Chapter Text
The raiders were not people who tended to agree on much, but they all agreed on one thing: their boss was either the world's luckiest bastard, or the world's most competent idiot. His plans tended to seem impossible most of the time, but things had worked out thus far.
But now Zodyl had decided that he wanted to get his hands on the Sperite kid again, and his plan to lure him in involved kidnapping, interrogating, and murdering the cleaners close to him, one by one.
"Well, it'll be easier than taking them on all at once," thought Jabber. He only wished that he would be on the team for the first trip out. Unfortunately, the raiders didn't have any good healers, and while Jabber was typically excellent with his poisons, a chunk of trash had hit a wall, shaking the raider's headquarters just as he had been pouring reagents. His hands would be out of commission for at least a week, and he and Mankira were both pissed. At least his poisons would be used to knock the poor, unsuspecting cleaners out, but it felt wrong for him to not be out there using them himself.
----
Jabber was mostly healed by the time the team was due to be back. While he wasn't yet up to weilding Mankira the way he wanted to, he could fully stretch his fingers and the acid burns were turning into scars.
He sat up from where he had been laying sprawled on the couch as he heard the sound of Cthoni's portal open. Zodyl stepped out, along with Cthoni and Bundus, who was carrying a body bound up in chains.
Shit, Jabber recognized that body. It was Zanka, fully limp but clearly awake. He locked eyes with Jabber and tensed briefly before going limp again.
Jabber bit the inside of his cheek, the sting and taste of blood calming the feeling bubbling inside of him. Zanka was his. Zanka wasn't meant to be here, staff nowhere to be seen and clearly having given up. Zanka wasn't allowed to die at Zodyl's hands.
Zodyl may be his boss, but Zanka was one prize that he couldn't have.
"You're back, and I see you got a trophy! Hi Zan-zan!!!" Jabber hoped his voice was calmer than he felt. "Listen, boss-man," Jabber looked at Zodyl, "I was thinking I could chat with this one. Been out of commission and I'm getting antsy to do some work. It would give you time to plan your next moves...." Jabber tried desperately to keep his voice light and sing-song. If he could just pretend that everything was fine for long enough, maybe Zodyl would be stupid enough to hand Zanka over to him.
"Hmm," Zodyl hummed, looking like he was thinking. Jabber tried not to fidget or twitch, "We have people who are perfectly good for the job."
"Yeah, but I know this one. C'mon, I've been laid up for so long, lemme play for a little!"
Zodyl looked at Zanka like he was a particularly disgusting piece of garbage. "Fine. I'm sure you can figure out what to ask him on your own. Anything about the cleaners or the sphere."
"Of course boss!" Jabber said, holding his arms out towards Bundus.
Bundus raised an eyebrow at Jabber's enthusiam, but dropped Zanka into Jabbers arms before following Zodyl and Cthoni out of the room.
-----
Jabber rushed back to his room, trying to be careful in how he carried Zanka. The man wasn't making it easy, he was fully dead weight. Jabber was strong, but Zanka was all muscle and completely limp.
Jabber managed to shuffle Zanka onto one shoulder, then pulled his door open with one hand before stepping in and shutting it quickly behind him. He probably had a day before Zodyl came asking him for information, and in that time he had to figure out how to get Zanka out and back to the Cleaners. he had been an idiot not to come up with a plan for this, but Zanka had always seemed above getting captured and killed by anyone but him. And not until Zanka had beaten him fairly at least once. Not until they were an evenly matched pair.
Jabber laid Zanka out on his bed and untied him. Zanka didn't even move to help get the chains off of himself. A thought crossed Jabber's mind as he worked, that maybe the raiders had done something to Zanka, to Lovely Assistaff, but he shook it away. He didn't want to think about Zanka's connection to his vital instrument being damaged. He hoped that even Zodyl wouldn't do that.
"C'mon, Zanka, y'gotta work with me here," Jabber said, trying to get the last bit of chain off of Zanka, "You can't be all limp and shit. Gonna need ya to sit up and talk to me."
There was silence for far to long, and then Zanka spoke. "Why," he said, so quietly that Jabber had to lean in to hear him.
"Why what?" Jabber asked.
Zanka groaned, but he did make eye contact. "Why give ya what ya want? Yer gonna kill me anyway."
Jabber frowned. he had just brought Zanka into his bedroom and untied him, and the man still didn't trust him? "What, ya think I'm gonna let ya go out like this? C'mon Zanka, y'know me better than that!" At least he hoped that Zanka knew him better than that. Sure, they had only met a few times, but he thought Zanka understood him.
Zanka slowly sat up. He was clearly in pain, and Jabber itched to carve into him with Mankira. Just a little bit, just enough to give him something to make that pain stop long enough for them to talk. But that was unlikely to build whatever tenuous trust Zanka was giving him.
"Well?" Zanka asked.
"So, what's the plan? How'r we gonna get you back to the Cleaners?" Jabber was keeping his tone sing-song, trying to keep the mood light. Zanka just glared at him.
"We're not. This is it. I die here."
"Nuh-uh! How are you supposed to beat me if yer dead, huh Zan-Zan? Who the fuck else am I supposed to fight?" Jabber felt a little manic now in his desperation to get Zanka to get back to himself. This wasn't how anything was supposed to go. Zanka was a damn fighter, he wasn't supposed to be all slumped and miserable!
"I can't beat you. They have my staff," Zanka said, shaking slightly.
"What?"
"They have her. They have Assistaff. Damn girl with the manhole grabbed her offa me and put it in a portal. Said I would never need her again." Zanka was actively blinking back tears now.
Now, in general, Jabber prided himself on being an extremely laid-back kind of guy. Not much got to him. But he had one, very simple rule for people to follow. Don't touch his shit. He liked to joke that no raider in the compound had ever broken that rule, but really it was no one stupid enough to touch something of Jabber's had ever survived it. Half the time Jabber didn't even need to fight them, given that holding anything that he and Mankira handled too often was generally dangerous.
Even Zodyl, who had an extremely shitty "what's mine is mine and what's yours is also mine" sort of attitude with his underlings was careful not to touch anything that Jabber had claimed.
And well, it's not like Assistaff was really Jabber's, but as far as he was concerned Zanka belonged to him, and Lovely Assistaff was part of Zanka. And so, Cthoni had been stupid enough to break the one fucking rule that Jabber made for those around him.
Jabber paused, fiddling with Mankira's rings and thinking of every poison he could use to torture and then kill Cthoni. She really could have dumped Assistaff anywhere, and it would be a pain to get her back.
After a solid few minutes in his own mind, Jabber looked back up at Zanka. "Well, we're not gonna leave her behind, are we? Yer gettin' outta here and so is she. Just gotta find her."
Zanka blinked, then wiped away the tear tracks on his face. "Why? Why do that?"
Jabber grinned, "I told ya! I want ya to beat me fair and square! Can't do that if yer dead, or if you don't have yer instrument!"
Zanka sniffed, then sat up a bit straighter. his eyes looked clear for the first time since he had been carried into the compound. "Ok. And how are we supposed to do this?"
—
It was surprisingly easy to get Lovely Assistaff from Cthoni. Apparently the girl had been storing it in her room like some kind of sick trophy, and all Jabber had to do was make up a story about how Zanka wouldn't talk, and maybe seeing Mankira start to cut the staff up would help encourage him to spill.
Jabber heavily considered spearing Cthoni right there. Instead, he waited until her back was turned and applied the tiniest scratch from his left hand. She didn't even have time to scream as the strongest sedative Jabber had hit her hard and fast. She would be out for at least six hours, which gave him and Zanka some much needed time for the next part of the plan.
Getting Zanka out of the compound would be tricky. They had to escape without being spotted at all, and then had to get Zanka back to the Cleaner headquarters before anyone wised up and decided to track them down.
"And then what?" Zanka asked, as Jabber decided which poisons might be best to put in his left claw for the trip.
"Huh? What'cha mean?"
"Jabber. You can't come back here after." Zanka was inspecting Assistaff carefully. He had been at it for the last twenty minutes while Jabber packed a bag for the road.
"Why not? Got a pretty sweet setup here."
Zanka sighed loudly. "Jabber. Zodyl will know you helped me get out of here. Fuck, the raiders'll probably track your ass down to kill you for this," he paused for a beat before continuing with a slightly warmer tone, "I can't beat you if yer dead, Jabber."
And damn, if that didn't do something for Jabber. Warmed the heart he didn't know he had left right up.
"Sure," he said, considering his poisons even harder now, "But what'm I supposed to do? Maybe the boss'll just rage at me for a while, tear me up a little." It would be fine. it had to be. The boss might tear him a new asshole in a figurative and possibly literal sense, but Jabber was part of the team! They wouldn't put him down, right?
Jabber felt a pair of slim arms wrap around his waist, and Zanka's head tuck into his shoulder. "Or, instead of bein' murdered, ya could come back home with me. I can say i kidnapped you, if it makes ya feel any better."
Jabber shivered. Whatever it was that he and Zanka shared had changed in the last hour together. Whatever Zanka was doing was Jabber's job. Jabber was supposed to be the one crossing boundaries, tempting Zanka, being the bad influence. Jabber couldn't be a Cleaner, he'd get fucking bored killing trash beasts and helping civillians. He'd have to work with supporters and do fucking paperwork. He would be kept on a leash.
But wasn't Zodyl doing the same damn thing? And wasn't Jabber straining against it desperately already?
"So what, am I supposed to turn into one of you do-gooder idiots? Go around fightin' trash beasts and savin' people? That's not who Jabber is and ya know it." Jabber picked up a glass vial, just to have something to do with his hands.
"Well, ya can't be here, can ya? And the raiders will hunt you down if ya don't have somewhere safe ta be."
Jabber broke the hold Zanka had on him. It was too much, too gentle. "And what, ya plan ta keep me in a cage, then? Put Jabber in your room and keep him safe?"
Zanka chuckled a bit. "I'd be an idiot if I tried. Can't promise that the rest of the Cleaners won't, but I guess I'll have to be the one breaking you out then, huh?"
And there was that awful little warmth in Jabber's chest again.
-----
Jabber knew every inch of the Raider's base. it was easy enough to get Zanka out, move silently through the hallways and tunnels to a window in a back room and out to freedom.
Zanka covered his nose the moment they stepped outside. "Shit, I don't have a mask on me."
Jabber dug around in his bag. The one he brought for Zanka was a little old, but it wasn't used and should work well enough to filter the air. Jabber was used to breathing toxic fumes, he's be ok without it until they got to their next stop. Zanka put it on with a grateful nod and took a full breath.
"Fuck," Zanka sighed, "If Zodyl hadn't broken my collar we'd be able to get a ride home now. It's gonna be days on foot!"
"Guess we better get going, then!" Jabber said with a smile, skipping on ahead.
Within minutes, he and Zanka were racing over the trash piles and laughing. Not a raider and a cleaner, but two young people playing a game of tag on their way home.