Chapter Seven June 30, 1998
517 W 135th St,
Harlem, New York City
3:58 PM

Wade

Wade's jaw hurt from grinding his teeth as he looked at the pictures of burned bodies. The news said it had been a group of illegal immigrants. I.C.E. was working together with the F.B.I. to try and find out how the two hundred plus refugees had gotten onto the cargo ship and what had caused the explosion. There were rumors of traces of C4, but Wade had the fire marshal's report in front of him and there was nothing about foul play. It had been ruled an accident, caused by an oil leak and a cigarette butt that hadn't been put out, however, he figured the documents wouldn't reflect the truth. He sat on the worn and blood stained couch in his living room, the floor littered with papers and pictures that to anyone else would have just looked like a scattered mess but Wade could see the patterns.

[Definitely human trafficking]

{Oh yea, this guy is guiltier than Mussolini}

He had thrown up when he'd gone to the site. It took a lot to make his stomach turn these days but the sight of the bodies would be something he'd have nightmares about for the rest of his very long life. He could still see the bodies of three children clinging to a larger corpse, their flesh blackened to the bone as they had been roasted together.

Oh the things I'm going to do to this man, he growled. He'd spent the last couple of days digging up everything he could find in connection to Bradley. His contacts had gotten back to him with very little, all of them more afraid of Bradley than Deadpool, which was saying a lot. Trying to find dirt on him was like trying to get water to stick to plastic. It was beyond infuriating and if he was honest with himself, which he rarely liked to be, he had had an easier time getting information on Weapon X. He'd found a couple sources though, a few loose screws in the operation that when plied with the right kind of pressure [that would be torture kids] had given up a few bread crumbs. He'd tried to not kill them but the truth was that if he'd left anyone alive, they would have just told their bosses what they'd told him and his leads would dry up. They had signed up to participate in drugs, weapons and human trafficking, they had to live with the consequences… or not so much as live as it turned out.

He checked the time, he needed to leave in the next few minutes if he was going to get back in a reasonable time. He told Bradley that he'd be watching him tonight from outside the apartment, hunting down the mutant so he shouldn't expect to see him. In reality he was going to Milton to find Abegail and move her somewhere safer. He knew there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop Heru so why bother wasting his time. With a grunt, he got up. He grabbed his suit and packed it in his hockey bag along with Bea and Arthur, his stuffed unicorn, Bernadette and another dozen weapons. He grabbed the second hot pink duffel filled with ammo and headed out. It was nearly an eight hour drive but it would be easier to get across with all his metallic friends than it would be trying to get through the airport security with them. He had a few friends that worked at the Rainbow bridge and they had promised to get him across under the radar. He grabbed his car keys and headed out, his cell phone buzzing as he locked the door. He pulled it out and flipped it open, there was a new text from Sweetcheeks.+++++++++

From: Sweetcheeks

Hey, you workin?

[Oh my god, he actually messaged!] Wade's heart had stopped and then jump started to a hundred and twenty beats a minute when he saw the message. He hadn't heard from Heru since their night of Mario Kart. He figured that was it, he hadn't honestly expected him to message. He thought he might see him a couple more times until Bradley kicked it {or we kicked it for him}, but he didn't think he'd actually talk to him. He knew Heru had only pretended to be friendly in order to get Wade to back off and let him work. So he had.

To: Sweetcheeks

Just about to go see some Canucks. How you been brown eyes?

He hit send and headed down to the parking garage where he stored "his" car. He rarely drove, everyone knew driving in the city was pointless, but he kept the car for the kinds of situations that required road trips. His phone buzzed before he made it to the elevator and he smiled from his mask. He was in civvies, but he never left his apartment without his mask on anymore. He had grown tired of the staring a really long time ago.

From Sweetcheeks

Sorry I haven't texted sooner, it's been a busy couple days. Been thinking about your ass and how I'd like to beat it again… in Mario Kart I mean.

{Oh nelly}

[I bet he's been busy, Bradley's been busy giving him plenty of souls to reap]

To Sweetcheeks
Damn girl, you're going to give me a stiffy if you keep talking like that. Wish I wasn't going to be out of town or we could get together

He sent the reply and got out of the elevator and headed to his car. The idea of hanging out, drinking and playing video games with the beautiful reaper was far more enticing than spending the day in the car trying to turn an eight hour drive into a five hour one.

From Sweetcheeks

Might be a bit forward, but you want company? I have some business to take care of tonight but I'm free until about nine and I'm bored out of my fucking skull.

Wade hesitated as he reread the message.

To Sweetcheeks

Sure, I'm just getting in my car now, I can pick you up in twenty.

From Sweetcheeks

What's the address? I'll save you the trip.

Wade typed in the address and hit send as he approached his sedan. A second later Heru was laying across the hood of his car, a hand on his hip. Wade's mouth fell open as he looked at him. He was wearing an adorable yellow Care-Bear t-shirt under his usual biker jacket and a tight pair of black pants that were covered in a number of buckles and zippers, topped off by a pair of bright red converse.

"Hey hot stuff," he greeted with a grin and jumped off, careful not to scratch the paint.

"Hey baby boy," he said, unable to contain his own grin.

[Kiss him]

{Don't be stupid}

"It's a nice thought" he muttered, instead he popped the trunk and dumped his bags.

"So what's taking you to the Great White North?" Heru asked, opening the passenger door and leaning against the frame as he waited for Wade to get in.

"Work," he said. He wasn't sure how Heru would react to him investigating Bradley. He'd told him he couldn't tell him what he was up to, but he hadn't also told him that he couldn't look into it himself.

"Ah," Heru got in the car as Wade sat down and started the engine, "cool beans. What kind of music do you have?" he asked, immediately digging into the giant mess of CDs that littered the floor and dashboard.

"We're listening to Wham!" he told him, grinning, "it's the best road trip music ever, nay, it's the best music ever," he rattled happily and Heru groaned.

"Ugh, alright, it's cool, I know the rules 'driver picks the music, passenger shuts his pie hole'," he flashed him a grin and put his feet up on the dash and leaned the seat back, Wade chuckled.

{Yea, this is going to be much better}

[I concur]

Me three, he pulled out of the parking structure and headed through the traffic to highway NJ-139.

"So," Heru started, glancing at him before looking back at the road, "I couldn't help but notice that you're still working for Bradley," he said, he didn't sound mad, only curious.

"Yea well," he tugged at the back of his mask, "I figured I might learn a thing or two about the guy," he answered honestly and looked over to see Heru watching him, those chocolate eyes filled with a sadness that made him almost physically hurt.

"Yea," he nodded and looked away, resting his head back, "I figured you would end up looking into him," he turned away to look out the window at the passing buildings.

"You got a problem with that?" he asked, there was no way in hell he was going to back off.

[We're going to have a problem if he does]

"No," he sighed, "of course not," he smiled back at him before turning away again, "just want you to be careful," he whispered.

"Aw don't worry sweetcheeks, I'm always careful," he lied and reached out, only stopping himself from patting Heru's knee at the last second. Heru had frozen, his eyes locked on the road but he hadn't recoiled this time.

[I'm not sure if that's an improvement]

Heru snorted and looked over at him, "if you looked up careful in the dictionary, the antonym would be Deadpool," he scoffed.

{He's got a point}

"I don't need to be careful," he joshed, "you're not the only one who can't be killed remember?" Heru smiled warmly at him and shook his head.

"Yea," he sighed, "oooh this is a good song!" as A Ray of Sunshine came on and they both broke into song, grinning like idiots. Wade had to be careful to keep his eyes on the road and not on the man next to him who was dancing in his seat and making a point to eye him during the chorus.

June 30, 1998

Highway NY-17, just outside Binghamton
6:30 PM

Heru

"I'm all out of love! I'm so lost without you baby," Heru sang at the top of his lungs, his hands clenched to his chest as he bellowed the words, his voice melding with Wade's voice, "I know you were right for believing for so long."

"I'm all out of love! I'm so lost without you baby, I can't be too late to say that I was so wrong," Wade bawled, continuing to sing the next verse while Heru laughed, his chest burning from the last hour of singing and laughing. Heru had found a CD of love ballads and giving into the peer pressure of Past and Present, he'd put it on. He stole a drink from Wade's Big Gulp. He'd been repulsed by Wade's combining of all the flavors of soda, but after a lot of insisting he try it, he'd had and to his annoyance, he'd loved it. Since then, he suspected he regretted convincing him to try it because he had managed to drink half of it.

"I'm so lost without you," he joined in, taking over as Wade paused to also take a drink. He'd rolled his mask up over his mouth half an hour ago after nearly hyperventilating after a particularly long note. Heru didn't mind. He knew Wade thought he was grossed out by his skin, but Deadpool was known to his readers to be insecure about it and he thought everyone was disgusted by him. Not Heru. Nothing could have been further from the truth. He struggled to look at him not because of the cancer raging war across his skin but simply because a Reaper's vision was very different from a human's. Because Reapers existed in all points of time and space across all the realities and dimensions, they saw everything happening at once. It would be impossible for a human to comprehend and it was still a cacophony of sensation even for Heru, but he was able to filter it out [thanks to certain voices] 'cue applause'. It was typically easy to focus on the present in the current reality he was in when looking at people or the things touched by death, especially easier for those not on his list. For the souls on his list, he was already aware of everything about them across realities since he collected their souls from every dimension. It was much harder to not see all of their timelines overlaying his sight when he was looking at one of them. But Deadpool was different. A curse of immortality had been placed on him {correction: will be placed} and in doing so, he had/would become a uniquely fixed point in time, his ability to break the Fourth Wall adding an additional layer of complexity. It was a lot harder to focus on the present when looking at Wade because time was, well to put it simply, royally fucked around him. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, more beautiful than watching galaxies form but it was equally painful as it was breathtaking. It burned like he had stared into the sun for an hour, unblinking, his retinas on fire and forever scarred. It was so against the laws of nature, so horrific and cruel that it sent his senses into overdrive and it fried his brain for a few seconds whenever he looked at him for more than a few minutes. There was the reprieve that he had simply because Wade Winston Wilson was not a name on his list and that meant he at least didn't automatically see every timeline of his, nor did he automatically see his soul.

{But a simple touch would change that.}

Heru grabbed a random CD out of the pile and pulled out the ballads when the song had ended, the CD about to restart with track 1. He popped in the next CD and Believe by Cher began to play.

Oh my god I love this song!

"I haven't heard this in years," Heru raised his arms over his head and began to dance, singing along, his eyes closed.

{This was a great club song when it came out}

'What are you talking about? It still is!'

Touching someone not on a Reaper's list would cause an information download, or so that's what Heru had called it when it had started to happen shortly after his fifteenth birthday and he had touched Andreas. He would see the moment of their death across every time-stream which for most people, wasn't a nice peaceful death after a long and natural life {do you know just how few people die a peaceful, happy natural death?}. The closer he was to the person though, the more he could see about that person. He could see their entire life, every important moment, every tiny, insignificant second; he would know their soul as intimately as his own and that was why he pulled away from the merc beside him. It wasn't right, as far as he was concerned, he had no business knowing anyone like that without their explicit desire and consent.

"Don't wanna run," he sang, arms moving through the air as he danced from the waist up.

I can't remember the last time we danced

'It's definitely been a long ass time'

[To be fair, it's kind of just been death death death death, 24/7 lately]

Did it always feel this good?

Heru squealed as the car jerked back into the lane. Wade had let go of the wheel in his overly enthusiastic dancing and it had swerved into oncoming traffic.

"Shit," Heru panted, gripping the door and middle seat with his nails, "I was hoping to have an afternoon off of reaping Wade, not being the car that kills a dozen people," he scolded.

"Sorry cookie," he chuckled, returning both hands to the wheel and grinning sweetly, "got a little carried away there."

"All good boo," he said, rolling his eyes and trying not to stare at his mouth, 'god when was the last time we kissed someone?', he looked back out at the road, "so, what kind of work is taking you to," he looked at the GPS, his stomach falling, "Milton?"

Wade glanced over at him, his grip tightening on the wheel as both boxes flashed rapidly before he spoke, "I think someone might be in danger," he answered.

"Oh?" Heru started to chew on his lip ring and looked in his lap as he picked nonexistent dirt from his nails.

{Oooh I know what's happening!}

What? Why are we suddenly drowning?

"Yea, see I've got this theory that our mutual friend Alexander Bradley is on the Naught List," he shifted in his seat so he could look at Heru easier, glancing between him and the road as he explained, "and he's stuck his finger in a whole bunch of shit pies, he's just been runnin' around smearing shit...like… everywhere. He did some pretty bad things to this chick but she managed to escape, which is great, except I'm pretty sure that he knows where she is."

[Yea because of you, fucktard]

{She's probably already dead because of you} Heru closed his eyes when he saw the flash of boxes, seconds too late, not exactly having enough room to look away in the car since this was a close up and the boxes were right across the windshield.

"What makes you say that?" he asked, opening one eye to check if it was clear, a small sigh escaping when it was.

"Well, I figured if I could find out where she was, then Bradley could," he answered, trying and failing to maintain his cavalier tone. Fuck. Heru licked his lips nervously.

"What's her name?" he stole a glance at Wade, quickly looking away when he saw those white eyes on him.

"Abegail Weston."

[And there it is]

{And he is 100% going to blame himself}

Heru swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. His mind flickered, unable to focus as he tried to still his thoughts and come up with something to say. Should he tell him the truth? Was it more cruel to make him find out on his own?

[Another reason you're not supposed to involve yourself with humans]

"Truth is I sort of feel responsible for what happens to her," Wade said when Heru failed to say anything, "I think it might actually be because of me," he said quietly, his shoulder slumping under the weight of his guilt, "I think I might have put her in danger by looking for her and I have to try and get her somewhere safe before it's too late."

Oh bea, it's already too late

"I," his breath stuttered, "I don't think it would be your fault if, if it was too late," he stammered, closing his eyes and looking out his door window.

"Well she's been safe for the last ten years, if something happens to her now," he paused, his voice tightening, "it'd be hard to convince me I didn't lead him straight to her." Heru saw the flash of yellow out of the corner of his eye and smiled over at him.

"I don't think you should blame yourself for anything Bradley does," he told him, "I know you would do anything in the world to keep her safe, if something were to happen to her, it wouldn't be because of you." Wade gave him a weak smile, his hand twitching on the wheel.

"Thanks gummy bear, I'm trying," he reached for the Twizzlers and held up the package, offering some to Heru who grabbed a few strands.

June 30, 1998

Highway NY-17, 2.5 hours from the Canadian border
7:15 PM

Wade

"So you said you were working tonight," Wade said a little while later after they had lapsed into a comfortable silence, both humming along to the music, "does that mean Bradley's going to get another visit from some 'friends'", he added air quotes when he said friends.

"Uh no," he laughed a little uncomfortably, "I have some, some other business," he answered.

"Oh well that cleared things up, thanks," Wade remarked, "phew, here for a minute I was worried you were going to be cryptic," Heru laughed, the sound music to his ears.

{I'm smelling a romantic subplot}

[It's arguably the main plot, to be honest]

"I have souls to reap," he said after a moment of consideration.

"Oooh," he drawled, making small popping sounds with his lips a few times before saying, "so are they more of Bradley's victims?" Heru looked over at him, his expression mildly surprised.

{Is he surprised that we figured this out?}

[Personally, I'm offended]

"In a manner of speaking," he conceded, "not directly but it is because of him that they're going to die tonight."

"So that's what you do?" Wade glanced at him and then back at the road, "you're not just here to reap Bradley's soul, but also anyone involved with him?"
"Yea," he nodded, [I knew it!], "anyone that dies as a result of his actions or a decision he makes, whether directly or indirectly."

"So," he thought for a moment, "if he was like, say, to forget to put the toilet seat back down and a girl came in after him and slipped when she went to sit down and cracked her head open and died, would you reap that soul?" he questioned and Heru's mouth split into a floppy grin.

"Well," he laughed, "definitely an indirect way but uh yea, that would be a soul I would reap."

{Imagine how many souls you're indirectly responsible for}
[Oh man, I bet he knows]

Wade gulped, trying to ignore the boxes, "so, like, do you know everyone I've killed?" he questioned, hoping the fear wasn't as obvious in his voice as it felt. Heru frowned at him and Wade didn't like being the one who made those lines on his face.

"No," he answered honestly, "I know some names because they overlap, but no, I don't know most of the names you've killed and definitely not the indirect ones." Wade frowned, there was something in the way he had shifted and looked away that made him think he wasn't telling him the full truth.

"But?" he prompted, his suspicions confirmed when Heru sighed.

"If I were to touch you, then I would see it," he answered quickly, grabbing the CD binder he'd found under the seat and started flipping through it, "how about Styx?"

[Holy shit]

{So that's why he's so squeamish}

"Sure," he croaked, trying desperately not to think about what he meant by 'see'.

"Wanna play fuck, marry, kill?" he suggested cheerily, clearly trying to change the subject and Wade gratefully accepted.

"Cher, Donald Trump, Neil Armstrong."