Chapter Text
Jabber’s neck is still warm when he hears the sound of the door slam behind him. Blood trickles from both of the bite marks, down his neck and past his collar bone.
A fire roars in the hearth. Jabber can feel the heat of it even from across the room. The rug is soft against his hands as he pushes up to his feet. He walks over to the mirror on the far wall. Even before he gets close, Jabber can see the bright red stain where his collar hangs loose around his neck. Two sets of bite marks puncture the skin.
They’re beautiful. Perfectly round little wounds, dark and red with blood. Jabber presses his fingers to them and pulls away, his fingers tinged with blood. Jabber lifts his fingers to his mouth and licks the blood from them.
He closes his eyes and thinks of kissing Zanka, sweet and bloody and warm. He puts his finger into his mouth and sucks the rest of the blood off. The iron is sharp on his tongue. He wonders how it tastes to Zanka.
“Fuck,” Jabber mutters to himself. He looks again in the mirror, at his rumpled, stained sleeves, at his dilated eyes.
He thinks he gets it–the hunger for something. Maybe not for blood, but still for something carnal, for Zanka himself. He wants to dig his fingers into flesh, to feel the soft skin give beneath his hands. His hands curl into fists at his side, fingernails digging into his palms.
If Jabber hadn’t been so caught off guard by Zanka’s abrupt departure, he would have followed him out of the room. He would have chased him down and not let him leave. Now he has a huge house to face. Jabber opens the door and stares down the long hallway with its plethora of doors.
The house is quiet, empty and dark. Jabber jiggles the handle of the first door. Locked. He tries the next one and it swings open. The room appears to be a drawing room with various sofas and a small table in the middle of the room. There is another unlit fireplace along the wall, but no sign of Zanka.
Jabber opens the next door and gives a cursory glance over the room. It’s a study. There is no Zanka but he steps in anyway. Along the right wall is a desk covered in papers. Jabber runs his hand along the smooth wood as he looks over the mess. The stack of paper seems to be a mix of letters and sketches. Jabber moves a heavily scratched out letter out of the way to get a better view of the drawing.
It’s familiar. The curve of neck and chin, the slight pout of a bottom lip. It takes Jabber a minute but he realizes that it’s his neck. It’s the lower half of his own face. The countless sketches that cover Zanka’s desk are of him. He picks them up, runs his thumb along the ink. Some of the drawings have been sketched in a frenzy, others with much more calm penstrokes. Each one, undeniably Jabber.
He places the sketches down and dares to pick up one of the letters. Jabber knows what it’s going to say. He knows it in the restlessness of his hands and the fluttering quickness of his heart. He knows it will be addressed to him. But nothing prepares him for the way he feels seeing his own name in Zanka’s swoopy, cursive writing.
They all start the same–Dear Jabber–before descending into varying degrees of confessions. Each of the letters is heavily scratched out, entire lines penned before being angrily scribbled through. He thinks maybe, with enough lighting, he could see through the page, but the window offers little in the way of moonlight. He squints his eyes instead, reading the swirly lettering on one of the pages.
Dear Jabber, it reads, I hate to write to you under these conditions, but I must see you again. I cannot bear your absence any longer.
There is a heavily scratched out section below what is written. Jabber thumbs at a spot of wine on the corner of the paper. He imagines Zanka hunched over the desk, hands covered in ink, and his heart races. Zanka wanted him, dreamt of him. Jabber folds the letter and pockets it. He must find him.
Jabber leaves the study in a hurry, opening and closing the next set of doors as soon as there is no sign of Zanka behind them. He navigates through a winding labyrinth of hallways until he is entirely lost. He thinks he might wander for days in the empty mansion and never lay eyes on Zanka again.
He pats the letter in his pocket and tries the next door. It’s promising, with its elaborate carvings and ornamental doorknob. And when Jabber pushes inwards, he’s surprised when it opens onto a large bedroom. The room is decorated in ornate blues and golds and at the center of the room is a canopy bed with four intricately carved bedposts. Along the near wall is a small desk that Zanka is leaning against. He looks up as Jabber enters the room.
“Jabber,” he says, his voice stretched thin.
“There you are.”
Zanka is beautiful. Even hunched over, knuckles white against the edges of the desk, he’s stunning. He’s still in his shirt from earlier, stained red with Jabber’s own blood.
“I–” Zanka shakes out his head and his tassel earrings sweep against his cheeks. “You shouldn’t be here.”
As if that had ever stopped Jabber before.
The desire to kiss Zanka is forefront in Jabber’s thoughts. He feels the heat like he’s right up against the fire of it. He knows Zanka wants him too. It had been written out so fervently in his countless letters. Jabber takes a step forward and Zanka recoils.
“Stop,” Zanka holds his hands out in front of him. “I’m a monster. I could hurt you.”
Whatever protection Zanka was looking to offer, Jabber wanted none of it. He rubs the sore spot on his neck. He didn’t want Zanka’s restraint, he wanted to feel Zanka’s teeth break skin. He thinks of Zanka’s desire, penned into shaky letters. Zanka’s gaze flickers over Jabber’s throat.
“Then, do it. Hurt me,” Jabber snaps. Zanka's face scrunches up like he can still smell the stench of blood on Jabber. “I want it, want you.”
“You don’t know what you want.” His words are sharp as his still exposed fangs.
Jabber glances around the room. Next to the bed is a table with a decanter and multiple wine glasses sitting on a tray. Without a plan, he walks over to the tray and grabs one of the glasses by the base. He does know what he wants. He wants to feel the sting of Zanka’s glare, the ache of his bite. He wants Zanka to be unable to look away.
“Jabber, what are you–”
Jabber smashes the glass against the table and watches it shatter across the floor. He holds up the broken glass with shards still attached precariously to the stem and presses it to his throat.
“Look at me,” Jabber says sternly. The glass is sharp against his skin. It doesn’t feel as good as Zanka’s teeth, but the pain sings in his veins.
Zanka’s eyes widen. His attention is intoxicating, like wine on his tongue. Jabber presses the glass deeper and exhales.
“Jabber, stop–I’m looking, see? I’m looking.”
He is. His gaze is trained on Jabber’s neck.
“Good.”
Zanka watches motionless as Jabber drags the edge of the glass along the surface of his skin. Warm blood spills over the glass, around Jabber’s fingers. Zanka’s lips part.
“Jabber,” he says and it sounds like a warning.
Jabber holds his hand with the glass out in front of him. Warm blood covers his hand and the edge of his sleeve. He drops the glass and it falls into the shattered pile at his feet.
“Do you want me now? You don’t even have to bite me, you can still have me.”
Zanka throws himself forward, burying his hands into Jabber’s collar, and kisses him. His hands are cold against Jabber’s chest, but Jabber’s skin still burns with the contact.
“You fool,” Zanka mutters against Jabber’s lips, “You absolute fool.”
Jabber smiles as Zanka kisses him. He was okay with being a fool if it meant Zanka was there.
“Are you sure? I can–?”
Jabber tilts his head to expose his bleeding neck. “Help yourself.”
Carefully, Zanka runs his tongue up the side of Jabber’s neck. Jabber feels the lightest scrape of his fangs as he ghosts across his skin.
“Fuck,” Zanka moans. He licks another stripe up Jabber’s throat.
Jabber huffs a laugh, “So much for never again.”
“I’m not biting you,” Zanka says firmly.
“So, I’ll just have to slice myself open every time you get thirsty?” Jabber adds quickly, “I’ll do it.”
Jabber starts to lean over to pick up the glass but Zanka yanks him up by the collar. “No, don’t.”
Zanka runs his thumb along the cut, where the bleeding has slowed. Jabber thinks of what Zanka called himself–a monster. But a monster wouldn’t be so gentle with him. A monster wouldn’t show such restraint. It was a kind of tenderness that Jabber wasn’t used to.
“Then take it. Please. It’s yours, I’m yours.”
Jabber can feel the desperation bubbling just beneath his skin. He misses the feeling of Zanka’s lips on him, his fangs, his tongue. There’s a burning restlessness in his chest.
Wordlessly, Zanka reaches out between them and takes Jabber’s hand. He uncurls Jabber’s hand, laces and unlaces their fingers. He runs a finger over each of Jabber’s rings and then down Jabber’s wrist and up his arm.
“Stay still, okay?” He finally says.
Jabber nods and Zanka watches him for a moment. His gaze flicks back down to Jabber's wrist before he lifts it to his mouth. Zanka kisses the inside of Jabber’s wrist and Jabber’s heart beats against his chest. He wants to take Zanka’s head in his hands, he wants to kiss him dizzy, but he sits still.
Without warning, Zanka sinks his teeth into the soft skin at Jabber’s wrist. Jabber inhales sharply through his teeth at the pain that shoots up his arm. It burns so sweetly he can practically taste it.
With his free hand, Jabber cradles Zanka’s chin. Blood trickles through his fingers. Zanka isn’t a monster, he is beautiful, he is effervescent. Pink tinges his typically pale complexion. Zanka licks over the bite mark and Jabber’s eyes flutter closed. He could die like this, with Zanka’s mouth on his body.
They are both stained with and drunk on blood and wine. The proof of their passion is written all over their clothes, is carved into Jabber’s own skin. He is bloodied and bitten and burning up from the inside.
And he would do it all again.