it’s past midnight when dylan comes knocking at his door.
kaiden doesn’t even have time to put out his cigarette before dylan is falling across the threshold and catching kaiden’s face in his hands, kissing him hard and stealing his limited breath away. dylan’s chest is fluttering and he’s gasping too - from running up six flights of stairs or what’s to come - and kaiden’s heartbeat goes into overdrive to match.
there is so much passion and urgency in how dylan quickly gets the upper hand by pulling kaiden in close, that anyone lesser would have been lost in it in an instant, giving into his will. but kaiden knows dylan and can taste the alcohol-laced fear in dylan’s kiss. kaiden knows that when dylan is fighting himself he tries to cover it like he does on the stage - throw his whole being into the moment that there is no room for the fear to reside, to set himself aflame to stop the cold pain from taking over.
but love is not the stage and soon dylan is vulnerable again, going lax in kaiden’s hold. the whole time kaiden is tugging him forward and murmuring strings of pleasant tones into the vocalist’s ear and dragging his nails across the older’s scalp. all the while pulling dylan into the slanted light of his cluttered apartment until he finally turns the older and pushes him into the bed in one swift moment.
kaiden sheds his shirt, his eyes never breaking contact with the figure on his bed. then, with muscles rippling, he climbs into the bed and unhurriedly moving his way up dylan’s body until he is straddling the older’s waist.
up close dylan’s eyes are dilated to the max with staccato breath trembling his body. to anyone else, this is fear. it is there, but kaiden can see that it is slowly being pushed away in favor of lust. and it fires him and makes his chest clench to see dylan submitting to him.
so kaiden closes the space between them to kiss dylan long, slow, and deep. as his tongue explores the crevices of dylan’s mouth, kaiden’s hands wander up the thin t-shirt to trail over the ridges and curves of dylan's ribcage.
they stay like this a while, communicating through movements and dialogue through touch. soon dylan is moaning and twisting beneath kaiden, making such defenseless noises. somewhere between the tangle of limbs, dylan’s shirt comes off.
it’s only when kaiden’s fingers trail the rim of his jeans when dylan finally says, ‘you smell like smoke.’
which is laughably obvious in any other moment, considering the cigarettes that litter the side table, but kaiden has an idea what he is really saying. kaiden is sly, though. dylan will have to ask nicely.
so kaiden jams their mouths together while dropping his hips down to grind into the other’s crotch, which earns a strangled groan and he growls, ‘tell me what you want.’
dylan is gasping, pretty lips - all red from kaiden’s slow abuse - forming words that aren’t forming in his throat. his hands are wanderers lost on their way over kaiden’s shoulders, arms, chest, face.
‘what was that?’ this time kaiden is more gentle taking dylan’s face in his so that he can’t look away.
dylan’s lips barely move in the dim light as he murmurs, ‘I...I want you to...mark me.’
‘with?’
‘w-with your kisses...and smoke.’
kaiden’s low chuckles resonate inside his throat all the way down his body. ‘now that wasn’t so hard was it?’
dylan makes a sound low in his chest between a growl and a whimper, urgency tensing his frame making him shift restlessly.
not wanting to make him wait any longer (and he is almost as his end too), kaiden reaches over and across dylan’s head to fumble for the packet of cigarettes.
dylan doesn’t play nicely either and as soon as the younger is above and stretching over him, one hand sweeps down the expanse of ribcage and abdomen while the other is steady at the hips. kaiden has just enough time to grab the package before he is propped up on his elbows and being tugged down for more deep kisses. dylan is so distracting that it takes a few minutes to find the lighter, scrambling across the table surface making the glass vase perched there totter precariously.
dylan thinks that kaiden lights the cigarette with more efficiency and grace than should be allowed for someone that young. but the rest of his thoughts are cut off as he stops for the first time to watch that narrow chest expand to take a long drag. it’s so mesmerizing watching the ghosts of burnt ingredients invade and take over that body. something so foreign and poisonous, yet so alluring...
huuuuuuush
then another long, long drag and suddenly, kaiden is there, cramming their lips together. with a start, dylan hadn’t even notice that he had drawn in a breath in time with kaiden’s a moment ago until the breath is jammed in his chest. he leans back to gasp out and the smoke escapes from both their mouths like a shared flame.
for that moment they expel the same breath into the atmosphere and its all they know.
kaiden is pulling away and taking another drag and this time he avoids dylan’s asking lips to trail down the sweep of neck and chest. he is slow at unraveling dylan, learning every bit of dylan, humming through the haze of it all as he litters smoke-kisses across that complexion.
dylan is at his end and losing his mind, all fear gone and feeling everything all at once. the cylinder quickly burns down close to the filter, dylan’s hand tips his chin up to lay a chaste kiss onto kaiden’s lips, all the thanks and want bundled into one gesture.
the innocence and carefulness that takes over now is even more dangerous than dylan’s passion had been and kaiden isn’t sure how much longer either of them can last.
there is art in everything in this moment – from the way the scarlet sheets are a contrast to dylan’s pale skin but a compliment to his flushed cheeks to the way kaiden’s breath tastes like alcohol and sweat and smoke. kaiden is breathless knowing that he has the power to destroy dylan in this moment of complete vulnerability. how he can break dylan down, how he can tear him open, how he can make him sing.
but all this, everything about this, is wrong because none of it belongs to him. none of the art and magic created now is kaiden’s and he knows in the morning that all this will escape. just like his dreams, slipping between his grasping fingers like gray phantoms.
but kaiden’s willing to take what he can get. so with a final drag of smoke, kaiden presses his lips against dylan’s neck, marking that column of veins that houses a powerful voice that will never be his.
(and dylan will never know that he is the reason why kaiden began to smoke)
