Pardon Me
Chapter One: Audrey's Abduction
Hard to believe that it was the clicking of a Zippo lighter that woke Audrey up. Considering that most of the time, a blaring alarm clock couldn't do that job.
"What the shit?" Audrey grumbled and sat up, her head was spinning. The last thing she could remember was… "Being hit on the head with a brick?" she screeched and looked around, discovering that she was in large steel cage. The bars glinted in the light maliciously as her eyes passed over them.
Wait- no, she couldn't be in a cage… could she?
About ten feet long- ten feet wide- bars too large for her hand to fit all the way around.
Yes, she was in a cage.
She was sitting on a small green cot right in the middle of a cage.
This was so very messed up.
Audrey's mind raced, who would put her in a cage! Why would someone do something like this!
She froze, she thought, she grimaced and she vowed to never chat with any strange men over the internet ever again. Even her remorse at this moment could not save her though.
"She's awake.--" Someone said behind her and Audrey spun around to look behind her so fast that she whipped herself off of the cot and fell to the floor with a thud.
A soft chuckle graced her ears, as though it were some kind of universal law that pain was to be accompanied to humiliation. She pushed herself up off the floor while muttering incoherently about whiplash. Through a veil of her own coppery red hair she could see a young man on the side of the cage she herself wished she was on; the out side.
He was leaning back in a chair, smirking at her and fiddling with a lighter. He looked very amused, he looked handsome. More importantly, he did not look like some creepy fifty year old internet troll who still lived in his mothers basement and got his rocks off by kidnapping young redheads and disemboweling them in hot tubs. Actually, hell, Audrey stared at him… if she had to be kidnapped at some point in her life she sure was grateful it was by someone like him.
Her hormone driven post-pubescent thoughts were suddenly chilled… After all didn't some women find Ted Bundy attractive?
Next to handsome man sat a large man with yellow blonde hair and a scowl. Large as in 'that is a whole lotta person' large'. Large as in 'where did the Hostess factory go, oh he ate it' large.
Audrey stood and dusted herself off, glancing around the cage once more anxiously. She would not freak out, she would keep calm, she would demand answers and if they did not give them to her she would throw a tantrum the likes of which the world has never seen.
"Where am I?" She asked, walking to the side of the cage the two men sat at. She placed one hand on the cold steel bar beside her face.
Neither of them answered her. The man smirking only continued to play with his zippo lighter. Click . Flick. Swish.
Audrey stared at him, confused.
John didn't stare at her, he wasn't fixated on her beauty, nor had he fallen in love with her the moment she had opened her mouth. In Johns world, love at first sight was for desperate people, and those with chemical imbalances.
She was pretty, he was a horny nineteen year old guy. In his mind their relationship barely had the potential to have the depth of a mud puddle.
At the end of the day, he had a job and she was it.
"Go tell Magneto she's up." John ordered while elbowing the huge man beside him.
Audrey's eyes flickered to the bag of muscle and flesh who continued to scowl at her.
Blob had a different reaction to seeing Audrey. He thought she was physically gorgeous but he hated her from the moment he'd first seen her skipping down the street in an obnoxiously childlike way. He had enjoyed knocking her unconscious with a brick as much as he had enjoyed copping a feel while he transported her to her cage. He desired her and he knew she would never desire him for what he was. Blob knew what he was, disgusting; and he hated her for it.
Audrey blinked and removed her hand from the cold iron bar.
The large blubbery man grunted and got up, leaving the room.
John watched his fellow mutant leave and wrinkled his nose. He didn't care if Blob was fat, or if the beast could lift over three tons of, well anything. John just got tired of all the scowling. Scowl at this, scowl at that… god find a new routine already.
"Where am I?" Audrey repeated a little bit louder, John turned his attention towards her lazily.
She gritted her teeth; his silence and that casual smirk of his were getting annoying.
"To me it looks like you're in a big cage." He replied calmly, flicking his lighter open.
"Yea." She glared at him and cocked her head like a confused puppy. "Why?"
"Someone must have put you there."
"Someone?" She asked sarcastically and ran a hand through her hair. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why would someone put me in a big cage?" Audrey told herself to be patient, to not freak out, freaking out was not good.
He shrugged and snapped his lighter shut. "Maybe they thought it would be funny?"
"Funny!" She shrieked and he looked a bit taken back by her sudden outburst.
Audrey remembered to take a deep breath and calm down, she was not going to be that stupid woman who panicked when they found themselves in a scary situation. Instead she decided to try and play it cool.
"Funny 'ha ha' no." She said and leant against the bars. "Funny 'weird' yes."
John shrugged again.
"Okay, obviously not going to get any real answers out of you am I?" She asked, becoming frustrated again.
Another shrug.
Play it cool, like Travolta she reminded herself. Don't freak out. Drew Barrymore freaked out in 'Scream' and where did it get here. That's right, it got her dead. It got her stabbed right in the boobies!
Maybe she shouldn't have thought that. Since it immediately gave her the image of someone stabbing her into the chest as she tried to run away.
Audrey's eyes widened.
John fell very still as he watched the prisoners face contort into that of absolute horror.
"Oh god." She gasped and sunk down to the floor. "I've been kidnapped and now I'm going to die. I'm going to be sold off to some kind of black market human slave trade in a Guatemala where some pimp named Francesco 's going to make me addicted to cocaine and turn me into a cheap crack whore!" Audrey felt like she was hyperventilating and her eyes were beginning to sting. Freak out mode was officially in gear.
"I don't even know what it means to toss someone's salad!!" She exclaimed, sounding absolutely horrified.
John sat there staring at her, his smirk completely gone and his features paralyzed with shock.
Audrey continued to ruffle her copper hair nervously and talk to herself in a panicked tone.
"I'm too young to be a crack whore in a third world country, I'm only seventeen" She said and started to breathe with difficulty. She was hyperventilating.
"Just chill out okay." John ordered, becoming slightly concerned about her without really knowing why. He didn't like watching her spaz out this way "No ones going to make you toss salads."
"Then." Audrey pulled in a wheezing breathe. "Oh god, oh god, your going to take my kidneys aren't you? Stick me in a tub full of ice and leave me there to die!" She turned towards him, tears beginning to stream steadily from her eyes. She whined like a three year old. "I don't like cold baths! I don't want to give any rim jobs!"
She hiccupped.
"I don't know what a rim job is either!" She declared, an ultimate sadness in her voice. Desperation for that horrible knowledge only comes when you are sure you're going to die, and you're sure you're not ready.
"No, Jesus…" John reached out a hand as though he was going to put his hands through the bars of her cage and pat her back or something but he pulled it back instantly. His eyebrows knotted and he seemed to be completely baffled now.
Audrey was turning a little pink now from lack of oxygen.
"Calm down," He practically begged "No ones going to take your kidneys or… take you to Guatemala…"
No use, she was still freaking out. Bottom lip trembling, not breathing, paralyzed with fear kind of freaking out. John was sure if he didn't calm her down soon she was going to have a nervous breakdown.
"You're safe okay!" he told her forcefully and she looked up, trying to listen to him. "You're safe and no ones going to hurt you!"
She started to calm down now, after about five minutes of silence she had returned to normal and was no longer crying.
John meanwhile had to sit there, watching the entire process. He sat back and let out an exasperated breath when her color had returned to normal.
"Promise?" She asked quietly without looking at him. She just looked at the ground. She was avoiding eye contact and focusing on her breathing.
John didn't care what she was doing as long as she wasn't screaming about rim jobs and tossed salads.
"What?" He asked, furrowing his eyebrows. John had heard her, he just didn't seem how a promise from him would really mean anything. It was easy to break promises, too easy.
"You promise no ones going to hurt me?" She repeated, looking up at him and sniffling a little.
With her large eyes puffy and pink from tears and her chin trembling, she looked so helpless. Audrey reminded John of a scared child. The fact that he was feeling pity for her annoyed him intensely.
For a minute he couldn't answer yes, he wouldn't. He had to actually stop and think about why, even though promises were so easy to break, why was this one so difficult for him to make? Maybe because he wanted to keep it, maybe because he thought he wouldn't be able to.
"Yes." He responded finally when he saw the panic building up behind her eyes again.
"Okay." She seemed to be soothed by John's response and he felt even more confused than ever. This girl was something else. What, he couldn't be sure of yet but the fact he had been able to calm her down so much made him feel a little bit of pride. That a promise from him had that kind of effect on her was profound for him.
Audrey pushed herself up off the floor and leaned against the bars of her oversized cage. Her face towards the inside of the cage, her back to John.
"You alright now?" He asked, sounding exhausted.
Silence followed, his chest tightened. She had believed him right? He leant forward, and rested his elbows on his knees, watching her intently.
She nodded her head and wiped tears from her eyes before turning to face him once more.
There was a long string of silence and John had begun to play with his lighter once more. Flicking it open and closing it with a snap. Turning his attention from the girl in front of him to the dancing flame at his finger tips.
"Um.." She tapped her fingernails on the cage bars.
John looked up from his lighter, raising his eyebrows. She was staring at his lighter too, but then her eyes flickered up to his. She seemed to have recovered, in… what, thirty seconds? John knew that had to be some kind of record for a girl to go from panic attack to calm curiosity.
"So, what's your name?" Audrey asked in a way that let him knew she knew the question was kind of lame too.
"Pyro." He said and looked at the small flame of his lighter, then snapped it shut quickly, resisting the urge to play with fire right now. Even though- he had no way of knowing then how he was playing with fire just by speaking to her.
Audrey scrunched up her nose. Showing her dislike for the name 'Pyro' without any hesitation.
"What?" He asked shortly, offended. First this redhead spazzed out on him, now she's going to insult his name?
"Nothing, it's just… Your parents named you Pyro?" She asked, giving him a look that asked if they were complete idiots, or dopers.
"No." He said flatly.
She lifted an eyebrow, a silent way of inquiring about the name.
"I named myself Pyro." He told her and put his Zippo back in his pocket. "My parent's named me John."
"I like John better than Pyro." She said simply and he gave her an almost glare. "I'm Audrey." She said, choosing to ignore the dirty look. "But if I was going to name myself, I think I'd have to go by Rainbow Gerbil-shorts."
"You're weird." He said after a second of observation.
Audrey shrugged. "Coming from a man who named himself Pyro." She retorted and wrinkled her eyebrows before going in a completely different direction "That's actually kind of weird though, because when I was little I used to be a total pyromaniac." She told him- emphasizing the 'Pyro' in a way that made him feel like she was teasing him about it.
John was completely perplexed by this girl, she was utterly random… but still he found himself interested in her old pyromaniac days. He asked the question so many before him had walked away from. "Really?"
"Yea." She said simply and smiled. "I set the living room curtains on fire once, and then there was the time with my sister's cat Boggie… the fur on his tail has never really grown back." She said, her smirk smoothly turning into a full blown grin.
John reasoned that either she didn't like the cat, or she really liked fire.
Despite himself, John was smiling. He had once set a dog on fire growing up. Then the door to his left opened, snapping him back into the reality of the situation.
Audrey wrinkled her eyebrows as an older man she would later describe as an ancient bisexual with a god complex in a football helmet walked into the room and looked her over. Audrey immediately noted that his smile was as unpleasant as his fashion sense.
"You're Amelia Harris' sister are you not?" Magneto asked, shifting his helmet a little. He tried to ignore that she was staring at it in awe, openly.
"Amelia is my sister, yes." Audrey responded, trying to pull her eyes away from the helmet.
"Well then we have the right girl." Magneto said happily, clapping his hands together once.
"Are you gonna kill me?" The question fell from her mouth like a half chewed egg roll, she tilted her head and gazing at the elderly man suspiciously.
Magneto's expression fell curious, she was direct.
"I don't see any reason to." He responded in a way that gave Audrey the real meaning of that statement. 'I will if I find a reason.'
Audrey tapped her fingernails against the bar once again as she studied Magneto. Her pensive expression fluttered away after a second.
"So you kidnapped me to get to my sister…" She said, putting the pieces of this extremely odd puzzle together.
She was quick too. Magneto realized sourly.
"What would make you say that?" He asked.
"First thing you did was ask me if I was my sister's sister." She responded smoothly. "You would only do that if you thought my sister was my sister, which she is. SO me being my sisters sister must be the reason I am here."
John and Magneto's eyebrows lifted.
"So why do you want Amelia?" Audrey asked- her voice adopting a somewhat calculating twang to it which seemed out of place on her.
"You really want to know, do you?" Magneto asked.
"Yup." She answered.
"Well she is a mutant with--"He began- but got cut off by an excited squeak.
"No way? Amelia is a mutant! Oh I knew it! I knew something was going on!" Audrey exclaimed.
"With a very special ability--" Magneto was trying to continue as though Audrey hadn't interrupted him. Hoping she wouldn't do it again.
No such luck.
"What can she do, what's her mutation?" She asked, bouncing up and down a little.
"She disassembles and deteriorates molecules…" Magneto drawled, earning a blank stare from Audrey.
"So… She like can… destroy junk?" Audrey attempted to clarify. Science wasn't her forte.
"Actually she had the distinct ability to reduce 'junk' into nothing but a fine particle dust." He said, emphasizing the word junk in a mocking way.
"That's awesome!!" Audrey cried, grinning.
Magneto gave her a strange look and then looked down to John who returned his expression and shrugged.
"I understand her about as much as you do." He told Magneto.
"You guys are mutants too aren't you?" Audrey asked, looking at them in a way that a scientist looks at new and untainted laboratory rats.
"Yes." Magneto said shortly.
"Ooo, what can you do?" She asked, gazing at the old man in wonder.
Magneto smiled coldly and held up a hand, one of the bars of her cage bent a little and Audrey gaped like a fish at it.
"Wicked…" She said in wonder.
"I can do much more than that I assure you." He said in a way she perceived as threatening. With that statement, Magneto left.
Audrey stared at the door a moment, then turned back to John.
"So, John?" She asked conversationally.
He didn't look up.
"Yea?" He said after a second, only half listening to her.
"What's with the dorky helmet?" she asked.
John looked up at her and grinned.