Chapter two! Once again, I've got a pretty good idea of where this is going. If you like it, tell me and I'll continue it. It's honestly up in the air right now.

Jeeze oh petes, why is it that I love writing about drama? Can't I just make a normal story that isn't wacky and full of things that could never ever ever possibly even remotely happen? Eh, whatever.

Disclaimer: Darkness... chocking me... drags me down so deep, I cannot breath... happiness dies. Or rather, this is what I'd say if anybody sued me for copyright infringement. So do me a favor and listen when I tell you: I do not own South Park or any characters there in.

Enjoy!

I'm Not Insane, I'm Catholic

Chapter 2

"I had to see it to believe it!" Kyle shouted, walking into the diner and straight up to Stan. He was wearing black everything: a black hat, a black shirt, black pants. He even had his ear pierced with a cross, of all things! And was that mascara under his eyes? Unbelievable! "How could you do this to yourself?"

Stan took a sip from his coffee mug, his eyelids low and apathetic. "I'm merely dressing the way my soul feels. Dark and despairing… like a pitch black void of endless misery, sucking me in, down to the depths."

"Will you cut the crap?" Kyle barked, in no mood. "We're all starting to get worried about you. You're like a chronic goth – every time Wendy dumps you, you hang out with these losers."

Kyle gestured toward the four other kids sitting in the booth, smoking and drinking coffee; from left to right sat the tall goth, the short goth, the girl goth, and the goth with red highlights in his hair that hung over his face who was perched right next to Stan. They shrugged off Kyle's derogatory words with indifference, the tall one mumbling under his breath, "Justin Timberlake wannabe…." Kyle growled and rolled his eyes. These goth kids were insufferable!

"Look… Stan," he cajoled, looking his friend dead in the eye, drawing his attention away from the goth kids to converse with him and him alone. "Shit happens, okay? And I'm all for expressing your emotions in creative outlets, but damn! This is too much. You can't keep…." Kyle's sentence trailed off into silence as he looked down onto the table they were sitting at. Just between an empty coffee mug and an unrolled napkin of silverware, Stan and the red goth had their hands… their fingers intertwined with each other's.

"What the hell?" Kyle breathed in disbelief. "What. The. Hell. Are you two holding hands? That's… well, that's –"

"That's what?" the girl goth haughtily inquired, bobbing her head side to side with an extra dosage of sass. Kyle remained silent, his mouth hanging open, dumbstruck.

"Are you so off put by two guys holding hands that you've become speechless?" red goth asked, tightening his grip around Stan's hand.

"Conformist," spat short goth.

"Yeah," tall goth agreed, a puff of smoke wafting from his lips in the shape of a ring. "Conformist."

"Conformist," Stan mumbled, a little less convincingly than the others, but it stung all the same. Kyle shook his head slowly, unable to find the words to express his shock, and the pangs of betrayal beat hard against his chest.

"You can't…" he started, his eyes wide. "You can't do that. That's… that's wrong, and y-you can't do that, Stan! Not with… not with him!" Kyle jabbed a threatening finger into red goth's face, his hand quivering with anger. "You can't just do something like that!"

"Why not?" Stan snapped, feeling his chest suddenly swell up with adrenaline. "What's wrong with two guys holding hands, huh? Are you that much of a conformist, Kyle?" An echo of 'conformist' circled the table as all the goths nodded their heads at each other. Stan raised his hand, still clasping onto red's, showing it off to the entire restaurant with indignation. "How about you get out of here, you Banana Republic whore."

"B-but," Kyle stammered, in a daze. "What about Wendy?"

"What about Wendy?"

All was quiet. Nobody spoke a word. Even the din of other civilians eating their meals at the diner seemed to lessen in accordance with the argument. Kyle breathed heavily, balling his hands into tight fists. He stared at the floor, clenching his jaw to remind him of his anger. "You know what? Whatever, Stan."

"My name's Raven now."

"Good!" yelled Kyle, slamming his hands down onto the table, rattling the dishes and causing the goth kids to recoil in surprise. "That's great! Because if you were Stan, I would beat the living shit out of you! But you're right, you know! You're definitely not Stan, cause Stan wouldn't be such a whiny little bitch! But, tell you what, Raven… when Stan finally decides to show up, tell him I'll be at my house playing video games. He's welcome to join me after he's come to his senses."

Kyle couldn't have stormed out of that diner fast enough.

"...Conformist."

Later, all the goth kids had paid their bill, without leaving a tip, and convened next to the front door of the restaurant. "See you guys tomorrow," tall goth said, and crossed the street. Girl goth and short goth wordlessly walked left and turned the corner to their homes, and Raven went right. It was getting late, and he had no idea how long it would take him to walk to his house.

"Looks like you're going my way," called a familiar voice, and Raven glanced nonchalantly over his shoulder to greet him.

"Hey Red," he greeted as red goth walked up next to Raven, keeping in time with his stride. His name wasn't actually Red, but Raven didn't know what else to call him. He had said that he didn't want to go by the faggy name his parents had given him, so Red had never mentioned his real name. Everyone just called him Red.

"What was that all about?" Red started, his hands in his pockets and his eyes downcast to the ground. "Back at the diner. That Kyle kid seemed pretty pissed off." He rubbed his nose with his hand, trailing a finger hesitantly over his fresh lip piercing, feeling the icy metal and the heat of his flesh clash with subtle passion.

"I don't care about him anymore," Raven answered, his voice monotone and uncaring. If the world didn't care about him, why should he care about the world?

"But… he seemed like a good friend."

"You guys are my only friends now."

Red pulled from his jeans a packet of cigarettes. He swiped one out and was about to put it into his mouth before he stopped. He kinda just… stared at it for a while. Depressed. Unusually emotional over such a trivial thing like a cig. "I don't like smoking, you know."

"I thought all goths smoked," Raven questioned, slowing down his pace to hold a proper conversation. It was weird. Red usually kept his voice so gruff, a guise Raven supposed he used to sound tougher. But now, his words were smooth and almost… enjoyable to listen to.

"Yeah, and all goths walk everywhere, right?" Red scoffed, grinding to a halt. "Well, today my feet hurt, so I'm going to use the fucking bus. If… that's alright with you?" Raven shrugged and leaned against the metal pole that had a sign riveted to it that read 'Bus Stop.'

They were silent for a while, the awkward tension between them palpable. "You say we're friends," Red mused, still staring at the cigarette through his bangs which weaved over his face. "My grandpa… he died last month. From lung cancer. He smoked too much. He always told me to quit smoking while I still could. That I was too young for that shit. But I can't."

"Why can't you?"

Red laughed, tapping the cig against his wrist before finally flicking it away, unlit. "Because then I wouldn't fit in," he admitted with a cheerless smile. "I'd be a conformist."

It must have been the sunset, or the coffee, or… something that was just out of the ordinary. But when Raven looked at Red, with his black and crimson hair sweeping over the right side of his face, his slender torso and cutely hunched shoulders. Red kinda looked… he looked….

Raven's thought was knocked away as he was bumped from behind by someone. He tripped over his own feet and fell right into Red's arms. Raven's heart skipped a beat as he looked up, Red's eyes humorously surprised, a thin smile dancing across his lips, and his eyes sparkling in the fading light. "T-thanks… for catching me," Raven whispered, barely able to breath.

"Anytime," Red shot back, helping him back up onto his own two legs.

"Oh dear!" the aggressor gasped from behind. "That was entirely my fault, wasn't it? Oh me! Oh my!" Both of the boys turned to face the stranger and both had to take a step back when they saw him.

He was a tall man dressed almost like a clown; all in shades of red and purple. He was wearing a maroon shirt and deep purple pants that vanished beneath vibrant red boots. He had a very light purple trench coat on, almost white looking, and it was pulled down past his shoulders. And the sleeves were so long that they dropped far beyond his hands, reminiscent of an untied straight jacket. But, none the less, he was carrying a long black cane in his hand, even through the fabric of the sleeve. Across his chest was strapped a messenger bag. He tipped his top hat that had a red bow, pink rose, and a little slip of paper all suspended on one side, showing off his pitch black hair.

But possibly the most eerie of all was that the man was wearing a mask. A porcelain mask of the whitest alabaster. It was plain and simple – two holes for eyes and one grinning mouth stretched wide across it. But you couldn't see into the eyes or the into the mouth. They were lost in the deepest and darkest of black, and any sign of life the face behind it might have had was covered completely by the all encompassing dark.

"W-what do you think you're doing?" Raven asked, pulling Red close to him, just in case this guy was as crazy as he looked.

"Why, I'm waiting for Godot!" the man laughed, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He waved his cane in the air and arched his back in a yawning stretch.

"For who?"

"Whom."

"What?"

"Exactly!" The man appeared to stick his finger in the air as a triumphant gesture, but it was still lost in the sleeve of his trench coat.

"I… I don't think I understand," Raven mumbled, confused.

"Hey, douche bag!" Red shouted, growing annoyed. "I think the circus is leaving town, you'd better catch your ride on the Looney Train before it leaves. Next stop: the funny farm."

"Ah!" the man exclaimed, raising his arms with delight. "He's there! He's there! I found him!"

"Who did you find?" Raven drawled, thoroughly confused.

"I already told you," the man chuckled, skipping out into the middle of the road. "The white rabbit, silly!"

"I thought you said you were waiting for Godot," Red snorted, watching at the man effortlessly lifted up the manhole cover that was right in the intersection of the street. Lucky for him, there were no cars coming.

"Nothing of the sort!"

"Yes you did, you said you were waiting for Godot!"

"Who?"

"I thought you told me 'whom.'"

The man had already lowered himself halfway into the manhole. At the sound of Raven's words, he looked up with a start, his mask gleaming in the sunset. He lifted his arm and pointed straight towards Stan, revealing slender fingers sheathed in a deep purple glove. "Exactly…." And with that, he vanished underground.

Raven and Red were both shell shocked. Red cleared his throat and licked his lips nervously, his tough act all but dissolved. He crumpled into Stan's embrace before realizing just how close they actually were and hurridly pulled himself away with a stutter. "I think I really, really want to go home now." Red rubbed his hands along his arms as if trying to warm himself up; a sort of... defense mechanism.

They held hands together on the bus, overwhelmed by the bewildering encounter with the rouge man. People stared at them, especially the old ones, but they didn't care. Or… if they did, they didn't let it show. Red was quiet while the bus drove on, like he normally was. Although, it was a different sort of silence. A pensive one.

"Those stupid conformist assholes," Raven sneered as they trudged off the bus together at their stop. "Just because two guys can hold hands doesn't make them gay!"

"I am."

Stan jerked to a stop and pulled his hand from Red's. The other boy just scrunched up his face as if he had an acrid taste coating his tongue. "I… I'm sorry," Stan offered. He knew it was nothing he had to apologize for, it was for lack of having anything else to say. "I didn't know."

"Me neither," Red admitted, swishing his hair from his eyes. "I had an inkling, of course. But I was so caught up with being 'goth' that everything else went on the back burner. It wasn't until you started hanging out with us that I really understood."

Red gently took both of Stan's hands and held them close. "You have great friends, Stan. Ones that care about you. They care about you for who you are, not who you make out to be. Me and the others… we're so far up our own asses, we could never give you that." His grip went limp and Stan's fingers slipped through, back down to his sides. Red looked away, shamefully.

"It's far too late for me. I've already drank the Kool-Aid. But you can still move on, Stan. Leave Raven behind. He doesn't do anything good for you." Red swallowed and took a step back, the distance between them slowly growing. "It was certainly a pleasure to hold your hand. Even if you are straight. You've helped me so much, Stan. I can't thank you enough."

He turned to leave, his footsteps echoing down the vacant sidewalk as Stan lingered, not knowing what to think. A dark shadow loomed over him and he whirled around to see the man from before, his finger resting poignantly upon his porcelain chin. "Where did his ears go?" he mumbled with dejection. "I could have sworn…."

"Just who the hell are you?" Stan exploded, but the man was unfazed. He tipped his hat once more and did a low bow.

"You may call me the Mad Hatter," he answered playfully. Rummaging through his bag he pulled out a large lollypop, rainbow and spiraling like a colorful, hypnotic ring. "Care for an all day sucker?"

"I'm not supposed to take candy from strangers," Stan mumbled, cursing the cliché but very relevant excuse.

"Poppy cock!" the man chortled, sliding the discus back into his bag. "Besides, I think Alice already has one of those." He waltzed away, humming to himself, his boots clopping loudly along the pavement.

"Will you just leave me alone?!" Stan cried, stomping his foot like a tantrum child.

"That depends," the man called over his shoulder. "Will you be able to leave me alone?"

"Is he a friend of yours from church?" Kyle asked as they walked home, their backpacks laying heavily upon them. They didn't have any homework, but they both had decided to begin clearing out their lockers. Summer was drawing near, and there was only a week left of school. They couldn't have been more eager.

"Whom?" Stan asked, already thinking of other things; Wendy for instance. They had broken up again a month ago for about the 62th time. Actually... it was the 62th time... Stan had been keeping track. Suppose that's why Kyle was so worried about catching him with that stalker kid. He did look the part of goth – but Raven hadn't made an appearance yet, and probably wouldn't any time soon. If ever.

"What do you mean who?" Kyle sniffed; he was not going to get a cold, he refused, not with only a week until summer vacation! "That kid you were talking to earlier. Is he a friend from church or something?"

"Why does that matter, Kyle?" Stan said, getting defensive. He hated how every little thing got turned around back to religion some way or another. It was annoying!

Kyle sneezed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. "Guess it doesn't, really. Just curious."

"I don't know," Stan shrugged, feeling helpless. "I just met the kid two seconds ago. Called himself God." Kyle raised an eyebrow in concern.

"Did he try to rape you?"

"No, no, nothing like that." Their talk was becoming stagnant. Be it because Stan didn't want to talk about his new found 'buddy' or well... something else. "Hey, we still on for this weekend?"

"I haven't gotten a movie yet," Kyle reported with a sigh. "Not much of a movie night if there isn't a movie to watch. And I haven't really select a date yet. My parents are busy this weekend and Ike… Ike and I aren't on the best of terms right now. But I still think I can safely say that yes, we are still on for this weekend."

"Great," Stan smiled, wrapping his arm around Kyle's shoulder. "Great…" This feeling in his stomach. So… foreign. So unreal.

Was it regret? Maybe... shame?

Of who?

Ugh... of whom?