//spilled ink on my work desk

AO3 is my preferred theatre, but you’ll see me occasionally post snippets n shorter stories here on tumblr; 

JUJUTSU KAISEN;

caffeinated; gojo x f! reader

we got them preaching that we’re hellbound; geto x reader x gojo

accomplice for hire; toji x f! reader | gojo x f! reader

shorts & drabbles: 1, 2

DURARARA!!;

madness plays; izaya x shinra

flowers that grow in concrete; oc fic, multiships, under heavy editing

☁ cheers n hope you’ll find something to your liking here ♡

More laughter. Flip-flops dodging shards of misplaced glass. But you were aware that, in the end, they were all taking momento with a knot in their throats. In a reality where a week is traded for suitcases and files and unrolled sleeves, Fridays leave room for everyone to store their mistakes. Entering this one reality was freefall. As if time contracted itself to the same day, droning, trudging, like a broken disc. You closed your eyes, chose to ignore the lingering smell of citrus in your nostrils. 

Someone had died today. 

Because that’s simply how things worked here. Death was a persisting thought for everyone wretched enough to land in this place; even for the ones who had it between their teeth. The Beach came as a band-aid for purgatory, a cheap thrill, yet here you found yourself, flat-eyed and confused, spilling the rest of your drink on the ground and hoping whoever would take it was resting in peace. Heavy breathing, the world distancing from you in waves, your heart tamped between your lungs. Ice-cold chlorine fondling your feet, you started to sort memories from moments ago. You’d renewed your visa. Showered. The night you’d spent in the prismatic flash of the dance floor, knocking back a few shots and losing control of your body to after-hours beats. Sweaty forehead, glitter on your chest. 

As chance encounters go—you spotted him when you last needed to. Elbows propped on the bar with neon running a pink cast across his hair and a woman stitched to his face, he was a homemade majesty for a world that didn’t ask for it. Hatter, with his shoplifted sunglasses and iced whiskey and dubious hospitality. He bit the girl by the bottom lip and watched you from the corner of his eye as he did, his mouth slightly coiling into obscenity. And just like any other object starring your personal history of oversights, it happened that you'd seen this smirk before. You knew it well enough to have the temperature of your blood rise to hellfire. 

She was a pretty thing. A pretty thing with a pretty face, at that, shoulder bone stabbing through skin and hair lining the chin in a symmetrical cut. Her swimsuit was two-piece with a loose string that slid down her shoulder when she wrapped her arm around him. You didn’t remember ever being coupled with her for a game, and for a moment there you envied Hatter’s ability to register even the less conspicuous of names. Dark hair was brushed around his ear in a tantalising way that revealed distant parts of his jaw and neck. The fingers that rested on her chin were long and slender and glimmered when the light shot into a chichi display of rings methodically lined just under the knuckles; over his shoulders he wore the usual robe that made him look like a sunscreen commercial running on loop. Polished and overripe. 

If you were brought to say out loud, there was nothing more going on between you than some chardonnay-prompted chats and an insignificant number of nights spent on the balcony of his suite. For a clinical tongue-wagger like himself he had turned out a decent listener and you were surprised at how much you were ready to reveal about yourself. You watched him lay out his cards in dim-lit solitude and explain the unequivocal importance of consolidated communities. This morning when the executives called you in to head for a game, he made sure to slide a firearm under your car seat. You returned with a splitting headache and metal on the roof of your mouth; Eight of Hearts tossed on the coffee table, red-smudged, his eyes begging for detail, you stepped out into the hallway and promised yourself not to look back. 

Music spread about the crowds like oxygen, someone elbowed you in the arm, and you flinched, blinked, looked over your shoulder. In different circumstances maybe you wouldn’t have even considered it. But you were angry and drunk and all you really needed to brush your pride at this point was to have a sweet someone flutter their eyelashes at you. Flashing lights, collarbones pulsing, lips half-opened, all dulling your thoughts into decision. 

Two could play at this game, after all. 

So you kissed them. Deeply, slowly, as the floor felt like being dragged from your feet. It became harder for you to remember the right order of later events. You saw a hip there, a vomiting head somewhere else. Danced more, touched more, then the next thing you knew you were edged into a secluded place where you didn’t need to shout over the music anymore and whatever you did with the person you brought there would remain up to the world’s imagination. Everything was a whirling blend of faces and colours and suddenly you felt thankful for all these people making you forget about what you experienced during the daytime. You also remembered the nausea, the tiles of the bathroom floor, you floundering outside with a glass of gin and tonic you didn’t know where the fuck came from.

You needed to take some air. 

A sigh left you, hot and heavy. The water hugged your calves in small folds of movement, a slight gush of sobriety climbing in your exploding temples. You turned your head towards the red and blue sitting next to you, a bittersweet smile hanging in anticipation of your voice. 

“So?” you managed, your throat surprisingly soar. 

A moment passed. 

A small chuckle fragranced the air. He smelled like amber and citrus and those fucking cherry superslims he used to smoke. “This is when you tell me to fuck off, I take.”

“Is that what you expect of my manners?” you said. “No, stay, let’s see how long you can feel sorry for yourself.”

“You think I’m pulling an act?” Takeru rested an ankle upon his knee; the movement was soundless, deliberate, a jaded Dionysus brought to divine trial. 

You avoided meeting his stare. A corner of your lips hitched an inch higher at his response, like extracting the solving of a riddle. “Are you not?” 

Then the laughter came out again, hearty this time, with his head thrown back and chest moving in an offensive staccato. You watched him as he regarded you with his tell-tale amusement and remembered the foul ways this world renders a man, edging between sanity and rehearsed conduct. But you knew Takeru well enough to tell he wasn’t a product of the games. 

Unlike the rest of you, he was made for this. Viper sliding out of old skin. 

Swiping the tears from his eyes, he said, “In my defense, I wasn’t expecting you’d know how to use it.”

You shot him a look. “That makes you an asshole and an idiot.”

“Maybe,” he admitted. “You were, I–” a tap into concrete, once, twice, rephrasing the thought. “I should’ve come with you.”

You dragged your feet out of the water. “You simply don’t get it, don’t you now?” your frown was a wretched junction of jeer and accusation. 

“Not really, no,” he said. “But I’m sure hoping you'll break it to me soon.”

“Ok, sure. I’ll tell you what you shoulda done,” 

Takeru crossed his hands, his eyes fixing now an imaginary spot across the pool. 

Silence. 

You took in a deep breath. 

“Nothing,” came out slow, painful. “Absolutely fucking nothing. I shouldn’t have been here, ok? What happened today confirmed it for me if anything. My chance at living is granted by someone deciding to fool around bending the rules, I didn’t do anything to deserve it.” 

“That’s simply not true.” Takeru hummed, taking yet another moment to himself, his profile shimmered graciously with a grin forming at the corners of his mouth. It made you think of satin sheets and Lotus Eaters, staining your lips with the fullness of a pomegranate. “You are more deserving than you give yourself credit for, sweetheart. It wounds me actually that you think I’d go out of my way for someone who isn’t.”

But you’d come out of your way for yourself. Something close to laughter vibrated inside your throat, your stare grew blank. “And if I tell you I find it selfish either way?” 

“Selfishness carves lovers,” he said, heaving a dramatic sigh. “Besides, it saved your life, did it not?” Words took to a whisper as he let his head fall on your shoulder. His breath smelled of cherries and alcohol. “I’m glad you chose to stay with us lesser things.” Me.

Across from you kindled water painted itself in irregular strokes upon the walls of the resort. Sound of glass shattering inside, a group of three lumbered into one another on the way to the bar. With a veer of what felt like losing consciousness, you experienced life in particles and molecules, microscopic worlds overlaying each other so fast and so slowly at the same time. Big-Bang. You wrapped your arm around Takeru, thumb digging into the texture of his clothes. His mouth moved to tell you something more, selfish, and you closed your eyes, pushing a tear off your eyelashes. Apocalypse. 

“You didn’t mean that,” you said, forced playfullness, rested your temple against his. 

“Who knows,” a long murmur of secrecy was wrapping you both in a distant space between movement and sleep. His fingers stroked your eyes to spare you from another tear. “I’ve earned myself a couple more days with your pretty. Better start making every minute worthwhile, for once, for both.”

Behind your eyelids lingered an unspoken ache for a reality where you didn’t kill anybody, and you weren’t versed to look for sympathy in the arms of someone who had done worse, and where you wouldn't worry that this peacefulness could be taken from you in the blink of an eye. His hair was velvet against your jawline and his touch warm enough to make you stay. 

“I’m still hell mad at you,” you said against him, a faint sound. 

You felt a small shrug pushing into your ribcage. “Very well,” he said. “Won’t fault you for feeling that. Sort of saw it coming.”

There was nothing going on between you, you’d convince yourself every morning after. Somewhere you imagined him doing the same. Takeru liked to market himself as a creature of instinct; but there was something serpentine about him, too, still, poised, always calculated. Someone who’d store the right word for the right person and snatch their trust when less expected. Isn’t this what false prophets do after all, sweetheart? your eyelashes brushed the thought against the tip of his thumb. 

It’s always the fear of rejection that would get the worst out of these ones. 

“Perhaps I’m not in the right place to ask,” he said again, and even with your eyes closed, you could see the grin climbing upon his lips as he did. “But have I ever told you how hot you are when you're pissed off? You were electric in there.”

This time you let the chuckle escape you, a little unconvincing under the trails of tears that had rolled down your cheeks, a little wrecked. 

"That right?" 

"Mhm." 

“Does your friend know that, too?" you said. "Next time tell her I make my own cocktails or something.” 

“I'll make sure the message's heeded,” Takeru’s voice was sultry by your ear, he rolled his head to catch bits of your best angles. “However I’m wondering if this is the best magic you’ve got, darling.” 

“It sure worked with you,” The ease it took to say this was enough to lift your spirits. Neither could you deny the thrill hitching up your throat as you found his eye, first time tonight, dark waves reflecting a flicker of intrigue that for a fleeting second you allowed yourself to indulge. “And I wasn’t even trying.”

It was a strange thing, this feeling that you had, something bitter you couldn't quite place but were clever enough not to associate with love. 

Takeru's sigh came out long and dreamy in the starless night. You smirked.

No, this wasn't love, you concluded further, but rather the unexpected realisation of feeling anything at all, the weight of existence pressing down your shoulders. A drowsy appetite for life with its worths and misfortunes readying to flash at you all at once.