Chapter Text
The thing about mercenary work is, even if things look straight forward and were proceeding perfectly to plan, everything and anything could go tits up in an instant. It made every job as exciting as it was terrifying, and Wade had loved that.
Loved it, of course, until it went to shit in a way he knew, immediately, he'd never really recover from.
He was hired to help some underground convoy transport refugees over the border between one war torn shithole and another, the aim being to get out of the region and somewhere safe, where everyone could be persecuted for being non-white foreigners in peace, God Bless America. Wade's done a few runs with this group before; it's generally a cakewalk, low octane. It's his good deed of the year, these jaunts.
So of course, as they approach the border, there comes the tell-tale whine of a missile ripping through air at the convoy. It doesn't hit the truck he's in; it hits two trucks ahead in line, but that's close enough. The brakes slam, the driver cursing; the gravel and dirt path is treacherous enough without the pandemonium unfolding outside, and Wade can feel them slipping toward the edge of the cliff the road runs along.
He holds on with one hand and gets a hand on a gun with the other, braced against the barrier between the back of the truck and the cab, listening to the driver and his gunner shouting as they are struck sharply by one of the trucks behind them, and then they're tottering over the edge of the cliff, precarious balance they're sure to lose.
"Fucking jump," he shouts, advice that comes through manic laughter as one of the men manages to pry the hatch up. The heat and noise out there is intense, screaming and gunfire and the stomp of boots, and most of the refugees who make it out of the truck are liable to end up dead either way, but at least there's a chance out there.
Wade knows he's going to die when the trucks shudders at the passengers start bailing. He lets go of his gun, focusing on getting as many combustible things off his body as possible. A couple of his guns and the set of grenades he manages to toss out the back of the truck, and by some miracle they sail right on out with the last of the refugees. If he believed in a god, he might thank them; this is going to hurt bad enough without getting for-sure blown to shit.
The last scramble of bodies is punctuated by harried screaming. Wade will remember that screaming for a long time, the look on the face of the woman hauled out last, the way she twisted around to reach for him, like she'd pull him with her. They can all feel it, all the bodies bled out of the truck sealing the tilt of that particular balancing game. Metal groans and shrieks, and Wade screams himself hoarse when the truck finally slides off the edge of the truck, slamming him into one of the walls as they go into free fall.
It's hard to remember the rest. It's scrambled a little in Wade's memory, with is as much a source of frustration as a mercy. He thinks the truck hit the bottom of the drop nose-first, and then flipped upside down. He imagines if the men driving hadn't already bailed, they would have died on impact. It's enough of a miracle that the passengers escaped, for whatever value that has when they're left unprotected in the crossfire above.
However it happens, Wade remembers being smashed into what his mind insisted was the ceiling. Something must have ruptured, leaked, sparked -- something. There was smoke everywhere, heat so intense it sucked every bit of moisture out of the air, making inhaling painful, choking him. Flame crackles through the truck and Wade goes up like a particularly noisy candle.
Later, much later, he'll try to explain the sensation. Imagine putting your hand on the stove, he'll say, putting effort into sounding blandly cheerful, like his body isn't suddenly flooded with residual terror just imagining it. Put your hand on the stove and then crank the burner to high. It starts out cold but it doesn't stay that way, and you have to hold your hand there. Imagine it, okay, keep your hand right on those coils as they go red, all the way hot, and your hand starts to cook. Then it starts to burn. Then your flesh is melting off the bone, slipping into the cracks of those coils. Now imagine ripping your hand free, except everything doesn't come with you; a lot of it stays stuck to the burner. Now imagine that with your whole body.
Wade burned. His clothes caught on fire and fused to his skin. He’d burned, his skin blistering and cracking, hair going up like dry pine in a bonfire. He’d burned and he’d burned and he’d burned, and somewhere far away he heard someone else shrieking as they burned too, or maybe that was him too. It's impossible to remember.
He recalls thinking, at one point, when's the part where I stop, drop, and roll, huh? It made him want to laugh, thinking that, and his imperfect memory insists he did, but realistically he figures he probably just screamed. The thing is, he remembers it hurt, he remembers the pain as the worst he ever felt, but he can't quantify it later. He can't put himself back in it, so his mind tries to embellish what little he does remember.
There were tears. He remembers trying to cry and the tears burning away faster that they could fall. How horrible that had felt, another unquantifiable emotional experience. His whole world was pain, on a level he couldn't even wholly remember in the aftermath, much less communicate.
By all rights, he should have died. The other two in the truck died, but Wade was always lucky. When the truck settled in the dirt, Wade, on fire and close to insane from agony, had managed to flail through the un-latched double doors at the back of the truck, bursting out into the evening air and finally dropping into the scree. Sobbing and writhing on the ground, an eternity after he'd caught fire, he'd finally managed to get to the 'drop and roll' part, but it was a hell of a lot less funny than his dry thought. He remembers thinking that, too, how it wasn't funny.
Somehow, by that point, it had felt less like pain and more like the study of someone else's pain. Like his brain stopped trying to process the actual sensation and shunted his observational awareness outside of the flesh, walling him off from his own agony.
In the dirt, his own flames finally out, he'd lain too close to the still-burning truck. Lashed with that dry, hot air, it had felt like he'd suffocate after all, the oxygen sucked out of the air by greedy fire. He'd been acutely aware of dirt and baked-dry blood sticking to the ruined mess of his skin, wondering at what kind of damage he'd sustained. Partial thickness, he'd hoped. Second degree; second degree burns left behind some feeling, please god don't take that away too.
He remembers that too. Praying as he laid there, unable to move, watching the truck burn. He'd never really known how to believe in a god, in any god, but at that moment he'd been willing to bargain with anyone. It was a strangely helpless feeling.
When the truck blows, he's far enough away not to get burnt again, but not far enough to avoid the shrapnel. Hot, sharp metal rained on him. Someone screamed, maybe it was him, but maybe it's someone else. He's never sure; at the time it hadn't felt like he'd had energy to scream.
Someone found him. They wrapped him in a jacket or a shirt, every point of contact making him want to howl in agony, and they'd carried him to help.
In the dreams he has of the accident later, he dies there on the ground, in the heat and the dirt. Dying is so much easier than the slow hell of recovery. Dying is easier than the hospital, the skin grafts, the surgeries. Dying is a hell of a lot easier than learning to walk again, than seeing friends avert their eyes when they come to visit, than adjusting to life as someone deformed and grotesque.
It's not fair. It's not fair that people who used to hook up with him ghost him, not fair that people send him emails canceling visits because 'they can't stand to see him like that'. He loses more than his looks.
Death is a good dream. There's no more hurting, no more loss, in death. Not like that, at least.
Fifteen years after the accident, middle-aged and scarred, he still wakes up from that dream. He's always stiff when he wakes up, sore from being still for too long. There's a sort of muzzy-headed quality that comes with waking, before his brain fully clocks back in, where he has to focus to make sure he's not actually dead after all. The gaudy little love nest he's turned his shit-hole apartment into wouldn't be too bad a place to haunt, he thinks.
But no. He's flesh and blood and definitely alive, and if he wants to pay rent on his den of iniquity, it's time to get up and get moving. He's got work.
All jobs come with a costume. Vanessa taught him that, when she'd taught him to turn tricks. It wasn't so different than mercenary work, right on down to the potential for things to go tits up at any moment.
His costume for working the corner, which he only does on nights when no one calls to reserve his time, is designed to be easy to move in and easy to get into. He doesn't dress to hide, because there's no point. The damage is too extensive, and men picking him up are liable to get violent if they get surprises. Another one of Vanessa's lessons: dress to advertise. He's still got a nice body, it's just his skin that's tough for some people to look at.
Some people. Not all. In fact, Vanessa's first lesson -- the start of his new career -- had been that every body is somebody's dream body. Whatever you looked like, someone out there was more than willing to fuck you, and if you're ready to work it, you can even get them to pay for the opportunity.
Besides, he knows people flinch at first when they see his skin. Sheathing himself in suede short shorts and heeled boots that leave the majority of his mottled legs bare is a subtle middle finger to a society that would prefer every scar be hidden. Plus, he's still got a fantastic ass, and the heels elevate that ass to legendary.
A crop top and loose fishnet shirt over top completes the look. He's not the only one working nights around here, and the good spots get taken if he sleeps in.
Weekdays are easier. Folks don't go cruising on nights when they have work in the morning; weekdays, he's got a few regulars who meet him at hotel bars or flophouse apartments and pay good money to spend an afternoon with him. Most of them are pretty nice guys, even if they're all a little clingy post-coital. Follows, though; he fits a fetish, and the fetish is for the scars.
Whoring is a lot like mercing, in many ways. Cut throat competition, knowing how to seal the deal, knowing when to get the fuck out, self preservation and reflexive self defense all play their roles here just as they had there. Prostitution is the harder job, Wade thinks, because you didn't often get regulars in merc work.
But it's fun work, just like his last job. Hell of a lot less likely to get him blown up, too.
He puts a bounce in his step as he hits the street, turning his limp into a loose swagger. Tonight's gonna pay the rent, he thinks, grinning to himself. He's got no particular reason to think that, just a good feeling.