A/N: A little thing inspired by Yellowcard's City of Devils. Not based on the song, this just struck while listening to it. This is different for me. Guys aren't generally the POV I follow but well, hopefully this isn't too bad. Enjoy.

City of Devils

by BoarderKC

He wanted to move there. To the city of devils is what He wanted. In the back patches of the far out fields in the little town that preached the Lord and gossip, He dreamed of steamy nights. He dreamed of being aroused and awakened in the real world where weather was replaced by hellfire.

The other had already been there in the city of devils. he had been born and raised there, sacrificed for another's sin on a dirty altar, amid blood, sweat and vibrant hallucinations. he sweated to a beat for crumpled dollars and smoked in the back allies, drawing crosses in the smoke and fritting away his life on surviving.

It was almost destined for them to meet. The incendiary demons were to blame for His split decision to jump the bus amid protests and threats of rejection. And it was their fault the other was in the alley behind the station, trading his crumpled dollars for another hit of life. And those demons were to blame for the welcome party that met Him with baseball bats and chains to relieve Him of His money and possessions.

It was His first taste of the city, his city of devils. Cold metal and warm blood and electrifying pain. It was the other who found Him; stepping forward through a cloud of crosses, a holy deity glowing in the embers of a cigarette. The other had cursed and looked hesitant between dropping his cigarette and helping Him to His feet, but as the wind swept away a lukewarm cigarette, the other wrapped his arm around the boy's waist. Through busted features He spat blood and groaned, but the other showed no mercy in pulling Him to His feet.

He didn't leave when He had recovered and the other didn't ask, merely accepted His presence as just another frequent change in a rapid evolving life. He would leave when He would leave and the other, in an euphoric haze of using regarded Him like a waft of smoke that would dissipate in due time. No need to fret when no one could survive this city, his city, the city of devils long.

So He rooted and lived while the other smoked and fritted his survival, still pumping himself to a carnal beat for soaked singles. He would question the other's life, wondering about dignity and respect, while the other made drawings in the smoke and offered Him a hit. He would refuse like the good boy He still was, while the other would draw His face in smoke before they would go to the other's ritual slaughter. Trailing behind to the back door entrances, His eyes would drop to the dirty tiled path of degradation as they passed haloed figures whom the other regarded as lifelines. He saw skin; muscles and golden tans. Picture perfect skin.

He would watch from the shadows as the other took his place and earned his keep. The city threw change at the other's feet as he sweated and moved; closing his eyes to the outside. From His shadows, He would watch the other move and feel a knot in His throat that prevented Him from crying as He watched the other possessed. And when the other would finish they would applaud with dollars and scathing remarks about impromptu disgusting encores. But with a dullness in his body and sexual taunting with the humor never reaching his eyes, the other would take what they had offered, anything they would give him and leave.

It was then He decided He needed to become just that. His skin prickled while the other's was dull. The other felt everything and nothing, while He just felt everything. The other heard music when guns fired and in the almost silent movement of the syringe. He only heard the yelling, heard the taunting and feared. He no longer found it in enchanting and it scared Him even more.

He couldn't see the sky at night. Smog obscured twinkling diamonds He had grown up wishing upon. He mentioned it once, but the other didn't understand, unaware of the jewels that decorated the sky when the ground held pebbles that jutted and caught and the asphalt steamed with the burning fires of hell that raged from the nightclubs underneath. So He swept His eyes downward and His mind rejected a lifetime worth of memories of sparkling diamond skies and the glowing of the city kept His eyes from going skyward.

The other noticed when He began to lose Himself. It was little things he noticed when they began living together. He was a farm boy, polite and sweet in spite of the bravado that flared up on the streets. And the other would smirk at His puffed chest and barking tone, His features still marred with a broken lip and scars. He wasn't real, the other knew, His swagger was movie made and He was still soft, putty made for molding. The other watched as people played and sculpted, demons in Adonis forms using Him in ways the other could only recognize. They took while the other watched, commenting while He moved around nightclubs and followed the devils into their shadows so they could pierce his skin and suck his soul.

They used each other. Jealousy and curiosity started it, but neither admitted to it. But reasons didn't matter. The other had an addiction he couldn't quench, but distraction kept him from it. And He gained an addiction that quenched His fear. It was enough to keep Him away from the demon Adonises that stole away His core, leaving just enough to make Him seem whole. The other filled the gaps, roughly ramming mix-matched chunks back on His broken core. And He was a softness the other had never felt. All he knew was skill and rage, but He was a fumbling mess when the bravado was melted away.

And when they had consumed enough of each other and the glow of a red burning night was chased away by the milky dark, they whispered in the night to the burning ember of his shaking cigarette. Like hallowed prayers in the shadows, he would break down and tell Him He didn't belong. he would break his own commandment of impartiality and speak without looking at Him, but at his cigarette as smoke angels danced in the dark.

Don't belong.

He would cough in the smoke of his hit, watching the angels dance around His head. They were forms He barely recognized now, but they didn't matter. They would be swept up by the city and fade into the night, the city of devils would consume the opaque figures and they would be lost. Just like the other believed Him to be.

Nothing survived long in the city of devils.

As always, my friends, read and review.