Chapter Text
[YELLOW]
[WHITE]
"NEWBIE VOICE #3"
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It starts, ambiguously enough as a lucid dream. At least that is the first impression upon gaining awareness of the absolute shithole of a studio apartment.
Dark, badly lit, by a single TV propped up on a cardboard box.
It’s enough to make out a misshapen lump buried under blankets and sheets on a queen-size mattress shoved into a corner.
It doesn’t move.
There’s not much furniture aside from that. A small overflowing Ikea dresser and a kitchenette, littered with dirty dishes, bloody rags and god-knows-what. A katana is sticking out of the trash heap of a kitchen sink.
The shadows seem to dance as the light coming from the TV switches to a cool blue, illuminating the monstrosity of an armchair in the middle of the room.
A tiny mute sign in the corner is barely noticeable under all the flashing text running over the screen as a man demonstrates the sturdiness of a pan in a late-night infomercial.
The cold light reflects off a handful of knives sticking out of an obscure X-Men poster on the otherwise bare walls.
Here and there, clothes are strewn over the floor interspersed with take-out containers and moldy pizza boxes. There’s trash piled against the wall, most of it bagged up, having left smears of brown on the wall and watermarks where the heap must’ve been higher at one point.
There's an indecipherable trail of …something staining the floor. It’s hard to tell in the dark. One trail leads to a leaking trash bag.
The smell is probably the worst.
Of urine, unwashed human and rank socks. Sweat and body odor, underlaid by a pungent note of oil and spices – greasy food gone bad. The rot-sweet scent of garbage and blood is almost pleasant in comparison.
A dream that’s not a nightmare but might be.
Time drags on like syrup.
Sirens are blaring outside, a single window with the curtains half-drawn, granting a glimpse of a rusty fire-escape and the wall of another building a few feet away. The window is cranked, but the air wafting inside is permeated with the smell of trash cans in summer and piss.
Gunshots can be heard outside. A faint pop pop, soon followed up by more sirens.
Further inspection reveals a rat trap next to the trash – a severed finger as the bait.
There’s a duffle bag stuffed into the overflowing bottom drawer of the dresser, dollar bills sticking out where the zipper’s broken, half concealed by ‘Hello Kitty’ pajama pants.
A fly is bumping into the TV, a steady click click before it settles against the wall, only to start buzzing again when the infomercial changes to something more colorful, lighting up the room.
Indirect light falls through the window eventually, a yellowish grey as it starts to dawn. The fly vanishes through the window at one point. A bloated shiny green speck in the morning light.
The hours drag by in a strange surreal state. There’s movement in the apartment above. Somebody shuffling through the hallway at one point.
A hoarse groan comes from the mattress by the time the sun has climbed so high, a square of indirect light has crawled over the floor, the skeletal shadow of the fire escape slashing dark lines through it.
It's hot now, stuffy in the room. A sticky sweaty sensation that isn’t felt but noted anyway.
The mountain of blankets shifts till a man’s foot appears from under the blanket, pockmarked and textured and absolutely littered with scars and scabs. Some are glistening, specks of dried blood flaking off. The tapestry of marks is so intricate it almost disguises the definition of the corded muscles bulging around the calf.
The person in the bed rolls further to the side, hugging the blanket. A well-used bottle of lube clattering to the floor, rolling for a second before it comes to a stop next to a coupon for a Vietnamese place - 50% off. Half the body is visible now, a scarred shoulder and arm, bulging biceps and, a whole leg straddling the stained blanket, a naked ass fully on display. Even that is pockmarked, scars like craters, telling of bullet holes.
“This takes the cake for the weirdest dream ever,” is the first substantial thought.
[ Pff. Nothing tops Bea Arthur making out with Spider-Man in the Mad Max dome after a fight to the death]
A glaring yellow box hovers in the room above the bed, somehow managing to intone the words scribbled into the air in fucking comic sans of all fonts.
“What the fuck.”
A white box materializes below the yellow box in a similar manner, voicing (?) [ Top twenty, if that].
“Shut the fuck up,” it sounds from the bed, in a sleep-hoarse voice. This time without a box. The man in the bed pulls the blankets further over his head if that’s even possible. “Five minutes, I want to myself. Five fucking minutes you shitheads.”
[ Who are you calling a shithead?!] the yellow box says, managing to convey heated indignance.
[You’re up anyway. No use crying over spilt lube]
“What?”
[Que?]
“What?”
“This is seriously the weirdest shit I ever got to witness.”
[Wait till you’ve seen his face]
[Hah!]
“Wait.” The figure on the bed sits up, built like a brickhouse, corded muscles, no body hair to speak of, but every inch mapped with scars, welts and pockmarks, blue eyes blinking blearily into the room.
Blood is smeared over the back of his head, stray splatters around his ears and forehead.
Morbid constellations of freckles.
“When did this tricycle become a foursome?”
The mattress beneath is absolutely soaked with blood, dried and brown near the edge but squishy grey chunks glistening dimly in the light, cracked streaks where they have been smudged.
“What?”
[Seems we picked up a slow one]
[Wouldn’t be the only one] the yellow box snarks.
“You’re new,” the man on the bed states.
“Excuse me, but who the fuck are you?”
[It speaks]
[Ohhh, this one’s got manners]
“Right back atcha, voice in my head, I didn’t need another one of,” the man croaks out with a sleep-hoarse voice.
[Rude!]
“Hey, I don’t have the slightest idea what the fuck is even going on. This is a dream, right? Weirdly vivid. The floating boxes are certainly …something.”
“The bane of my existence is more like.”
[You had the whole night to yourself, shitstain!]
[It’s afternoon, but yeah. I concur]
[I concur? When did you get a medical degree?]
[Pff, we could if we wanted to. Not that we need one]
“ It’s too early for this crap,” the man complains, wiping over his face with one of his – frankly massive – scarred hands in response to the boxes talking all over each other.
[Afternoon.]
[Maybe the cancer has cooked our brain overnight]
Grimacing, the man looks at the mess on his bed before grabbing a yellowish pillow from somewhere in the heap, tossing it on top and flopping back down.
“Wait a fucking minute…”
[Oh, so there is one functional brain cell]
“Am I losing it?”
[Hah! Do you even have to ask?]
“It can’t be… No…”
[Come on, you’ve almost got it]
“Deadpool.”
[*slow clap*]
Somehow the corresponding sound actually manages to translate without being audible.
[This took longer than an anal birth]
The man on the bed groans, sitting up fully and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, displaying – well – everything. “Shut the fuck up.”
[Somebody's prissy today]
“You would be too if you had to listen to you two prattling on all the time.”
[Wade Wilson-]
[In the flesh]
-aka Deadpool, aka the Merc with a Mouth, aka the katana wielding whirlwind-]
“A lot of fucking flesh.”
[You like?]
“I’d prefer it if he put on some pants.”
[...or better a bag over the head]
“Ever heard of airing out? Not like you’ve got reason to, being a disembodied voice and everything. I don’t know why I’m even arguing this…”
“I’m NOT a voice in your fucking head. I am very much an individual. And I can see your bits dangling.”
[Hah. Looked, didn’t ya?]
“Hard not to. But it might as well apply to the blood. And brain matter.”
[Haha. You said hard]
“That wasn’t even funny, dude.”
“Have to agree with disembodied voice #3 over there.”
“Oi!”
[What are you? British?]
“Wait. Is that some kind of telepathic situation here? If that’s you Mr Professor X, the dangly bits come attached to the man. Now that I think about it, I feel sexually harassed. Does your mutant school have an HR department? I feel like I should email a complaint to HR. I wonder who’ll answer. Is it Beast? I bet it’s Beast-”
“I’m not professor X! This is some kind of fever dream, it seems more like.”
[...]
Deadpool’s hairless forehead scrunches together, creating a jagged wrinkle between where his brows should be.
[The other voices that have come and gone were a bit different…]
“No shit Sherlock,” is the obvious answer. The fact that the box that wandered closer over the duration of this whole weird conversation (akin to an attempt at braining somebody at the speed of a turtle) is able to be shoved away speaks to this being some kind of LSD-induced hallucination.
It’s rather satisfying, watching it sail towards the wall at a smooth trajectory with no sign of gravity slowing it down – and then disappearing right through it.
Huh.
[What the fuck? What’d you do with white?!]
“Defended my bubble! Ever heard of a little something called personal space? One of its corners almost poked my eye out! I’m not chancing getting sliced in half by a 2-D cardboard cut-out!”
“That is new,” Deadpool says, hairless brow quirking. “Are we talking life-sized actual cardboard cut-out of Ryan Renolds popping up in the room or more 1993’s Doom, fugly, floating ever-presently-facing-you Cacodemon?”
“Uhh. Oddly specific, but the latter… I guess? And square. And yellow. With comic sans written all over it. Demonic aura, one could say.”
[Hey! I resent that. I’m not some-
“Hm. And one FOR SCIENCE!”
The box is sailing through the air, vanishing from sight shortly after clipping the window, displaying the tail-end of some heavily censored expletives.
The strange not-audible-but-still-comprehensive presence of their voices is gone as well.
Deadpool meanwhile is starting to sit up a bit straighter, tilting his head just so with an incredulous expression blooming on his face.
“Huh. ….Hah!” A surprisingly handsome grin appears on his disfigured face. “Hell yeah!” he exclaims fist-pumping the air.
“You’re welcome.”
He stiffens on his bed, face shifting slowly but subtly scanning the room.
“You’re still here?” he asks, making eye-contact for a brief hair-raising moment before his gaze shifts already further, unseeing.
“Seems like it.”
For a moment, the only sounds are those of the city and the arguing of a Russian couple on the floor above.
“Your place is a shithole by the way.”
Wade’s demeanor shifts again. “Thanks for the reminder. And here I thought we could’ve had something beautiful.” He wipes away an invisible tear.
“Not surrounded with that kind of aesthetic.” It’s not voiced without some derision.
The dingy apartment is an utter pigsty and somehow miraculously also manages to give off the least lived-in vibe a place could. Like a warehouse with a single plastic chair in front of a TV. Not too much difference after all.
Safe for the trash. An opium den would have more character.
“You should invest in some home decor. Buy a funky lamp. Add a live, laugh, love wall tattoo. That would match your MO, wouldn’t it?”
“Who’s to say ‘Karen, 60, star of the 34th episode of Hoarders’ isn’t exactly what I was going for? But sure, go on. You always do anyway.” Wade rubs his face.
“What about some Spider-Man memorabilia; actually, I’m surprised there isn’t any. But I guess this isn’t fanfiction.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Wait, is it?”
“You tell me,” Wade says.
“Fuck if I know. You’re the expert on meta. It’s some secondary superpower or something.”
“Hah, so you are meta! Called it!”
“I don’t- Wait. Am I? In that case would that make me an isekai? Some weird amalgamation of astral-projection meets an alternative universe? Parallel universe?”
“Oh come on. This is like watching a Supernatural episode only for Sam and Dean to go ‘this is …unnatural’ ” Wade lowers his voice to a comedic deep pitch, even adding a smolder.
“…”
He throws his hands up.
“The Multiverse! God. Am I working with a DC nerd here? Read one Batman comic and never looked back? Marvel’s Multiverse! It’s even an alliteration! Who the fuck wouldn’t remember that?!”
“If this was a multiverse thing, it wouldn’t be meta though, would it? It would just make this faux-meta within actual meta. Like a comic-reader reading about a comic character reading their own comic?”
“I’m seriously contemplating blowing my brains out to escape this conversation. I like to gently pierce the fourth wall as much as any other person with the right appendage and a steady supply of viagra but this is making me want to nip this building headache in the butt. With a bullet.”
“Okay, okay. No more discussing of meta. Got i- urghhh. Oh my god. Jikes. What the fuck.”
“Ooh, stumbled over a dirty thought in ye old noggin?” Wade giggles at his own joke.
“Yeah, no. I just noticed the hand sticking out of trashbag over there! What the fuck!?”
“Oh, goodness gracious! I’m hearing voices. Are you piercing the veil? Spirits speaking to little ol’ me? Are you in the room right now?!” Deadpool suddenly jumps up, looking around in false startlement. The handle of a gun glints under the blankets. A heavy looking duffle bag – bubblegum pink and continuing the Hello Kitty theme is revealed when the man pulls the bloody sheet with him. “Do you feel that?” He wraps the sheet tighter around his body in a dramatic fashion. “This sudden chill? Ohmegod – am I being haunted?” His faux scared voice is only underlined by his clutching the sheet to his chest.
“I would have to be dead for that to be true, I think.
Am I?
Oh god.”
Wade chatters idly on, unbothered by the existential crisis occurring in his presence.
“And here I don’t have my pottery wheel set up! I’ll be Molly, you’ll be Sam!” Whether his excited tone is fake or not is impossible to tell.
“Oh fuck. What if I’m dead?! What if I actually died in my sleep or something?”
“ Well they always say the first time is a bit scary, but don’t worry, Daddy Deadpool is here to teach you, but before we start – what’s our safe word again?”
“I’m already way past the yellow light, buddy. I’m having a fucking crisis here! ”
Wade freaking giggles. “Ohh, a man of humor, aren’t we?”
“I-“
“Oh no. My mistake,” Wade interrupts himself. “That was awfully sexist of me now, wasn’t it? What’s your name then, oh disembodied voice that insists on individuality?”
“...”
There’s no recollection. Nothing. Nada. Fuck. That is fucked up.
“I …don’t remember.”
“Ah, well-“ Wade claps into his hands and simultaneously lets go of the blanket that slides down to the floor again- jeez - “that’s a pity,” he says sounding anything but melancholic, “I guess I’ll just have to name you myself. You actually don’t have a convenient color. Which is weird now that I think about it. What do we think of Swayze? Patrick? Pat? Pat Benatar? Love is a Battlefield amirite? Then again, the whole ghost theme is an unexplored goldmine. What do we think? Casper, Beetlejuice, oh, uh, Ghost of Christmas past– nah. Too much of a mouthful. Hm, Slimer, Moaning Myrtle-“
“Flying Dutchman?”
“Yellow gets two syllables and that’s already a strain at times. Perhaps we should go with the colour theme.
Hm. After all, I have not the slightest inkling where Yellow and White left off. Maybe you can get a test-run as the new white?”
“Yeah… no, thanks. I’m good.”
“Party pooper,” Wade says as he actually finally walks over to pick up a tank top from the floor, sniffing it before pulling it over his head, his chest now proudly proclaiming his love for guns in heavy red and white print. “Might as well call you beige,” he adds as he wanders over to the dresser to pluck out the hello kitty pajama pants.
“You can’t tell, but I’m scowling disapprovingly at you.”
“I’m shivering in my boots.”
“You’re not wearing any.”
“It’s a metaphor. A figure of speech. A-“
[Whoa. What the heck. That was weird]
“Ah shit,” Wade groans.
“What the heck? Really?”
[Some people appreciate reaching a bigger group by keeping the rating in the ‘Teen and Up Audiences’ range]
“~Boring~”
“Whoa. That was weird, right?”
“What? I sing-songed. Inflection. Ever heard of it?” Wade says.
[…what happened to Yellow?]
“You can tell he’s gone?”
[You can’t?] White intones the same time as Wade says, “Whoa, Amigo. Hold your horses cowboy. Did you just assume Yellow’s gender? In this political climate?” He shakes his head and clicks his tongue. “Shame. Shame on you and your mother.”
“Well how the fuck was I supposed to know? It’s. A. Fucking. Box. A voice! From inside your head!”
[Ask, maybe?]
“Yeah, capt’n insensitive.”
“Are… Are you two ganging up on me?”
“And so self-involved too…”
[Figures]
“Seriously?”
[-HAT THE ACTUAL COCKSUCKING FUCK! I WILL FUCKING ERASE YOU FROM EXISTE-
A kick fuelled out of tangible frustration deports yellow straight back into nothingness.
[Nice one. 8/10 because of the fumbled landing]
“Thanks. Wait, you can see me?”
[…]
[Okay, honestly, I don’t think this silence conveys how low my opinion is of you right now.
.
.
.
]
“I’ll break it to ‘em gently, yes?” Wade says. “Honey, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re a voice. Inside my head. And likely but not unlikely to be limited to certain audiences.”
“I resent that notion.”
[And I don’t have eyes. You fucknugget.]
“Fucknugget. Bold choice. I like it.”
[Thanks, UwU]
“… Wow.”
“Well that’s already enough time spent on the commenting section,” Wade says. “Time to face the real world!”
[Ha! Real world, he says]
A yellow box pops up below the white one.
[Yeah right.]
[Because that’s so much less depressing]
“Oh, you’re back.”
Wade is starting to whistle the Pokémon theme song while shuffling over to rifle through the cabinets of the kitchenette.
[Healing factor or not, I’m willing to bet if we’re eating anything in there we’ll have a small colony of mold growing inside us before long]
“Hey-“
Poking the yellow box apparently doesn’t catapult it out of existence but makes it vanish and pop back up in the highest farthest corner of the room.
[I’m ignoring you. If you couldn’t tell. Until I figure out how to kill you that is]
“Wow. Ever considered therapy? You sound like you might need some, buddy.”
[Don’t we all?]
Wade has hit the hook of the theme with his whistling-
[Pokémon!]
[Pokémon!] White and Yellow belt out simultaneously.
“Nice.”
Wade meanwhile seems to have given up on digging around the cabinets and instead shoves his feet into a pair of pink socks and then dark blue crocs, grabs a hoodie from the top of the dresser – purple with a My little Pony print –
[Oh, oh! Grab the Spider-Man one!]
“Hah, I knew it!”
[We got blood on it yesterday, remember?]
[Should’ve worn something different when we shot ourselves in the head]
“Wait what?”
“Can it, guys. I’m trying to figure out where to go for breakfast,” Wade says, having just finished layering the back of the hoodie over a gun he tucked into his waistband and checking on the wad of cash stuffed into his pockets.
[Chimichangas! Chimichangas!] yellow chants.
[That’s not a breakfast food. We should get pancakes or something]
[Is IHOP even open? I vote for Mexican!]
[There is this waffle stand on third]
[That was four months ago!]
The discussion does not let up, not while Wade pulls the hood deep into his face, unlatches all the deadbolts and then locks the door behind him again. Nor the way down the stairs of the apartment building or past the service elevator while he fidgets with the phone in his hoodie pocket.
It only grows more heated, Yellow and White yelling suggestions, boxes overlapping and popping up so much it almost crowds the narrow hallway.
Wade’s frown grows deeper as he starts to massage his temples singing ‘shutthefuckup’ under his breath. “Hey,” Wade grunts out. “Yo, you, voice #3, newbie, do me a solid and knock them into the next week again?”
It’s a half-hearted suggestion at best but Wade actually perks up when there’s an answer.
“I can try.”
[Hey, wait a minute]
[Oh, I dare you]
“Pretty, pretty please?” Wade says.
“Already on it.”
[Oh for fu-]
A flick is all it takes .
[And here she flies, crossing the hundred yard line aaaand – wonderful execution from this year's olympia finalist!]
“ Oh, oh, do White next!” Wade says excitedly, clapping his hands. He’s almost skipping down the stairs now.
White just has the time to change to a [*sigh*] before this box also is karate-chopped out of existence. This time through the floor.
“Ah,” Wade sighs. “Blessed silence.”
“Just you and the voice in your ear.”
“Indeed. So, what are we feeling?”
“Bagels?”
“Bagels?! On a taco Tuesday?! Heathen.”
“Breakfast burritos then. Eggs, spinach, cheese… the options are endless.”
“I would ask if you were dropped on your head a bit too often as a baby but I would only insult myself. Nevertheless, I’m calling it. Tacos it is.”
“Dude, you’re missing out. S’all I’m saying.”