Notes: Written for a prompt on the Cable&Deadpool kink meme, asking for a continuation of a certain ficlet by sarkywoman - which was in turn inspired by the canonical alternate universe where Apocalypse won (and one of his horsemen turned out to be that universe's version of Cable) from C&D 15-16.

If Deadpool squinted up at just the right spot on the rocky cave roof, there was a little niche of shadows that looked like a fluffy bunny. Well, like a bunny that was maybe missing a leg or two. And an ear. And half its face, and had something like a tentacle protruding from somewhere unmentionable. Probably more like a bunny after meeting Elmer Fudd with a double-barrelled shotgun in the middle of rabbit season, really.

Goddamn, wasn't there always supposed to be a bunny up in the clouds when someone did this? Who did this cave think it was anyway? He was the goddamn Deadpool, he'd seen fluffy bunnies in broad daylight when there wasn't a cloud, fairy floss machine or Loony Toons fourth-wall-breakout for miles, what was the ceiling's excuse?

Deadpool was, put simply, bored out of his brain, and this was coming from a brain that tended to turn him away at the door for B.O. and dirty feet even on casual dress nights.

The one mercy of being chained up down in a cave with décor fresh out of Modern S+M Monthly (Extra Affordable Monochrome Edition) was that at least his captor's sadism hadn't extended to gagging him - because fond as Deadpool was of his little yellow boxes, some days they just weren't the same. He'd spent the last week working his way through his entire repertoire of show tunes and 90's pop hits (his complete collection 80's pop hits and favourite TV jingles having run out the week before). Say what you like about the cave, it had great acoustics – on a good day he could do whole duets with his own echo. Only trouble was that the snobby reverberation never would agree to sing the backup parts, and whenever Deadpool got to the bits that inevitably went "Nananana something potato meow meow nanana something," there was always something creeping into its tone that seemed to be mocking him.

Stupid echo. See if it ever competed with his boxes for favourite backup device.

Worse yet, the damn cave kept dripping on him. Not often, and not with any kind of regularity detectable with a wandering mind and not a single clock in sight, but it seemed like every time he was right up to the upper-key-bonus-chorus of his latest performance, some horrible stalagmite (tite? Bite? Fite? He didn't know and wouldn't have cared if there'd been anything else around to distract him, which there wasn't) up there in the bunnyless-shadows-of-the-roof would critique his performance by loosing a drop of water right into his face. Oh, he'd tried warning it; he'd made it perfectly clear to that no-good cave-ornament that if it did that one more time – one more time – he'd be up there in a flash and see if he didn't turn the last thousand years of calciferous limestone formation into extra-whitening toothpaste, but just when he thought he'd got that ceiling good and intimidated, what happened? Drip, right in the nose. The whole being chained down thing must have been really taking the edge of his threats.

What really worried him – apart from the ongoing torture of being constantly dripped on when the guy upstairs only let him up for bathroom breaks on alternating Tuesdays – was the burning question of just how long he had left before all that dripping mineral water built up and turned him into an attractive cave formation of his own. A hundred years, maybe? A thousand? Why, in geo-marvel time, that was practically the blink of an eye! On the other hand, getting turned into a human stalagmite had to be good for at least one new superpower, right? It was going to be that or sit around and wait for a radioactive cave newt to wander by.

It was a thought he made the most of, because the only other way to pass the time down here was counting the skulls, and once you knew the cave you were sitting in contained three-hundred-and-forty-oh-fuck-it-close-enough skulls, that got pretty old too. There was the whole Swiss assortment of other bones down here too, but Deadpool could never think of the names of any of the interesting bendy ones. How did that song go again, the rib bone's connected to the... next rib bone? The fibula, maybe? Something ending in 'ibula'... hibula? Ribula? And where was the T-bone supposed to fit in? Being able to classify every bone in the body by the sound it made when you broke it was a nice party trick, but it didn't help him recognise them on the outside, and singing, "The crunch-ohfuckfuckfuck-bone's connected to the snikt-crackle-my-arm-my-arm-bone" just wasn't ever the same.

Hold on a second, he was missing the obvious solution! He had a skeleton, all connected up right and everything! He should just get all his bones tattooed with their names, and whenever he forgot again he could just open himself up and check his tags! Genius!

Oh wait, that was him forgetting about that little being-tied-down problem again. He couldn't open anything up right now. Rats. It'd been such a good plan too.

Man, it was a real good thing he was already out of his skull, or being stuck down here could drive a guy insane.

You really knew you had problems when your evil-megalomaniac-captor stopping by to molest you for a bit was the unequivocal highlight of your week. If the whole chained-up-in-a-cave part wasn't already enough of a clue.

...Speak of the devil. He'd know the sound of those steel toed-soled-and-heeled boots anywhere. 'Course, Evil-Nate was the only one who ever came down here, so if he'd heard someone tap-dancing their way down with a full backing accompaniment of Happy Feet, it'd still be safe to assume it was him, only on way too much caffeine and sugar. That or revolutionaries with seriously weird taste in victory music. Or a hallucination, but even those mostly left him alone these days – bunny-shaped or otherwise.

Heh, tap-dancing Evil-Nate. That was a good one, he should really remember it.

"Heyyyy, War old buddy! How's conquering? Big Boss still got you and the rest of the Infamous Four still working all those crazy hours? I'm telling you Nate, you should get the union on him – even henchmen get an hour off a day to spend with their families and prisoners."

The footsteps stopped, just beyond the halo of light created by the forest of drippy candles, leaving War still largely shrouded by shadows. (Poser.) "How touching. I might almost think you'd missed me."

"Oh, nah, I've been great, seriously! Never better! Me and your ceiling, we could just staaaare into each other's stalagmites forever. Just today I found another place up there you could fit a widescreen TV!"

"Hm. Now there's a thought."

"Oh don't be like... what, really?"

"What you may have forgotten is that there isn't a single television network still functioning on the entire continent."

"...oh you evil bastard."

"You flatter me." More footsteps, and if Deadpool was getting maybe just a little breathy about Evil-Nate moving into arm's reach, it was just frustration. Wait, anger. Rage! That was the one. And totally not in a sexy way.

"I am so not kidding." A hand landed on Deadpool's ankle and started dragging its way upwards, but if War thought that was all it would take to make it up to him he had another thing coming. "The drippy cave and all the skulls and spikes and the whole Marquis de Fucking Miserable theme you've got going down here – baby, that's Discount Dungeon evil, but tormenting a guy in the throws of Golden Girls withdrawal, that's just... ohgodplease, it doesn't have to be a widescreen. You can put a skull motif on it and everything, it won't even clash with the décor! I know you have all the Terminator movies on DVD, I'll even take the security feed from the back alley behind the air-conditioning ducts! I'll take reruns of Pushing Daisies!"

"You," said War with considerable pleasure, "are losing it."

"Am not. Know exactly where it is. Only put it down just a second ago. Left it in my other pants." There was a drawn out ripping sound. "Ooookaaay, in my only pants. Wait, wasn't I wearing my other pants already? Hey, if you want this sexy body in skirts you'd better let me up to shave my legs first, there's like, a Geneva convention about it and everything."

"You're trying to divert me. It isn't going to work."

"Shit, hey! Cold fingers, cold fingers!" Squirming like a startled weasel wasn't going to help Deadpool very much, but he couldn't do much to help it either. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that TO mesh is mean at cold temperatures? Where've you been, conquering Iceland?"

"Norway, if you must know."

"Huh. Did you get me anything nice?"

War's grin expanded slowly into something containing enough teeth to be near-Liefeldian. "The rebel leader's head on a platter?"

"Awww, you – nnngh – shouldn't have. Anyone I know?"

"Doubtful."

"Okay, but sweet as that was of you, seriously – you shouldn't have, I'm up to my skull in skulls down here. Perhaps a nice ribula or two next time, and if you could maybe just get it labelled for me... oh..." The sentence broke off into something less coherent and rather more drawn out.

"Look, honey, hate to bring this up," keeping his voice at the same octave was getting further beyond Deadpool by the minute, "but I think our relationship's kinda – nnnn – stuck in a rut."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, 'oh'. It's all BDSM-this, casual-non-con-that, page-53-of-the-karma-sutra-for-kinky-fifth-dimensional-Stockholm-victims-the-other. There's just no surprise anymore, it's all spice and no vanilla and that's... that's, uh, really bad for your digestion... ohnnnrgh... are you even listening?"

"You're saying you think it's time we tried something... different?"

Later, Deadpool would realise he should have been paying a lot more attention to War's tone at this point.

"Yes! Yes that's it exactly, there's this wild thing I read about once called 'missionary position' where..."

"Hm. Perhaps you have a point." With that, War leaned back, and then stepped away from Deadpool altogether.

"Wait, what? What are you doing!?"

"Trying something different," said War, pointedly re-fastening a few crucial pieces of armour.

Deadpool stared in not-at-all-mute disbelief. "Oh come on, orgasm denial is so not even original anymore! You can't leave me like this!"

"What you haven't yet grasped is that I can do exactly. What I please."

"Like my oversexed evil overlord could go a day without putting a hand on me? You'll come crawling back! This punishes you just as much as me... huh, okay, in point of fact you do have two hands and neither of them tied to anything... hey... Hey! Don't you walk away from me! You don't have any idea what kind of rude gestures I might be pulling behind your back! Joke's over, not funny anymore!"

The sound of footsteps retreating up the stairs was the only sound in the cave for a good fifteen seconds.

"Okay fine, I give in! What do I have to do, beg? Who do you want me to kill before you let me up from here! Orphans? Puppies? Martha Stewart? I'll do Martha Stewart's orphaned puppy if that's what it takes, and by god I'll probably even enjoy it! I'll wear the outfit with the spikes you like and everything! War? I know you're listening right where I can't see you just to psych me out!"

The only noise was that of a very large, heavy door closing in its usually ponderous manner.

"WAR!"