That’s all that was going through my head as I colapsed against the alley wall, the contents of my stomach flashing before my eyes. No, not flashing; splattering is a better word. At least it didn’t get on my clothes. It was only an hour and a half into the night, and I was already shitfaced enough to be out there, emptying my guts. I wasn’t surprised though. An hour and a half of Bacardi 151 and most people would be passed out. That sick little fact made me proud.

After I finished heaving, the skin of my throat raw, I collapsed against the flaky brick wall, turning my head to the side and pressing my cheek against the cool surface. I felt like shit, mentally and physically. My stomach had kept on contracting after there was nothing left there, like it couldn’t accept that there wasn’t anything else in my body it could get rid of. But, more then that, I felt sorry for myself. I knew that the minute I went back in there, they would yell at me for not holding my liquor, and having to come outside to throw up. Usually, people just threw up on the floor and kept on moshing. Or snorting or shooting up or drinking or fucking or whatever it was they were doing beforehand. But I never could never throw up in front of people. No matter how skilled I was at everything else, I never could puke in public. That and crying were the two things I hated to do more then anything.

Also, I was sad that no one was out there holding my hair back from my face. It seems small, but I had thought about it, in one of my few moments of coherant thought. Not that it would have mattered, I didn’t have enough hair for it to get in my way. But whenever people puke in the movies, there’s always someone there that rubs their back, looks worried, and holds their hair back from their face. In my mind, the person that did that for me would love me. It never occurred to me that someone would have to know who I was before they even noticed I’d run outside to puke, which they’d have to do to come out fulfil my unloved little fantasy.

I almost never remembered my nights. If I woke up anywhere but the floor of the club it was because someone had picked me up and carried me there. And, as you probably have a good idea of the people I consort with by now, there isn’t anyone who’d do that for a total stranger out of the kindness of their heart. No one had kindness in their hearts, and if they did they sure as shit weren’t wasting it on me. I spent a lot of nights on that alley wall, or in my very own corner of the club. I’d been going there for five years, ever since I first came to New York when I was sixteen, and by now the bouncers knew how deeply I slept. They used to take me into the club owner’s office and let me sleep there; a service to which none of the other homeless bums were extended. I guess even through the piercings (ten, nine of which are on my head) and tattoos (just two, a celtic knot in the small of my back and an inch wide band of celtic design around my bicep) a tiny, skinny, sleeping sixteen year old looks vulverable. I swear, the nicest guys I’ve ever know were those bouncers. But even that wore off after I slept all day, woke up, puked on the couch, and head downstairs to start all over again every night. Then they just let me sleep where I fell. I never got mad about it, I just figured a roof over my head was gift enough. But that night, that night I met Raph, I was feeling really bad. I curled up in a little ball, hugging my knees, and cried. It was all I could do not to scream out loud, but I kept it in. In my head I knew I wouldn’t scream, so I just thought about it. After a few minutes, a hard, dark voice peirced through my sobs

. “Finally, someone with a shittier life then mine.”

I sniffed hard, as if that would get rid of the tears right then. I didn’t pick up my head, because I didn’t want whoever it was to see me. None of the punks inside knew my name, I was just the twenty-one year old burn out who was always there. Still I didn’t want them to see my face. My golden reputation and all. “You’re welcome for the pick-me-up, now fuck off.” My voice sounded raw.

“Aren’t you scared? It’s dark, we’re in an alley behind a club where no one could hear if you called for help, and even if they did, I doubt they would care. There’s no one on the streets at this hour.” He said.

I hadn’t occurred to me to be scared before, and even now that it did, I wasn’t. I should have been, and God knows that if Raph had been there to rape or kill me I would damn well be raped and killed. Even if I was in my right mind, I don’t think this would have gotten through my apathy. “If you wanted to hurt me, you’d have done it. If you want to rape me… go for it. I haven’t gotten any in ages.”

“But then it wouldn’t be rape, would it?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, are you trying to scare me? Is that it? Don’t be cryptic and mysterious with me you fucking jackoff. I couldn’t care less. Go waste your time with someone who would care if they died.” I sat up. I couldn’t care less about this punk seeing my face now. My depression was replaced by anger. I don’t know what I’d have done if he’d actually wanted to fight, but the people inside usually steered clear of my temper, so I was convinced that it had some kind of power. I usually didn’t want to die, no matter what I said, but the devil-may-care bit scared people off. Hopefully this one was just as much like all the other human beings I’ve ever met, and would fall for it.

Raph leaned against the wall behind him, studying this girl in front of him. He hadn’t meant to say what he had said, but that was how it came out. Now he had no idea what to say. She was waiting for an answer to her question, but he didn’t know how to answer. He knew her better then she had any idea

. He’d first come to the club after a fight with Leo, and, after hearing the music, had stayed. She’d come out to throw up only a few minutes after he arrived, and, because there was nothing else to look at, he watched her. He couldn’t see her face, even after she colapsed against the wall and dropped her head into her hands. She wore a lot of beat up black leather, her hair dyed dark, dark red. Maybe black, he couldn’t see from there. Her clothes hung off her bony frame, the dark fabric a shock against her pale skin. She looked sick, pathetic, and oddly vulnerable for a person in that much black leather. She’d stuck in his mind for some reason, and he’s thought about her the entire next day, making up little scenarios for the two of them to meet. He thought that someone as obviously fucked up as that wouldn’t care if they were to meet a giant turtle. He went to the club the next night, and the next, and, after he realized she ended up in that alley every night, he only went to see her.

It was a strange fascination that he had with the girl. He wasn’t attracted to her in the least. The notion had crossed his mind, but he dismissed it. She was competely asexual to him – like a child. No, attraction wasn’t it. His heart simply went out to her for some reason. Sometimes he stayed all night because he wanted to see where she lived, but she never left. The only times she left were when someone carried her out. He became very protective of her, because it was so very obvious that she couldn’t, or maybe just didn’t, care about herself. In the last month, he’d decided that he came to see her every night because, in his mind, she needed him. There was no one else that needed him. In fights, his brothers depended on him to do his part, but that was where it ended. They needed Leo’s leadership, Mikey’s comic relief and sensitivity, and Donny’s brain, but the only thing he did, other then fight with punks on the street, was fight with Leo, and they didn’t need that. But this girl, she had no one to take care of her, she had less love then he did.

That’s why he had been so apprehensive about talking to her. Maybe she’d turn out to be the kind of independent, strong woman who didn’t need anyone, or maybe he find out that she had a multitude of friends and a huge, caring family. His illusions concerning her were fairly extensive, and he didn’t want them shattered.

But that night it was different. Her sobs weren’t just the tears and moans that they usually were. They were heartwrenching, and were tearing him up inside. So he had soundlessly let himself down to the alley floor, not five feet from where she stood. He didn’t know what he wanted to do, but he knew he couldn’t let her sit there anymore.

And what came out of his mouth had been more insulting then he wanted to admit. “Well?” she demanded. For the first time he noticed her piercings. He’d never been close enough to see them before. Three in each ear, one in her nose, her eyebrow, and, when she spoke, the flash of a tongue stud, all filled with thick silver jewlery. They only displayed the angularity of her face even more then was obvious.

“I’ve seen you before.”

“You said that already.”

Raph was silent. This wasn’t how their first meeting had been inside his head. “What are you doing out here?” he asked.

“Throwing up, genious. Are you blind?”

“So early in the night? Lightweight.” He said, with a snort of derision. As far as she knew, he didn’t care about her, and if he started being nice after the precident that had been set so far for this conversation, she’d think he was crazy. So he treated her the way that came most naturaly – coarsely.

“Fuck you, you bastard. You don’t know a thing about me, especially not my ability to hold my liquer. You probably couldn’t throw back the alcahol I put away in half an hour without passing out. Lightweight my ass.” She sat back against the wall, not trusting herself to stand without making a fool of herself. Whatever dignity she had left she planned to guard with her life.

“Yeah right. I could drink you under the table.” He said.

“I plan to go in soon for some of the hair of the dog that bit me, and I’d take you up on that little challenge, but I figure a freak like you, hanging out behind a club instead of inside it, waiting to prey on the weak and puking, wouldn’t take me up on it.” She spit back into his face.

He bristled at the freak comment, but calmed himself down, knowing that she couldn’t mean it as an insult as to his state as a mutant, because she didn’t even know about it. Yet. “Yeah, that’s it. If you’re an example of the kind of people in there, I’d rather stay out here.”

“You and me both.” She muttered, turning her head away. Apparently she didn’t care that she was having a conversation with a disembodied voice.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked, the edge to his voice softer.

“What does it mean? Fuck… I don’t know. But if everyone in there is just like me, the world’s better off without them.”

Not wanting her to realize they weren’t fighting anymore, he said “Really?”

“Like it’s a big surprise.”

“I thought they were your friends.”

“No, I don’t know anyone in there, save the bouncers, and we’re hardly what you’d call friends. They just know they can’t get rid of me. I’m like a shadow in there. They see me, but you wouldn’t talk to me for the same reason you wouldn’t strike up a conversation with a wall. I’m as constant as anything.” She coughed, and he flinched as he heard it rattle in her thin chest. “They’re just a bumch of dumb punks.”

“They’re dumb punks?”

She looked confused, then looked down at her clothes, absentmindedly touching the bar through her eyebrow. “Oh, all this. I’m no punk. I don’t have a subculture. None of them would have me. Those people are angry for no reason, and just want to let off steam. They just want to piss people off.”

“So why do you stay?” he asked.

She shrugged “I’ve got nowhere else to go. This has been my home, more or less, for five years. I don’t think I’ve even left this area in that long. These may not be my friends, but they aren’t my enemies.”

“And the rest of the world is?”

“Yeah, it is. The happy people don’t look kindly on skinny, sickly, drug addicted alcaholic, burn-outs who didn’t even finish high school. They’d take one look at me and send me packing.” She said, as if just stating facts. She said it all so steadily, as if it were just the norm.

“So you’re just going to keep on like this for the rest of your life?”

“The rest of my life? There’s a funny concept.”

“Why is that?”

“The past years have all been one long nighttime, and the coming years, if there are years left for me, will just be that same night streached out for longer. Time doesn’t affect me anymore.”

He stayed quiet, absorbing it all. He hadn’t expected her to be so aware of how things were. She was so resigned, as if there was nothing she could do about the way things were, and she’d accepted it. He made up his mind right then to save her from herself.

“Hey, what’s your name?” she asked, after a few silent minutes.

“Raphael.” He answered. She didn’t ask for a last name.

“I like that.” she said “It’s… I dunno, not like anything else. I’m Auda.”

Auda. It fit her. “Nice to meet you.”

She smiled, the first time he’d seen her do so. It looked like an unfarmiliar expression. “I don’t think anyone was has even said that to me.”

“So, Auda, you say you have no where to go but here? No family or anything?” he asked.

“No family. Not that I could go to anyway.”

“Why not?”

“Number one, because none of them live in New York. Number two, we have a mutual agreement of no contact. They don’t want to see me, I don’t want to see them. End of story.”

“Why?”

“What is this? Twenty questions? Get off it.” Using the wall as support, she pushed herself into a standing position. “Who the fuck are you anyway? Who the fuck comes down into alleys and talks to random people?”

“I do.” He answered.

“No shit.” She unsteadily walked back to the door “Go away, just get the fuck away.” She said, opening the heavy door and stepping inside, the music blasting from inside. Without another word, she let it slam behind her.

Raph leaned back against the wall, staring at the door as if expecting her to come out again. She was somehow both everything and nothing of what he had expected. The alley was so much darker and emptier now that she’d gone inside. Somehow, it was a different place without her; it made him want to get out of there. Turning into the breeze, he walked toward the mouth of the alley, his mind full of foreboding thoughts. He had the disturbing feeling that something had been set in motion tonight that would change his life forever.