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When the cleaner collapses, Jabber almost thinks it's a trick; a lure, an uncharacteristic strategy that was planned like a move on a chessboard just for him.
Really, he should've known something was wrong the moment the fight began and Lovely Assistaff’s swings were hitting a moment later than he was used to. The delay left the staff user wide open and Jabber is nothing if not opportunistic.
Zanka fought with a practiced restraint that made Jabber always itch, a twitch away from provoking the other teen to be meaner. To match the violence in his eyes to the sharp ends of his weapon—a compliment to the cleaner's personality, the bite and bark of a real challenge.
Jabber adored it. The raider adored him.
So when Zanka's knees hit the ground—beautiful, stubborn, ‘break your ribs and punch them’, the shark to Jabber's red sea, yes, that Zanka—everything stops for a second as Jabber watches him fall like they're in a skit.
But it isn't Zanka collapsing that cues Jabber into thinking something is wrong immediately. At first he laughs at the cleaner. Jabber laughs at the abrupt weakness because he's seen Zanka take his poison and plow on like it didn't bother him.
Yet the cleaner was downed by nothing of the raider's doing.
“You tryna bait me? That's cute, Zan.” He giggled, awaiting the boy's next move.
But Zanka doesn't react to being called ‘cute’, which is a real shame to Jabber's ears, missing being yelled at.
“Yo, we gon’ keep going or..?”
A clang. Sudden, heavy and loud to the point Jabber flinches. He sees that the cause of the sound was Zanka dropping Lovely Assistaff to the dirty ground.
Zanka is making a sound. Shallow and fast as a fist curls into the front of his shirt before joining his weapon. The two lie face down, Lovely Assistaff returning to her base form while her giver shakes on the floor, expression hidden.
Jabber is a mind made of instinct and experience, and he just knows something is terribly wrong about the way Zanka isn't moving. Something painfully close to concern rises in him.
“Damn, you get a hit of something? That's no fair, man, gimme some of that.” He joked, sniffing the air for pollution or other indicators of toxins.
Mankira hadn't even drawn blood yet. There was no way Zanka had been poisoned, not by her at least.
The sound is getting worse, a scraping wheeze and a sudden gasp that causes Zanka to jerk. Jabber is by his side immediately, rolling the cleaner onto his side in one aggressive motion.
“Don't play with me.” Jabber clicks his tongue, gaze searching Zanka for some kind of ploy, something cheap and stupid and truthfully not his style, but something that makes more sense than the awful sounds he's making.
“Fuh-’ Zanka's mouth twists into a frown, spitting at Jabber with spite. It takes nearly all of his composure to manage the words ‘fuck off’ like he'd die if he didn't curse the raider.
“Ah, there he is.” Jabber grins, at least at ease that his cleaner friend is very much not faking his shakiness.
The relief is short lived as Zanka begins to gasp in quick staccato, his eyes pinpoint in pain that Jabber cannot enjoy because he is not the cause for it.
“Shit.”
Muttering and nervous, Jabber pats around Zanka's body despite the angry, offended glare he's given. Zanka is more than welcomed to slap his hands away, but until he does, Jabber won't stop searching his body for injury.
“Could've warned me you weren't good. Now we both look stupid.” The raider complained, hands moving more frantically as Zanka's state worsened.
He sounded like he couldn't breathe, so Jabber's first instinct was to check his neck and his mouth. Zanka shook his head and made an aborted attempt toward his chest before suddenly recoiling, surprised by his own actions. Jabber stared at him, expression blank.
“You hurt somewhere? C'mon man, help me out!”
Zanka looked like he would rather die than point the raider in the right direction, but his body betrayed him. His chest barely rose, looking more like it didn't move at all when the cleaner sucked in air like he'd never had it. It was by observing this that Jabber touched it, and when Zanka swung at him, all he thought was bingo.
The punch didn't deter him, didn't even slow him down as Jabber brought Mankira across Zanka's chest in a fashion reminiscent of their fights.
While his strength was waning, Zanka clutched at Jabber's wrist in a desperate, tightening hold. Jabber glanced into his eyes and what he found made the raider pause. Zanka looked so scared, the lagoon in his eyes murky, edged by red as they bulged from the air deprivation. His hold is more steadying than it is preventative, as if guiding Jabber despite hating every moment of being at his mercy.
Mankira shreds through the cleaner uniform effortlessly without grazing the skin underneath. Jabber rips open the jacket, imagining he'll find a gnarly wound, but what he finds is another layer of fabric. Thick, padded, like a bandage wrapped around Zanka's chest.
It is familiar. Familiar like salt. Jabber draws a breath quickly at the same time Zanka chokes. The awful sounds Zanka makes, near hyperventilating and slapping weakly at Jabber for relief is ultimately the reason Jabber cuts through them, even when a part of him feels repulsed by his own actions.
With his chest exposed and the tight winding bandages finally loosened around his ribs, Zanka takes his first full expanding breath. His ribs ache profoundly deep, tender and carved out of his skin every time he breathes. The break is short lived, the realization hitting him like a splash of ice water.
He is exposed and the relief is completely overrun by a shame and humiliation he feels burning between his eyes. He won't cry. He won't. Zanka is still holding onto the raider's wrist as Mankira lingers over the center of his chest, directly over his heart.
The cool sensation of the air hitting bare skin is a natural balm, but he burns furiously when he looks up to still find Jabber staring at him.
Zanka wants to cross his arms, to cover himself in front of the other teen, he wants to escape the disgusting image of himself reflected in Jabber's eyes.
“I hate ya. Fuck, why did it have to be you.” He laughs, a little hysterical, capable of knowing the raider had helped him and pissed off because now his secret was out. His arms shook as he tried to push Jabber away, his frustration rising. “Get the fuck off, stop lookin’.”
His voice was smaller, falling fainter as Jabber retracted Mankira and grazed unintentionally over his skin. The real contact made Zanka shiver, venom rising in his throat when Jabber began to undress.
“What are ya…” Zanka trailed off, silent as the raider's vest was discarded so Jabber could pull his cream coloured top off, revealing a plethora of scars across his torso and arms. Zanka's mouth was suddenly very dry as he shamelessly looked, unable to tear his gaze from the raider's skin.
The act of both of them being somewhat bare should have made him feel worse, made him feel frightened and confused, but it didn't. Not when the black top on Jabber's thin frame hangs low, exposing his collarbones. At this angle, with the raider looming over him, Zanka cannot help the way he glances down Jabber's shirt.
What he sees makes him do a double take, tracing the curves of the other teen’s chest like a confession.
Realizing that he is blatantly ogling his enemies breasts—that's what they are, there's no denying it, even though it makes him blush—Zanka rips his gaze away.
“Oh.”
Jabber laughs at him, a faint, almost shy sound.
“Yeah, oh.”
He tugged gently on the sleeves of Zanka's uniform, staring directly at only his face in silent permission.
Swallowing the emotions welling inside him, Zanka shrugged the torn remains off, assisting Jabber on tugging on the raider's creamy crop top onto the cleaner. It was wider on him, swamping Zanka's appearance, including the slight curve of his chest.
It was still too little, still too loose for his liking, but he was no longer exposed and that was enough. The previous shame was replaced by a pensive longing as he looked at the raider, unable to conjure what he wanted to say. What he knew now changed everything. What Jabber had done, giving him his shirt, was everything.
Jabber's skin looks darker, warmer whenever he looks at Zanka. The raider coughs awkwardly as he retrieves his vest, offering it to the cleaner.
“You needa be careful ‘bout wrapping them, man.” He spoke in a private, intimate manner. Something like a secret between two boys. Jabber looked meaningfully at his chest, but it didn't make Zanka feel angry or embarrassed like it did earlier.
He looked back. He's like me. A thought Zanka would have never had about the raider until he'd seen it.
He reaches past the vest he's being offered to grab Jabber's wrist.
The raider tenses, looking down at Zanka like he might hit him again, which would be the better alternative to how vulnerable he suddenly feels.
Zanka brings his second hand to cup the bruise slowly forming on the raider's cheek.
“Thank you.”
Jabber blinks at him, expression star eyed as he leans into the contact, a blush spreading across the top of his nose and cheeks. Zanka splutters out a laugh when Jabber dives toward his chest, hiding his flustered expression against the cleaner's body.
When did Jabber get so damn endearing?