who knew him. Which was why he was here, pretending he didn't feel anything as he ran through kata after kata. Because if he contained himself, he wouldn't become a problem his friends needed to contain.
But the spy only shrugged, unapologetic. Then, with a quiet sigh -- nothing more than a breath -- he shook his head and spoke, quiet and gruff: "You will have to eventually."
"That's the worst idea you've ever had," Wade said. "Including the time you OD'd and I nearly threw you off the roof." He capped the bottle of water and threw it it toward the duffel bag at the side of the gym. "I can't let this go. Now are we going to spar or are you going to go back to lurking?" He knew it wasn't lurking. He knew it was North's way of asking if he was okay without asking, checking up on him without actually checking. He knew his answer conveyed the answer - no, no he was not okay. But he didn't have a solution.
The bottle landed into David's bag with a loud thud and the man, infuriatingly calm, gave yet another shrug, this time in disagreement. Grief contained only turned into madness. He knew it. Wade definitely knew it on some level. Eventually the man would have to take his rage out on something, because such things felt one too many times never just dissipated on its own.
Still, David did shift obligingly into a 'ready' stance, one foot behind the other, knees bent, fists at nose level. He cocked his head at Wade who somehow knew that sparring with an emotionless sack of meat under the current circumstances would be neither cathartic nor satisfying in any way. Even if it did give him something to actually hit (and get hit by) for a while.
The sparring didn't help, but he'd known it wouldn't. There was no satisfaction and, as he lay on the mat a half hour later, knowing he'd show bruises for a bit before they went away, he wondered just what he was doing here, at the mansion. Wade would take physical pain any day over the rage that made him shake. "This isn't working."
"No," David agreed, standing over him as he meticulously unwrapped his his hands, tucking the used tape into a pocket of his sweatpants. His eyes slipped shut as he forced his brain to quiet down so that he would not have to watch two of Wade come to the inevitable conclusion at different times. With his eyes still shut, he offered Wade his hand, steadfastly ignoring how he had not long ago offered that same hand to Wanda.
Wade took North's hand and let the other man pull him to his feet, brushing his palms off on his pants once he was standing, and thought briefly about how his friend's hand would only grow frailer. He'd watch North's hair turn completely white, his eyes cloud over, his skin turn papery, and then he'd watch him die. Unless someone got in a lucky shot before time could do its creeping, crawling work. Odds were good that'd happen.
Wade would watch all of them die - every single person at the mansion. He'd watch the kids who were left grow up and grow old and die. He thought about Marie-Ange and Doug and his chest tightened even more. Inhaling became physically painful. "I can't stay here." His ladybird was of to NOLA, anyway, and Doug was looking after Laurie as best he could. No one needed him right then.
"All right," David agreed easily. Something minute and odd had shifted in Wade's expression and David, while blissfully unaware of Wade's particular line of thought, recognised whatever it was had not been a good thing. In fact, it had felt, for a moment, like the other man would crumple into pieces from within, and it disturbed David enough to put a wrinkle in his brow.
Choosing wisely not to comment on it, he strode over to where their open bags were waiting and snatched both of them up on the way to the door where he paused with a significant look on his face -- a warning to Wade that David's actions were non-negotiable. "Shall we?"
"I hear South Sudan is full of very bad people this time of year," Wade said, trailing after North. "And if that fails, there's always Zaire or Sierra Leone. Might as well get paid for it."
Fine, whatever. David did not care about the details in this particular situation. "Foyer. 1800 hours."
"Cool." Wade snagged his bag from North on the way out and then peeled off, heading for his suite to pack the bare necessities. He had a new ceramic knife he wanted to test out, see if he could get it through airport security. "I'll see you there." He had calls to make - needed to get in touch with Patch to get the contracts lined up, needed to get Weasel to set up transport and start basic recon. He needed to tell people he was going off-grid for a bit.
Wade had tightly leashed his emotions, those pesky things he usually refused to acknowledge, and begun working through every single kata he knew from every martial art that utilized them. He'd started at dawn. It was three in the afternoon now and he hadn't paused more than the kata required - not once. It wasn't fatigue that caused his muscles to tremble - it was anger, a rage unlike anything he'd ever experienced before.
It coiled low in the pit of his stomach, a poisonous plant, roots insidious and creeping, that had invaded and set up shop. It curled upward, tightening in his chest and making it difficult to breathe as he moved through form after form, senses stretched to their farthest point, skin crawling with the sure knowledge that the world was wrong and there wasn't one goddamned thing he could do about it. The fronts he put up for everyone else didn't work for him. Nothing was as wonderful as he pretended it was.
So the mercenary moved, forcing himself not to clench his jaw or tense his muscles, not to physically give in to the feelings of helplessness and pain ricocheting through him. He controlled his breathing the way he'd once taught Molly to control hers and then he forced himself to finish the kata he'd begun just before that thought hit.
Blue eyes tracked his movements silently, their owner sitting unobtrusively by the side as he waited for Wade to pause. Then before the older man could start another kata, he tossed a bottle of water at that pretty brown head, expression as impassive as ever.
Wade caught the bottle without looking at North. He stayed very still for a moment, reveling in non-movement after hours of constant motion, then uncapped the water and took a gulp. "Thanks," he said, his voice expressionless. If he let emotion color any part of his outward interactions with people, he'd straight up lose his shit.
As a man of already few words, David had become downright taciturn since everything had gone down the water cistern. He shrugged and rolled to his feet, gaze unreadable as he stepped onto the mats, limbs already stretched and hands already wrapped from the hour he had spent pounding a worn punching bag.
The mansion gym was unfamiliar to him, having done little more than peer in to look for people -- such as Jean, on one such memorable occasion. It was large and bright. Too bright for two old soldiers who had seen far too much and lost more than one could keep track of. But in this instance, David knew that Wade's fresh pain had cut more deeply to the bone than the numbness that had blanketed him and was keeping him from thinking too hard and looking too far inward. It kept David safe and sane. So he did not question it.
But Wade. Wade looked like his face could have been cut from stone. Expression hard and muscles deliberately relaxed. Too relaxed to be natural. David's own expression shifted, a tinge of regret. Not for himself, but for his friend who had been generous with his affection and open with his care.
David was glad he had been loathe to form many such connections.
"Don't do that," Wade said, voice quiet. It was easier to keep himself from shouting if he made himself speak softly. "Don't. You know better than anybody else what happens if I let this go." And it was true. The level of destruction Wade could rain down on anything and anyone if he gave himself free reign would appall most of the people who knew him. Which was why he was here, pretending he didn't feel anything as he ran through kata after kata. Because if he contained himself, he wouldn't become a problem his friends needed to contain.
But the spy only shrugged, unapologetic. Then, with a quiet sigh -- nothing more than a breath -- he shook his head and spoke, quiet and gruff: "You will have to eventually."
"That's the worst idea you've ever had," Wade said. "Including the time you OD'd and I nearly threw you off the roof." He capped the bottle of water and threw it it toward the duffel bag at the side of the gym. "I can't let this go. Now are we going to spar or are you going to go back to lurking?" He knew it wasn't lurking. He knew it was North's way of asking if he was okay without asking, checking up on him without actually checking. He knew his answer conveyed the answer - no, no he was not okay. But he didn't have a solution.
The bottle landed into David's bag with a loud thud and the man, infuriatingly calm, gave yet another shrug, this time in disagreement. Grief contained only turned into madness. He knew it. Wade definitely knew it on some level. Eventually the man would have to take his rage out on something, because such things felt one too many times never just dissipated on its own.
Still, David did shift obligingly into a 'ready' stance, one foot behind the other, knees bent, fists at nose level. He cocked his head at Wade who somehow knew that sparring with an emotionless sack of meat under the current circumstances would be neither cathartic nor satisfying in any way. Even if it did give him something to actually hit (and get hit by) for a while.
The sparring didn't help, but he'd known it wouldn't. There was no satisfaction and, as he lay on the mat a half hour later, knowing he'd show bruises for a bit before they went away, he wondered just what he was doing here, at the mansion. Wade would take physical pain any day over the rage that made him shake. "This isn't working."
"No," David agreed, standing over him as he meticulously unwrapped his his hands, tucking the used tape into a pocket of his sweatpants. His eyes slipped shut as he forced his brain to quiet down so that he would not have to watch two of Wade come to the inevitable conclusion at different times. With his eyes still shut, he offered Wade his hand, steadfastly ignoring how he had not long ago offered that same hand to Wanda.
Wade took North's hand and let the other man pull him to his feet, brushing his palms off on his pants once he was standing, and thought briefly about how his friend's hand would only grow frailer. He'd watch North's hair turn completely white, his eyes cloud over, his skin turn papery, and then he'd watch him die. Unless someone got in a lucky shot before time could do its creeping, crawling work. Odds were good that'd happen.
Wade would watch all of them die - every single person at the mansion. He'd watch the kids who were left grow up and grow old and die. He thought about Marie-Ange and Doug and his chest tightened even more. Inhaling became physically painful. "I can't stay here." His ladybird was of to NOLA, anyway, and Doug was looking after Laurie as best he could. No one needed him right then.
"All right," David agreed easily. Something minute and odd had shifted in Wade's expression and David, while blissfully unaware of Wade's particular line of thought, recognised whatever it was had not been a good thing. In fact, it had felt, for a moment, like the other man would crumple into pieces from within, and it disturbed David enough to put a wrinkle in his brow.
Choosing wisely not to comment on it, he strode over to where their open bags were waiting and snatched both of them up on the way to the door where he paused with a significant look on his face -- a warning to Wade that David's actions were non-negotiable. "Shall we?"
"I hear South Sudan is full of very bad people this time of year," Wade said, trailing after North. "And if that fails, there's always Zaire or Sierra Leone. Might as well get paid for it."
Fine, whatever. David did not care about the details in this particular situation. "Foyer. 1800 hours."
"Cool." Wade snagged his bag from North on the way out and then peeled off, heading for his suite to pack the bare necessities. He had a new ceramic knife he wanted to test out, see if he could get it through airport security. "I'll see you there." He had calls to make - needed to get in touch with Patch to get the contracts lined up, needed to get Weasel to set up transport and start basic recon. He needed to tell people he was going off-grid for a bit.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}