"A head full of fears is no place for dreams."

He watches her, the glowing end of his cigarette visibly caught between thin fingers as he exhales rancid tar and nicotine.

"I have room for neither in mine."

She smirks at his inhumanity because she never smiles, not really, and he takes another drag of his addiction. This what they are now.

Their whole relationship (if you could call it that) was founded on these twisted lines of literature. That, and their mutual interest in tobacco and alcohol, but who didn't have that in common these days?

She could be the most interesting thing that has ever happened to him.

The only good that has come out of these disgustingly grandiose parties that his mother guilts him into attending; besides the mystery of their elusive host, of course.

He will discover Jay Gatsby, but for now, he has her. And she captivates his attention until the itching name is just a tiny blip on the radar.

"You've had too many cigarettes today."

"Bad news for breathing."

"Oh, breathing. Breathing's boring." She takes a drag to mirror him and props her tiny chin in her hand. "Breathing should be abolished. It takes far too much time and energy that could be spent elsewhere."

He leans back in his chair, settling comfortably into the leather.

"Impossible. The human brain requires oxygen to function."

"No longer," she cried, standing abruptly and moving fluidly to the window just to his right. "Our neuro-functions shall never require it again! They will run purely off of hemoglobin! Oh isn't it a beautiful idea?"

The cigarette in his hand is crushed into the ashtray as he watches her with a quirked lip. One hand is waving animatedly in the air, and though it would look silly to him, he lets her because it seems as though she is brushing any away who would question her, him, them. "Imagine it. Deep sea diving without a snorkel. Bad for the snorkeling business, but wonderful for us."

"Smell and taste would suffer," he counters, and she rounds on him.

"Oh, we could still do all of that. Sensory distinction wouldn't be compromised; we can still breathe, it just isn't required."

"Be it so."

He uncrosses his knees and unfurls one long, spry leg, and she surprises him by perching on the other.

"Imagine the possibilities," she murmurs, reaching close to him to smother her spent cigarette in the ashtray near his shoulder. He can smell her perfume under the smoke.

"Suffocation would become an extremely useless practice," he mutters.

Her deep, sad, brown eyes beam at him in approval and she leans toward him, nimble fingers slipping over his shoulders, one sliding over the back of his neck.

"And you could kiss," she whispers into his ear, and shivers roll down his spine, turning to lightning where she touches her soft lips to his cheek. "Forever." The corner of his mouth. "And you would never have to come up for air."

At first contact, he is jolted; startled, scared, everything he swore he never could be at once, and the air that he must unfortunately breathe catches in his chest, but her mouth is warm and pliant against his, the contact sending a foreign tingle over his skin that isn't at all as unpleasant as he theorized it would be.

His hands find their way to her waist like they've belonged there since the beginning of time, and she sighs a sigh that isn't at all boring into his mouth; it tastes of stale smoke and wine and her and he can't seem to get enough in this moment.

But she pulls away too soon and smirks at his humanity because she never really smiles, not really, and he leans forward to take another drag of this new addiction.

Perhaps this is what they are now.