A/N: Hi, it's me. I'm alive, yes. I began penning this when I was 15, and have since rediscovered my inclination to continue it. Because of the outdated nature of the original piece, I've rewritten/polished up the first couple of chapters while trying to stay true to some of the original text/air. New content and chapters are also being added. Hope someone out there is still reading!

This is what Dylan thought: We build, and then we break.

Though he was a bit of a hopeless pessimist -or possibly realist, dependent upon who you asked- so his observations may not have been exactly "objective" or, well, "normal.". He felt he always saw it happen, though, this cycle of building and then crumbling, and though the wording may not have been devoid of all hints of melodrama, he occasionally found himself lacking any other way to say things. Dylan tended to agonizing over these things that, to his knowing, no one else seemed to notice and, therefore, often had a mind clouded with ceaseless thought and observation and a tendency to sleep too little and fail classes. He could admit that perhaps he let the wheel spin a little too damn freely sometimes but, hey, this shit doesn't come with a manual. His mind was too much logic and racing thought about existentialism or whatever and not enough basic human experience.

At 5'10" with black polish on his nails and a few too many piercings on his face, one could not really argue as to Dylan's proneness to stick out in a group, and his disposition often proved just as you'd expect it: bitter and cold, as he wasn't specifically fond of social interaction, anyway. Or, at least, this is what he told himself, though the reality may have been that he just wasn't sure what it meant to "be normal." His early childhood memories, even, consisted of teachers telling his mother that he was "too intense," in early elementary school and, considering that kids operate from a solely Id operated, turbulent place as it stands, to be noted as remarkably unstable as early as childhood should have been his indication right there to just say "fuck it all." Hindsight, however, is 20/20.

Of course all of this, working in tandem with the whole "goth" aesthetic, formulated the not so-surprising-circumstance of making him a bit of a perpetual "loner." Frankly put, he was more than a bit "weird" by his peers' standards, and so it was pretty token that the cliches of high school hierarchy piggybacked off this and left him somewhere in the dust. Not that he much minded. He could acknowledge that his existence was what it was and, when he took the time to look around him, he realized how little he really desired to be anything similar to those he saw. They all seemed to be dead flesh, listless and aloof minds living not for a purpose but solely to live. He always had been and always would be peculiar and didn't quite fit and whatever else, but it was a fate that did not come paired with any particular sense of dissent or resentment; quite the contrary, really. When you can't help but regard the rest as sheep, why would you be offended when you are pinned the fox?

His discontent with conventionality and conformity was what one could call obvious, but even he had to admit that he could be one pretty big fucking cliche. The irony of how stereotypical his "goth" front was wasn't lost on him, but he figured that conforming to not conforming could be considered humorous, even if he was the only one around to appreciate his own lame joke.

Besides, everyone needs some sense of community, and he was bored.

He'd always supposed being acknowledged as distinct, rather it be said with scorn or admiration, was an ultimately positive thing that had never actually caused him much more grief than he would have otherwise brought upon himself. His younger brother had always proved a sufficient, if aloof, companion whenever the need arose, and they had always gotten along well enough. Their similarities bode well with each other and Dylan couldn't help but wonder whether their resemblance occurred at the hands of natural coincidence or influence and conditioning at his hand. A case of nature vs. nurture that he never quite figured out but could appreciate for its merits, at least. The difference in age served an occasional barrier, however, and to Dylan's own contentment, if not indifference, he was often left to spend lunch and free periods alone, resting his back upon the stark brick wall and chain smoking as many cigarettes as he could manage. Isolation had always been his thing, and if he had to lurk about the back of the school at the risk of being caught by some self-righteous, self proclaimed authority of a Hall Monitor, so be it. No one had ever gone out of their way to interact with him beyond what were necessary, and it had long since been made apparent that any attempts at interaction would prove relatively fruitless, anyway. He'd been smoking against that back wall nearly every day since the age of twelve, and a single individual had yet to approach him within that span of time. So, he could not say that he was entirely unfazed nor lacking any sense of surprise when one day, while taking a long drag off his cigarette and contemplating the god forsaken weather of the shitty mountain town, he was started out of his resentful musing by an unfamiliar voice.

"Got a light?"

Tainted by obvious years of smoking and a past contentious effort of suppressing the valley girl accent that still managed to bleed mutedly through, the voice was, undoubtedly female, and succeeded in startling the shit out of him. Upon finally looking up, he had been greeted by the sight of a short, considerably overweight female, clad entirely in black and holding a slender smoke between her fingers. She gazed down expectantly at him, taping her left foot impatiently against the concrete. Realizing that she had, indeed, asked him a question, Dylan had proceeded to pull out his lighter from his back pocket, and held it to the tip of the cigarette grasped between her pale fingers. She had mumbled a vague sound of appreciation, and nonchalantly taken it upon herself to settle down beside him, as if such an action was entirely typical of her.

"You wanna hang out?" She followed this by a long drag off her smoke, not yet bothering to shift her gaze from the negative space staring pointedly back at her and he thought that she had this whole 'aloof' thing down pretty damn well.

"Sure"

Henrietta was a strong headed, out-spoken girl, prone to fits of spontaneous anger and tendency to smoke maybe a little too much. She may have appeared non-approachable but there was something about her, perhaps something distinctively female, that provided Dylan a sort of confidence and solace. She wasn't exactly savvy to subtleties, as nothing about her was subtle, and he considered her yet another commoner under his spell; something for which he couldn't blame her.

He knew he was a damn good liar, the king of facades. Sometimes he hated it, and usually he loved it and sometimes he wished he wasn't, but he knew that he was the best. Regardless, they moved on in their relatively feigned contentedness after that day, hanging around Denny's, drinking coffee, smoking in each other's rooms, scaring the shit out of Henrietta's little brother, doing what they did and being as alright with it as they could muster. They fucking hated everyone and hated their peers and hated school and hated conformist South Park and hated society, but the presence of one another made it all a bit easier to stomach and made the mere fact of existing in South Park a bit more bearable.

Then, there was Evan. Towering at about 6 foot a million and exhaling smoke that curled up smoothly around his face and weaved its way through unruly, curly hair, he immediately drew attention wherever he wandered. Black over-coat, black pants, black eyeliner, and a fondness for biting sarcasm, it wasn't hard to deny where in South Park it was that he fit. He caught Dylan's attention the first moment of his initial appearance: trudging into homeroom late, trailing flakes of snow and the smell of burnt cigarettes and dead earth along with him, and plopping himself into a seat at the back of the class. The teacher had acknowledged him with no more than a grunt, turning uninterestedly back to his magazine as the rest of the children tried not to make it obvious that they were, in fact, staring. A few mumbles of "great, another faggy goth kid" and "where the fuck did this fairy come from" managed their way around the room before the bell had signaled the end of the period and everyone quickly dispersed into the hallways. Dylan hadn't been able to help throwing an extra glance or two at the new kid as the day dragged on; this new presence provided him something fresh to mule over during his pointless classes, as opposed to the nonsensical dribble he conventionally pondered. Yes, fabricating possibilities as to WHERE this new kid could possibly have come from did prove a considerable amount more interesting than contemplating, for the thousandth time, what would kill him faster- a pencil or safety scissors- were he to stab them through his eye amidst the drawl ramblings of his math teacher. He later found that the new kid, apparently, shared his interest.

No later than an hour after school had let out and a half after Dylan had ordered his black coffee from the Bitch at Denny's, the metal glass door of the nearly vacant restaurant had swung open and there, with no evident air of hesitance, stood Newbie .He had nonchalantly stopped a waitress on her way back to what was, presumably, the kitchen, demanded something along the lines of a "large, black coffee" and then made his way over to their signature booth and plopped down amongst them, as if he had been doing this very act every day of his life. Being the first to recover from the moment of silence that followed, Dylan had turned to The Kid, quirked his lip into something dangerously resembling a smile and said simply-

"Henrietta, Georgie, and Dylan" and The Kid had relaxed back into his seat, cracked a vaguely arrogant almost-smile, and responded easily, in a deep voice muffled by natural tread and the strain of cigarettes, "Evan."

This had been the beginning of some sort of end, though Dylan had trouble placing specifically of what. Regardless, he appreciated the presence of another male his age, probably more so than he would ever be willing to entirely admit, and the two became something that clicked, best friends or whatever, he supposed they would be classified as, if they were into using conformist labels like that. Evan was everything Dylan had always been painfully aware he was not. Outwardly confident, occasionally even vain, to those who didn't know him any better. His frequent sarcasm proved biting, though people almost seemed to revere him as more human, more admirable than the rest of them, and he had a tendency for coolness, indifference (not to be confused with level headedness.) Whereas Henrietta proved fiery and spiteful, Georgie dark and brooding, and Dylan.. well, a fucking mess, Evan proved something icy. Shut out and detached. Which probably would have bothered Dylan less than it did, had he not so feverishly wished he, himself, was like that as opposed to the ragged, uncontrollable, messy, sporadic, explosive cluster fuck he was. They were different, but there was something uniform in them, and that something made them work and allowed them to grow up together.

The thing about rural small towns, however, is that no matter how much you change, the rest stays painfully the godamn same, and it's not long before one starts to feel as if they are trapped in an outgrown shoe ready to burst at the seams. They may had grown to 18, but they were quick to realize there wasn't much left to discover from what they had occupied themselves with as kids. They still hung out at Denny's, drinking six dollars worth of black coffee, delivered by that old stick-up-the-ass-bitch who should've been dead by then. They still liked to lurk about in Henrietta's black draped bedroom, picking at dried out oatmeal cookies her overbearing mother shoved down their throats, along with the sunshine she shoved up their asses. They still smoked at their signature spot behind the school, and still had to remind Dylan that yes, dude, you need to re-dye the streak in your hair soon; it looks pink. They still caught the tail ends of the exasperated sighs hissed out by their parents as they floated past with freshly painted nails and the smell of smoke muted by Febreeze in a half-assed way. They were weird, if not stiflingly and unapologetic-ally bored, just like every other small town teenager in history had ever been. Dylan knew, however, that in spite of them all being different, there was still some human quality that made others something palatable for general world exposure. He wasn't sure he could say the same for himself.

He was fucked up. He'd come to subscribe to the common belief that he was so odd because he chose to be or embraced it, but he couldn't help but wonder if in reality he'd never had a choice and just did his best to adapt. Maybe it was because at age two he preferred to dress up in woman's clothing, if he did at all, because clothes burned his skin. And at age three his mommy acted funny a lot and he had to learn to treat wounds better than most people ever did and at age four the fuckin' scary 'air monsters' wouldn't stop lurking in his room and he kept pissing the bed. Maybe it was because at five he couldn't eat his chicken nuggets unless he aligned them in perfectly in neat, specific rows by size and took exactly 8 bites out of each, though he never finished them anyway. Maybe it was because he punched holes in walls at six and cried even more when he was hit and told to stop, because boys don't cry. Maybe because at seven he had the bags of a thirty year old under his eyes and tended to maim his fellow classmates when forced to come in contact, though he was selectively mute over half of the year. Maybe at eight, because he was already "too intense", and used words that were "too much" for his peers to understand. Maybe at nine, because he knew how to cook, because he had to do it for himself a lot of the time, and maybe because he read and said weird things that the other kids didn't understand. And ten, because he never slept and shook a lot and just couldn't pass a class because he just couldn't pay attention and tended to spend his time sitting in the empty windowsill (ripped out the screen) of the second story boy's bathroom. Or eleven, when he refused to go to school, nor leave his room for days- not because he hated it (which he did) but because he just couldn't and couldn't say WHY. Maybe at twelve because blood tended to seep through his shirt sleeves and angry red slashes adorned his wrists/arms, exposed in his gym uniform (because who fucking cared) and because of the oddly shaped bruise or burn or two that sat exposed as well. At thirteen, because he hung out with a little kid and a girl all the time and looked about as pale and thin as a skeleton, whereas the other boys hit puberty and grew the fuck up and filled out. At fourteen, when he told a teacher to 'fuck off' and set the science lab on fire and skipped class and lit up cigarettes/slept in class and didn't show up/came late and didn't do work and skipped detention and STILL didn't give a shit. Or at fifteen when he didn't sleep for days at a time and shook uncontrollably all day and was still a-scared of the dark and his mother was seen passed out on the pool table at the local bar. Sixteen, when he was the only one who never ate at lunch or in class, at seventeen when he seen peeling out of the school parking lot, Evan riding shotgun, blaring music that no one liked. Or the times he randomly upped and walked out of class and disappeared or the time he ran away for well over a week. Or maybe at eighteen Well, of fucking course at eighteen. That's where he was now.

Eighteen and stick like with nasty caffeine and nicotine addictions and a shitty collection of classical music stacked in the back of his closet along with bottles of pills. He had eyes that were dead in the same sense as a dormant volcano or the last amber from a cigarette, ones always sunken and rimmed with black. He wore long sleeved shirts in the 90 degree summer, screamed and thrashed and sprouted bruises in his sleep, when he managed to do as much, and tried not to think before he did shit. Hell, he didn't want to think at all. Sometimes, he felt as if he couldn't; sometimes he felt impulsivity was a disease that festered inside of him, and people didn't fail to notice.

The unexpected had essentially become expected of him, and no one was really ever surprised with the fact that he had done something or another, just what he actually did. Rebellious was his thing and he sure as fuck liked to demonstrate it. Everyone likes to believe they're different, so he supposed when he heard the disapproving snide quips of " rebellious" pass some stick-up-the-arse mouth, he couldn't help but relish in it. The word provided a sort of solidification, reassurance that his own 'uniqueness' wasn't solely in his head. He was rebellious, said and did what he wanted and didn't give a shit; though in reality, it wasn't all that much because he was a "badass," but rather because he needed some sort of validation he was fucking alive.

And he felt that validation, sometimes, when the tall, dark figure with its usual smoke halo, lost amidst the tangle of 'hair', cracked open his car door and plopped down besides him. The moment of silence that always followed, the strong scent of lit cigarette dancing among that of the dead branches and the non-existent grass and the dead of winter across the worn pleather of the car. That was the sensation of life to him. He would usually do something stupid then- drop his cigarette in his lap, gun the engine- and Evan would snort an amused chuckle and ask "what was up with him." Dylan would start the car, not bothering to check behind him, nor act as if he even remotely intended on ever putting both hands on the wheel, and glance somewhere else.

"Nothing."

And 'nothing', he supposed, was a mildly accurate term to describe shit. It didn't really matter, he had long since determined, nor did his monotonous, soul suckingly boring/suppressed life of a desolate, hick town High School student, and all he really had to do was get through this and next year in the Hell Hole before he could split, anyway. Restless was an understatement but he knew he had to do what he had to do so, despite the fact that he was often seriously ready to bash his face repetitively into a wall or stab one of Butter's goddamn Hello Kitty pencils through his retina. He typically just grabbed a smoke, downed another coffee, flipped off a conformist or two and got the fuck over it. He'd grown out of complaining but not out of unraveling, and this is where he envied Evan even more, with his unwavering demeanor of calm coldness, smooth arrogance and a bit of condescension that you couldn't quite place your finger on. This was all not to mention he seemed to have a fluidity that an awkwardly-tall -and-skinny- six- foot- eighteen- year- old-who- wore- makeup-and-dressed-entirely-in-black really shouldn't own. He was cool and unfazed, though he had a sort of tendency to lean away as others attempted to look at him, and a quiet sort of self loathing that only Dylan really got to witness fragments of. Evan had an overpowering sense that you could never put your finger on, and sometimes even made Dylan's mind spin, despite that he was, undoubtedly, the single person who knew him most on the planet.

Dylan had never entirely been into actually interacting with people anyway, and his numerous years of utter isolation at a young age had likely left his ability to do so hindered. Regardless, he still managed means of interacting with his 'friends' that sufficed, even if these interactions consisted solely of seemingly non-committal grunts and every profanity their public education had provided. There existed a general order as to the way those within the group interacted, and when stated simply the relationships seemed callow, uninteresting and plain, though the reality was that this was far from the truth. Generally, Dylan and Evan proved to be a "special" pair best friends or whatever the fuck anyone wanted to call it. It was widely acknowledged by those who associated with either that Dylan and Evan were kind of their own existence, just as real and solid as Dylan's existence alone or Evan's existence alone. Georgie generally got along with any and everyone because there wasn't a ton there to dislike or conflict with, anyway. Henrietta and Evan tended to clash a bit, the contradicting yet somehow corresponding aspects within their personalities proving explosive- hot and cold air does, after all, make a tornado- but could get along well when they pleased. Dylan had a bit of closer (or whatever) relationship with Henrietta, having known her for so long and generally just meshing well with one another had built up a bit of a bond between the two. They had always gotten along well, and that fact always managed to stay true, in spite of any time that may have passed and any dilemmas that may have occurred. Dylan generally felt contented with his relations to his 'friends', and often felt a sense of comfort in the fact that they all did manage along so well together and had been able to find relatable figures in the Hell Hole known as their home town. Being 'Goth' often made maintaining relationships much simpler, because no one really expected you to act like you gave a shit, and you didn't really have to worry about any cryptic 'who said what and who meant what' bullshit. Existing within the confines of a stereotype did, at times, have its own perks, and being Goth really did allow for a wider range of emotional existence, in spite of the core definition of Goth of being often conceived as being built upon a lack of emotional diversity. But really, no one expected anything of you. No one expected a fake this or a fake that or for you to have holes in your words or things lying beyond the surface.

Which was probably more than a small part of the 'reason' he became Goth in the first place and why he, dare such a forbidden, conforming word be uttered, enjoyed the 'Goth' way of being. Because he didn't have to smile. No one expected him to. He may have claimed to loathe the stereotype and stereotypes in general, but that much he could be thankful for. The thought of feigning any lack of darkness, a smile, a glimmer of normal being expected made him exhausted. The thought of looking like a happy-go-lucky fucking mildly content conformist, someone actually asking if he was alright, was inconceivable to him. No one expected him to smile, and for that, he was thankful. His group was capable of sensing a sort of wrongness, under the circumstance that he was being plain, blatantly, literally and undeniably obvious about it, even in which case they still sometimes didn't take notice. But Evan, somewhat to Dylan's dismay, was capable of sensing things that Dylan didn't even know about himself. Breath out of place, and Evan knew it, and it proved slightly infuriating at times. Not that Dylan necessarily disliked the fact that the other, dare he venture to say, cared about him ( though he would never use those exact words), nor was it really the actual fact that he noticed ( 'Dylan, you've coughed some more today than usual. Not to be a pussy fag, but maybe you should lay low on the smoking for a while') or that he was uncannily alert and accurate ( 'Dude, why do you wince when you get up or move a certain way? You get hurt in another fight or some shit?'), but more so the fact that Dylan didn't know how he did it and what he could possibly be giving Evan that allowed him this knowledge. Dylan was so accustomed to being left well enough alone, unquestioned, so used to being a flawless, alarmingly excellent liar. Knew only of the smug, maybe sometimes slightly bitter, silence and a façade so real that HE sometimes believed it. So HOW in the Hell Evan possibly picked up on these things was beyond him. He didn't know WHAT he was giving off, what information he was indirectly providing Evan with, and that bothered him. As if a tiny pin hole had punctured his inflated raft, and he could feel its density softening, hear the hissing of the air escaping, but couldn't figure out WHERE it was coming from. He had no idea what he was giving away, where, how and, in turn, not how or what he should be hiding. This was not okay, this terrified him, though he would never use such a word, because he was afraid of what, unbeknownst to him, he may just let slip. Evan being the only one watching could prove a relief or a curse, but either way Dylan had long since learned to deal with it, and was grateful for the fact that he didn't have to give anyone else the time of fucking day.

They did live in South Park, after all, and if anyone were ever to seek a group of some of the most insufferable people on the planet, South Park would doubtlessly be the place to look. In a specific location where the inhabitants had experienced so many outrageous encounters at the hands of so many diverse people, it would commonly have been assumed that the said citizens would have long since become open minded to the world around them. However, in spite of its excess exposure to the outside world, South Park still, somehow, managed to retain isolationist mountain town ways and remain an indisputable hick town, a feat inconceivable by many. Woop-dee-fucking-doo.

Acceptance had long since become a part of each of their persons, apathy taking the usual control. Dylan often found himself searching for new means of entertainment, stimulation in a place where nothing but dead grass and uninterested peers resided, and conventionally only came up with the same things. Thinking and analyzing and studying those around him, chain smoking until everything tasted like dust and fiddling around with an old guitar. Dylan had a certain fascination with humans and society and the world around him (as much interest as a rebellious, isolationist, non-conforming Gothic freaky kid could muster, anyway) and he noticed things. He noticed and thought about shit that maybe no one else did, it seemed, or at least portrayed as much. He noticed a lot of things and concepts tended to flutter in and out and about his mind in an incoherently chaotic manner. Occasionally, a concept would manage to catch, a pebble amidst a strong current that happened to find a place to settle. And within the ungraspable and ceaselessly flowing dribble that tended to fabricated his thought process, there were a few ideas, a few things that just kind of, ultimately, stuck. He fucking hated his mind a majority of the time, because it never seemed to want to stop and it never allowed him to stop or think or breathe or fucking sleep. He thought and thought and thought and it all proved generally insignificant, but damn if that could stop his buzzed out mind, his fluttering stomach and the churning, churning. Generally, he felt like just a statistic and an individual at the same time, he was basically a peculiar kid living in a small town, and he liked to think he had a story, had a spot, had something, even if he really was just another teenaged cliché.