☣ Sehun/Joonmyun, PG-13, humour, 2.6k
☣ Warning: brief mention of mental illness.

☣ Sehun as Deadpool!AU. Cue a runaway mouth and the unwilling (anti)hero, and a teeny-weeny (alright, he’s cute) crush on the owner of the local mini-mart. Made use of this prompt. Originally posted here.

It’s awful tough work being a rubber and cowl, tight bodysuit clad mercenary in this dingy, off the map town. At least that’s what Sehun thinks.

He doesn’t like to think of himself as a hero. Hell, the word didn’t exist in his vocabulary. If there was a dictionary of Oh Sehun-isms the word hero wouldn’t even be in existence.

Sure, he had beat up a few thugs and sketchy figures here and there. His answering machine beeped off the hook nearly everyday with calls from both the more ‘famous’ heroes with requests to keep his distance from their expensive fancy vehicles and the occasional faceless figure with a nice contract for him to fulfill with an attractive price tag.

But he was in no way the definition of a hero. Heroes lived in fancy skyscrapers or if they wanted to be all mysterious and camera-shy, mansions in the suburbs. He was stuck in a musky, poorly lit apartment in dire need of a good refurbishing and a very understanding contractor. Occasionally the thought of refurbishing would pop up like a fart, but he didn’t really care.

The wallpapers for one thing, were peeling off, suspiciously dirt-brown stains lining the walls like a Pollock painting. Not like he really cared for art or dead men who made it or specks of colour deliberately thrown onto a canvas. His furniture was probably decades old, since he got them off some geezer’s yard sale a few blocks over. He tried writing the folks in charge of the Smithsonian, but he was met with a few polite declines and perhaps one or two warning letters telling him in the most cordial way possible to stop heckling the staff or he’d be met with a restraining order. On hindsight, maybe he should have written in proper ballpoint pen ink instead of the crayons he’d borrowed from the first grader living next door.

He’d get the once in a blue moon knock on the door from the landlord, with a head shaped like a reject from a bread factory and an odd receding hairline to boot.

“Your apartment looks like a pile of crusty horse , Oh—” and Sehun would switch off his hearing, although the old man taking residence in his head would almost always tell him otherwise— “—but I’ll let it slip since you have no issues with coughing up the dollars.”

Sehun would wiggle his eyebrows in response, prompting the bread-shaped landlord to take his leave. The good thing about the lack of maintenance in his apartment was that it would turn heads away, because he did have enough reason in him to rationalize that he didn’t really want elderly people getting a heart attack or children getting a nasty scare from seeing the vast collection of arms and memorabilia from his little adventures in mercenary work.

He didn’t mind being thought of as a bum, anyway. He honestly couldn’t be bothered with what people thought. He’d heard the rumours, from him being some tycoon’s illegitimate son kicked out of his family home, or being a drug dealer, and his personal favourite—a collector of everything bizarre, like a bad Ripley museum imitator. He remembered something from his literature class in high school, stuff about shooting songbirds and children putting things in old trees and the outcast of the town—Boo Radley. He liked to think of himself as the building’s Boo Radley. Sometimes the old man residing in his head would tell him to go out and make a friend, for Pete’s sake, and that was how he befriended the first grader next door. Bless his poor soul, he was unattended most of the time. It was a rather dramatic irony that the poor kid would mostly be left in the company of the personification of what sheltered parents warned their kids against.

On top of poking thugs or rich people with folders on them in the stomach or the back, depending on his mood, with his twin katanas, an early birthday gift from himself (from a top yakuza boss’s private collection in his ancient Kyoto estate), he liked going to the little grocery store across the street. It was run by the old man who had sold him his moth-eaten sofa, bless the wrinkly geezer, but he’d passed away a few months ago, leaving his young son to take over the business.

Sehun would make regular visits to the grocery store to stock up, especially after missions. Half the time he would go in his famous bodysuit in various states of damage, not like he actually gave a damn about people looking and staring.

Somehow the new store owner had gotten accustomed to his presence, treating him like any other customer. Sehun liked that the prices were really low so he could stock up, or as some people whispered not-so-softly, hoard. His jobs usually kept him away for days or at most fortnights, and he would come back to stock up once he finished a job.

Today was unusual, however, since it seemed like the dry period for mercenary contracts. He was running low on his favourite canned soup, and he was getting hungry. His fridge had only two things— soda bottles and canned soup. Normally he enjoyed alcohol but the old man in his head said the stuff was dehydrating so he decided to take the advice for once to shut up that irritating old man. And he needed something for the buzz.

The store was empty, for it was late in the afternoon and it was a weekday, with people still at work and the vagrants in the neighbourhood moving to other sheltered areas.

The little bell on the door tinkled and the young man looked up from his notebook, smiling warmly as he saw Sehun.

“I’m here for the tomato soup.” Sehun yawned.

The man smiled. “So you’re the masked crusader,” he chuckled, before pulling a heavy carton out from the backroom.

Sehun narrowed his eyes. “How’d you figure that out? I have an excellently designed disguise that, unlike your other friendly neighbourhood superheroes, actually obscures my face.”

The man chuckled, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Your penchant for running your mouth is quite unforgettable, both in and out of costume.”

Sehun sighed, a little too dramatically for his liking. “I guess my personality needs a secret disguise too.”

The man heaved the carton onto the counter. “Your soup, sir.”

Sehun jerked a thumb at the cardboard box. “I thought soup came in cans, not in a box. I learned enough science in school to know that it doesn’t take moisture well.”

The man snickered, and Sehun glared back at him. “And what’s tickling you?”

“You always buy by the can, so I thought it’d be easier if I gave it to you in a carton. There’s thirty in there. You can come back to get the next few cartons next time you drop by.”

[Now that chap has his brain intact, unlike someone I know.]
[Shut up, old man.]

“I beg your pardon?” the man asked, confused. Sehun didn’t realize he’d vocalized his conversation with the old man in his head.

Sehun scratched his head. “Uh, nothing. Well, um, thanks I guess.”

The man nodded. “That’ll be forty dollars.”

Sehun coughed up the money, but he wasn’t ready to leave just yet. “Do you have scissors? Normally I’d prefer using my katana but the blade kind of goes out of control when cutting sometimes, like cutting off the hand instead of the foot.”

The man seemed to shrug off Sehun’s rather macabre comment, and calmly handed him a penknife. “Here. More controllable than scissors, and better for making small cuts than a katana,” he chuckled.

He sliced open the box with rather accurate precision, which seemed to impress the shop owner. Taking out one can, he began to peel off the label.

“What on earth are you doing?” the shop owner burst out, rather bewildered.

“I paid for it, so I’ll do whatever the hell I feel like doing with it. I don’t like the labels on the soup cans.”

The owner looked rather insulted. “But the labels are a work of art! It’s a pop art icon. It’s Warhol.”

Sehun rolled his eyes. “Look, man, I don’t care for dead men who draw stuff, okay? People have pet peeves like nails on a chalkboard or whatever, and this is mine.”

“Superheroes sure are odd people,” the man remarked, shaking his head and Sehun smirked at him, winking rather lewdly as he left the shop, and Sehun could swear he saw the man almost blush.





 

✖





 

Back in his apartment, Sehun continued separating the labels from his soup cans when an afterthought popped in.

“, I forgot my smokes!”

The old man got up from the couch in his head, and began wagging his finger at him. “Oh no, sonny, we talked about this. You need your lungs nice and pink if you want to continue doing your job.”

Sehun snapped back. “But I need them!” He grabbed his jacket and ran out again.





 

✖





 

The shop owner was still at his station, scribbling in his notebook.

Sehun ran up, panting. “My smokes.”

“Sorry?”

“My smokes, man, cigarettes! Have you not heard of them? Death in a stick, though I’d beg to differ since an iron rod to the back of the head is more effective—”

The owner plopped a plastic bag with a few packets of cigarettes onto the counter.

“That’ll be thirty.”

As Sehun handed over the money to the owner, muttering something about damn tobacco taxes under his breath, he’d noticed the man wasn’t wearing his glasses and he actually looked pretty nice. Sehun took a long enough look at his eyes and they reminded him of the chocolate covered almonds he’d eaten in Belgium.

He briefly entertained the thought of using that line, but thought that for his standards it was still a little bit lame.

He decided to think it over in detail when he got home, when the old man in his head wasn’t making faces at him.





 

✖





 

Back in his dingy apartment, he found his answering machine making a little too much noise for his liking.

“Oh gods, would you just shut up?!”

Beep.

“Deadpool, it’s me.” A voice boomed from the receiver, the English thickly accented.

Sehun sighed, rolling his eyes. It was the Macau geezer.

“Got a nice job for you, with everything you like. Need you to slice some veins open for me. I’ll send you the plane ticket in a few hours.”

Hong Kong, hm? Sehun thought. He hadn’t been there for a while. And he kind of missed the free dim sum lunches that came with meeting with Chinese syndicate bosses. Expensive and delicious.

[But what about your little grocer lover boy? You haven’t even gotten around to asking him out yet.]
The other resident in his head, a teenager with permanent bed hair, leered.

For once, Sehun actually sounded a little sad.

I guess I’ll miss him a little bit. The old man actually managed out a snicker.

"A little bit!"

That evening, Sehun was nearly dragged down to the station for a noise complaint filed against him.






 

✖





 

Sehun decided to imitate those brooding men he saw on TV and took out a new packet of cigarettes. He found the box a little oddly heavy and when he shook it, it made a little too much noise.

He finally opened the box, and his eyes widened at the contents.

“Hey, he gave me chocolate! He must like me!”

Sehun could hear the old man in his head rolling his eyes.

[He just conned you, you royal idiot.] 

The bed-haired teenager just shrugged and drawled lazily, [Valentine’s Day is long past, dude.]

“Oh.” Sehun shrugged, before throwing a few M&M’s in his mouth. M&Ms were just as good as a smoke break here and there. Maybe the old man was sort of right about kicking the habit.






 

✖





 

The thing about Chinese syndicate bosses was that they had a serious case of monologue addiction.

Sehun had to listen to the Macau boss drone on and on about vengeance and Chinese proverbs. He let the cute shop owner invade his mind for a while, and he earned a hard whack on the shoulder from the Macau boss.

“Why are you smiling like that? I just told you my long bloodied history with Tai Fung and you grin as if I was singing a Teresa Teng ballad.”

Sehun didn’t even know who Teresa Teng was, but he assumed she sang love songs since he was wearing the dopiest grin known to man in the entirety of the boss’s monologue.

The boss sighed impatiently. “I assume you know what to do anyway,” he finally remarked before gesturing to one of his men to show Sehun out.





 

✖





 

The job was easily done, of course. People hardly expected danger to come from above, and literally, since Sehun had to cut a neat circle in the glass roof of his target’s home. Kick, punch, slash and a little boom, and his job was done in a jiffy.

But for the first time, he just couldn’t wait to get back to his dingy old apartment, and especially his next stock up trip.

[You’re starting to become quite domesticated.I suppose being around that boy is doing you some good]

But Sehun was too deep in his sugary daydreams to ask the geezer to shut up.





 

✖





 

When Sehun finally touched down, he made a beeline for the grocery store, making an effort to wear his freshly washed jacket and new jeans. Unfortunately, the odds didn’t seem to be working in his favour and there was a queue. He pushed his way to the front, very nearly colliding head on with an old lady, who glared at him threateningly, an umbrella clutched tightly in her hand.

“I think you have eyes like Belgian chocolate almonds, aaand the cigarette-M&M stunt was sort of uncalled for but a little cute. So, wanna go out?” he leered, leaning over the counter, face in a distance dangerously close enough to kiss.

The other patrons stared at him curiously, while the shop owner looked at him incredulously.

“Not when you’re cutting queue like that,” the man remarked rather coldly.

Sehun pouted and dashed to the back of the queue. “How about now?” he yelled.

“No,” the man remarked calmly as he scanned the old lady’s purchases.

Another man in a dress shirt queuing in front of him turned and whispered. “Try the good old flowers and gifts stunt. Works quite flawlessly.”

Sehun ran out of the shop and to the park, plucking some dandelions from the grass. And from a nearby house garden he took the sole garden gnome.

He sprinted back into the shop, waving the dandelions and garden gnome in the air wildly. “How aboutnow? I got you flowers and a gift!”

The old man and the teenager in his head simultaneously began knocking their foreheads on the wall.

The owner stared back at him. “Firstly, dandelions are weeds, and second, I sincerely hope you did notsteal that from someone’s garden.”

Sehun was on the verge of giving up when the old man nudged him.

[Ask for his name, idiot.]

“Could I at least know what lovely name that thou has been christened with?” Sehun sing-songed.

The owner finally cracked a grin. “Joonmyun. Pleased to meet you, soup man,” he winked.

A middle aged lady caught sight of the garden gnome in Sehun’s hands and began thwacking him on the head. “That’s my garden gnome you stole, clown!”

Sehun gritted his teeth. He glanced at Joonmyun, who was trying to control himself from exploding into a laughing fit.

“Damn it, Sehun.” he muttered under his breath.

 

the end?!? ☺