Chapter Text
Zanka receives his first prank call while out in town with his teammates. The trill emanating from his choker cuts through their banter, and a wary silence falls upon everyone as Zanka quickly activates the communication device.
“Yes?” He asks. “Is something wrong?”
Whether or not they show it, cleaners are always on edge; a message through their chokers are hardly ever for small talk. The gazes of several members bore into Zanka’s skin as they await a reply.
“Good evening, sir!” A cheery voice crackles through the line like an electric jolt in the air. “We are pleased to inform you that the adult diapers you ordered last week have arrived at our warehouse at the eastward pier! We ask that you come pick them up before noon tomorrow, or they’ll be recirculated into our stock — they’re very popular, you see. Thank you for your interest in our product!”
There is not a moment of silence between the call ending and Zanka turning his pale face to the others before the night explodes in laughter. Gris doubles over and Riyo near hacks up a lung. Their dinner bounces on top of clattering plates as Enjin slams his fist into the table in an effort to remain silent, but ends up being the loudest of them all. None of them catch the colour draining from Zanka’s face.
“Oh, fuck! I haven’t had that good of a laugh in too long. Did Semiu put some poor rando up to that? She must be getting bored at HQ.” Ejin wipes the tears from his eyes to check a clock on the wall, gauging how long it’s been since they left.
“Don’t worry, Zanka!” Delmon bellows. “Incontinence is nothing to be ashamed of!”
More laughter ensues. Zanka’s vision swims. He sits back down on his barstool but stands up again moments later, restless and unable to settle back into his meal. To everyone else, he’s received a harmless prank call. There’s nothing to be afraid of — but Zanka’s hands refuse to stop trembling because he knows who that voice on the other end belongs to.
It was a well-baked impression of a peppy salesman, he’ll give him that. Jabber almost sounds like a normal person when he puts his mind to it. Zanka pushes his way outside when the team’s focus eventually drifts elsewhere, and tucks himself into an alcove of a nearby building. He fumbles with the choker as soon as he deems himself in a private place.
“What do you want? Why have you contacted me?” Zanka demands.
It’s no question how Jabber acquired his blood to forge a connection with his choker; it ought to have been as easy as plucking trash from the ground. The issue arises in that Zanka hadn’t put any of Jabber’s blood in his own choker — in what world would he have thought of doing that? Consequently, it makes contacting the raider from his side impossible. It’s a one-way connection.
A larger question looms over Zanka’s head. Why doesn’t he tell the other cleaners that he knows the caller's identity? He can picture it now — their teasing coming to an abrupt halt when informed it’d been instigated by their enemy, filing a report about it to the boss, questioning Zanka as to why Jabber had chosen him of all people…
Zanka grits his teeth. It would be so easy to say something.
Instead, he recalls the location given to him in the message, and heads to the eastward pier.
-
A large warehouse brown with rust grows larger on the horizon. It’s abandoned, unlit and gloomy — all warning signs of an ambush. Zanka clutches his staff and makes his way through the gaping mouth of an entrance. Like all places on the outskirts of the city, it smells more rancid than what is considered typical.
“Let’s get this over with, asshole.” Zanka swivels his head to scan the darkness for the raider. “I know you’re here. You wouldn’t send someone else to do your dirty work.”
Several moments pass and no presence reveals itself. Frustrated, Zanka disengages from his fighting stance and ventures further into the warehouse. He ought to be nearing whatever trap is laid out for him. The sooner he encounters it and deals with it, the better.
Smaller rooms that were once used as offices line the back wall of the warehouse’s interior, and Zanka tests all of them — but they’re empty. There’s only one room left, a spot that’s bound to have Jabber in it. Zanka springs into the room, staff fully activated and illuminating the space in a bright blue glow. He strains to listen for a familiar cackle and scrape of metal claws against concrete; a phantom sound so vivid it’s almost tangible.
No such surprise attack greets him. Zanka’s face twists.
He’s about to leave when he notices a box perched on a table. Unlike the rest of the warehouse, it’s brightly coloured. He stares at it until he notices the faint fingerprints left on the dusty surface around it, swirling in lackadaisical patterns that could only have been left by one person…
Zanka lunges toward the box. He rips through its packing tape and tears the flaps open. Distantly, he’s aware it could be a bomb or some other gift with a destructive nature, but he inspects it anyway. His pulse thrums under his clothes.
As soon as Zanka reveals what’s inside, he shrieks and knocks the box away with the back of his hand. The box spills its contents out onto the floor.
It’s full of nothing but diapers — just as advertised.
-
The prank call puts Zanka on edge for the rest of the month. He answers every subsequent call with bated breath, only for them to wind up being for work or errands. He itches to tell his teammates about what happened, but every time he tries, he mourns losing his strange nugget of private knowledge. So he keeps it to himself.
Zanka is walking back to HQ, twisting and turning to check his uniform for any post-battle tears when movement catches his eye. He’s out in the middle of nowhere, and the only other living beings among the endless hills of trash are cockroaches and birds.
Jabber’s there, too.
Zanka staggers backward in surprise. Blood begins to pound in his ears. He fumbles for his instrument before activating it and leaping at the raider — there’s not a second to waste. Jabber is crouched and his back is turned, unprepared for an incoming assault.
Zanka swings with all his might.
As expected, his opponent lacks the footing to fight back, and opts to evade the attack instead. Zanka’s quick to prepare another one, chasing after Jabber with an onslaught of swings, but none of them land.
“Someone’s mad about the diapers, huh?” Jabber says, still facing away from Zanka. He crouches again, digging through the trash in the same spot he was before. “I just couldn’t help myself when I found them. So fun! They’re made of great chemicals…”
Zanka puts all his strength into his next swing. Jabber grunts as he flattens himself to the ground to dodge it. He finally turns to look at him.
“Fuck. I really can’t play today, Z." The raider stands up, and there’s a shakiness to his legs. “I won’t be able to feel a thing you do to me.”
Zanka pauses to assess the man in front of him. Jabber’s clothes hang off of his shoulders looser than usual, and his attention is occupied elsewhere, on a fluttering of black feathers among filth. He shoves his arms into the muck, and his body is wracked by a series of spasms as he pulls out a bird. Zanka realizes Jabber’s laughing, but lacks the strength to make the proper noise.
“Hunger is a good pain, the kind of pain that gets stronger and stronger the longer you leave it… but when you leave it too long, your body gets so weak it can’t even feel the pain anymore. So what’s the point?” Jabber scratches his head, bird still in his fist, smearing blood across his temples.
Zanka’s mouth opens and closes like a fish.
“I need a fire, man. Can’t eat it raw, no matter how many times I try. I don’t know how the boss does it.” Jabber pouts. He pounds at his head. “Got so sick last time… that’s fun too, but this bird is important to me. Don’t wanna throw him up.”
“I can light a fire.” Zanka tells him, for lack of a better response.
He instantly regrets the offer, but Jabber smiles a nonfatal smile that Zanka considers quite novel. Awkwardly, he digs around in his bag for the flint and steel he’d brought for his last overnight mission and forgotten to unpack. It doesn’t take long to find flammable objects, and Jabber wordlessly watches him construct a small fire. There’s no need to skewer the bird on anything — the man holds it happily over the heat with his hands. The burnt feathers smell disgusting.
Zanka doesn’t know how to proceed. He waits as Jabber eats his bird. Would it be better to fight him? Or take a rain check? He doesn’t want the strange moment they’ve created to end.
Jabber looks pleased when he finally finishes his food, and Zanka is surprised that he didn’t eat the bones. It’s a trick of the light, surely, but his cheeks that were hollowed out by hunger seem fuller already. Their eyes meet. Zanka shifts towards his staff while maintaining eye contact.
“Are you into me? Cause that’s what I’m reading. I feel it, the…” Jabber gestures wildly with his hands. “The feeling. Y’know what I’m saying.”
Never in his life has Zanka been struck more dumb. Words fail him as he stares, wide-eyed.
“Oh, come on, man!” Jabber shrieks, desperation seeping into his voice. “The feeling! You’ve been around the block, haven’t you? You come all the way out here, light a fire for me, stare at me while I eat…”
With horror, it dawns on Zanka where the conversation is headed, and he slams on the proverbial breaks. He fears he’s accidentally stepped into the fire with how red-hot embarrassed he’s become.
“I think… you’re experiencing indigestion.” He says weakly.
Jabber immediately activates Mankira and hurls himself at Zanka. He blocks the attack with his staff in the knick of time and scrambles to put distance between himself and the raider, adrenaline coursing through his veins.
“Oh, you’ve got to go. You’ve gotta go!” Jabber hides his face in his hands, metal claws silhouetting his head like antlers. “You really have no idea what I’m talking about? Are you messing with me? No one’s looked at me the way you do. Is your face just weird like that?”
Zanka pants, fearing more for his dignity than his life. There’s only one path to mitigating this fight, but he’d rather walk on burning coals than admit it. His throat tightens.
“I was there, you know.” Jabber continues. “At the warehouse. Figured you’d bring all your cleaner friends so they could beat me black and blue before Cthoni comes to pick me up at the last second. That’s why I called you.”
Jabber takes a step closer. Zanka doesn’t move, feeling trapped in his own mind. He already knows what’s coming.
“But then you came alone — no backup, nothing! Why’d you do that?”
Zanka pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a deep breath. He doesn’t know whether he’ll die by Jabber’s hand or his own after he carefully selects his words and speaks: “I wanted to see you.”
Jabber makes a noise that’s caught somewhere between enraged and elated. For someone who was on death’s door from starvation a moment ago, he’s rather spry. He springs forward to pin Zanka against a broken slab of concrete.
“Why didn’t you say so, Z?” He croons.
It’s at that moment Zanka accepts defeat. He’s in no emotional state to be fighting, and Jabber clearly wants to steer things in a certain direction. There’s still a good hour before the cleaners back at HQ will start to question his whereabouts, so he allows himself a dangerous indulgence.
Pulse roaring in his ears, Zanka snakes his arms around Jabber’s torso, slow enough to give the man plenty of time to pull away. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He half expects metal claws to pierce his stomach.
Instead, Jabber’s eyes grow impossibly large. “So you’re the kind of guy who takes what he wants, huh? I like that.”
Zanka’s mind races, but it doesn’t stop him from pulling Jabber closer into a parody of a hug. The man hums against him, and rubs his cheek up and down the side of Zanka’s head. Affectionate ministrations are foreign for both of them.
Now that he has the raider like this, jittery yet compliant, he refuses to let go. He doesn’t want to kiss him at all — the bird he ate was not cooked through, and dental hygiene is a farce to all residents of the ground. That lack of kissing does not seem to bother Jabber, who continues to nudge Zanka’s jaw and neck with slow presses of his head. His breaths come in stubborn huffs; their proximity must be working him up.
“Do you feel it now?” Jabber asks him. “You, me, the pressure between our legs… doesn’t it make you wanna bleed real bad? All over the floor, all over each other…” He moans.
“If anyone’s going to bleed, it’ll just be you.” Zanka says.
Jabber cackles and fiddles with the fastening of his pants. “I’ve never done this before. Oh, I’m so excited!” He keens, and Zanka worries he’ll finish before they even get to doing anything. He’s impressed by his lack of shame, but the ruddiness to his cheeks betrays his amateurism.
Jabber’s thinner than expected under his clothes. Like many others, his body swims in loose fabric, overcompensating for their insufficient nutrition. Zanka’s resolve crumbles further, and he hastily removes his own belt. Jabber giggles, hopping from one foot to the other and scanning their surroundings. There’s no sign of onlookers but a flock of crowing birds.
Zanka lays his jacket down on a clean patch of concrete, and adds Jabber’s discarded pants to the pile. It’s not much but it’ll have to do. He looks up to see the raider examining his work owlishly.
“We do this properly or not at all.” Zanka tells him.
“Properly?” Jabber echoes.
“Do you even know how this works?”
Jabber nods. “I’ve seen them do it. Rats, dogs, people even. Looks painful. Looks fun.”
Zanka has a few issues with this response, but the urge to get his arms around a docile Jabber overrides any complaint — it’s a rare phenomenon to be near him without the risk of having his jugular vein removed. He takes Jabber by the collar of his hood and pushes him down against the makeshift bedding. While it’s in Zanka’s best interest to show Jabber a good time, he'll be damned if he allows himself to become his ragdoll.
He intends to leave in one piece.
Their legs and hips slot together as Jabber writhes underneath him joyously. There’s a mix of goading and praising in the string of expletives he spouts, and it’s a good thing Mankira is deactivated or Zanka would be choking on his own froth by now. He buries his face in Jabber’s shoulder as he rocks against him.
“Just put it in, put it in,” Jabber prattles. “Don’t be shy. This is how they all do it.” He flips over, onto his wrists and elbows, and presses his rear against Zanka.
It’s not a bad position. It’ll be harder to fall victim to a surprise attack this way. Zanka eagerly takes Jabber’s hips and adjusts himself. Enjin once told him that people are at their most vulnerable when engaged in sex because their brains melt out of their ears. He definitely knows what he means, now. He wonders if his mentor would be proud.
He pushes inside and Jabber wheezes, choking on his own saliva.
“Oh, Z. This is a new kind of pain!” He says. Zanka pours out his canteen where their bodies meet to wash away a trickle of blood. “Not as intense as I was hoping, but it’s real nice…”
“I think there’s supposed to be more to it than pain,” Zanka grits, and it’s the last thing he remembers saying before he’s lost to the sensation of his endeavors. The world narrows down to their little spot in the trash heap, where the setting sun warms their backs and responsibilities are forgotten.
Eventually, it registers that Jabber has been cackling on and off the whole time. His body spasms with each laugh and it impairs Zanka’s rhythm. While it’ll feel better for the both of them if he stays still, Zanka’s relieved that Jabber seems to be enjoying himself. His head falls to rest against the back of his neck. It’s one of the few places of his body that is unmarred by burns or scars.
Zanka’s choker selects that moment to fill the air with its insistent trill. Dazed, his hips stutter, and his head clouds in annoyance.
“Better pick up, buddy.” Jabber says. His voice is hardly cohesive, muffled against Zanka’s jacket.
The last thing he wants to do is speak to anybody else. The call can’t be for anything more than a simple check-in, but if he ignores it, the cleaners will be concerned — perhaps concerned enough to send someone to retrieve him. Although the idea is sobering, he glances back down at Jabber. His eyes are unfocused and his hair is rumpled.
Zanka tears the choker off and tosses it aside. He reckons he won’t last much longer, anyway. By the time someone arrives he’ll have his clothes back on and Jabber will have made himself scarce, surely.
“Oh, you like me that much, do you?” Jabber watches the choker land next to a broken radio. He flips himself around and wraps his arms around Zanka’s shoulders. He pulls his face closer and takes Zanka’s entire right cheek into his mouth. Zanka ought to be disgusted but resumes his thrusting anyway.
The level of retrospection he reaches while in a sex-addled state is unparalleled; below him is an enemy who’s haunted his nights in more ways than one. He has so many questions that he’s never had the opportunity to ask. What does your boss want? Where did you come from? Where is your family? Are they looking for you?
Zanka snakes a hand down to pinch a spot on Jabber’s inner thigh, a spot he learned at the Hell Guard Academy to be particularly painful. The raider shrieks and cums, kicking his legs out and creating what will certainly leave a sizable bruise on Zanka’s shin. He grits his teeth and embraces Jabber tighter, emptying himself, blinking back tears he’s bewildered that formed.
When Zanka pulls away, Jabber opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. He rolls over with a pleased groan instead, unbothered by his bare ass exposed to the open air. He’s leaking over their clothes.
“Man, my legs are jelly…” He finally declares.
Zanka chuckles. “Me too.” He’s sat propped up on his heels, trying to gather his bearings.
Jabber is even more compliant after he’s been fucked, it seems. He lifts his hips to allow Zanka to pull their clothes out from under him and blinks slowly while he’s aided in getting dressed. He swirls a finger along the dusty concrete floor as Zanka throws on his jacket, tracing similar patterns to what he’d seen in the warehouse.
Zanka is loath to leave him. However, the sounds of an approaching cleaner jeep are imminent, and he stands to make his departure. He shrugs on his bag, checks the straps of his uniform, and inspects his staff for any damage. She’s as unharmed as he, but in much less emotional turmoil.
The only thing he’s missing is his choker. Jabber tosses it to him, mumbling something obscured by the whistling of wind.
“What’d you say?” Zanka calls. The wind is really starting to pick up — a trash storm must be on its way.
“I put my blood in it.” Jabber says, still drawing patterns on the floor. He doesn’t look up. “Don’t go prank calling me now, alright?”
Zanka nods before running off unsteadily. The sky is starting to rain down objects and he shields his head with his hands. He intercepts the jeep before it gets any closer, and hops inside. He apologizes for worrying everyone and makes a quick report back to the front desk, all while staring out the window and picturing Jabber alone in the storm.
He feels sick to his stomach.