"fuck. hey, you got a light?" a freshly rolled cigarette between their lips, kara looks up at ismahan from under their brows. their own lighter, empty by the looks of it, is tossed aside without a second thought. she doesn't look like she smokes, through if prompted, the mercenary couldn't have explained why they think that.
+ from @karving, hi jannah <3
❛ NO. ❜ it’s out before she even rummages through her bag, before the thought can coagulate, before the muscle of hesitation can even twitch. the denial is raw, instinctual, not chosen but excreted. her lighters are all at home, meticulously placed into a drawer compartment lined up like teeth in a jaw.
she reaches into her bag anyway, skimming past the detritus at bottom of it, mostly a procession of crumpled receipts amidst her bulging pouch of cosmetics, the sediment of her daily existence. her fingers meet something smooth: a lighter, pressed against the lining of her bag, waiting.
the moment flickers & she deliberates on if she should give it to them now that she’s already provided her answer but she takes a perfunctory glance at their fingers, the flesh discoloured, seamed with nicotine’s slow rot, a residue of indulgence inscribed on skin. a sigh is expelled then, as if dredged from some subterranean reservoir of grievance. the movement that follows is neither fluid nor considered but convulsive. the lighter is wrenched from the bag’s depths. she shakes it once in their face, an offering suffused with mild contempt. ❛ here. ❜
