Title: Of Blood and Dragons

Author: Dragonendalia

Rating: R (for violence, language, and later, implied rape)

Copyright of Kaitlin Perkett, 2003. None of my characters are to be used without permission.

Major Editors: Sovia, Oze, Sakki, C.C. and Katiria. (Thanks muchly! :D )

Author's Notes: Thanks to my friends I'm finally getting this out! Maybe with some advice from my readers and a lot more work, I can actually get this published someday... we'll see how it works out . ^_^

Warning: This story contains homosexual relationships. Don't like it, don't read it. I'm not responsible to make sure that you don't read something that offends you.

Chapter One: Once Again, He Was Yaoi.

Thomas could feel the eyes of the villagers upon him as he drew a drag from the beaten-up cigarette, waiting for him to finish and then face his death. Hangings were a rare treat for the people of his sleepy little village, something everyone gathered to see, even if it was your loved one who was going to die. Everything was just a show for them, something to fill the conversations with over the next couple of days... maybe even weeks for this one, given the circumstances.

He felt that he'd been perfectly justified in killing that man... that beast who'd dared to take his beloved Julia away from him. She was there on the stand, just a step away, wrapped in her black shawl while her luminous blue eyes were spilling tears that were liquid pearls in the last rays of the sun leaving the sky. Were those tears for him, then, or for that fiancé of her that had corrupted her heart and lead her astray from the man who really loved her? He would never know.

Because he was going to die for his passion.

Briefly he wondered if anything really mattered to him anymore, since Julia had accepted that man's proposal. That act alone had wrenched his heart in two, tossing the pieces into the scorching flames of Hell. He spit the butt of the cigarette onto the earth below the platform. No one understood how he was feeling, to have lost the most precious treasure in the world to a beastly monster. He'd slain the monster, he was supposed to have been a hero... but no, no one could see it that way because they had been blinded. Deceived about the heartlessness of that man. His promised to his beloved were false, his deception one of the best he'd ever seen... But no one but himself had seen it.

"Thomas Madison," the village priest began, reading from a scroll. "You have been charged, tried, and convicted. Now you have been brought forth to us to hang for your sins. Will you repent and join our Heavenly Father, or will you forever burn?"

Lazily, his green eyes gazed at the man, the crowd, and, lingering the longest, on his crying beloved. "...My heart is in Hell, the rest of me following it to the abyss. I'm useless, without a heart to feel."

Women in the crowd made the sign of the cross on their chests while the men frowned upon him, murmuring about foolish young love being the work of Satan. Did it matter anymore? Julia was still crying, Julia still hated him... So nothing mattered. He knew his promises to make her the happiest bride in the world would remain with her as much as that other man's would, for both had died for her.

But soon his eyes took to the other young men of the village, the one's who'd always longed for the regard of the fair maiden, the angelic voice being speaking only to them. There was a expression in their eyes now, a hunger like that of a wild beast stalking its kill and ready to pounce. The young man's heart was racing. Did the priest not see...?! Was he more blind than originally estimated?! Could he not see that the true sinners were underneath his very nose and that the temple of his goddess, Julia's body, would be ransacked by these demons?!

Thomas' voice rang out above the crowd's murmurs as the village head prepared to pull the lever that would swing the trap door. "Julia!"

The blonde maiden's eyes lifted from her sorrow and looked at him, tears still falling, confused and scared. Thomas voice was strong and clear, like music was welling up inside him even on this miserable moment, his last moment. Everyone stopped to listen, like they were under the spell of a siren.

"Beware of demons that will desecrate you, my only love... I will always love you, and I await your company with me in Hell!"

The spell was broken. The people awoke from the spell.

The floor gave out and the noose tightened....

And then the curtains fell.

Thomas heard the roar of the audience's applause as he landed on the mattress, the rope slack as he removed the loop from around his neck. Cheers and what seemed like endless cries of adoration sounded as the minor characters mulled around the curtains to take their bows and be recognized.

"Oi, Yaoi!"

Glancing up, he spotted the golden-haired, blue-eyed face of Julia staring down at him. "Hm?"

"Come on up and take your bow," she squealed in delight, beckoning him to climb up the stairs.

He sighed, standing up and brushing dust from the dark cotton pants. "Yea, yea, I'm coming Megan." Once again she was no longer Julia, most beautiful maiden in the town, and he was no longer Thomas, the obsessive man so starved for love...

Once again, he was Yaoi.

He ascended the stairs, hearing the music pick up tempo, once it had reached his peak he was to be on the hanging platform again with Megan. Thomas and Julia for a brief moment, for the last time.

Megan was already up there, waiting for him as she smoothed out the wrinkles of her costume, as if the audience was really going to be paying attention to it. Yaoi could see the sweat dripping down her face, imagining he looked the same, since both of them had been onstage the entire time under those intense lights. His waist-length black hair only added to the heat, even though it was securely tied in a braid, since they'd had to do a lot of dancing. He felt Megan take his hand in hers as the crimson curtains rose. With the two main characters on the stage the audience burst into even more deafening clapping, nearly every person standing and cheering for an outstanding performance of the theatre and its performers.

Many times they bowed as the noise, ever so slowly, died down and the stage became a carpet of roses. All the characters bowed for the final time in unison, then stood back as the curtain fell for the final time that evening, and it was over. The others were congratulating each other, patting them on the back and collecting some of the fragrant blooms from the ground before the janitors would come and clean them away. The performance had gone so well... they were all off to the party... All except for him, that is.

"Yaoi!" It was Megan again. Sweet, energetic, little Megan. "You were so great out there! Everyone loved you!"

'Too bad they don't know what I really am,' he thought as he jumped down and onto the stage.

"Really," she insisted, jumping down and following after him. "People are saying that you were ten times better than Lear!"

'Ah yes, Lear,' Yaoi thought with a smirk. 'Poor Lear who broke his leg after opening night and had to have his poor little understudy replace him... the bastard shouldn't have gotten so drunk.'

"Anyways, are you coming to party?"

Yaoi glanced to the side, giving her a dark look. "I'm not going, I told you that already."

Megan made a sort of dismissing motion with her hand, not seeming to be bothered by his negative attitude, as usual. "Well I know you said that, but you really should come! Everyone's going to want to congratulate you!"

He rolled his emerald eyes, taking a long leather jacket from the hallway coat rack. "I don't care what they think Megan, and besides, I'll be late for work if I don't get going."

The blonde crossed her arms and shook her head at the raven-haired young man as he slipped on his coat. "Work? This late at night? Where would someone with talent like you work at this hour?"

"A place that's NOT for nosey little Day-Dwellers," Yaoi snapped, using the street name for the well-off and sophisticated people who never ventured into the nighttime of the city other than for their little balls and operas and fine dinners.

Before she could retort Yaoi had turned and walked out the door that lead into an alleyway of TechaTokyo, the biggest party-city of the third millennium.

The black-haired teen was all too sure he wouldn't be followed by the bothersome actress. Megan was a Day-Dweller who worked until ten at night where she could go home through the skyway and spend little to no time on the street. She was scared of it. To a girl who took pleasure in museums of fine art or a child's ballet program, the raves, alcohol, drugs, and music of the Night-Demons would drive her insane. Let Megan stay safe in the bright world of her flowers and religious sermons she so loved, and let her always remain unaware of the insanity he knew to exist at night.

Taking a pack of cigarettes from his pocket along with a lighter he lit up the deadly cylinder, took a drag, and started walking. It was brighter than day on the streets, neon lights flashing, car lights blinking, music in the air and the shouts of humans deafening. This was paradise to the Night- Demons, to those wild creatures who seemed to live only for the fall of the sun and arrival of the night.

Yaoi glanced back momentarily at the theatre, all sophisticates leaving or talking in front while waiting for their chauffeured limousines. No one noticed him. With a trashy coat and a plain cigarette in his mouth no one even suspected he was that amazing, beautiful boy from the performance they'd just witnessed. He was just another common, vulgar Night-Demon- nobody taking a shortcut in front of a place too good for him.

The clock above the theatre door read ten thirty seven, Yaoi cursing as he took another drag and picked up his pace. He had to get there, take a shower, and get changed and ready by eleven thirty. "I'll bet Terry is just ready to bitch me into my next life," he muttered, rounding a corner and taking no notice of the people he was bumping into.

The city was an immense place where the inexperienced person could get lost in within seconds of their arrival. Streets turned into streets that became a mad rush of mazes and labyrinths that continued on for what seemed like an eternity. To those who knew their way around, one could almost call them god-like for such ability. Yaoi was one of those such people. Almost never looking up, his eyes remained on the ground, seeing nothing but dance steps in his mind's eye. Recalling, reciting, knowing, and mentally practicing.

Within ten minutes he was trying to catch his breathe as he looked up at the huge building before him. The Silver Dragon, they called it, the all person one-stop paradise.

Most of the upper building consisted of stores and classy hotel rooms, ballrooms, meeting rooms, spas and clubs, and of course, the penthouse suites. The Traveling-Day-Dwellers or the people who were just plain loaded, stayed there most often. Dinning rooms and points of interest by the dozen, cafes and shops. Swimming pools, daycares, formal-only lounges... the wealthy in this building didn't live like kings, they lived like gods.

And then down below there were the bars. Oh, there were bars. Dance floors, tattoo joints, strip clubs, rooms for rent, clothing shops, and music stores. Down here the drugs and alcohol flowed about as freely as wind in the air in this place where even the authorities could enter and not be taken seriously. After all, in a place where a Satanist shop was common as were people getting plastic surgery to have animal tails and ears, nothing could be stopped until they were good and ready. Yaoi lived far below the surface in the apartments, and only one thing was lower than those floors; the areas dedicated to a night's pleasure. He stayed away from that sector of the Silver Dragon.

Of course, he couldn't go through the front of the building to get back to his apartment. That is, he could if he wanted to, but he could run the risk of somebody seeing his costume under the leather jacket. People working on the reception floors and above were greedy and would report anything for a nice little bonus in the next paycheck, and he wasn't supposed to have a second job when he was employed here.

"Not really a big deal anymore anyways..." Yaoi mused as he turned towards the alley. "The job's over with."

The alley was dark and cold and anyone could feel the winter drawing closer and closer even though it wasn't even Halloween yet. Though his sweating body had been grateful for the rush of the chill air before, now his only desire was to slip inside and get warm. Not much further into the alley he turned and slipped behind an upright concrete slab that hid a spiral staircase from the public's view. This staircase was made of a black, cold iron that led down five stories to a door that could take him inside. Taking two or three steps at a time down, the light from the city streets getting dimmer and dimmer as he descended, the only thing that told him he wasn't walking straight into Hell's pits itself was a dim green light near the door.

Finally reaching the bottom, the eerie green light shining up the double doors painted blood red and long-since vandalized, he smirked at the thought of a lyric from one of his favorite songs. He took one of the handles and pulled, letting himself in.

The song seemed to fit these doors well...

"These red gates were the front doors of Hell," he whispered, "he never knew it... heh."