Thank you everyone for the condolences and well-wishes last chapter, and for those who reached out to me to check-in and make sure I was doing alright. I really appreciated it, so hugs, kisses, and cookies to all of you.

Warnings for this chapter: Mildly graphic depictions of violence/gore/bodily injury.

Wade was starting to pick up hints of aggression and it wasn't just because Not-Peter kept shooting him in the head.

No, it's because he was shooting him everywhere else now. And stab. He's been stabbing him too. Not-Peter's grip on his stolen personality was starting to slip too, but just barely. Wade could tell with small hints, like the way he's started mumbling to himself whenever he thinks Wade is too choked on blood to notice. Or how he fiddles with the gun, checking the barrel, counting the bullets, looking over the cartridge. All those nooks and crannies that Peter wouldn't know about because he's only fired a gun a handful of times - all in Wade's supervision - and he still wasn't keen on shooting one, much less memorizing its ins and outs. He wanted to get Real-Peter to dismantle a gun and put it back together to help him overcome his fear of them because Peter's crafty little fingers were greedy for knowledge and he didn't like things he didn't understand, but after watching this Fake-Peter handle one like he's been doing it for years, Wade came to the conclusion that he didn't like the sight of a gun in Peter's hands.

It's not my Pete, though, he had to remind himself. At this point it was a mantra in his head, playing loud enough to drown out the voices. If he let the voices have their fun for too long, he might start believing them, and then this sick fuck's plan would work, and Wade had a high record of ruining evil plots and he wasn't about to let that go now.

But yes, he was starting to pick up a lot of aggression in Not-Peter and it didn't match up with the face he was wearing at all. Peter was plenty aggressive on his own, but this was different. Different habits. Different body language. Not-Peter was getting frustrated, and while it might not be because of Wade (What could he do? He was innocently staked to the ground like a vampire pinned for dissection) it had to be something else.

"Petey giving you trouble?" Wade asked, spitting out a glob of blood. The large gnarly gash across his face was healing up nicely, but one eye was still too horribly mangled to see through, so Not-Peter's twisted face was blurry and out of focus.

"Shut up, Wade."

"That wasn't a no. Pete's a stubborn son of a bitch. Believe me, I know. Did you know it took him 9 months to tell me he liked me? The loser kept it all bottled up inside him forever. We could've conceived and had a baby in all the time it took for him to admit he wanted to tap this ass. I mean, it took me 10 months to admit I liked him back, but that's not the point. He's a stubborn prick and once he decides he's not going to move, he's gonna dig his heels in the dirt and not let go."

"I said to shut up," the gun snapped back towards his face, the hammer audibly clicking, but Wade rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, shoot me, that's gonna solve your itsy-bitsy problem. You know what you need? A long vacation elsewhere. Go relax, think about what you did wrong, and in a few months you can try again. You're gonna fail then too, but I've tried to read a lot of self-help books, and they always say to pick yourself back up and -" BANG! The gun's nozzle went downward and a bullet pierced his stomach and Wade broke off with a cry and a grunt, "try again," he finished in a pained groan.

Not-Peter took the knife out of his hoodie pocket, still smeared with blood, and Wade closed his eyes because he did NOT need to see Peter stalking towards him with a knife. Maybe in a few of his bolder fantasies, but none of them had that angry look in Peter's eyes. The knife slit his throat - a personal favorite of Not-Peter's, Wade noticed - and as Wade choked on blood, he stabbed the knife deep into his body until it was sunk to the handle.

"Is that a knife in my chest, or are you just happy to see me," Wade garbled.

Whatever Not-Peter had to say was interrupted by a beep from inside his hoodie. Ignoring Wade, he brought out a phone and whatever he saw on it made his eyes widen. That was panic. Wade's seen it on enough faces to recognize the widening of the eyes and paling skin like someone found out their cat was roaming around a dog impound.

It looked like an alarm of some kind from what Wade could see in his position. Cameras? An alarm system? Was someone knocking around the building, finally checking out the gunshots? Or was it Peter? The real Peter?

Whatever it was, Not-Peter didn't look happy, and before Wade had the opportunity to annoy information out of him, he was shot in the head. Cool. Crisp. And brutal. Not even turning around to say goodbye to Wade's deadened body, Not-Peter stormed out of the room, his form shifting as the door swung closed behind him.

But he made a mistake.

He should really look when he's aiming and check to make sure his target is dead. A rookie mistake really. One that's going to cost him now. Wade lifted his head. A good portion of his ear was gone, and through the blood white pieces of his skull were visible, but his brain was still very much intact, which meant no fatal headshots today. The bastard missed.

And it looked like the perfect time to try some shenanigans of his own. He's been waiting for the ideal opening. Not-Peter watched him too closely when they were in the room, and always made sure the stakes were firmly in place before he left. But he was distracted this time, and that was just sloppy. Really, he should feel bad. Wade's embarrassed on his behalf.

He shook his arm, testing the stake stabbed through his flesh, and concluded that it was still pretty sturdy. He leaned his head back, closed his eyes, grit his teeth, and yanked on his arm. He had to swallow the scream as his arm tore around the metal stake, muscle tearing from muscle like warm bread, and new pools of blood puddled under his flesh. He tore again and had to violently yank his arm a few times to snap the bone in half before it finally broke around the spike and his arm flopped to his side at all the wrong angles.

A clean break would have been preferable, but he was working on a deadline. He couldn't be sloppy with this though. 1) he had more finesse and professionalism than that, and 2) who knows when Not-Peter would be back, and frankly, Wade wasn't a fan of real Peter being in possession of this poser any longer. Call him an overprotective boyfriend, but he had something to say when psychopaths kidnapped his lovebug and held him captive for indeterminate amounts of time.

It takes too long for his arm to knit itself completely, and it's not even totally healed when Wade props himself up and starts on the other arm. He doesn't need to break this one, just needs to slide it over the top. There's less damage that way, and less time it'll take him to heal. It still hurts like a bitch though because the skin healed around the metal stake, but it's a step up from self-mutilation.

He does have to pry the stakes out of his thighs and legs though but give or take 5-10 minutes, there are bloody metal spikes piled near his mangled arm and the rest of his limbs are free. Getting to his feet with a bunch of bleeding holes in his body (don't you snort at that, Wilson. Don't do it) is a struggle, but he's walked away from worse, and there's no time for nonsense - like recuperating.

He needs a weapon. A gun would be nice, but all he had were stakes and...

He looked down at the knife still protruding from his chest. Yes, that'll work just nicely. He wrapped his fingers around the hilt and slowly pulled it out, which hurts like a bitch, but such is life, and right now it feels more like an annoying sting compared to what he's used to. The anger helps too. That sweet, burning, all-consuming anger that puts fire in his veins and mania in his eyes.

His costume is torn and frayed beyond belief, in large swaths across his body. Blood, new and old, stained whatever piece of cloth it could find and clung to his skin in a variety of dried flakes and flowing red streams. The single lightbulb in the room flickered, sending dark shadows over the valleys and rivers of his pockmarked flesh. To anyone who might've been watching, he would've looked like a demon sent straight from hell. A vessel of the Devil.

And this little Devil wanted to spill some blood.

With one step out the door, Wade Wilson sidestepped to let Deadpool take the reins, and with flashing eyes and a wide, manic grin set off by the pain still rattling deep in his body and heart, Deadpool pulled himself up the stairs.

It's hunting season.

Thank you all again, ya'll mean the world to me. Excuse any mistakes this chapter, I had a huge headache last night and did all of my last-minute edits this morning prior to posting. Chapters should start ramping up after this one (or the next) as we enter the endgame of this fic. Also, if you checked the story chapters you'll notice that a chapter as been added. I must've miscounted or accidentally added a chapter as I wrote this story, so we'll be ending with 19 chapters instead of 18.

Thanks for reading! Drop me a comment below if you enjoyed!