This is violence4, coming to you from the East Coast of America (my new home)... with a fic. I know you may be surprised to see me on here again, but, here I am.

I don't really have much to say about this one. I wrote it for Bryony because it was her 16th birthday yesterday. (Yeah, it's a day late.) She didn't prompt me. She didn't actually know I was going to write it. I haven't spoken to her in a while. In fact, I didn't even know it was her birthday until the day before yesterday, when I began frantically planning this. Which may be why it isn't that good. But it's all I have so I thought I'd put it up.

So. As in the old days...
Disclaimers:
The Mighty Boosh and all its characters belong to Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding.
(Neon and Ultra are played by Dee Plume and Sue Denim.)
The song quoted at the beginning - and again in the story - is "All Neon Like" by Bjork.

Happy 16th, Bryony.

Skylines

Don't get angry with yourself
I'll heal you

The sky is almost purple, and smoky, above the London skyline clearly visible from the top of the hill where they sit, with its white, blue, green, orange lights.

The weather is that strange time after summer and before autumn, when it is warm enough to be outside at night, but cold enough for you to wonder why you're out once you are. Even so, there are plenty of people on the heath tonight – mostly teenagers, drinking, giving awkward blow-jobs and getting lightly stoned because they can't handle, or are too afraid to buy, anything stronger. Their voices – laughs, high screams, the occasional possible sob – drift up towards the crown of the hill where Neon and Ultra sit.

The ground is not damp – next morning's dew has not settled yet – but it is hard, and cold, almost cold as iron. It is hard beneath Ultra's legs, not the soft, hot ground of summer. This is the ground of a year that knows its days are numbered.

She shifts her thin calves, feeling the fishnet on her skirt and the blades of grass brush against her legs. Legs which are really too skinny to be sitting on ground this hard. She tucks them under her, casually trying to find a bit more warmth.

She looks over at Neon.

Neon is still sitting legs stretched out, like a man, skirt hitched up almost indecently. She leans back on one hand. She is wearing a hat she stole from someone in the crowd at tonight's gig – a flat army cap, peaked and resting snugly on her head. Her black hair falls softly around her shoulders. From where she is sitting, Ultra admires the way a strand of it has unstraightened itself and is curling round the small shell of Neon's ear.

Neon is smoking a cigarette. As Ultra watches, she draws it up to her mouth, very slowly, and slides the end in. Her stained red lips tense on it briefly as she inhales, drops the cigarette, pauses – and then lets the smoke trail from her mouth in a long, ghostly trail, away over towards the skyline.

Ultra follows the ghost of Neon's smoke with her eyes. It goes away over that beautiful skyline; the skyline that, Ultra thinks, is more beautiful than that of any other city. And they've seen a lot of other cities, her and Neon. Ultra loved Berlin. The smooth grey streets and deep green trees under the cool skies agreed with her pale, porcelain skin. Neon was far more at home in Paris – the small, sensual streets and the Eiffel Tower thrust into the sky and flashing its lights every so often. And they both adored New York – although they didn't say so, because everybody adores New York.

"Pretty, hmm?" says Neon's voice behind her.

Ultra turns back. Neon is watching her, the possible beginning of a smile playing on those red lips. She has glitter on her cheeks, white glitter, highlighting her cheekbones.

"Mm," says Ultra.

Neon nods and the smile appears. She teases her mouth with her cigarette, not putting it in just yet, waiting.

Overhead, a plane soars, green in the darkness with red lights flashing.

There is a cry from down in the dark teenage depths of the rest of the common. Neon gives a faint snigger. "Do you think that means someone got laid, or got stabbed?" she says.

"Laid," says Ultra.

"Nah, stabbed," says Neon.

Neither are worried about this prospect. They both have their own knives. They're both better at using them than any boy who's only had his for about a year and is still so over-awed by it he's too afraid to work it properly. They'd stab anyone who bothered them up, no bother.

But Ultra still hopes very much that no-one will bother them. Because this moment is so perfectly them. Ultra likes these sorts of moments with Neon best of all – when she knows exactly why she loves her.

Ultra has always loved Neon. Ever since she first met her, that small, insane figure, jumping, crashing against the walls, black hair strewn behind her like the trail of a meteorite. That was back before Ultra was Ultra and she was dating a small, pretty man four years younger than her, still a child really but very beautiful with big ocean-coloured eyes. They were in a club. Ultra had been getting yet another round of drinks when some girl barged in front of her and she tripped and poured beer all over another girl. Another girl who turned round and slapped her across the face and snarled, "Watch where you're going, idiot!"

Ultra's normal reaction to violence was, of course, to hit straight back, and go one better too. This girl slapped? She'd punch, kick, bite. But just as she drew back her hand, clenching it into a fist, her eyes met those of the girl in front of her. Eyes so different from the pale, timid ocean eyes of the pretty young teenager she was screwing. These eyes were dark and wild, possibly from drugs but also from life – and with the blue and green neon lights from the dance floor catching them, streaking the dark pupils, Ultra couldn't help but be hypnotised, and withhold her hand. Ultra's pretty boy had nothing except looks and a willingness to let her take the lead in bed. This girl had thoughts, lust, opinions, demons. Everything Ultra was afraid of in another person – everything she herself had.

Ultra still loves Neon's eyes now. She tries to get a look at them but they are hidden by the peak of that cap. All she can see is the blood red smile as Neon amuses herself with thoughts of the teenagers trying to use knives, and the cigarette held up in pale fingers.

Ultra remembers how thrilled that man was when Neon took that silly hat, the hat keeping her from seeing her neon eyes, but she knows Neon didn't take it as a gesture, as thanks for coming to the gig. She just took it because she saw it and wanted it. It would have been just the same if Neon had seen him wearing it in the street. She'd have found a way to get hold of it.

Neon finds a way to get hold of everything she wants, Ultra thinks. She found a way to get hold of me.

Yes, Ultra still finds herself believing that somehow, Neon looked at her in the right way, caught the lights in her eyes in the right way, to persuade Ultra to offer her a beer as compensation for ruining her top. Neon accepted. She accepted the shared taxi home. She accepted the shared bed that night. She rocked the mattress, rocked both her bedfellows. She was still there the next morning. Ultra found her sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee she'd helped herself to.

"Are your eyes really that colour or is it contacts?" she had asked, out of the blue.

Ultra wasn't sure what to say, in the presence of the tired, hung-over, raging beauty before her.

"They're real," she said, after a minute.

Neon made a faint sound in the back of her throat. "I thought maybe they were contacts, or maybe it was just the lights in that club or somethin'. You got ultraviolet coloured eyes. Never seen eyes like that before."

Neon made Ultra feel more girly and stupid than any man ever had.

--

In the darkness, under the purple hazy sky, down at the bottom of the hill, the teenagers yelp again. Neon shifts against the ground, finishes her cigarette, stubs it out on the ground.

"You okay, Ultra?" she asks, leaning back on both her elbows.

No.

Ultra can't actually remember the last time she'd have described herself as "okay". But she was good, as long as Neon was there. She reaches out one finger, brushes at the glitter on Neon's face. It doesn't shift. Glitter never shifts. It stays sticking, long after the contact that left it there is gone. Ultra knows that only too well. The first time she and Neon slept together alone, Neon was covered in the stuff – her face, her chest, spray in her hair. She smelled and tasted of vodka, strong and intoxicating, but the glitter was stronger. When Ultra awoke the next morning – Neon gone – it was left all over her breasts, stomach and thighs like a calling card, a signature.

Neon smiles slightly at the touch. She is tired, she must be tired. Neon is never affectionate about touching, caressing, when she's not tired. She tilts back her head and looks at Ultra under the peak of her cap. Her eyes search for something. What, Ultra isn't sure. She looks down into those eyes, the eyes she was trying to see, pricked with the London skyline. She swallows, a heavy sound in her inner ears.

"Hat suits you," she says, to break the silence. But her voice comes out low, and cracking. She sometimes hates this affect Neon has on her.

Neon knows about it, too. Ultra almost sees an invisible nod, like a swagger, in her expression. She reaches up, puts her hand behind Ultra's head, and brings her down to kiss her. And Ultra melts, falling against the other girl's chest, the familiar feel and shape of those breasts against her own, gasping slightly into her mouth.

When Neon pulls away, leaning even further back onto the ground, her expression is smug, her eyes even darker than usual.

"Goddess," she says, and sucks her lower lip, marking her front teeth with her lipstick. The glitter on her cheeks flashes as she moves. Neon never says "God". God is a "fucking man". It isn't that Neon is a feminist. She hates women too much to be a feminist; she generally thinks women are sluts, whores, only good for throwing their legs open – for men, and sometimes for her too. It is just that she also hates men: leering men with only tits and arse on their minds, and paternalistic, smiling men, holding doors, holding coats, holding money. She hates all of them.

Ultra once asked Neon why, if she hates women, she wants to believe that the Supreme Being is female.

"I'd rather she was a whore than a man," Neon said, in her simple, aggressive Neon way.

Now, she looks down at the other woman, small and bursting with life, and almost wants to cry.

Neon perhaps notices. Or maybe she is just trying to be nice to get sex. But either way, she cocks her head to one side and says, "Okay, baby?"

Ultra nods.

Neon cocks her head the other way and reaches her fingers under Ultra's shirt. Cool fingers against her stomach. Ultra jumps slightly. Neon grins and reaches her hand upwards.

Ultra shifts away. She doesn't always like it when Neon is like this, fingers everywhere. She doesn't like it because she loves it.

"Neon..."

Neon knows what is on her mind. "Aw, c'mon, baby." Her voice reminds Ultra of the sort of men you meet in bars, the sort who clearly haven't shagged for over a year and are desperate for some, any, relief.

"No-one's around," Neon is saying. "All those stupid kids are too busy trying to work out how to stick stuff up their noses and get their cocks into condoms." She casts an eye contemptuously towards the darkness at the bottom of the hill, and then looks back at Ultra. "They won't notice..." Her fingers find the edge of Ultra's bra and she slips her hand inside. It feels almost too good, the gentle cup and stroke of the hand and the knowledge that the pleasure could be replaced with pain any minute. Ultra tries to draw away but Neon holds on.

"No, Neon, not 'ere, yeah?" she says.

"Yeah," Neon repeats, eyes greedy.

"Not here, Neon," Ultra says again, more forcefully, trying to shove her away.

Neon rolls her eyes. "Stop with the hard-to-get thing; you know you want it, Ultra..."

"No, Neon, not here, fuck it!" Ultra yells. She didn't plan to yell but it isn't a surprise; their arguments are explosive, violent, sudden. What is more surprising that she clearly startles Neon – she jerks backwards. "Shit..." she starts – but Ultra gets there first. "Christ, Neon, I'm not shagging you on some hill top with all those fucking teenagers down there just cos you're horny!"

Neon stares at her for a moment, dark eyes wide – but then she recovers herself.

"Yes, you fucking are," she hisses, diving forward at Ultra again. "You are because I know you want it too." And she seizes Ultra's face and kisses her roughly.

Ultra struggles. She gets her hands on Neon's chin and shoves her away, fingers scraping across her pale flesh. "I'm not your whore, Neon!" she spits. One nail catches Neon's lip and nicks the skin.

Neon smacks Ultra in the side of the head. Hard. It hurts, pain rippling through Ultra's skull. She yelps. "Yes, you are!" she yells, and hits her again, so Ultra falls sideways onto the grass. "You're a fucking whore!"

There is a short silence.

Somewhere, the blades of a helicopter roar. There is yet another cry – this time more obviously pleasured – from the darkness at the bottom of the hill.

Ultra starts to get up. She isn't sure if she's walking away from Neon or just trying to scare her, isn't sure if she's really hurt by what was just said or not. But as soon as she moves, Neon grabs her. "No, Ultra, don't walk off," she says.

Ultra tries to push her off, for appearance's sake more than anything else.

"No, God damn it, no," Neon says – but she doesn't sound threatening. If anything, she sounds almost upset. "Ultra, no. Don't walk away, I – I didn't mean that."

Ultra says nothing, because she still isn't sure what she feels about what Neon said. She casts her eyes towards the London skyline, as though checking it is still there.

"Oh, fuck, Ultra, you fucking know I didn't mean it," Neon says. Now she sounds slightly annoyed. "You fucking know it."

Ultra still says nothing.

"You fucking know it!" Neon screams suddenly. Her scream is strange, harsh, rather like a wounded animal.

Now Ultra looks at her. She is biting her knuckle, body quivering slightly. The hat hides her face again. Just like an animal. A wounded animal that needs protection.

Ultra remembers when Neon found out about Ultra's father. Ultra's father who liked to use his hands, on his wife, on his kids, leaving his own calling cards, purple, black and yellow ones. Ultra thought Neon would tear the room apart, go and find the old man and slit his throat. But she didn't. Instead, she just sat on the bed, silent, while Ultra raged that her mother was a stupid bitch who couldn't tell the bastard to leave, and that she was a stupid bitch for not leaving sooner than she did...

"Don't get angry with yourself," Neon said.

That was the first thing she said. In an oddly soft, low, almost gentle (if Neon was truly capable of being gentle) voice. It wasn't what Ultra had expected. It had stopped her in her tracks.

"Don't," Neon said again. She held out her hand, slowly, almost nervously. Beckoning Ultra towards her. "Don't get angry with yourself. It isn't you. It isn't. It never was."

Ultra went to her and Neon let her lay on the bed and held her, like she was a baby, curled as though she was back in the womb. "Don't get angry with yourself," Neon said, over and over. "I'll heal you. I'll heal you."

--

Ultra sometimes thinks it is one of her greatest regrets that she could never "heal" Neon.

Not that Neon really did heal her, she thinks, looking again at the smaller woman's trembling form. If anything she made her worse. But, perhaps, in some ways it was a bizarre sort of "healing". Neon cut away the feeling that Ultra should be ashamed of herself. That was something no-one else had ever managed to do.

Ultra doesn't know if she would really be able to heal Neon – even if she was in a position to. Which she isn't. Neon isn't the kind to tell her personal troubles to others. Not even to Ultra. So although Ultra knows there are demons there – just as she did the first time she saw Neon in that club – although she has seen that scar on Neon's side that looks as though it could have been inflicted by a knife (although, Ultra sometimes thinks, that knife could be anybody's, even Neon's own, left lying about by mistake) – she cannot heal because she does not know what she is healing.

But now she holds out a hand, the way Neon did when they were on the bed. Neon looks up at it, hesitates, not wanting to seem weak, Ultra is sure – and then she shifts closer, almost grudgingly, silently, to lean against Ultra.

Ultra puts an arm around her and Neon allows herself to be pulled closer. Her hat digs into Ultra's neck, but Ultra knows better than to try and remove it. Anyway, she quite likes the feel of it. She tries to get Neon nearer, nearer. She can feel the other girl quivering.

Don't get angry with yourself. I'll heal you.

"Goddess," Neon mutters, against Ultra's side.

"Neon?" Ultra says, after a moment.

"Hm?"

"Would you really rather Goddess was a whore than a man?"

Neon gives a faint laugh. "Well, she's got to be a whore, ain't she? Look at all the fucking children she's got."

Ultra laughs too at that, a laugh that sounds like sobs but isn't. It makes them both shake. "So we're all just the offspring of some great big cosmic slut," she says, when she stops laughing.

"Seems like it," says Neon. "You and me both, Ultraviolet."

It is a while, Ultra realises, since Neon has used that nickname.

Ultra wonders whether Neon is referring to their relative mental states: their violence, their fucked up natures, their fighting, their drinking and drug taking and fucking till kingdom come. If it ever would come, which they didn't believe it would.

Or maybe she isn't. Maybe she means nothing by it at all. She may not be thinking. The weight of her body, Ultra knows from experience, the way she is resting it all against Ultra's, means she is tired. Very tired.

And she can't really have wanted to fuck that much, because Neon always gets what she wants.

Ultra smiles to herself, because this means that Neon wanted – wants – her.

There is another ambiguous cry from the teenagers down below.

Ultra looks out over the city skyline. Neon lights. Like her Neon's eyes. White, blue, green, orange lights.

So, yeah, I had to get one of them in an army hat.

Also, I know I already used the thing about "ultraviolet eyes" in a story, but I dunno... I'm just sort of proud of that image.

Thanks for reading.
violence x