A/N: So I haven't got much of a response off the other story idea so I decided for another one. Its quite dark but definetly a Rizzles story. I don't mind if I don't get a response to it. I am going to write it anyway. This story will be written from Jane's POV. So read and enjoy people. Keep in mind it is rated T for language and drug use and adult themes. Thanks for reading.

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Chapter 1: The Libertine

The night has a brittle cool to it, common for late November, and Docker's Geordie dialect cracks through as blunt as if the very air is shattering glass and falling around us. Thames estuary, the less than posh way of vernacular his clumsy tongue pulls from his easy thoughts as it's called. Could be cockney, could be a Dickens character, could be Oliver Twist but I know him as Docker, and I don't know him well.

"Free blucks a'ead. Bit uvah rough way going frum 'ere too. Fink you kin 'andle it?"

"Got it." I mutter and my own voice seems sharp in timbre yet dull in expression compared to Docker's exotic tone that is not natural for a Midwestern American, such as myself, to comprehend. It rolls as a mash up, thick enough to hit my ears unpleasantly. It sticks with me barely breaking my grasping senses, but spending the hours passing in his company after confirming him as a best leader adjusts my mind to latch onto the details. The details, as simple as they may be, from this man three heads taller than me and a kilo heavier, broad at the shoulder and thin at the head are what is leading me to where I need to get, go and be.

Hands, that I notice are weaved with the dark and faded script of something that had to be meaningful enough to tattoo, are now flexing the top of a sturdy fence of bent twisted wire, chain link and the only one that seems intact in the neighborhood. Not one to be described as Mister Rogers. Not by a long shot.

I am following him mindlessly. I try to reach but knowing my stature pales to his, my first attempt fails in a miserable fashion. I don't stumble or fall but I do almost automatically loosen my grip knowing it wasn't going to work.

"Fought you said you could 'andle it," not a questioning way of saying it and for a moment I think if he is being generally inquisitive, doubtful, or just a stupid ass…

'Arse' as he would say. When I notice the smile pulling the grim aging lines of his face and the missing front row of teeth when his thick mouth stretches, I know it's the latter.

"Fuck you." It's rare that I am not pissed off lately, as I attempt another grab from a lower angle of the fence, mostly because of the chases in early morning I have to endure on the daily the past few months. Exhaustion makes even saints weaken. As I am up, over and down next to Docker the shock of the sturdy ground at my soles snaps my senses to knowing that I am exhausted. Hits like a wave up my calves, knees, back and shoulders and I roll those forward and crane my neck down in a defeated stretch. No pause, Docker's heavy footfall from '70s punk fashion doc martens walks left and I follow behind in step without thinking of my actions but more of the reason behind them. Docker expressing some of it as we weave the broken glass and dumpster trash of a long claustrophobic alley cloistered by stacks of brick to right and polar.

"Dunna why you 'ave to meet with Kirst. She innit the type to be accommodating at'is hour. She be down in it by now."

And I assume she would be after her shows. I have a light grasp of the time about now based on when I left home. Six hours passing I bet, and five of it has been without my counterpart. It used to be a worrisome to me nights like this but any trained behavior your body just bypasses what your brain is telling you. I don't even feel it anymore.

That pull at your chest.

Sweaty palms that shake to your fingertips.

Dizzying worry in your brain that takes over all higher cognitive reasoning that isn't there because I am thinking about where I am as Docker keeps talking his voice taking on a soothing white noise of sorts. "If she be un-hospital" inhospitable I assume he means, "then the blames falls on you mate. She can be a scrappah"

I realize it's a shabby apartment complex we are navigating and most of the windows are dim and not paned with the constraints of glass. No wonder I have to dodge in under foot currently as my eyes are cast down trying not to focus on a broken syringe that could've easily sunk through my Vans.

"You do know wot 'ese are right?" there is an exaggeration of right that I can't even place how to write phonetically. I say nothing still not really hearing him but he presses on, "Dunna' know who wears fees n'more, but I do." He motions down to his feet when I see his tattooed hand reach my eye line. Only then do I realize what he is talking about. My eyes were down cast since over the fence and he thought I was admiring his…

"Doc Martens, I know." As I lift my head and look forward setting my jaw.

"Right v'ere mate. Good on ya." He gives a bite of a short laugh that seems prideful. "Good fer docking trash." His nonexistent teeth punctuating the last of his words and he seems to be waiting for me to speak again. Or ask a question or to give a damn.

I don't.

"Docking is wot I 'ave always been good at'chu know? 'Ats why me mates call me Dockah."

Docker he means but his postmodern Mancuian speech is a rape and murder of the English language. His psycho babble of the history of his nickname, which seems to be an obvious attempt at intimidation toward me, has been making me think less of our current mission but more of his trivial facts that make him a person. Through all this I have been trying to place his origin and if he is a friend of Kirsty then it must be Manchester native.

"So you have a penchant for beating people and kicking with said boots and that's why you are Docker" I say still keeping my eyes set forward but relaxing my jaw into more of a condescending grin. I don't think he realizes I am not afraid of him but I am not afraid of anything it seems anymore. Guess I would have to actually feel something for that to happen.

"A pen'wot?" He looks at me stupidly but I don't dignify him with showing my exasperation. I can't really be that much of a right bastard toward him for not knowing a word that isn't any everyday thing used in the language at large and is decidedly French. And now knowing and placing him as a consort of Kirsty's from Cheetham Hill as she describes as the dodgy inner city part on Manchester. I don't know either way if it is as rough as she claims it but seeing Docker makes me believe it a bit more.

"Just means you are good at it boss." I say encouragingly just to smooth the awkwardness to keep him leading me on and not feeling tempted to docking my head.

"We're 'ere" He says almost in a whisper almost terrified until he clears his throat and gives a shout. "Kirsty!"

No response.

He looks over at me pleadingly and my face is still blank but I allow my jaw to clench more in agitation. The only telling sign that he should call again.

"Kirsty…" The sound of his voice sounds misplaced. The obtuse way to it has broken an edge. It sounds like he might cry and makes me stiffen my back vertebrae by vertebrae in to a creeping feeling. Not so much a man bald by choice and the hard lines of a hard life etching his face and self-proclaimed to be good at 'docking' people now with a shaky timbre in his voice is what is making me uneasy. More so the fact that he seems like he cares. He cares enough to drag a near stranger to him along for the trip knowing he couldn't shake me and to be standing stark in the street at three in the morning tracking down someone who may be dead or worse alive…

"Fuck all." He mutters. He casts his eyes down and lifting his knee full force brings his Doc Marten down on an empty whiskey bottle. My eyes not quick enough to notice if it is a favorite brand of some girls I know before I hear it shatter.

"Oi! Fuck off with that." I recognize the voice belonging to Kirsty her accent similar to her enraged frightening friend, to the right people that is, but not as thick weighted to the point of misunderstanding but just as deep. This is the impossible bitch that I have been searching for nearly two hours ago to start. She shifted the dingy white bed sheet that covers her busted window to the side of the second story window and peers out. A bit bleary-eyed making me more impatient thinking this is becoming a rapidly impossible task.

My jaw clenches again "Is Maur up there?" I spit out before I can stop myself. Showing that pissed off attitude I haven't been controlling recently is not the best way to get my way up there. If Docker has to yell to gain entry then my chances may be no better. Kirsty doesn't even notice though.

"Cat? Who has a cat? Wouldn't keep it alive if I did." Her laugh carries out like a cackle obviously amused and obviously stoned, drunk or a nice mix of the both because there is no way she could mistake what I jsut said. She is still there enough to be fucking with me though "Are you looking for something of the like? Some birds perhaps? Got those as usual," She laughs again. I know enough slang to understanding where this is going and the point is driven home as I see a girl run out sans shirt with her face tear streaked. "There goes one now! Hey you left your shite up here!"

"Kit keep your mouth shut from all the yelling!" Docker says being just as loud if not more. "Pigs will be about any minute"

At the top of her impressively strong lungs she yells out into the night and it seems to carry for miles in the dim cold "Fuck them!" She grins lighting a cigarette. "Docker? You got anymore fags on your person? I know how much you like to suck on them."

"You've been in the states too long. Twisting things all the time." He grumbles and with each word he is becoming more and more insular as he rummages in the inner pockets of his leather jacket. In a brief moment he pulls out a crumpled soft pack of menthols holds them high above his head as if the higher he stretches then the better she is able to make out what they are.

She tells us to come on up as she takes a long drag flicking the still lit cigarette in a slow arch that lands directly at my feet. I feel a tingle of hot ash singe my chest. I don't bother to brush it as I am already approaching the stoop. She withdraws her head back behind the curtain in one fluid movement as Docker stands stamping out her cigarette looking dejected.

A mountain of garbage bags has accumulated near the stairs, and the rest of the floor is littered with discarded objects: amplifier cables, an empty guitar case, loose coins, a box of empty condoms, a box spring for a twin size bed that looks as if it had just been tossed down tonight in nothing less than a rage, a torn copy of Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra.

It is a long stairwell if narrow which is misleading if looking from the outside in. The building cannot be more than four stories tall if that. Kirsty's place is the second floor and off this stairwell is one door each that leads to each one and each one is labeled in the unsteady scrawl of tweakers that is nothing but bright hues of spray paint.

First floor is 'Day Hookers'

Second floor is 'Legend'

I crane my neck and can make out the other two doors up the stairs when standing on the landing 'The Dead' and 'Squatters' are the third and fourth respectively. Each floor its own color but all in the same hand. I wonder which night and which person did this but as I look at the 'Legend' title above the door where we are entering I think it is Kirsty only. The fact that another untidy script this time in marker thick black and permanent in the hall immediately past the threshold that says:

"All of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

As I look around at the rest of the mess that can be called as some sort of skewed haven for lost souls, I know that Kirsty owns the entire floor. It is filled with pieces of broken furniture, discarded food items, paraphernalia for getting the high, cigarette butts, askew posters that have been promotional for several of her shows that I recognize and the bodies of people. It doesn't matter if they are breathing. The lot of them looks dead.

She lets anyone crash out here as long as there are people around. Kirsty spends her time here too as more and more I see the heavy hand of ink many song lyrics and broken bits of poetry lining the walls. Docker is leading me down toward the very end where I can distinguish droning, atonal music seeping from beneath a closed door.

I see, hear, and taste the very room as the familiar scent of a cook is going down. Kirsty is sitting on the mattress possibly belonging to the box spring that is discarded down the steps. There are no sheets on it. The room in the day could be an open welcoming space but in a late autumn night with no block from the temperature and the only light is dim, with an orange glow, like a muted campfire. The lamp is perched atop a dresser right by the head of the mattress and Kirsty is at the low end sitting cross legged completely enthralled with her company that she doesn't even regard Docker or me as we enter the room.

She speaks "I'm just trying to achieve the greatest honor in my life." She drops the small bags contents into the bent spoon. She smoothes it with the end of her lighter looking down only brief enough to see the crystalline substance spread covering the silver plated glint of its new vessel. "The perfect end."

I look to wear Kirsty's bright blue eyes wide and feral are trained to. It is a girl no doubt with the soft curves of a woman but I know her well and I know her to be no older than 18.

Maura

"The perfect end?" She has asked in more of an interested way than she intended I know, but with the way Kirsty's bright eyes widened I knew that it was something she would have to hear without really wanting.

"Join the twenty-seven club you know? Have all the little pretties wanting me back and praying for my death to be some dream." Kirsty explains wistfully. Almost as if she can see the groups gathering around her sick empty frame that used to house an artist with a drug problem, or as I better think of her a drug addict with artistic skill. "I want them to bury me twelve feet deep. Don't want those pretties to dive in me grave for a trophy when I finally go under."

Maur has a perfect row of white teeth spread out in a smile just the hint of the rest of her unspoiled yet "The problem with that dear Kirsty is that you might have to be famous in order for that to pan out the way you want."

"Famous enough." She said as she crushed the crystal into the spoon all the while her fag dangling from her pouted lips.

Maur sat back locked stiff and uncomfortable I can imagine on the rough dirty busted mattress. As Kirsty starts lighting and melting the crystals to liquid everyone in the room falls quiet and still the thrum of bass from the music I recognize as a Flutes' song is the soundtrack to this ungodly scene. I am praying that I stop watching the well practiced actions that I know so well. I prayed to forget the ache in my arm at the thought and the aftermath that would send you flying. I prayed the stain next to me where I am standing was dried blood or better as I pull my eyes away just in time to see the money shot. The prep and plunge of the syringe. As I watch Kirsty drain the thin liquid in a rush filling the syringe right quick. Three taps of her long skeletal nails…

Tap

Tap

Tap

And pressed the plunger pressing any air she could as if an air bubble in your vein would be half as bad as that junk pumping through. I guess it was that fine line she was always drawing on. It was not set in stone that this speedball would be the last to ramp her heart to an ending point, but that little pocket of air that would sneak in would more than likely be her end if she did not do the prep.

"So I never asked how old are you anyway?" Maura's head is rolled to the side seemingly cool and patient but anything but as her legs shake slight and agitated waiting. She asks the question I think to distract herself and not Kirsty as the needle goes into the ripe vein in her arm.

Kirsty's eyes roll back and lids flutter shut over them and leans back pulling the needle out and answers in a husky voice of someone on the brink of ecstasy. "Twenty-four."

"You definitely don't procrastinate."

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So what do you think? Something to continue? I apologize if I have offended anyone from manchester or if I got any part of that wrong especially with the accents. I just wanted to show how in human Jane is in the wake of the night. I am continuing regardless. This story will be rated T for the aforementioned reasons and then go to M