Well, hello there. This story is a pet project of mine and a bit of a pearture for me, the result of watching too much Project Runway (my guilty pleasure...). I have no idea where this is going, so suggestions are welcome.

Chapter One

"It's too fucking tight!" the model gasped as an assistant tightened the corset. The assistant, a gawky bespectacled guy named Darin, bit his lip in annoyance, but continued to lace the corset. "What the fuck! If he actually turns up for this show, I'm going to kill Christian Rice..."

Just shut up and wear the clothes, thought Darin, and tugged harder on the laces to release her annoyance. The model shrieked slightly, and cursed Christian Rice once more. Darin thought, with a wistful sigh to his windowdressing job, far away in a New York department store. Mannequins didn't complain, and when he was annoyed, by God, he stuck them with a needle and watched them bleed...

"Hello," the model called sarcastically. "I'm kind of unable to breathe here."

"You don't need to breathe, woman," Darin finally snapped, his whiny voice cutting through the air like a pneumatic pump. Everyone thought he was fucking gay when he talked, which is why he preferred to be quiet. "You just need to walk down that fucking runway in this fucking corset, because that's what you're paid for. If you don't like it, I'll take the dress off of you and you can go home."

The girl didn't say a word after that, not even when Darin 'accidentally' drove a pin into her arm and then sent her to hair and make-up. After that, Darin went outside for a smoke. Terrible habit, really, but he didn't care. He just needed to get away from all the annoying people trying to be sophisticated. No, he wasn't a people person, and couldn't remember why he had gotten into the fashion business knowing this fact.

"Hey, what's up?" asked a bum that Darin had not noticed until he had spoken. This guy was so incredibly filthy that Darin was sure he could see fleas hoping off of him in the dimming sunlight. He held a paper bag that concealed something bulky and heavy in his hand. Darin discreetly shuffled away from him and started to light his cigarette.

"I asked you a question," said the bum annoyed.

"Yeah, I know you did," Darin said. "Nothing's happening. Work as usual."

"You work here?" the bum quirked his eyebrow in interest. "You a designer?"

"No," Darin said shortly. "Designers don't work in this rathole, anyhow. All there is is a catwalk and a dressing-room for the whiny sluts."

"I hear you," the bum chuckled, and took a bottle of wine from the paper bag in his hand. "I only came here for laughs. I hear the show is going to be something else."

"Where did you get that idea?" Darin snorted. Just like that, the bum's jovial personality dissipated.

"Gotta be going," said he, and got up with a bit of a grunt. "I have pressing business to attend to."

"Yeah, I gotta go, too," Darin said, looking at his watch. "Show's in ten minutes..."

The bum was already gone. Darin finally got around to smoking his cigarette, and rushed back in the building.

"Hello? Is everyone ready, hello?" asked the stage manager, banging a clipboard against the side of her leg. "Good."

Darin's model was standing there, looking ravishing in red heels and electric blue eyeliner.

Darin stared at those heels, and then said, "You know, those don't go with the dress."

"So what?" the model pouted. "That's not my problem. If you wer here for hair and makeup, you'd have had some say in the shoes."

"N-n-no, don't start," Darin snapped. "You're in the fashion industry, right? You weren't picked up off a street corner and then brought here for the mere purpose of pissing off my eternal soul? Hello? Are you suddenly a mute? No, you will not cry! If you cry, then your makeup will run, and let me tell you electric blue streaks down your face will not help you when you go out there WITH CLASHING SHOES!"

People were starting to stare, but by now Darin didn't care. He was in full stride. He hated the model he was working with and the icky shoes and the idiotic make-up that she was wearing. He only liked the dress, the semi-goth creation by Christian Rice, but right now he wanted to rip it off the ungrateful wench and burn it on her back, the back she folded into a fashionable osteoporosis-like bent.

"Excuse me, Clarice's got to go now," said the stage manager brusquely, tapping the clipboard over Darin's head in a busy-busy-busy rhythm.

"Fine. Break a leg, Clarice," Darin said, and as he said it, he really hoped she would break a leg on those fucking heels.

"Well, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed, didn't they?" said a really, really gay lisp from behind Darin.

"Stfu, Kyle," Darin snapped, and patted his pockets for his cigarettes. He usually didn't like to use text-message abbreviations in real life, but when one was around Kyle, it was hard not to.

"You know, Darin, you really need to get ahold of yourself. There are a lot of people out there who would give a kidney for your job. And as you know," said he, putting on a terrible German accent and placing a perfectly manicured hand on his hip, "In fashion, vun day you're in, and the next... you're auf'd."

"You couldn't lick Heidi Klum's steel-toed boots, Kyle," Darin said absentmindedly, wishing Heidi Klum were anywhere near badass enough to wear steel-toed boots.

"Why are you being such a sourpuss?" Kyle pouted, and then stared at the screen that broadcast what was happening on the runway at this very moment. "O.M.G. Who is that?"

"Who is what?" Darin asked, and cast an absentminded eye towards the screen. "Oh, that guy. I just saw him utside when I was having a smoke."

It took a moment for them both to register what Darin had just said, and then they both stared at the screen again.

In the fuzzy blue and white reality of the television screen, the bum Darin had just seen was standing on the catwalk, slightly cleaned up, but still in no presentable shape. He cleared his throat, then took a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket.

"Ladies and gentlemen... It is an honour for me to be here... among such distinguished company..." he said, squinting slightly at the paper. "My name is- sorry, can't read my own writing- Christian Rice. My name is Christian Rice. This is my line, Goth... Goth in the Rain."

And with that, Christian Rice fell off the catwalk.