Subject: [OTL]: Goth As F... (R) (Death Of The Endless) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 22:31:42 From: John Arthur AS GOTH AS F... BY RAVEN AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is a birthday fic for Yona. Everyone who yelled "Late!" can see me after class. Many thanks go to all the folks who sent me info on Death and the other Endless, especially Mockery and Yona herself. It’s been rated R for the usual smattering of bad language and stuff you might not want your kids to see. Death belongs to all of us, but this particular incarnation is the property of Neil Gaiman. I hope I’ve done him proud. Ashe and the others are mine, however: ask if you wanna borrow them, people. No money is being made from this, people: it isn’t worth the effort suing me either... I’m an ex-student! All feedback and flames to the usual address, please! * The last night of Matthew Russell’s life could have been so much different. It could have been, but it wasn’t. Ashe lounged on the sofa, bored. This nightclub used to be so cool, he thought, sipping from the pint glass of tap water he held in one black-nailed hand. They used to be strict about who they let in. Now they’ll let anyone in, he thought. For instance, that boy in the Limp Bizkit top. He can’t be what, fourteen? And that girl with the deelieboppers. What’s with that? Makes her look like a moron. Ashe sighed and took another languid sip of his glass of water. He was good at being languid. It was just another sign of just how much cooler than all the other people in the nightclub he was. Most of them wouldn’t even know the meaning of the word languid. Even if it came up to them and punched them in the face. No, Ashe was above all them all. Ashe wasn’t like the other kids in the nightclub. Ashe was Goth As Fuck. And boy did he know it... As the DJ began playing the night’s next record, Ashe tried to get as many people as possible to see that he was bored. He yawned extravagantly, stretching like a large, leather-clad, particularly obnoxious cat. He was really quite disappointed that everyone merely continued having fun around him. Yes, thought Ashe, this nightclub really has gone downhill. It’s ever since the Powers-That-Be decided that rock music was the "next big thing", he thought, idly wondering whether or not he had ever looked as stupid as the kid in the Marilyn Manson top. Watching as the kid flailed and writhed to the pounding beat of the song, Ashe found himself thinking that possibly no-one had ever looked as stupid as the kid in the Marilyn Manson top. Ashe suppressed a smirk, cursing himself as he did so. Mustn’t show that you have a sense of humour, old man, he thought. Being Goth As Fuck precludes having a sense of humour. He fixed the bored loom back onto his face and looked at his watch. His girlfriend was late, as usual. Why he hadn’t ditched her by now was beyond him. Sure, she was pretty, and she laughed at all his witticisms, and she shared his views on music and fashion, but she was disconcertingly... Well, disconcertingly perky. She often smiled. She occasionally took time to talk to people she didn’t know. She had, it was rumoured, been seen to air-guitar. Yes, Ashe found himself wondering why he hadn’t ditched her long ago. It was probably the sex, he eventually decided, draining his pint glass. Sex with Natalie was pretty god-damn fan-tastic, he thought, standing up and smoothing his oh-so-expensive leather jeans down so that hung just right, running a hand through his fashionably-spiky black hair. As he reached into the neck of his oh-so-rare and oh-so-offensive Cradle Of Filth tour t-shirt to unclip his oh-so-expensive and oh-so-chic Matrix-style sunglasses, Ashe had to suppress yet another grin. The kid in the Marilyn Manson top had slipped on someone’s spilled beer and landed right on his ass. Serves him right, Ashe thought. Serves him right. Standing at the bar, Ashe found himself checking out his reflection in the mirror behind it. Yes Ashe, you are a sexy beast, he thought, preening like a particularly vain cockatoo. Everything about him screamed his coolness, from his hair to his clothes... even to his fucking cheekbones, for God’s sake! Ashe stroked his chin, feeling the bristly hairs on it with displeasure. It would soon be time to break out the razor and carve the goatee back into the straight line that everyone thought was so hip. He’d probably have a beard the length of that of a Seventies’ drummer by the time he got served, Ashe thought angrily. It didn’t matter that the girl was new, didn’t matter that she was flustered by the throng already at the bar. What mattered was that he wanted a drink and he wanted it now, dammit! He fixed her with a steely glare from behind his sunglasses as he reached the head of the queue, aiming his head at just the right angle for the reflection to hide his gaze as he did so. "A pint of water, please," he said, just the right amount of disdain for her in his voice. The girl nodded. "A pint of water, right. Do you want ice in that?" Ashe took great delight in pretending to examine the back of his hand and not replying to her question. "I said..." "No, I don’t want ice in it. I thought not answering would have made that obvious." His words were rewarded almost instantly by the flush of red across her cheeks. The girl would not make eye-contact with him as she handed him his drink, and he headed back to his seat feeling very, very proud of himself. Ashe’s good mood was ruined by the girl who had taken his seat whilst he was away. He glared balefully at her, hoping she’d at least have the common courtesy to apologise. But no! She couldn’t even be upset, or scared, or flustered! Instead, she smiled perkily up at him and patted the seat next to her! "I left you a space," she said, winking, "It’s alright, I don’t bite." Ashe glared again, hoping she would wither away and die. Still she smiled up at him. She showed no sign of moving. So Ashe sat next to her. He did it with an incredibly grandiose show displeasure, but he sat next to her nonetheless. The problem with being Goth As Fuck, Ashe thought, was that you tended to attract the wrong kind of people. Take this girl, for example. Here was a most definite case of being The Wrong Kind Of People. Black and white striped tights. Very nice and all that, but didn’t they die out in Ninety-Six? Black Dr Marten’s. Where are we, Ashe thought, a sixth-form disco? Anyone worth the title of Goth As Fuck had to have spent at least seventy quid on their boots. Ashe himself had spent a hundred and thirty on his, and had spent another five on the chains he had then customised them with. Black miniskirt. Now we were getting somewhere: it stretched just tight enough to be sexy, but not so much as to be tarty. Black t-shirt, can’t go wrong with plain black. Battered leather jacket that looked as though it had been abandoned by a glam rock band in the days of the dinosaurs. White makeup, black lips. Pretty enough underneath it all, Ashe allowed. But what ruined the whole effect? She was a wearing a fucking top hat, for god’s sake. And an ankh. An honest-to-god, plain-as-day, mother-fucking ankh. A huge silver monstrosity of an ankh, to be precise. The girl obviously thinks she’s the second coming of Anne Rice, Ashe thought to himself. He tried to ignore her: it was best that she didn’t even think of talking to him. He amused himself by staring blankly at the cigarette machine across the crowded dancefloor and wondering how long the giorl would take to get the message that yes, he was cool, but no, he most certainly did not want to be her friend. It wasn’t working. Almost a whole song later, she was still there. And she still had that fucking top hat on! Ashe seethed inwardly, cursing the first day he had ever graced this stinking pit of a nightclub, and cursing even further his new "friend". The DJ span another record. Guns ‘N’ Roses’ "Paradise City". Ashe rolled his eyes. The girl was no longer paying no attention to him any more, which was good, but she was now singing along and drumming on her knees! Singing along badly! Ashe could not believe how un-cool some people could be. He even seriously considered getting up and moving away, but stopped himself just in time. Moving would means he had won. Moving would mean he was as bad as the thirteen-year-olds who sat on the steps leading to the local Woolworth’s in their Linkin Park tops and Slipknot t-shirts that he and his girlfriend had such fun tormenting. Moving would mean that he was not, indeed, Goth As Fuck. He sipped from his glass of water and grimaced. Somewhere along the line, it had gone warm. That bitch behind the bar had done it to spite him, obviously. Never mind the fact he’d been ignoring it for three minutes in the sweltering heat of the club. No, it was that little bitch with her stupid blonde hair and her stupid fucking voice. She’d done it to spite him. Furious, Ashe slammed the glass down on the table in front of him. His new "friend" looked at him. Ashe was in the midst of preparing a remark so scathing it would strip the flesh from her bones, when... "Do you mind watching my hat?" Before he could even think of answering in the negative, the monstrosity was thrust into his hands and she was away, onto the dancefloor. Ashe was horrified. What if someone had seen her give him the hat? They’d think she was with him! Worse still, what if they hadn’t seen her give him the hat? They might presume it to be his! Watching her on the dancefloor, Ashe felt his heart sink. Not only had she draped herself around the kid in the Marilyn Manson t-shirt... ...they were both air-guitaring. What seemed like an eternity later, the girl returned from the dancefloor. Her lipstick was smudged, and her white makeup had run, revealing surprisingly pale skin underneath. Her hair was a mess, and she was breathing heavily. The kid with the Marilyn Manson t-shirt had his arm around her waist, too. He had a large black lipstick mark on his left cheek. Ashe sighed, sorry for the poor boy despite himself. Obviously he would never be counted amongst the ranks of those who were Goth As Fuck due to his abominable taste in music, but with a little help he might have been saveable. As long as they didn’t wear hooded tops they all were, after all. But to have spent the best part of two songs air-guitaring? There was no salvation for this one. Even if one had been a Guns ‘N’ Roses songs. And even if the other one had been "Enter Sandman". It just wasn’t on!!! Ashe handed the girl her top hat, which she promptly placed on the head of the kid in the Marilyn Manson t-shirt. He grinned like a particularly manic hyena at this. "You keep it," she said, planting another lipsticky kiss on his right cheek. The kid’s eyes widened. "You sure?" "Sure." The kid gave her a hug and wandered off to the bar. Ashe dipped his head so that the girl could see his eyes over the tops of his sunglasses. "You gave him your hat?" The girl nodded, still smiling happily. "I like giving." Ashe rolled his eyes and sat back, conveniently spreading his arms wide so that his coat filled the parts of sofa he didn’t. "You like giving, huh?" Ashe said, trying to outstare the girl. With his sunglasses on it was hardly a fair contest, but who cared? She shrugged. "Beats taking." Ashe pondered this. Not only did she have terrible fashion sense and taste in music, she was a hippy to boot! Such a pity, he thought, redirecting his attention to the cigarette machine and hoping that she would take this as the hint he meant it to be. She didn’t. Instead, she did the unthinkable. She sat on his knee. She sat. On. His. Fucking knee! Ashe seethed. Nobody sat on his knee. Not even his girlfriend. He had paid almost two-hundred quid for these jeans! Nobody sat on them! The girl smiled at him, and planted a kiss on his forehead. He could almost feel the stares of everyone in the nightclub. Could feel the black lipstick indelibly staining his skin. And yet he could do nothing. He just sat there and let her do it. Once the kiss was over, the girl stood up, and smoothed her skirt over her hips. "You... you... you..." The words escaped him. He was so angry he couldn’t even think of an insult foul enough to hurl at her, let alone actually utter it. The girl winked at him. "Night-night, Matthew." With that, she turned and walked away. Matthew? Matthew?!? How fucking dare she!?! No-one called him by that name! Not his girlfriend, not his lecturers at University... even his parents had learned not to call him that! His name was Ashe, dammit! Not Matthew! Matthew was not the name of someone as Goth As Fuck! Ashe watched incredulously as she walked over to the kid with the Marilyn Manson top that she had been so enamoured over, and spoke to him. The kid laughed. He’s laughing at me, Ashe seethed. He’s laughing because she’s just told him my fucking real name. That fucking bitch!!! How dare she? More importantly, how the fuck does she know? No-one calls me that name! Ashe stood up, no longer caring about how the creases fell in his jeans. All he cared about was finding out who the girl was. All he cared about was finding out how she had the guts to spill his deepest, darkest secret to a moron like that fucking kid! He watched as she turned from the kid and walked out of the club. I’m going to follow her, he decided. I’m going to ask her just who the fuck she thinks she is. Like a leather-clad thunderstorm, Ashe slammed through the doors of the club, searching for the girl who had embarrassed him so badly. Not in the entrance of the club. Probably already outside, he raged. The bouncers looked surprised to see him as he swooped past them, coat trailing out behind him like huge black wings. They would talk to their girlfriends about it the next day, as they ate their breakfasts and read their newspapers. The street outside the club was soaked with driving rain. A howling wind cut straight through Ashe’s unbuttoned leather jacket and right to his very core, but he barely felt it. All that mattered was finding that damn girl and getting a few answers out of her! He looked left, away from the rain, down the street. Nothing, just the retreating rear lights of someone’s car. He looked ahead. There! Across the road, by the phonebox! Ashe’s heart burned with the anger she had dredged up within him as he vaulted the barrier and ran across the road. As he prepared to vault the second barrier, there was a squeal of tyres. Ashe barely looked round in time to see the headlights of the van headed towards him, out of control, skidding on the slick tarmac. He slammed his eyes shut and hoped it would be painless. Just in time, a hand gripped the back of his neck and yanked him over the barrier. Ashe heard leather rip, felt himself crash against the concrete paving slabs. But heard the car drive away. For a second, Ashe was afraid to open his eyes. But then his rage returned. Yes, whoever had grabbed him had saved his life, but they had also torn his fucking jacket! They were in big trouble. So you can probably imagine just how appalled he was to find out that his rescuer had been none other than the girl from the nightclub. There was an impasse that lasted for the best part of five seconds. Then Ashe could control himself no longer. "You bitch!" he shrieked, his hair plastered to his head, his sunglasses gone and forgotten, "I could have been fucking killed because of you?" The girl merely raised an eyebrow. "Really? Looked to me like I just saved your life." "I wouldn’t have been running across the fucking road if I hadn’t been chasing after you!" he spat, "What gives you the right to go around telling people my real name, huh?" The girl now shook her head, laughing softly. Ashe couldn’t believe his eyes or ears. Was she honestly laughing at him? She didn’t have the right to laugh at him! He was Goth As Fuck, dammit! "Matthew..." "It’s Ashe," he spat, advancing on her threateningly. She took a step backwards. "Okay, Ashe, whatever," she said, the nonchalance in her voice galling him to the point of apoplexy, "Calm down. I didn’t tell Josh your real name. I just told him I’d see him around. That’s all." Ashe’s eyes bulged with indignance. "That’s all? That’s all?!?" Ashe watched with horrified amazement as the girl nodded. "There’s more to life than being scared of your own name," she said, and turned to go. Ashe grabbed her by the shoulder. "I am not scared of my..." Ashe was silenced by the punch that flew out of nowhere and slammed into his face. His footing slipped on the wet pavement and he crashed to the ground. He was dimly aware of a ripping sound that signified his jeans tearing, and of a siren in the distance. What he was more aware of was the warm coppery taste in his mouth of his own blood. He glared up at the girl. "You’re going to be sorry you did that, you bitch," he snarled, blood dripping from the cut inside his mouth, "I’m gonna make you..." "Sorry you were born, Matthew? I already am." Ashe snarled and tried to scramble to his feet. The conditions conspired against him, and he merely floundered like a gaffed fish. "I’m sorry you were born. I’m sorry you’re so angry. I’m sorry that you think of other people having fun as a personal insult." The girl’s eyes blazed in the orange light thrown by the sodium streetlights. Suddenly Ashe was more afraid than he had ever been before in his twenty-one years on the planet. The girl continued. "I’m sorry you people hate each other so much." What the fuck? "You people"? Is this girl on crack? Thought Ashe as she continued. "I’m sorry that I have to deal with jerks like you on such a regular basis. I’m sorry that people like you get so much longer than nice, friendly boys like Joshua." "What’s wrong with Joshua that a good stylist couldn’t cure?" For a second, Ashe regretted his response. The girl’s eyes blazed and she took another step towards him, her fists bunched into fists. "Joshua has cancer, you insensitive fuck," she hissed, "He won’t live more than a month." Ashe tried to play it cool. "Oh? Poor guy." "Poor guy indeed. He has so much to give the world," the girl said. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled. The girl turned to it, and Ashe finally found the strength and co-ordination necessary to get to his feet again. The sirens were getting closer. "Wonder what that means," Ashe said, surprised to find himself thinking out loud. The girl merely laughed in reply. It wasn’t a nice laugh. It was a cold, mirthless laugh. "You’ll find out," she said, lifting a hand and waving slowly to him as she walked away. The rain and shadows swallowed the girl up quicker than Ashe would have thought possible. He shivered, and pulled his coat against him. The blood in his mouth tasted stronger. He really should have done something when she punched him, he thought, running his tongue along the injury to his lip. He spat into the street, trying to rid his mouth of the taste of the blood. What he saw burned itself into his brain forever like a brand. A body lay in the road by the barrier. It’s face turned towards him. Smashed sunglasses lay half-on, half-off the face. The face that had stared back at him from the mirror in the club. "What the fuck..." The words came unbidden from his mouth. His body was twisted and torn, blood pooling out into the road from where a broken rib had ripped out of his body and through his t-shirt. That t-shirt cost me thirty quid, Ashe found himself thinking, quite detached from it all. Now he knew where the sirens were coming from. And why they were coming. He could see shadowy figures running around his body. Or at least, where his body had been. Now it too was fading to shadow. Ashe gulped, trying to find the air to scream for help with. It never came. Some time later, the girl came back. She found Matthew sitting on a bench, staring at the floor. She smiled, and sat down next to him. Placed a hand on his knee. He did not brush it off. * "Repeat after me: I am *not* The Amazing Spiderman, no matter how much I would like to be, and regardless of what the alcohol tells me otherwise..."