Chapter Text
Chapter Eight: The Sin of Giving Her Back
Zanka had learned, by morning, that the worst part of a ring was how quickly the body accepted its weight.
Not the sight of it.
Not even the meaning.
The weight.
Small. Circular. Nearly nothing when measured properly. A single piece of Mankira sitting around the fourth finger of his left hand, warm from his skin, fitted so neatly it looked less stolen than placed. As if the ring had not been knocked loose in a collapsing trash-vein and hidden in his palm before morality could catch up. As if Jabber Wonger had not spent days tearing at every seam in Zanka's composure to find her. As if the whole ugly thing had not begun with blood, dust, and a choice Zanka still had not managed to name correctly.
The ring should have looked wrong on him.
It didn’t.
That was the offense.
Zanka stood before his mirror and held his hand up beneath the weak morning light. His fingers were slimmer than Jabber's, longer in a cleaner way, the joints less thick from rough, reckless use. Mankira did not sit on him the way she sat on Jabber. On Jabber, each ring belonged to a larger pattern, one of ten, fitted into a dangerous rhythm across both hands. There, she was part of a weaponed body, part of a set that answered bloodlust and poison and the filthy joy Jabber carried into battle.
On Zanka, the single ring looked like a vow.
He hated that thought.
He had hated it yesterday too.
It had not become less true overnight.
The dark metal sat low and perfect on his left ring finger, not loose enough to slip, not tight enough to bite. When he flexed his hand, it moved with him in a small, intimate shift. When his thumb brushed over it by accident, his pulse answered before his mind could object. He had tried to take it off twice since returning from the broken transfer platform.
Once in the hall, before Enjin's eyes had caught on his hand and stayed there half a second too long.
Once in his room, after midnight, when the quiet had made the ring seem louder than any accusation.
Both times, he stopped.
Not because he could not remove her.
But because the moment his fingers touched the ring, he remembered Jabber stepping back from the attempted return. Remembered the small shake of his head. Remembered the bright, unreadable thing in Jabber's eyes when Zanka had moved toward him as if ready to slide Mankira home.
No.
Jabber had not said it aloud.
He had not needed to.
Zanka had understood anyway.
Not like that.
Not while Zanka still looked at the return as correction. Not while he treated the giving-back like a duty, an apology, a tactical repair. Jabber had refused the easy version. The clean version. The version where Zanka could hand Mankira over and pretend the space she left behind did not matter.
Zanka lowered his hand.
His right ear still held one blue tassel earring. The other was still gone.
Not lost.
Worn.
By Jabber.
That thought moved through him like a blade turned slowly under the skin.
The missing earring wound had scabbed thinly. It pulled when he turned his head, but the pain was trivial. He had suffered worse. He would suffer worse again. It was not the torn flesh that made his stomach tighten. It was the memory of Jabber wearing the tassel in his own ear, blood dried dark around the fresh piercing, grinning like he had made himself into proof.
Zanka's proof.
Visible.
Shameless.
Possessive.
No.
He closed his hand.
Mankira pressed against the base of his finger.
That made the thought worse.
A knock hit the door once.
Enjin did not wait for permission.
Zanka did not turn as the door opened. He watched Enjin enter through the mirror and let his expression flatten into something safe. Irritation was safe. Contempt was safer. Both were useful enough to hide beneath.
Enjin took one look at the ring on Zanka's hand and sighed.
Not dramatically.
Not judgmentally.
Just the tired little sound of a man who had expected trouble and still resented being right.
"He refused it," Zanka said.
Enjin leaned against the doorframe. "Didn't ask."
"You were going to."
"Maybe."
"Then I saved us time."
"Not really." Enjin's eyes flicked from the ring to the missing earring. "You still wearin' it."
Zanka turned from the mirror.
"He refused it."
"Yeah," Enjin said. "Still not what I asked."
Zanka's mouth tightened.
Enjin rubbed a hand over his face, then dropped it with another quiet breath. "We've got movement near the same transfer line from yesterday. Tape cuts. Hook marks. Seems like the same bastard."
The hostile Giver.
Zanka's attention sharpened.
Not Raider. Not Cleaner. One of the grounds own predators. Territorial, unaffiliated, dangerous to anyone foolish enough to fight near his claimed route. He had attacked Zanka and Jabber both without caring whose side they belonged to.
The same Giver returning meant either unfinished violence or a trap.
Likely both.
"Who is assigned?" Zanka asked.
"Me, you, Riyo, Rudo. Gris on back up." Enjin paused. "And if Jabber shows up -"
"He will."
Enjin's eyebrows lifted slightly.
Zanka picked up Assistaff.
The staff rested into his hand with familiar certainty.
Zanka looked at Enjin.
"If Jabber appears, he will be there for the Giver, Mankira, me, or all three. In every case, I am more useful present than absent."
"You rehearsed that?"
"No."
"Shame. Sounded like it."
"Your opinion continues to be unnecessary."
"And yet here I am."
Zanka moved toward the door.
Enjin did not step aside immediately.
His gaze dropped again to Mankira on Zanka's finger.
"You sure you know what you're returnin'?"
Zanka held his stare.
"Move."
For a second, Enjin looked as if he might say more.
Then he only shifted out of the doorway.
"Yeah," he muttered. "Thought so."
Zanka passed him without answering.
The ring felt heavier with every step.
The transfer line looked worse in daylight.
Daylight was a generous word. The Pit never gave anything clean enough to deserve it. Gray light filtered down through torn structures overhead, catching on old pipework, broken bridge rails, and sagging sheets of industrial tarp that snapped in the damp wind. The route ran between two high ridges of compacted waste, with a sunken service channel below and a skeletal platform system crossing above it in three uneven levels.
The same place, nearly.
Not exactly where the hostile Giver had attacked them before, but close enough that the memory of snapping measuring tape and impact sat in the rust.
Zanka stepped onto the lower platform first.
Mankira glinted on his left hand.
He had not hidden her.
That had become its own mistake.
Rudo noticed within eight seconds.
"Still? -"
Zanka looked at him.
Rudo stopped walking.
Riyo's eyes dropped to Zanka's hand, then lifted without comment. That was somehow more irritating than if she had spoken.
Rudo tried again, more quietly, because self-preservation had finally begun its slow, uneven growth inside him.
"You are seriously still wearing -"
"Finish that sentence," Zanka said eyes lowered and dark on Rudos, "and I will assign you an injury that takes longer to heal than your curiosity."
Rudo shut his mouth.
Enjin looked over his shoulder. "That counts as team communication, right?"
"That counts as mercy," Zanka said.
Riyo almost smiled.
Rudo muttered, "Everybody's insane," and kept walking.
Good.
They spread across the platform in loose formation. Enjin took the high angle near the broken rail, casual only to people who did not know better. Riyo slipped left, where the shadows gathered near a bent support column. Rudo held center with all the restraint of a kicked door pretending to be a lock. Zanka moved along the right side with Assistaff angled low, eyes tracking the scars in the metal.
Tape marks.
Deep.
Fresh.
The hostile Giver had dragged his Vital Instrument through here recently. The old tape measure had left thin, ruler-straight cuts along the railing and hooked gouges in the floor grating. Short torn lengths of measuring tape still clung to the structure, curled like dead vines. The metal smelled of rust, damp, and faint chemical residue where something had burned through.
Zanka crouched beside one mark.
Mankira caught the light as his hand lowered.
He saw it and hated how natural it looked.
Enjin saw him see it.
Enjin, mercifully, said nothing.
A laugh drifted from above.
Not Enjin.
Not Rudo.
Zanka stood.
His grip adjusted on Assistaff.
Jabber sat on a higher crossbeam with one leg dangling over the edge and the other bent, as if the unstable structure existed for his comfort. His patched clothing was torn at the side from yesterday's fight, the fabric darkened where the tape-measure Giver had cut him. Gold rings threaded through his wicks clinked softly when he tilted his head. His hot-pink eyes were fixed, not on Zanka's face, but on his left hand.
And from Jabber's ear hung Zanka's tassel earring.
Blue against his neck.
Blood-dark around the fresh piercing.
Visible.
Deliberate.
Jabber smiled.
"Well, look at that."
Zanka's pulse struck once against the inside of his ribs.
Jabber's gaze lifted to meet his.
"Ya still wearin' her all pretty."
"You refused her."
"Hmm, did I?"
"Do not pretend you are less irritating than you are."
Jabber dropped from the beam and landed on the platform below with a loose bend of the knees. The structure rang under him. Rudo swore and raised his guard. Riyo shifted one step. Enjin's hand moved near Umbrakers handle, then stopped.
Jabber did not look at any of them.
His eyes stayed on Zanka.
"Didn't refuse her," he said. "Refused that."
Zanka's expression did not change.
"Clarify before I lose interest."
Jabber's grin widened not careing for the watching eyes on them. "Ya were gonna hand her back like ya found somethin' on the floor. Like she ain't been sittin' pretty on your finger."
Rudo made a choked sound.
Enjin said low and hissed, "Rudo."
"What?! I didn't say anything!” Rudo snapped, sounding genuinely offended.
Jabber's fingers rose to the earring on his own ear. He flicked the blue tassel lightly, making it swing.
Zanka's stomach tightened.
Jabber saw.
Of course he saw.
"Still looks good, don' it?"
Zanka stepped forward.
"Take it off."
"Make me."
The words had become ritual by now.
Zanka hated that.
He hated more that Jabber's smile softened around the challenge, as if he knew Zanka would hear the invitation under the insult.
Riyo's voice came low from the side. "Tape."
The platform vibrated.
Once.
Twice.
Then the floor under Jabber's boots split open.
A strip of steel measuring tape shot upward from the service channel below, its marked edge jagged with rusted hooks, snapping like a striking animal made angry. Jabber sprang back, Mankira unfolding from his hands in a hard metallic shiver. Rings answered smoothly. One place did not.
Zanka saw the gap immediately.
The right-hand claws formed cleanly, blade-like and sharp. The left hand formed wrong by a fraction, missing the completed angle where the stolen ring should have been. Jabber still cut through the first snapping length of tape with a laughing twist of his wrist, but the motion dragged unevenly.
The metal tape recoiled.
A second strip burst through the grating near Zanka's feet.
Assistaff's form shifted with Zanka's anima, the split rounded head gaining the familiar aggressive definition suited for catching, driving back, and attacking. He drove the staff down and pinned the measuring tape to the grate. The hooked measuring tape writhed beneath the pressure.
"Same pest," Enjin said from the upper rail.
From below, a voice rasped, "Pest?"
The hostile Giver climbed out of the service channel like a piece of the Pit had learned joints.
He was still lean and sharp-boned, wrapped in layers of old rubber and metal plates. A cracked mask covered the lower half of his face this time instead of the scarf. Around both forearms, his Vital Instrument turned and clicked: old contractor tape measures, rusted and scarred, awakened into reels of flexible steel measuring tape, hook-teeth, and sharpened scrap edges, as if spiteful for the damage done yesterday. The metal tapes fed from their housings in long snapping lengths, locking and retracting with the movement of his hands.
His visible eye swept over Zanka.
Then Jabber.
Then the earring at Jabber's ear and the ring on Zanka's hand.
The Giver made a disgusted sound.
"You two again."
Jabber grinned. "Missed us?"
"You brought your couple's quarrel back to my route."
Rudo shouted, "Their what!?"
Enjin sighed. "Focus."
The hostile Giver's measuring tapes snapped outward, three toward Jabber, three toward Zanka.
"Are you two cross enemy lovers or something?" he barked. "Kept bickering like this during our last fight too."
For one breath, the entire platform seemed to pause.
Jabber's grin turned delighted.
Zanka's face went cold enough to make murder look administrative.
"No," Zanka said.
"Aw," Jabber said at the same time. "Ya answerin' for me now?"
"I am preventing misinformation."
"Sounds possessive."
"Sounds like you need your jaw broken."
The metal tapes hit.
The fight opened with metal screaming.
Zanka turned the first tape aside with Assistaff's shaft, pivoted around the second, and drove the staff's head into the third hard enough to smash hooks flat against the grate. Jabber slipped low beneath two snapping lengths, Mankira's right claws cutting one measuring tape cleanly while his left hand caught the other at an awkward angle.
A gap.
Small.
Dangerous.
The metal tape slid through the incomplete catch and sliced his sleeve.
Jabber laughed, too sharp.
"See?" he called to Zanka. "Still jealous she likes your finger?"
"She would prefer competence."
"She tell ya that while you were starin' at her?"
Zanka struck a tape toward Jabber's flank before it could wrap around his ribs.
"You talk too much."
"Ya listen too pretty."
"Repulsive."
"Flirt."
Zanka stepped in close enough for Assistaff to cross in front of Jabber's chest. Jabber ducked behind the staff's line without instruction, the movement so immediate and precise it irritated Zanka more than any insult could have. He knew where Zanka would put the staff. Knew the angle. Trusted it for the half-second it took to slip under the protection and come up on the other side with Mankira flashing.
They moved together before either of them chose to.
Assistaff pinned.
Mankira severed.
Zanka drove the hostile Giver back.
Jabber cut the measuring tape that tried to catch Zanka's ankle.
A tape came low. Zanka stepped over it. Jabber's shoulder pressed briefly against his hip as he dropped beneath the same line and tore upward with his claws. Their bodies crossed close enough that the stolen earring brushed Zanka's wrist.
Zanka's hand tightened around Assistaff.
Jabber felt it.
His grin flashed.
"Ya like it there."
"I like many things removed from you."
"Name one."
"Your voice."
"Liar."
The tape-measure Giver snarled and swept both arms out. Metal tapes hooked into the platform rails and pulled, making the whole structure buckle. Riyo cut one line from the side. Rudo slammed another loose with raw force. Enjin moved across the upper span with irritating ease, Umbreaker angled in his hand as he forced one whipping measuring tape away from Rudo's blind side.
The hostile Giver did not retreat.
He fed out more tape.
The tape housings on his forearms whined, turning faster. Hooked lengths skittered across the platform like insect legs. The air filled with the smell of hot metal and old oil.
Zanka shifted left.
Jabber shifted with him.
Too close again.
Not by accident.
Zanka felt the brush of Jabber's side against his shoulder, the heat of him, the quick impact of breath when Jabber laughed into the edge of a strike. Mankira's rings clicked and unfolded, blade joints extending and retracting with each move. Missing one did not make Jabber clumsy. Nothing about Jabber was that merciful. But it made his left side hungry for completion. Every time he reached for a catch, the shape wanted to close and could not.
Zanka saw it.
He saw too much.
A tape snapped toward Jabber's throat.
Jabber's right claws were busy cutting another line.
His left hand lifted.
The incomplete claw caught the tape badly.
It slipped.
Zanka moved on instinct.
Assistaff's split head drove between tape and flesh, catching the metal strip and forcing it wide. The hooked edge scraped along the staff's rope-wrapped upper section but did not catch. Jabber turned with the opening and cut the measuring tape from beneath.
For a breath, their faces were inches apart.
Jabber's eyes were bright.
"Ya keep savin' me."
"You keep requiring it."
"Could just give her back."
Zanka's thumb brushed Mankira on his finger.
Jabber saw.
His grin faltered.
Only slightly.
Enough.
The hostile Giver screamed and launched himself forward, both tape measures unwinding in a glittering storm. Zanka and Jabber separated at the same time, then came back together from opposite sides. Assistaff cracked against the Giver's wrist. Mankira sliced through the loosened measuring tape. Zanka pivoted behind Jabber, using his shoulder as a moving point of cover without asking. Jabber leaned exactly where he needed to lean.
As if they had trained.
As if they had done this a hundred times.
As if their bodies knew a language their mouths kept refusing.
That thought had no place in combat.
It arrived anyway.
Jabber spun back-to-back with him for half a breath. The stolen tassel grazed the side of Zanka's neck.
Zanka's pulse jumped.
"Distracted?" Jabber asked.
"By your stench."
"Ya got close enough to smell me."
"Unfortunately."
"Do it again."
"I will break your nose."
"With your mouth?"
Zanka's next strike was perhaps harder than necessary.
Jabber laughed like that was an answer.
A measuring tape wrapped around Zanka's left wrist.
The metal tape tightened against Mankira.
The ring did not activate.
Of course it did not.
She was not his to wake.
That should have been a relief.
Instead, the contact - hostile metal tape over stolen ring, pressure against the place where Mankira sat like a vow - sent a flash of cold anger through him so clean and vicious it nearly startled him.
Zanka twisted his wrist, but the measuring tape bit down harder.
The hostile Giver yanked.
Zanka slid one step.
Jabber's hand closed over the metal tape before it could pull again.
The right-hand claws cut through the outer strands. The left hand went to catch the recoil, but the missing ring left the shape open. The measuring tape snapped free at the wrong angle and lashed back toward Jabber's face.
Zanka struck it aside.
Jabber's head turned slowly toward him.
"Ya gonna keep doin' that?"
"Apparently someone must compensate for your deficiencies."
"My deficiency's on your finger."
"Yes."
The word came out before Zanka could make it colder.
Jabber went still for half a heartbeat.
There was metal tape screaming around them. The platform was collapsing beneath them. Enjin was shouting something from the upper level. Rudo was cursing. Riyo was cutting through lines with sharp, efficient movements.
Still, Jabber heard the shape of that yes.
Zanka saw him hear it.
The hostile Giver used the moment.
A thick length of tape shot from his right housing, hooked with three rusted blades bound together at the tip. It tore through the gap between them and wrapped around Jabber's left forearm. The Giver twisted both hands.
The metal tape cinched.
Jabber's body jerked forward.
The Giver dragged him off balance, then launched a second tape toward his chest.
Jabber tried to answer with both hands.
The right claws cut one line.
The left failed to close around the second.
Again.
The opening was not large.
It did not have to be.
The bladed tape slid through and struck Jabber's side just below the ribs.
Blood hit the grate.
Jabber's laugh broke in his throat.
Not stopped.
Broke.
Zanka's hand went cold.
For one blinding moment, all he saw was the gap.
The empty place in Mankira's rhythm.
The missing ring.
His ring.
No.
Her ring.
On his hand.
Because he had kept her.
Because he had liked how she looked there.
Because when Jabber stepped away yesterday and refused the easy return, Zanka had been relieved beneath the fury. Relieved that he did not have to take her off yet. Relieved that the choice had been delayed. Relieved enough to become dangerous.
The hostile Giver yanked again.
One of his knees hit the grate with a forceful refusal.
The stolen earring swung violently against his neck, blue tassel flashing against blood and grime.
Zanka moved.
He did not think.
Thinking had stolen enough time already.
Assistaff slammed down across the tape binding Jabber's arm, pinning it to the grate. Zanka drove his weight through the staff until the tape groaned. Jabber looked up at him, breathing hard, eyes bright and furious and too aware.
"Zanka -"
"Hold still."
"Bossy."
"For once, obey."
Something in Jabber's face changed.
Not surrender.
Never that.
Permission.
It was worse.
Zanka released Assistaff with one hand and gripped Jabber's left wrist.
The touch landed between them like silence, as Jabber deactivated Mankira so Zanka could get close.
Jabber's skin was hot. Blood-slick near the forearm. The rings of Mankira sat across his fingers in their familiar pattern, nine where there should have been ten, blade-forms tense and incomplete around the absence. Zanka felt Jabber's pulse hammering under his fingers.
He raised his own left hand.
Mankira gleamed on his ring finger.
For one impossible second, he could not move.
Taking her off felt obscene.
Not because she belonged to him.
Because some part of him had begun to believe the lie of fit. The clean circle around his finger. The private heat. The way she had made his hand look chosen, even though he had stolen her.
Jabber watched him.
The hostile Giver's measuring tape strained under Assistaff.
Enjin shouted from somewhere above, "Zanka, now would be good!"
Zanka drew in one breath.
Then slid Mankira from his finger with his thumb. The fit so perfect he could so with out issue.
The absence was immediate.
Bare skin met the damp air.
His left ring finger felt too light.
Too visible.
He hated it.
He kept moving.
Jabber's hand remained open.
That was its own confession.
Zanka placed the ring against the empty place on Jabber's left ring finger and slid her back where she belonged.
The fit changed at once.
On Zanka, the ring had looked like a vow.
On Jabber, she became part of Mankira again.
Not ornament.
Not promise.
Function.
History.
Violence returned to its proper shape.
The ten rings answered together.
Mankira's structure shifted with a clean metallic emphasis, the separated ring forms aligning into the blade-like claw set, each joint locking into rhythm. The left hand closed whole for the first time since the theft. The poisonous sheen across the claw edges caught the light.
Jabber inhaled sharply.
Not laughter.
Not pain.
Relief.
It went through Zanka before he could defend against it.
Then Jabber moved.
Complete Mankira cut the tape off his arm in one brutal sweep.
The second strike came from the left hand.
Clean.
Closed.
Perfect.
The tape-measure Giver tried to recoil, but Jabber was already inside his range. Zanka caught the next tape with Assistaff and drove it down. Jabber's right claws severed the upper line. His left caught the lower one exactly where the missing ring had failed before and twisted it back toward its owner.
"Miss me?" Jabber snarled at the Giver.
The hostile Giver barely had time to curse.
Zanka struck his knee with Assistaff.
Jabber cut through both tape-measure housings at the outer casings.
The Vital Instrument shrieked like metal under pressure. Metal tape burst loose in a wild lash. Riyo dropped flat. Rudo hauled a broken railing up as a shield. Enjin snapped Umbreaker open enough to deflect a spray of tape fragments from the upper ledge.
The hostile Giver reeled back, arms smoking, tape housings damaged but not destroyed.
"Crazy lovers," he spat.
Zanka's eyes narrowed.
Jabber grinned through blood. "Ain't said no yet, fancy boy."
"I am occupied."
"So ya will later?"
"I will injure you later."
"Knew ya cared."
The hostile Giver launched one final desperate tape toward them both.
Zanka and Jabber moved together.
No hesitation.
Assistaff caught the tape's weight and forced it upward. Mankira's complete claws closed around the tension point. Zanka stepped in, shoulder brushing Jabber's. Jabber leaned with him, not away, and cut.
The tape split.
The recoil snapped back into the Giver's damaged tape housings with a violent crack. The force yanked him off his feet. He crashed through a weakened section of railing and vanished into the lower service channel with a howl of rage and metal.
Not dead.
Gone.
Good enough.
For several seconds, no one moved.
The platform creaked.
Rudo's voice came first, strained and too loud. "Are we just letting him fall away?"
Enjin looked down through the broken railing. "You wanna go after him?"
"No."
"Then congrats. We're lettin' him fall away."
Riyo stood slowly and looked toward Zanka.
Zanka did not look back.
His attention had narrowed to his left hand.
Bare.
The ring was gone.
His skin still held the faint impression of where she had sat.
Jabber flexed his hand once.
All ten rings answered.
The sound was small.
Complete.
Zanka's chest tightened around something he did not want to call grief.
Jabber noticed.
Of course he did.
He stepped closer.
Not swaggering this time.
Not immediately.
There was still blood on his side. Blood on his mouth. Dirt along his jaw. Zanka's earring hanging from his ear, the blue tassel stained near the top where the piercing had bled again during the fight. Mankira sat whole on his hands.
Jabber had everything back.
No.
Not everything.
He still wore what he had taken.
Zanka's gaze flicked to the earring.
Jabber touched it lightly.
"You look empty now," he said.
Zanka's voice came colder than he felt.
"You look infected."
Jabber laughed.
It was softer than usual.
That made it worse.
Enjin, from the upper platform, called down, "We got maybe three minutes before this whole thing decides gravity's funny."
Neither of them moved.
Enjin sighed loudly. "Or don't listen. That's a classic too."
Riyo muttered something Zanka could not hear.
Rudo said, "Are they doing the staring thing again?"
"Yep," Enjin said. "Don't interrupt. They bite."
Jabber's grin tilted, but his eyes stayed on Zanka.
"Ya gave her back."
"You required her."
"That all?"
"Yes."
"Liar."
The word had been between them from the beginning.
Now it landed differently.
Zanka looked at him.
Mankira glinted on Jabber's restored hand. Zanka's earring swung against Jabber's neck. The platform groaned. The air smelled of oil, rust, poison, blood, rain-damp trash, and the sharp aftertaste of combat.
Everything was filthy.
Everything was wrong.
And for once, Zanka could not make the lie stand upright.
"No," he said.
Jabber went still.
The single syllable did what violence had not.
It quieted him.
Zanka's bare left hand hung between them, empty and faintly trembling from exhaustion. He curled his fingers once, then stopped because the absence became worse when he moved.
Jabber saw.
His expression changed.
Not softly.
Not cleanly.
But the grin loosened into something less guarded.
"No?" he asked.
Zanka's jaw worked once.
He hated every second of this.
He hated that Enjin was close enough to exist. Hated that Rudo and Riyo were somewhere behind the broken railing, likely pretending not to watch and failing. Hated that Jabber still smelled like blood and smoke. Hated that his own hand felt empty.
Hated that the truth, once spoken even in part, made him lighter.
"It was not only theft," Zanka said.
Jabber's breath caught.
Small.
Barely audible.
Zanka heard it anyway.
Jabber stepped closer.
Slowly.
That was what undid him.
Not the grin. Not the blood. Not the stolen earring. Not Mankira whole on Jabber's hands.
The hesitation.
Jabber Wonger, who touched like permission was something to ruin, moved closer as if Zanka might stop him.
As if he would let him.
As if this mattered enough not to steal.
Zanka did not step back.
Jabber's hand lifted.
The left one.
Complete again.
Mankira sat restored across his fingers, but Jabber did not use claws. He had deactivated her, rings quiet and inert, no blade joints extended, no poison sheen along the edges. Just his hand. Hot. Blood-smeared. Trembling slightly under the effort of pretending it was not.
He reached for Zanka's left hand.
Zanka let him take it.
Jabber's fingers closed around his with surprising care.
The contact stole the breath from Zanka's chest more thoroughly than any blow had. Jabber's thumb brushed over the bare ring finger, once, slow and almost reverent. The skin there was sensitive from the absence. Every pass of Jabber's thumb made Zanka feel where Mankira had been.
Not accusing.
Acknowledging.
You gave her back.
I know what it cost.
Zanka looked down despite himself.
Jabber's hand around his.
All ten rings restored.
Zanka's left ring finger bare beneath Jabber's thumb.
The image should have hurt.
It did.
Then Jabber stepped closer again.
The tassel at Zanka's remaining ear shifted with the movement of his head.
The tassel at Jabber's ear answered it.
Blue against Zanka's skin.
Blue against Jabber's blood-marked throat.
Not both on Zanka anymore.
Not both whole in the old way.
One and one.
Separated.
Balanced.
For one impossible breath, they did not look like something broken between them.
They looked paired.
As if the earrings had been waiting to become a line drawn from one body to the other. As if Zanka had not been made incomplete when Jabber stole one. As if Jabber had not made himself ridiculous and bloody to wear it. As if the division had created an answer neither of them had known to ask for.
Jabber's eyes flicked to Zanka's mouth.
Then back to his eyes.
A question, almost hidden beneath the ruin of his grin.
Zanka should have insulted him.
He did not.
Jabber leaned in.
Slow enough to refuse.
Zanka did not refuse.
The first touch of Jabber's mouth was careful.
That was the shock of it.
After everything - the teeth, the claws, the blood, the stolen ring, the torn earring, the way Jabber had dragged reactions out of him like he was picking locks beneath Zanka's skin - the kiss began almost cautiously. A brush of blood-warm lips against his. Smoke and copper and damp air. Jabber's breath uneven against his mouth. His thumb still stroking the bare place on Zanka's finger like he could soothe the absence he had helped make.
Zanka stood rigid for half a breath.
Then the restraint broke.
Not loudly.
Not all at once.
His mouth moved back.
Jabber made a sound into the kiss that nearly ruined Zanka where he stood.
Small. Rough. Surprised.
Zanka's free hand caught the front of Jabber's torn clothes, not to push away but to hold. The fabric was damp, dirty, warm from the body beneath. Jabber's hand tightened around his. Mankira's rings pressed briefly against Zanka's knuckles, no claws, no threat, just the restored shape of Jabber's hand closing around him.
The kiss deepened because neither of them knew how to leave anything gentle be.
Jabber tilted his head and the stolen earring brushed Zanka's cheek.
That should have made him angry.
It did.
It also made him pull Jabber closer.
Jabber smiled against his mouth.
Zanka bit his lower lip for it.
Not hard enough to wound anew.
Enough to make the smile break into a breathless laugh.
Jabber answered by pressing in, all heat and blood and terrible want, carefulness burning away into something more desperate and still somehow less cruel than their fights. Zanka tasted copper from Jabber's split lip. Felt the rough drag of Jabber's breath, the damp brush of hair and metal rings against his cheek, the blue tassel at Jabber's ear caught between them like proof.
The platform groaned underfoot.
Neither moved away.
Jabber's thumb kept brushing Zanka's bare ring finger.
Slow.
Again.
And again.
The touch made the empty place hurt less.
That was worse than pain.
"Hey," Enjin called from not nearly far enough away.
Zanka froze.
Jabber did not immediately stop kissing him.
Zanka shoved at his chest.
Jabber pulled back just enough to grin.
Enjin stood on the upper platform with one hand on his hip and the other holding Umbreaker over his shoulder, looking like a man desperately trying to regret every decision that had put him in charge of anyone younger, prettier, and stupider than him.
Behind him, Rudo looked horrified.
Riyo looked like she was trying not to laugh.
Enjin lifted a finger. "Couple things. One, this platform is actively fallin' apart. Two, I'm real glad you two worked out whatever poisonous little romance problem was happening, but maybe don't do the hormonal disaster routine on a collapsing route. Three, if I gotta write 'mission delayed because Zanka and the Raider started making out,' I'm spelling both your names wrong on purpose."
Rudo made a strangled sound. "They were -"
"Don't," Riyo said.
"But -"
"Rudo. Don't."
Jabber's grin went sharp and bright.
"Umbrella man jealous?"
Enjin stared at him.
"Kid, I am one bad decision away from pushing both of you into the service channel and calling it environmental cleanup."
"I'm not a kid," Zanka said automatically.
Enjin pointed at him. "You don't get to use your adult voice while holding hands with the enemy like a guilty teenager behind the storage shed."
Zanka looked down.
Jabber was still holding his left hand.
His thumb, shamelessly, brushed over the bare ring finger again.
Zanka's face went cold.
Jabber's grin widened.
"Again, huh?" he murmured, too low for Enjin to catch clearly.
Zanka tried to take his hand back.
Jabber let him move only half an inch.
Not trapping.
Not force.
Asking him to stay.
That was worse.
Zanka stayed.
Enjin sighed from above. "I can still see you."
"Then look elsewhere," Zanka snapped.
"Love to. Sadly, my job keeps happening. Wrap up the emotional blood ritual and move."
Riyo finally laughed.
Rudo looked betrayed by the universe.
Jabber leaned close to Zanka's ear.
The stolen earring brushed Zanka's remaining one for one delicate second.
A soft blue touch against blue.
"Don't worry, fancy boy," Jabber said. His voice was rougher now. Quieter. "I'll give ya somethin' next time."
The promise settled between them differently than every stolen thing had.
Not taken.
Not ripped.
Not hidden.
Given.
Zanka's chest loosened around a breath he had not known he was holding.
He looked at Jabber.
At the blood on his mouth. The dirt on his cheek. The earring in his ear. Mankira whole again on his hand.
His left ring finger was empty.
It did not feel as unbearable as it had a moment ago.
Zanka's mouth softened before he could stop it.
A small smile.
Barely there.
Dangerous for how real it was.
"You are disgusting," he said.
Jabber's eyes brightened.
Zanka's smile sharpened by a fraction. "Clean ye’rself before you try to kiss me or give me anything again."
Jabber went very still.
Then his grin split wide.
"Again, huh?"
Zanka looked away.
The gesture was useless.
Jabber already had the answer.
"Do not become unbearable," Zanka said.
Jabber laughed softly.
"Already am."
He began to step back.
Slowly.
Too slowly.
His hand remained around Zanka's, fingers loosening one at a time. First the palm. Then the knuckles. Then the fingertips. His thumb brushed once more over the bare ring finger before finally letting go.
The absence returned.
But it did not feel empty in the same way.
Jabber backed toward the broken edge of the platform, Mankira restored on both hands, Zanka's tassel swaying from his ear. He looked ridiculous. Bloody. Filthy. Alive.
Whole.
And not entirely leaving.
Not really.
Not with the earring still between them.
Not with the promise left behind.
Enjin called, "If you dramatically disappear into fog, I'm not chasing you."
Jabber winked at him.
Then looked back at Zanka.
"See ya, fancy boy."
"Unfortunately," Zanka said.
Jabber's grin softened at the edges.
Then he dropped backward into the lower mist, vanishing through the broken platform lines with the ease of something born to crawl out of places that should have killed him.
The blue tassel flashed once before the fog swallowed him.
Zanka stood still.
His left hand hung at his side, bare and warm where Jabber had held it.
Mankira was gone from his finger.
Returned.
Whole.
But when Zanka lifted his hand and looked at the empty place, he no longer saw only loss.
He saw the promise of something given.
Enjin stepped beside him, quiet for once.
For three merciful seconds, he said nothing.
Then: "So."
Zanka closed his eyes.
"Do not."
"Didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"Probably."
Riyo passed behind them, still amused. Rudo followed, muttering something about never wanting to understand adults.
Enjin tilted his head toward the exit route.
"Come on, romantic disaster."
Zanka's eyes opened.
"I will resign from this team."
"No, you won't."
"I will injure you."
"Also no."
Zanka began walking.
His remaining earring brushed his neck.
Somewhere below, out in the fog and rot and broken metal, Jabber wore the other.
Separate.
Balanced.
Whole in a way that had no right to make sense.
Zanka touched his bare ring finger once.
Then lowered his hand before Enjin could comment.
The lie was gone.
The theft was returned.
The promise was there.