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“Give me your hand.”
Zanka’s almost surprised when Jabber listens—no teasing or poking or curling, Cheshire grin. Just a tilt of his head, his face scrunching up in confusion. His bottom lip is split open, and a splattering, flaking line of blood runs down his chin. Earlier, he’d teased Zanka for it, saying it matched the head wound Zanka had gotten a few minutes earlier while trying to dodge him. Called it romantic.
Typical Jabber. Zanka’s stomach had swooped at the thought. Crazy fucking bastard. Matching wounds. Matching pain, inflicted on the other. Tit for tat. Always saying dumb shit like he wants Zanka to get pissed off at him. Ruining the moment after a good fight, when Zanka’s caught between the relief of the comedown and the pounding adrenaline where he can actually admit how much fun he’d had beating Raider bloody.
It’s not the first time Zanka’s felt Jabber’s hand in his, but it is one of the few times he’s felt it without the leather and metal of Mankira’s glove. It’s also one of the few times where Zanka hasn’t been trying to pin Jabber’s hands so he can crush his windpipe with Assistaff. Compared to that, this feels…weird. Intimate in a way Zanka isn’t entirely sure about, in a way he knows Jabber chafes under. This feels like they’re one of those sappy, handholdy couples, and not…whatever it is they are.
“Y’know I don’t like my bones broken,” Jabber drawls, settling his hand in Zanka’s outstretched palm with all his creepy, rubberhose grace. “If ya wanna keep going, you can bite me, or rip out my nails, or—“
“Never said I was gonna do that, ya freak,” Zanka replies. “Besides, you’ll sulk if I mess up your hands.”
Jabber whines, pouting—stuck-out bottom lip and everything—as he rolls onto his side to face Zanka better.
“Awww, but it’ll hurt so good…”
“I ain’t dealing with yer whiny ass,” Zanka snaps, keeping his eyes down so he doesn’t see the way Jabber’s undoubtedly smiling at him.
They let the obvious go unspoken—that no matter the pain, Jabber’s hands getting too badly hurt means a long recovery period with no Mankira, no fights, no satisfying way for Jabber to scratch his creepy, masochistic itch. Poking bruises and exposed nail beds can’t be the same as feeling Assistaff’s prongs crunching around his middle, or Zanka headbutting him so hard they both bleed. More than just pain, what Jabber really wants more than anything is a good fight. An equal exchange, getting as good as he gives.
He needs me, Zanka thinks sometimes, not without a twisted, hungry little part of himself shrieking with pride. Because Zanka’s not the one who dangles pain over Jabber’s head as a reward for a job well done, Zanka’s the one Jabber keeps coming to out of everyone on the Ground because what they have isn’t a discussion or a competition but just them dragging out the worst, nastiest, ugliest parts of themselves and kicking them across the space to the other and daring each other to pick them up. It’s complicated and uncomplicated. Cuts and blunt force. Jabber needs Zanka—god, he loves feeling needed—because who else could he really go to who’s willing to give him this freely?
Jabber needs Zanka. And Zanka needs Jabber. Because being needed by Jabber is both the most impossible and simple thing that’s ever been asked of him.
Jabber wants Zanka to crush him, and he wants Zanka to love it.
Jabber’s hand is larger than Zanka’s—not by a small margin—but it still somehow manages to look delicate. Even when the knuckles are split and there’s a nasty chemical burn splashed across its back, even when it’s just as rough and calloused as Zanka’s. It’s the long, slender fingers and the glossed, carefully painted nails that Zanka keeps staring at, the silver shining on his fingers and wrists.
The rings. Mankira, in her base form. Probably the most lethal weapons in the world, something Zanka’s been torn open on dozens of times before. A part of him still tenses up when he looks at her, like he’s waiting for her claws to come out any second.
But they don’t. They stay as what they are—the rings. Bright from a thousand polishings even in the low light of the cave, years of scuffs and scratches and corrosion buffed out as much as possible. The one on Jabber’s ring finger has a thin line of welded metal along its side—like it had almost been broken once. Zanka can’t imagine Jabber with a power tool, but somehow the idea of him hunched over Mankira with a blowtorch, fighting to keep it together—it makes sense.
They need each other. Zanka isn’t sure if love really factors in there—at least, in the traditional sense. What he does know for sure is that Jabber loves Mankira. In the way all Givers love their Vital Instruments. Enough to make it a part of him, and give it a life of its own. To latch a piece of his own soul onto a couple of rings, to hold onto them even when they’re cracking and falling apart. Zanka can feel the life under his fingertips now, heavy and organic, warming at his touch.
“Mankira,” he murmurs.
Jabber chuckles. Zanka wonders if he’s just imagining the nervous edge in his voice. “Uh, yeah, that’s her name. Don’t wear it out.”
“Wasn’t talking to you.”
Jabber clicks his tongue. If he weren’t so exhausted, Zanka thinks the Raider probably would have sat up, pulling his hand away to place it on his chest in theatrical offense.
“Tsk. ‘S my Vital Instrument you’re talking to, last I checked. May as well be talking to me.”
Zanka’s instinct is to bristle, maybe use what strength he has left to smack him with Assistaff. Instead, he rolls his eyes, returning his focus back to Mankira—shiny Mankira, poison-dripping Mankira, Mankira on Jabber’s pretty, pretty fingers, practically glowing with the love he’s poured into her.
“Hi there,” Zanka murmurs. “You’re so beautiful.”
And then he raises the rings to his fingers and kisses them.
It’s not like he and Jabber haven’t kissed before—in the beat after Jabber’s claws have torn into Zanka’s stomach, in the moments where Zanka and Assistaff have Jabber pinned into the dirt. It’s not like Jabber hasn’t gotten touchy with Assistaff himself, dragging his fingers down her length and crooning her full name just to laugh at Zanka’s burning, flabbergasted face.
It’s weird because it’s Zanka who’s the one initiating this. Because he can feel Mankira’s soul, Jabber’s soul under his lips, as he presses a kiss to each individual ring. Because Jabber, for once—Zanka can’t see his face, isn’t sure he has it in him to look—is completely, utterly silent.
For once, Zanka’s the one in control. Throwing Jabber off his game. Getting in his head with nothing but blunt honesty and want.
He kind of thinks he might love it.
Mankira pulses against Zanka’s mouth, pounding like a rapid heartbeat. The fingers that wear her are uncharacteristically rigid.
“What are you doing,” Jabber says. There’s no laughter or rage in his voice. Just a terrified, furious, suffocating confusion. “Stop.”
Zanka doesn’t. Not yet. Just a little longer, let him have this, let him just—
“I said—“
Jabber’s hand pulls lightly against Zanka’s grip, as the softness sharpens into proper annoyance.
“—stop—”
Jabber pulls harder this time—really hard—and only then does Zanka let him go. Letting the taste and feel of a soul crowding hungrily against his lips go with it.
He looks up, expecting Jabber to look pissed. Like he’s going to bring out the claws and skin Zanka alive. Instead, the look on Jabber’s face…he looks stuck. Like he isn’t sure what to feel or how that might translate into a human expression.
“Don’t ever do that again.”
The softness is back now, cold as Jabber holds his hand to his chest, rubbing a thumb soothingly over Mankira’s rings.
“Quit being weird with Assistaff and it’s a deal,” Zanka replies, rolling onto his back and staring up at the ceiling of the cave they’ve been fighting in.
“Done. Deal. Whatever. Just—“
Maybe if they’d had the energy, Jabber wouldn’t be talking. Maybe he would have held Mankira’s claws to Zanka’s throat, crawled on top of him and tried to give Zanka a real reason never to touch his Vital Instrument. Maybe Zanka would have had to fight his way out of getting his face torn off, and their earlier battle would have started again.
But they’re tired. All Zanka has the energy to do is hold onto Assistaff and sit in the silence.
Last week was the first time Jabber had taken Assistaff from him. Not during the fight, but after—when Zanka was halfway to one of the nastiest trips of his life, brain fizzling as Jabber’s latest poison worked its magic on him. He remembers the locs spilling around his face, caging him away from the world as Jabber leaned over him, grinning and gushing about the makeup and effects of the cocktail, you’re gonna love this one, Zan-Zan!
And then, stopping his rambling, smile flicking off like a switch as his eyes darted to the side. To Assistaff, still held in Zanka’s quickly loosening grip.
He doesn’t remember seeing him pick it up. His head had felt heavy, sloshy, like a water balloon that would burst the moment someone poked it wrong. Turning it had been out of the question. But Zanka’s pretty good at extending his senses to work through his Vital Instrument, so he remembers feeling Jabber’s fingers wrap around her, gently prying her from his hand and holding her to his smiling mouth.
Thanks for playing with me, Lovely. You were so much fun.
And then, the lips. The lips pressed against the metal of Assistaff’s hilt, pressed against Zanka, pressed against Zanka’s softest, warmest, weakest parts in a way that made him want to scream and cry and throw up until there was only bile left. It was the most vulnerable he’d ever felt in his life, and he’d hated it
loved it
never wanted to feel it again
never wanted anything else
hadn’t been able to let go of Assistaff for an entire day
He’d headed back to HQ, and tried to pretend the whole thing hadn’t happened. Until today, when he and Jabber had met up again, and they’d done their usual, they’d fought and it had been fun and Jabber had gotten in Zanka’s head again and Zanka had been so—so—
Fuck you. Fuck you. You don’t get to be the only one doing this to me. You don’t get to make me feel this way and skip around like nothing matters to you. I’m dragging you down with me. I’m cracking you open and watching you bleed.
You get what you fucking give.
Zanka stares up at the ceiling. Counts the echoing drips of water from a crevice in one of the cave’s corners. Glances, just for a second, at Jabber—because he’s not actually mad, is he, Zanka didn’t actually fuck this up, did he, Jabber still wants him, right—
He doesn’t linger for too long. Just long enough to see Jabber, holding the fingers Zanka had kissed to his mouth, staring into space with wide, frightened eyes as a blush burned high and hot in his cheeks.