"Hey." Something was poking him in the ribs. "Hey, you alive man?"
Wade kept his eyes firmly shut. If he didn't open his eyes, he didn't have to wake up. He could still pretend this was all a dream. He didn't want to open his eyes just to be greeted by the slimy grin of a foul-nosed Raider or worse, the bleak expanse of unbroken sky above him.
"Hey man, if you're dead, Imma take your stuff."
Wade wrinkled his nose in confusion. That didn't sound like a Raider. Come to think of it, those weren't claws skating over his flesh either. A hand snaked its way down to his boots and what Wade identified as fingers started to undo his laces. Okay, that was decidedly unRaider-like behavior.
Quick as a whip, Wade kicked his foot up and into something solid and flipped himself over onto the shoe thief. He wasn't quite as agile as he had hoped to be, and he nearly took the long fall to meet the pavement below. Fortunately however, thanks to the squirming of the young man beneath him, he was thrown violently to the opposite side, landing unceremoniously on the kid's face. He quickly wriggled down and pinned the other man's arms above his head and sat on his legs so that they would stop trying to kick him in the head.
"Nobody touches my stuff," Wade growled lowly, his face inches away from the other man's. "Certainly not some twinkly princess-haired mook. Thought you could sneak up on me, eh?" Wade paused and contemptuously regarded the man trapped between his legs. "Who the fuck are you anyway? Haven't seen you on the reserve before, and I think I would've noticed a face like that." Wade was of course referring his chiseled brow and fiery hazel eyes that threatened to wrench his head from his shoulders, not the obviously mangled nose currently leaking blood into the space between them.
"Who the fuck am I? Who the fuck are you?" With that, the man bucked his hips up and Wade went flying, just barely managing to find purchase in the cracked stone before he started to truly fall. He had to admit, he was impressed. The kid had some moves.
With a heaving groan, Wade pulled himself once again back onto the statue. He paused momentarily to roll the stiffness out of his shoulders. Sleeping up here on the exposed rock of some long deceased bald guy's head had been fatuous in more ways than one apparently.
"Ya know," Wade groaned as his back finally unkinked itself with a shark cracking sound. "You're pretty strong for a kid. What's your secret? Pilates? Step aerobics?" He tossed a glance back over his shoulder, effectively decompressing his neck in the process, to size up his new companion.
The kid was gone.
Wade looked around wildly, his head spinning like the bobbleheads he used to collect. He was standing on a rounded slab of stone maybe ten foot square, if that. There was nowhere that the young man could have hid himself. Wade was alone.
A gruesome thought struck him and he quickly dashed to peer over the edge. With a sinking feeling, he traced the denticulate rubble with his well-trained eyes, scanning for an all too familiar crimson stain.
Nope. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. The only bits of red he saw was his own flaking plasma remnants from his earlier ascent. There was no large splash of color or even a body to suggest that the kid had met an unfortunate and early demise.
Wade scratched his head. There was no earthly way the kid could have gotten down that quickly, and certainly not without hurting himself. He supposed it must be easier going up than down, but still. It must have taken him at least half an hour to climb up here and, well, he had muscles. The kid, on the other hand, was built like a dry twig. There was no way he had done it in what, sixty seconds?
And here was Wade's problem. He knew, logically, that it was impossible for anyone to vanish like that. But here he was, alone. Wade's first instinct was to rule it yet another hallucination, but…Wade rubbed his left elbow and winced at the stinging pain that shot through it. Contradictory information. Wade knew nothing had transpired, and yet here he was, in pain. Wade lived in a perpetual state of confusion and dissonance, cherry picking his way through reality.
Wade took a long breath to steady himself. Okay. Mr. Cheekbones McSexyface, obviously not real. The pain coursing through his left arm? Definitely real. He glanced down at his shoes. The laces on his right curb stomper were halfway undone. The problem was, he couldn't remember if he had even tied them in the first place.
Wade groaned and dragged his hand down his face in frustration. This trip was supposed to reaffirm his sanity, not confuse it further.
He took stock of the shortening shadows and glanced up at the sky, now noticeably a few shades paler. He estimated that he had maybe an hour before it was bright enough for him to become Raider-chow. Great, one hour to pick his way through the maze of dilapidation. Well this was going to be fun.
He had just started to search for an easy way down, preferably one with sturdy footholds, when he saw it. It was just for a second, and it was brief enough that Wade wasn't entirely unsure that he had imagined it. He trained his eyes intently on the spot where it had vanished in between two monolithic boulders. There. His eyes caught the same flash of cinnamon he'd seen before. It was a mop of hair- just as stringy and unruly as before.
He made a mental note of where the man was heading before throwing himself off of the statue. He slid down just slow enough to avoid death, but heedless of any other dangers the unforgiving stone presented. One harrowing and admittedly painful ride later, he was tearing off after the man he had seen.
His right sleeve was entirely nonfunctional, and Wade was pretty sure he had lost the seat of his pants if the hot breeze was anything to go by, but he didn't care. The boy from before was real. At least Wade hoped so. It would be really embarrassing showing back up at camp and having to explain how his disheveled appearance came from chasing a hallucination.
His sleeve kept smacking him in the face as he ran, making an annoying flapping sound and flinging tiny rocks in his face. He ripped it off in annoyance. In retrospect, he probably should have kept it; it was much easier to repair a jacket than to scavenge for a new one. Whatever. He didn't have time to stop. He needed all the speed he could get. He could actually see the kid now, picking his way between the rubble unhurriedly, apparently oblivious to the two hundred something pound mercenary barreling towards him at full speed.
Wade threw his hand up. "Wait! Hey dude, wait!" The kid looked back over his shoulder and narrowed his eyes in annoyance before returning to his task at a quicker pace than before. Wade marveled at the way he was able to effortlessly bounce over the obstacles in his way. With practiced moves like that, it was apparent that the kid had been here for quite some time. Wade stared for a second before he realized that watching the kid swing effortlessly over a large sheet of metal meant that he was getting away. He swore and started hustling toward the younger man once again.
"Hey man, seriously. I'm going to chase you until stop and talk to me." Despite Wade's words, the other man didn't stop, but he did pause long enough for Wade to weasel up and snag the man's ankle.
The man looked down from where he was scaling a particularly nasty piece of sheetrock. "Fuck off."
Wade gaped openly at the man's asperity. "Is that anyway to treat someone you just met?"
"You broke my nose." He shook off Wade's hand and resumed his ascent. Wade took a second to admire this new view before dashing under a precariously perched beam and cutting him off on the other side.
"My name's Wade. What's yours?" Wade stuck out his hand for a handshake.
The other man curled his lip in annoyance. "Stop following me."
"Stop following me? Well that's a weird name." The other man just glared at him. "Oh, come on, it was a joke. You do know what a joke is, right?" Again, wade was met with a steely stare. "Look, I just wanted to say hi, maybe get to know you a little bit. It's not every day you run into someone in the middle of a deserted wasteland.
Now, come on. What's your name? Or your favorite color? Or, well, anything really. Please, just say something so I know this isn't just my brain dicking with me."
Peter paused, apparently weighing his options. Eventually he sighed and let out a begrudging "Peter. Blue. Now please leave me alone."
Wade awkwardly licked his lips. "You know, I feel like you liked me better when you thought I was dead."
"Maybe you are. Maybe I'm just a figment of your imagination." Peter wiggled his fingers in front of Wade's face. "Close your eyes and count to ten and let's find out."
Wade pouted. "You're just saying that to so that you can ditch me"
Peter let out a puff of breath in exasperation. "Whatever man, sun's coming up soon, so either scram or get eaten. It's your choice."
"Or, and I'm just spit-balling here, so hear me out, I could come with you."
Peter barked out a laugh. "Fat chance, you'd just slow me down. Now, if you'd excuse me…"
"Wait!" Wade could see Peter tense his shoulders in aggravation, but he turned back to face the merc anyway. "I, uh, I'm not exactly sure where I am."
"You don't know where you are," Peter repeated, looking for all the world like someone had just handed him a bag filled with nothing but licorice jellybeans.
"Er, yeah, see I wasn't a hundred percent with it when I decided to stroll out here, and then I got all turned around chasing after you, and well, now I'm lost." Wade could feel his cheeks growing hot under Peter's scrutiny. He could only imagine how he looked, his suit was in tatters. He was one-sleeved and bare cheeked in more ways than one, with all his scars bare to the world. He wished he had thought to bring his mask with him, but then, it wasn't like had had been expecting company.
"You're lost," Peter echoed.
Wade nodded furiously. "Yeah, so you know, any help at all would be-"
"Good luck with that." With that, Peter retreated over a small pile of debris, and Wade was forced to duck to avoid the shower of pebbles he left in his wake.
Wade stared in disbelief at the spot where Peter had disappeared. Peter had abandoned him, and now he was alone and completely turned around in a sunlit raider-infested city.
Fuck.