Gabriel & Wade | Early Friday Morning

[x-deadpool.livejournal.com]

Wade's in the city and needs a ride home. Also, a stop at IHOP. He asks Gabriel to drive.


Wade had propped himself up outside the back door to Gabriel's place of employment, a blood-soaked rag pressed to his side and a steely glint in his eye. Stupid asshats, thinking they could mug a dude just for walking around a shady part of the city after midnight. Still, he'd had to cancel his original pick-up plan, which left him either crashing at one of his safehouses in the city, taking a taxi out to the mansion, or... getting Gabriel to drive his car for him, since he wasn't 100% sure he'd be able to keep it between the lines, as it were.

A minute or two went by, time enough for two sirens to wail and fade into the distance as Wade waited. Then, the heavy door swung open to reveal a tank-top clad Gabriel with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He was fumbling in the pockets of his black jeans for his lighter as he took a step or two outside, only to tense up at the sight of a tall man's shadow.

"Oh, uh–" He turned his head to look at the figure. The cigarette fell out of his lips as his jaw dropped. "The fuck?"

Gesturing with his mostly-not-bloody hand in a vague attempt at a hello, Wade said, "So, funny story. But before I tell it, when do you get off work, will you drive me back out to Westchester, and can we stop at an IHOP on the way?"

Gabriel stared at him, words failing him briefly. "You gonna bleed out in this back alley before then? Do I need to leave now?"

Wade considered the wound in his side then shook his head. "I should be good for another couple hours. Probably. I mean, it's not gonna kill me, regardless of how much blood I lose. You should be alright to finish out your shift, assuming it ends at a reasonable time of the morning."

"Uh huh." Gabriel looked as skeptical as he sounded. Reaching into his pockets again, he fished out his phone and glanced at the time. How was it already 2 a.m.? "I can get out of here in 30 if I trade a few favors, but you're buying my pancakes."

"Deal," Wade said. Negotiation wasn't really his strong suit on the best of days and he kind of needed to remember if he had a spare set of clothes in the trunk of the car he'd stashed in a parking deck down the road. IHOP wasn't going to let him sit in there when he was all bloody, after all.

"Okay." Gabriel nodded, still lacking much in the way of facial expression. He looked over Wade again, his eyes resting on the bloody rag. His brow furrowed for a second, and then he sighed. "Hold on," he looked back up at Wade, his expression unreadable. "Don't move. Try not to pass out." He spun around on his heel and walked back into the bar, leaving the other man in the alley for a few minutes.

When he returned, he had a canvas messenger bag with him. It looked a little worn, even though the tags were still on it. "Here." He took it off his shoulder and handed it to Wade. "I keep clothes here in case, you know..." He just shrugged. "Sometimes I don't go home. They're not gonna fit you great, but nobody bled on them."

"Aw," Wade said, taking the bag with his free hand. "Your go-bag. Thanks, G. I'll... uh. Replace whatever I bleed on."

"Yeah, no problem. You know, you can always come inside and use our bathroom. Hold the bag over the wound or whatever." Gabriel shrugged. "Your call. I gotta finish up my shift and convince my customers to close their tabs, but I'll find you wherever in half an hour."

"Thanks," Wade said, nodding. He decided to take Gabriel's suggestion about the bathroom, which was why, a half hour later as they made their way through the streets toward the parking deck, he was reasonably free of blood.

The IHOP, when they got there, was a blessed bastion of light, warmth, and pancake-y goodness. Not to mention coffee and so much sugar-soaked-fruit-filling Wade probably would've had diabetes after two bites had it not been for his healing factor. "I mean," he said, as though continuing a conversation they'd been having when, in fact, they hadn't been talking at all. They'd been eating. "The sheer variety of textures, flavors, and sizes in that go-bag of yours, man. I didn't even know they made condoms that legitimately glowed in the dark. Color me impressed."

"Yeah, well," Gabriel shrugged, "not like I use 'em that much." There was a beat, and Gabriel looked up from his plate to see a weird look from Wade. It took him a second to parse it. "Oh, no, I mean, not that I'm not using them. No, no, just... not much occasion to do so as of late." He shrugged again, grabbing a sip of the decaf coffee he'd ordered. "Anyway, most of those are leftovers from pride things or when the bar has parties or whatever. We keep a bunch in a fishbowl near our lockers. Can never be too safe."

Cutting off another slice of his stack of pancakes, Wade quirked an eyebrow. "Living to work, G?"

Gabriel snorted and rolled his eyes. "Because I'm not sleeping around right now?" He reached for a thing of syrup and started pouring it on the waffle he ordered to go with his pancakes. "Nah. Guys have been boring. Haven't been interested." He put the syrup down and speared a section of the waffle with his fork. "Summer's in full swing now. We'll see." He didn't sound too convinced.

Somewhere, in some parallel timeline, Wade might have used that as a segue into talking about feelings, about loss and all kinds of other things. Instead, he forked his slice of pancake stack and ate it. Chewing thoughtfully, he reached for his triple order of hashbrowns. "I mean. Maybe it's the guys you're hanging around with. All talk, no action."

"I'm an attractive gay man under 30. Not much talk."

Wade twirled his fork around a bit after he got a good bite of his hashbrowns. "The confidence just rolls off you in waves."

"Facts are facts. Tell me I'm wrong." Gabriel smirked before taking a bite. He looked like a shade of his old self - the one he'd been when he first showed up at the mansion. "Important to know what you're worth."

"Yeah, it is," Wade said, nodding easily. "So tell me, G. You actually wear the mesh shirt thing I found in the bag with the condoms?"

"That's a work outfit," Gabriel responded, waving his hand dismissively. "You tell me how you managed to fit into my pants."

Laughing, Wade shook his head. "I didn't - I mean, I got them zipped, but I looked like a kid who had a growth spurt and hasn't had a chance to get new ones yet. Seriously, four inches, it was the worst case of high waters ever. Mine're black, so I figured I'd take a chance on them."

"And yet you're still wearing my shirt," Gabriel grinned. "Quite the fashion statement."

"Well, mine had a hole in it," Wade said, his tone imminently reasonable. "But, fashion statements aside, thanks for driving. If you ever need it, I keep a car in that parking deck."

"Oh. Good to know," Gabriel nodded. He watched Wade eat for a second, opened his mouth to say something, then stuck some bacon in it instead. They sat in silence, back to eating for a bit before Gabriel finally piped back in. "How do you have so many cars? Did you steal them? Are they Charles' rides? What's the deal?"

Wade glanced around the IHOP to see who might be listening but there were only a couple college students sitting in a corner booth, the endless carafe of coffee perched between them, and the waitstaff. 3:30am was an excellent time to have vaguely confidential conversations in an IHOP, he decided. "You know what I do, right? I make a lot of money. It's not difficult to buy a car in dire need of repair and then restore it. I do a lot of restoring."

"X-people pay that well?" Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "Or you just saving a lot on rent?"

Tilting his head to the side a little, Wade mentally ran through all the conversations he'd had with Gabriel and then came to a semi-startling realization. "Oh," he said, straightening a little. "Sorry. I totally forgot you don't know what I did before the X-thing. Mercenary."

Gabriel was quiet, staring straight at Wade while he took another sip of his coffee. He stayed like that for some time, his hands tightly clasped around the mug. "Please tell me," he said, his eyes closing briefly, "I did not transport you somewhere after you..."

"Nah," Wade said, shaking his head. "I was meeting a contact about transporting a suit of Chinese armor I acquired to a vault in Switzerland. Some idiots tried to mug me. Besides, 'mercenary' is not the same thing as 'assassin.'" He paused to consider that for a moment, then said. "Not all the time, anyway."

"Right," Gabriel stretched out the vowel, his disbelief clear as day on his face. "Well," he said carefully after the silence had gone on long enough that it was almost awkward, "I suppose that's one way to make a living."

"It worked for a while," Wade said, shrugging. "After the military, I didn't see that I had much else to offer." He eyed Gabriel for a long moment, then said, "For the past decade or so, I did protection details, not wetwork. Doing the X-thing has... somewhat changed the nature of my job."

"I'm sure. The X-thing seems to change a lot of things."

"Mm..." Wade took another bite of pancake, then asked, "Is this going to be a thing now? Like, you get all weird and quiet and don't offer to let me wear your shirts anymore because now I'm not just Wade, I'm Wade-the-former-mercenary?"

"What? No. You just told me, like 30 seconds ago. Gotta process, but..." Gabriel picked up a piece of bacon with his fingers. "I'll get over it, probably. Everyone's got a past."

"True," Wade said. "Very true." Picking up his glass of orange juice, he drank half of it in one go, took a breath, and downed the rest of it. "Since we handily avoided having a bonding moment there, you want more pancakes? Or another waffle?"

"God, no." Gabriel glanced at the half-eaten waffle and pancakes still in front of him. "More carbs than I know what to do with. You do you, though."

"Your metabolism's gotta be off the charts, G," Wade said, spearing a piece of melon from his gratuitous cup of fruit. "Y'know, with stuff."

"I dunno. Maybe. Depends how much I run, and how much I 'run.'" Gabriel cut off another section of waffle. "I eat when I'm hungry. Stop when I'm not. Never had to worry about being fat or anything."

"I just always wanna like. Feed you a rack of ribs or something. A few burgers. Some fries. Brownies. Oh, ice cream sundaes!" Wade said, pulling the menu toward himself again so he could see what varieties they might offer.

"Really?" Gabriel snorted. "Why?"

"You're too skinny," Wade answered.

"Uh, I'm lean, like a runner. That's not a bad thing."

Amused, Wade said, "I'm old, G. It's my prerogative to tell young people they're too skinny and to try and feed them."

Gabriel wrinkled his nose. "That's stupid." Even so, he took another bite of his food. "You have, like, the world's most insane metabolism. Not everyone can eat the entire Taco Bell menu nine times over and still be hungry."

"Taco Bell is the taco lover's hell," Wade said, his expression very serious. "Which doesn't mean I haven't eaten everything on that menu nine times, I just didn't like it." He paused to consider that, then corrected, "I didn't enjoy it as much as homemade or whatever." Then he waved his hand a little bit and went back to his hashbrowns. "Which is all besides the point."

"And the point would be what, exactly?" Gabriel grabbed the syrup so he could pour more on what remained of his waffle. "It's, like, 3:30 a.m., and I'm too tired to remember how we got on this tangent."

Grinning, Wade said, "I'm pretending to be crotchety. I don't think we actually had a point. But I'ma order a sundae and then we can head back to the mansion."

"Okay," Gabriel nodded. He glanced down at his plate, then back up at Wade. "Let's get more hashbrowns too."