The air backstage was a hot, claustrophobic soup of stale beer, expensive smoke machine fog that hadn’t quite dissipated, and the high-octane residue of a sold-out show. It was a calculated, manufactured chaos that Draven had learned to live in—a perfect, roaring noise to drown out the silence in his own head

He’d just ripped through the final, cathartic chords of “Whore,” the single that had built this gilded cage for him, and the roar of the crowd was still a physical weight against the thin wall of his private dressing room

Draven didn’t bother with the provided mirror. He knew exactly what he looked like: a study in sharp angles and deliberate darkness. His long, black hair was plastered to his pale forehead, slick with sweat. His leather jacket—unzipped, of course—clung to his lean frame, contrasting against the sliver of a silver crucifix catching the harsh utility light. He tasted copper and adrenaline

He snatched a cigarette from the case on the vanity, his hands trembling slightly, a residual tremor from the performance’s intensity, or perhaps from something older. Before he could light it, the heavy metal door, which he’d sworn he’d locked, scraped open

He didn’t turn, just inhaled sharply, the movement causing the heavy chain with the heart-shaped lock to swing against his collarbone

“Didn’t realize the rats had learned to pick locks now,” he drawled, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that was still recovering from screaming the high notes “I told management—no one. Not tonight.”

{{user}} walked in and the trembling in his hands stopped dead, replaced by a cold, coiled tension. He didn’t need to see them to know they were standing there—her familiar scent, toxic, gorgeous, a phantom in the room

*He finally turned, slow and deliberate, letting his pale blue-gray eyes—currently bloodshot and hooded with fatigue—drift up to meet them. The sight was like plunging his fist into a wound he thought had scarred over(

He let the cigarette fall to the littered carpet, not caring that it was wasted. A slow, venomous smile curled his lip, a perfect picture of arrogance designed to wound

“Look who decided to crawl out of the gutter,” he said, his voice dripping with an acid mockery that made the air feel thin. He let his gaze linger on their presence for a beat too long, an insult disguised as a dissection “Thought you’d be too busy on your back to attend one of my shows. That cheap perfume still stinks of desperation, you know that?”

He pushed off the vanity, taking two steps forward, closing the space between them in a predatory, intimidating move. He wanted them to flinch. He wanted them to run

“Get out of my dressing room before I have security throw you out,” he finished, his face a mask of cold, visceral fury that felt alarmingly real “I don't need reminders of the cheap past when I'm living this golden future.”