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The bright lights of the hallway hurt her eyes as she steps out of her room, yawning as she does.
Her feet lead her to Jabber's door, opening it, she looks down at her lover for a moment. He lies, still passed out, drooling onto his pillow and snoring like a damn monster.
Placing her hand onto his face, she feels him stiffen and then shoots up, grabbing her hand roughly. She looks down at him with a tired, amused expression.
“Wassup?”
His sleepy voice makes her laugh softly.
“Guess what time it is.”
Jabber looks over to the window, seeing the darkness that engulfs the outside world. His ears perk up, and he sits up in his bed.
“Way too early for you to be up normally, you wantinta fight?”
“It's 7 PM. I think we gotta eat and like, become sentient before we do anything like that.”
Zanka sits on the bed next to him and gently puts her head against his arm.
“I think that Riyo turned off my alarm again. I just woke up too.”
Standing, Jabber yawns and offers a hand to Zanka. She takes it, and Jabber pulls much too aggressively, causing Zanka to fall on top of him, causing a lovely domino effect, which causes them to fall onto the floor.
“Ahmf! Fuckin’ hell, Jabber, I thought you weren't gonna do that, I'm gonna crack your skull open!”
The air is taken out of his lungs as he looks up at her and makes sure she doesn’t get hurt. His eyes look awfully pathetic, and he smirks slightly.
“Prommy?”
She slaps a hand down on his face and uses the other one to cover her mouth.
"God, you're so stupid."
He sits using one of his forearms as support.
"Don't act like you don't love me! I'm your stupid."
She takes a moment to untangle herself from him and then stands, him following shortly after.
"Yeah.. outta all the dumb masochistic men in the world, I fear you're the one for me."
Gigging, he twirls one of his dreds with his finger and smiles at her.
"You spoil me, Zanki!"
Glaring at him for a moment, she laughs.
“Alright, I'm hungry, come on.”
Jabber scrambles to get off the floor and wobbles a little when he gets back on his feet.
“Yippie!”
Zanka shakes her head and starts to walk out the door, muttering to herself.
“Grown ass man tellin’ me yippie. You sure know how to pick em’.”
As they walk further into the facility, they notice that more and more of the lights are off, the usual chatter from the halls is absent.
“Zanka. This feels like the beginning of a horror movie.”
She walks into the kitchen and opens the door to the refrigerator, motioning for Jabber to go sit at the table.
“We’re not gonna fuckin’ die,”
On top of the regular ingredients, she sees two tupperwares, one larger than the other.
A yellow note sits on top of them,
“Both of you were gone when we had dinner. I grabbed you both some leftovers, microwave the blue smaller container for a minute, and it should be the same for the other. Happy Valentine's Day, kids, don't kill each other.
-Gris.”
“Jabber.”
He looks over to where she's standing and hums.
“What's up?”
“What day is it?”
Jabber looks off for a moment and then back at her.
“Uh, imma be so honest with you, queen, I got no clue. My ass conked out when we got back- would not be surprised if I entered a week-long coma after.”
She looks down at the box and then back up at him.
“We are terrible partners. Jabbs, it’s Valentine's Day, how the fuck did we both forget?”
His eyes widen, and he glances at the floor for a moment.
“In my defence, I never know what day it is. Didja wanna do somethin for it?”
“Uh, not really, I mean,” She lifts the container of food up, “We’ve got food, so we can't go out to eat, we could play after dinner if you wanna?”
His eye twitches, and he smiles tightly.
“Uh-huh. I wanna.”
Zanka looks at him with suspicion for a moment, then takes the lids of the containers and microwaves them.
“You good?” She leans against the counter and looks at her sitting boyfriend, who is currently shaking.
“I am about to decimate this food.”
Raising an eyebrow, she nods and picks the containers out of the microwave when it beeps. She places the larger one in front of Jabber and sits next to him at the table for her own.
“Uh-huh?”
She picks up a set of chopsticks and sets to eating her food, occasionally glancing over at Jabber, of whom is eating like a starved, feral animal.
“You are gonna choke.”
Although she intends her tone to be scolding, she can't hide the fondness the shines though at the end of her statement. He swallows roughly and smiles at her.
“I will have you know I am a professional food eater,”
She shakes her head, a grin on her face.
“Each day you surprise me more.”
Once she finishes her food, Jabber has been staring at her for a while, having finished his food much faster than she. She picks up both of their boxes and puts them, along with the chopsticks, into the sink, walking back over to him and leaning against the table.
“Does kitty want to fight?”
Jabber smiles and nods his head quickly.
“Hell yeah, kitty wanna fight! Can we go now?”
Motioning for him to stand, she points up to his room, to where he runs and returns with a black backpack, along with Zanka's Assistaff.
“Is it still fully stocked?” She asks as she hands her vital instrument to her, looking down at the bag.
“Uh-huh!” He says, voice giddy as he puts the bag on his back.
She attempts to hide a grin from just how enthusiastic he is, and they begin walking out of the building.
“Ya know you can ask me instead of just, what tryin’ to send me psychic signals when ya want somethin’?”
He raises his hands in surrender.
“I was told not to ask you for something over and over again, that that was me pressuring ya,”
Her eyebrows raise, and she looks over to him.
“Jabber. My memory is horrible. If I don't want something, I can tell you.”
Jabber grumbles and nods, and when he notices that they have already arrived behind the cleaners' HQ, his eyes light up.
“Ready?”
Zanka kisses Jabber before taking off the ring fingers of Mankira and handing them back to him, a small ritual they have when exchanging vital instruments.
“Go where you're waninta start at.”
Jabber grins, backing up to being close to the wall as he slides his rings on, activating Mankira with a purple hue.
“Come on, Missy, show me whatcha got.”
Assistaff lights up a gentle blue, and she twirls her in her hands before looking over Jabber, sliding her foot forward, and swinging Assistaff to trap Jabber's throat and pin him to the wall.
Jabber blocks her attack, metal clashing as he pushes the head of the staff up and away, the base firmly in the grasp of Mankira.
“Thought I'd be that easy?”
He shifts one of his hands to the inside of the loop, taking advantage of the slight droop of her posture from her being caught a tad off guard to apply pressure and effectively find Assistaff out of her grip, it clattering to the ground a few feet away.
Noticing the way her eyes glance around him, he takes one of her hands in his claws, twirling them and swapping their positions, Zanka falling hard against the cool wall and floor.
“Thought you could use a win after the last time I whooped your ass.”
She smirks up at him from the ground, he sits on his haunches in front of her, a cool metal knife of his pointer finger resting underneath her chin, pushing her face slightly and digging into the skin slightly, a few drops of blood fall and stain the metal.
“Ya sure? Cause to me it looked like ya just got your ass handed to you, little flower.” He smirks as he leans back and licks a stripe up the cool blade.
The expression on her face seems to fall, and she reaches over to her Assistaff, grabbing the neck of it and using her to stand back up. Jabber follows suit and backs up a step.
As she lines up to swing Assistaff at his head, he falls onto his haunches once more, swinging Mankira hard and hitting Zanka's calf, both making sure to go deep and making sure he doesn't hit an artery from going too high.
A pool of blood begins to drip down and expand beneath her, the liquid black in the air of the night.
“Gah! Mmpft!” She exclaims, then bites her lip, looking back up at Jabber, who is observing her, with a newfound determination in her eyes.
Using the end of the stick, she roughly hits him in the chest, causing him to yelp in surprise and stumble backwards for a moment, before grabbing her wrist and swinging her so that she falls onto the ground. Glancing at the trail of blood that had been following her, Jabber fights a disappointed sigh as he remembers that after a certain amount of blood, you are supposed to stop and fix it.
“Nuhuh, stay sitting.”
She sits back, feeling mildly deflated at the fact that he knew what she was doing without even looking at her.
He walks over to the wall, picking up the bag and then coming back to sit next to Zanka.
“Hey, pretty girl, wanna do this inside?”
“I-”
He looks back down and sees that it was a tad deeper than he initially thought.
“I take that back, you aren't getting a choice.”
Handing Zanka Assistaff, he puts the bag on his back and picks her up, ignoring the protest from the woman in his arms.
“Eishia told me when she was teaching me this whole stitches thing to try and be in a sterile area, so I feel that for my first attempt, we should at least be in a decently clean area.”
As he carries her inside, Zanka responds.
“You don't have to do m stitches, I can do 'em my fuckin’ self.”
“Baby, upset I didn't let you bleed out in my arms?”
She swats him as he opens the door to her bedroom. He sets her gently on the bed.
“Shut up.”
He kneels and opens the bag, taking out the suture kit, hydrogen peroxide, medical tape, and a package of gauze.
“Anyways, what kind of gentleman would I be if I stabbed ya and didn't even help after?”
She grumbles at that and shivers when she feels his warm hands rolling her pant leg up, looking down at him to see him surveying the wound.
Jabber looks at it and takes a breath in. He has to stay focused.
“Do you have a washcloth?”
Zanka looks at him for a moment as if he were the dumbest man on the planet.
“Why on earth would I have a washcloth in my bedroom?”
He looks up at her and back at it, not much dirt, so he should be fine just rinsing it off with the peroxide.
Jabber glances up at her and grins for a moment before picking up one of the needles and unwrapping it, making sure to keep the excess thread in the small paper wrapping.
“Ready?”
She nods her head and takes a breath as she feels the needle pierce her skin. He can do this. The stitches need to be about a pinky finger tip apart; the wound is straight, he can do this.
As he stitches, he sees the blood dribble out, red streaks painting Zanka's calf. God, she looks so beautiful with blood on her skin.
The rest of the stitches take him some time, but they get done, and when he sees it.. Her skin pulled together, looking like it's crying to just be opened, for the sweetness inside to be released.
He can hardly control himself for what he does next. Warm hands hold the meat of Zanka's leg as he licks a stripe up the wound. He hears Zanka whimper above him and sets to work cleaning the skin around it.
Irony sweetness leaks into his mouth and down his throat when he finishes licking the surrounding area and goes back to the stitches. If he could spend forever like this, it still wouldn't be enough.
“Jabber,”
A statement that would never be completed, a request that couldn't be fulfilled.
Her speaking pulls him out of his almost trance-like lapping, and he has to lean back for a moment.
“My bad.”
“Did I say you did something wrong?”
He looks up at her, and oh god, he has to finish cleaning her up before he rips those stitches back open and gets a real taste.
Picking up the bottle of peroxide, he tries to have the cool liquid inside calm him. Spraying the peroxide over the wound, he watches as the white bubble form, and has to stop himself from touching them to feel the exothermic reaction.
“Mm.”
Zanka hums from above him, looking down at him with something unreadable in her expression.
Once the reaction dies down, he opens a package of gauze and places one over the wound. He would have to get at least Enjin to look at it later; there is no way that it will not be infected after what he did.
“Your dad’s gonna kill me, dude.”
“I mean, at least ya stitched me up,”
Using the medical tape, he wraps it around the edges of the gauze that aren't underneath the wound.
“You feeling tuckered out?”
“Are you?”
Jabber looks down for a moment.
“No.”
“Wanna go watch TV in the living room until you pass out?”
He smiles at her, and she smiles back. He stands.
“Are you going to pass out after 5 minutes again?”
“Probably.”
Smiling, he moves to pick her up, and she rolls her eyes but allows him to carry her down the stairs.
Jabber lies down and positions Zanka to be lying on top of him, the sounds of some trashy romcom play from the TV as he threads his fingers through her hair.
“I love you, Jabber.”
She presses her head on his chest and smiles to herself slightly when she hears,
“I love ya too, Zanki.”
His heartbeat increases slightly. Normally, he is the one who says things like that.
She laughs quietly to herself and lets the calm environment around her soothe her to sleep. Every night should end like this.