A/N: Pyro one-shot with hard T rating. Much because of the language than anything else. I don't quite think it's M, but I could be wrong. If so, then I'll just up the rating. My first ever one-shot, so reviews on how I did would be greatly appreciated.
Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or the characters within that realm. I do, sadly enough, own Carla. Or Chloe. Take your pick.
Used
Flick… swip… click.
A hard-set face lit up with a warm orange glow for every time a calloused thumb swipped down the jagged wheel.
The uneven wall behind him was digging into his back. The thin material of his t-shirt served him absolutely no good, other than to keep him from walking around half naked. He could barely remember why he'd forgotten to bring his jacket. No, wait. Right. The Prospects Of Getting Laid. Could make a sane man forget his own ruddy name.
Bits of sharp-edged gravel was jabbing into his butt where he sat on the ground against the abandoned factory building. But he made no move to reposition himself. Instead he stubbornly kept his pseudo-relaxed hunch with his left leg extended and the right one pulled up to have his forearm rest on the knee.
Flick…click…John wasn't a great fan of awkward silences. Actually, he hated them about as much as he had hated it when Bobby – Good Ol', All American Bobby Drake – used to give him one of his condescending looks and tell him to stop being such an ass.
The fact of the matter was that John liked being an ass. It came naturally to him. He saw no point in sugar-coating things unless they were for eating.
He flicked his lighter again and let the flame burn.
Let the awkward silence burn.
"So what? You don't have anything else to say? … Huh? John?"
He gave an indifferent shrug.
"What do you want me to say?"
"Oh, I don't know," the girl huffed sourly, "Maybe give me an explanation?"
"Why?"
He could tell he was driving her crazy.
Good.
"Why!?" she nearly shrieked. "Why? Because you…you used me!"
"Yeah, exactly. Why do you need an explanation to that? I used you. That's all there is to it," John said calmly, staring into the flame of his lighter.
"I can't believe you."
He gave another shrug. She could bitch all she wanted but they both knew it wasn't going to be a story of happily ever after. What the hell did she expect? Teen pregnancy and a promise to love her forever and always and maybe even someday buy one of those over ground pools for the trailer for the kids to play in?
Please.
John didn't have to look at her to know that she was crying herself a river over his cold rejection. She blubbered something about being hurt or possibly hating him before kicking up some gravel – some coming dangerously close to hitting him in the face - and storming away from him.
Click.
Shutting his lighter, he leaned his head back against the factory building's crumbling wall. The night sky was a weird sort of dirty orange. As if something was burning somewhere up there behind it all. The thought – as did all things related to fire – warmed him inside.
And it was a good thing it did, because this girl, this Chloe (or was it Carla?) had done little to fulfil his expectations. But he'd kept her on leash for a few weeks anyway. Just because.
Just because he knew it'd be hard for him to find another girl who was dumb enough to take midnight bus-rides to the outskirts of New York to give him an average fuck. And as bad as he should have felt for flat-out using the poor trailer mutt like he had, he still knew that average fucks with a less than average girl was better than his own right hand.
Sad truth.
Throwing a glance at his watch he figured he'd best make his way back to the secret lair before Magneto realized that his personal walking flamethrower was missing and got his soggy old man-panties in a twist. John didn't even pretend to like the man that much. But he stuck around because the power-crazed fender-bender got a kick out of wreaking havoc and that was just the kind of fun that John got giddy about.
Moving to push himself off the ground, he stopped in mid-motion as a figure blocked the weak amber glow from the naked streetlamp on the corner.
"I thought I'd find you here."
John bit the inside of his cheek, fighting back the involuntary groan.
If there was any one person on the entire planet that he didn't want to see at that particular moment in time, it was her. He had hoped that the last time really had been the last time. He'd been left alone to find pleasure on his terms, elsewhere. But apparently, she perhaps wasn't quite done yet. And it made his stomach churn.
"Yeah, well," John said, opting for being vague and offering flimsy hand gestures that were intended to say the rest, but in reality said nothing at all.
"Was she any good?"
He swallowed her question in a poorly hid gulp as she leisurely reached to take the lighter from his cold fingers. Bringing it to her face, she lit up a cigarette he hadn't even noticed.
"Nah. Average."
Another flimsy hand gesture.
Maybe, if he did that enough, she'd think he was gay and leave him alone. But, he realized as he thought it through, she probably wouldn't have any worries adapting herself to that scenario either.
John visibly shuddered at the thought.
She raised him an interested brow.
"You can do better than her, Pyro."
His name rolled off her tongue like a dirty word.
Fuck, shit, cock, pussy, Pyro. It was right there with the rest of the filth that made his ribcage feel too small for his lungs.
He chose not to answer her. Because if he had, it would have probably made him look like the moronic dweeb that he felt like. It wasn't his game to play the insecure idiot. It wasn't his thing. He was arrogant, cocky, unbearable and really just downright rude. Carla (or Chloe. whatever.) could vouch for that. He almost wanted the dirty blonde trash to have actually cried out a puddle onto the ground that he could confidently point at and say "Ha! See! I made her CRY – because that's how goddamned bad I am. You don't want to fuck with me. I'm bad".
But he knew he'd be barking up the wrong tree. This girl – no, poisonous temptress of fucking doom – would only get off to his outburst.
He was screwed. So royally fucked over that all he could do was stare back at her like a dumbstruck jackass.
She moved closer, blowing her smoke just past his face. Light from the street lamp reflected off the top of her slicked-back hair, giving him something to look at, other than the chest that was hovering dangerously close.
"I don't…"
He didn't know how the feeble attempt at a protest had slipped past his dry lips. Apparently, his brain had by then successfully detached itself from his body.
She smirked at his shaky words, her fingertips already pushing him towards the edge by just trailing along the stubble-dusted line of his jaw.
"What are you trying to say, Pyro? You don't want this?"
He wanted to screw his eyes shut and press his cold sweaty palms to his ears when she said his name again. He wanted to shake his head and sink through the ground to go dig up his dignity. He wanted to give it a sincere apology before clutching it to his chest and running as far as he could before falling head-first to break his nose on the curb of 'It's Too Fucking Late'.
He wanted anything but to be stuck in submission.
"Mystique, please…" he rasped out.
But she was already on him and there was nothing he could do. She was already inside him and there was no end to what she could do.
She was using him. And he was hers to be used.
