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The comforting smell of smoke leaves with the messily styled blonde hair, shut out with the closing of the door, replaced with a silence that makes your ears ring uncomfortably.
Zanka heard a myth that your ancestors are speaking to you when your ears ring like that.
They're talking about how much of a failure you are.
He knows it's just tinnitus. Definitely from Delmon's yelling. Possibly a couple other things. Zanka doesn't care to know every reason.
If he thought too hard, too far back, he'd inevitably think of his youth. He would much rather ignore that time ever existed.
He lays in the hospital bed, still not yet cleared to leave as per Eisha's request. She wants to monitor him. Be sure that the poison really has left his system.
It feels like the stab wound in his stomach is still there, despite Eisha's masterful healing of it, despite it being entirely closed.
It doesn't hurt, per say. He just feels oddly empty. Like everything was pulled out, taken from him and not put back.
He can't blame it completely on Jabber, though. He knows this empty feeling. It's what drove him into a well for three days straight. It's what drove him to vomit his feelings at a man he didn't even know the name of, though he'd find out soon after.
It's what almost pushed him over the edge last time.
Zanka thought it had left, that he was better now.
Had it really? Or was he just shoving enough trash down his throat to cover it up?
Was everything loud enough to drown it out? Is that why it is crawling back in now that it's dark, quiet, and Zanka can't seem to get himself to sleep?
Zanka closes his eyes. Taking a deep, long breath. In for four, out for four. It smells like antiseptic and trash, the second being a constant on the Ground. The latter being exclusive to Eishia's hospital wing.
He opens his eyes. It's dark, only a few measly rays of light providing the room some semblance of a shape. The walls have the same water damage and graffiti in odd places, as well as the same slightly off-white coloring.
The floor is still tile, with dirt in the grout. Still has faint prints of boots, most likely from a fellow cleaner tracking in grime from outside when they came to visit Zanka.
The window to his left, where the light is coming from, is closed. The curtains tied back nicely, providing him an astonishingly good view of the heaps of trash just outside the walls of the Cleaner HQ.
The clouds that forever seem to loom in the sky are still there. The light is coming from a dingy street light that's just outside. The coloring is a sickening yellow, strobing just slightly, but enough to make Zanka's head hurt if he looks at it for too long.
He looks away, back into the room. There's another bed across the room, empty. The corners tucked perfectly in a hospital-code fashion, everything done with obvious practiced precision.
Eishia really is amazing at her job, even if she can be shy at times. If it weren't for her, Zanka would probably be dead by now. Though, anytime he tells her that, she refuses to take the compliment.
Because you're useless.
According to Riyo, she ended up saving Zanka from being sacrificed to a trash beast. How she got him away from Jabber, he has no idea. She refuses to elaborate, so he eventually just dropped it. Though, with the way Enjin glared at her, it has to be some kind of secret that shouldn't have been exposed.
Zanka lays his head back. Closing his eyes once again. Willing sleep to take him, or at least somebody to fill up the silence around him.
He'd take Rudo's smile over this.
Maybe.
Sleep refuses him. He opens his eyes, staring at the cream colored ceiling above him.
He still feels empty. It's a gnawing, deep feeling, settling into the marrow of his very bones.
He lost to Jabber. Again. Is this really going to become routine now?
Or was it always a routine?
Just when he's–no–when he thinks he's getting somewhere, somebody comes and rips it all away from him.
It's always been like this.
He's almost on his feet again, but then he gets yanked right back onto the ground. No matter how much he fights.
He always ends up back here.
In a dark room. Alone. Empty.
So deep in his head that, maybe, this time, he'll get stuck.
Who is he kidding? He never got out in the first place.
He's just going deeper.
He's still stuck in that well. Starving, delirious from thirst, clutching to a useless stick.
His eyes drift to the side. Landing on Assistaff, propped up on the wall. She's too far for him to touch. But he can feel her, he knows she's there.
“Ya ain't useless.. It's me, I hold ya back..”
Zanka frowns. Looking away.
“Sorry.”
Are you seriously talking to a stick right now?
Zanka shakes his head. Running a hand down his face, tangling his hair in his hands as he does.
He tries to think of anything, something to fill the silence somehow. But of course, he can't think of anything worthwhile. Nor anything that doesn't make the pit in his stomach larger.
“You can go all out too.”
Jabber was holding back. And Zanka still lost. Zanka tries to blink away the memories. Or maybe it's the tears he can feel burning underneath.
“Ya got another level, right?”
Zanka doesn't. He didn't, and he probably never will. Mediocre doesn't get another level.
“no way swingin’ that stick around is all you do, right!?”
But that is all Zanka does. He swings a stick around. That's all he's ever done.
That's all he can do.
Jabber was hoping for a better fight. Zanka knows that. He knows Jabber thinks Zanka is stronger than he really is.
“Maybe I shoulda chose one of the other cleaners..”
He chose Zanka.
Zanka let him down.
Zanka let everyone down.
He failed, again. Made everyone's lives harder.
He couldn't even do the only thing he's good at well enough to win. All he had to do was swing a stick, yet he lost, doing a task as simple as that.
You really are a failure.
Maybe he is. He lost to the same person twice. He disgraced his family. He held the other cleaners back.
“I won't die until I prove myself.”
Yeah right. Prove himself?
He's spent seventeen years trying that.
Yet here he is. Not even on first fucking base yet. He just keeps striking out, over and over and over.
He should know how the ball is gonna fly by now. But every single damn time, his bat hits the air, and the ball hits a glove.
Nothing you do will ever work.
He slowly sits up. Feeling his stomach twist and clench, the muscles remembering the blade in his stomach.
Proving yourself is a childish dream.
Zanka glances to the side. At the bedside table.
Somebody like you can never be good enough. Mediocre was an overstatement for somebody as useless as yourself.
There's a pill bottle sitting on the table. A ray of light making it look like it's almost glowing in the dark of the room. Zanka remembers Eisha setting it there before leaving, telling him to take one if the phantom pain got too bad.
You should just die already. It'd save everybody the trouble of knowing you.
Zanka stares at the bottle. The shadows slowly creeping up the walls around him. Itching to swallow him whole. Writhing and whispering, ready to close in the moment he lets them.
How kind of them to wait.
Zanka clenches his hands into fists. Eyes still stuck on the bottle.
“They would miss me, no?”
Only for a little while. Just imagine how great their lives would be without you.
“They'd be sad. If they found me.”
It'd be a relief. Knowing you finally left, for good.
“It'd be a burden to have a funeral.”
Being alive is no better. You burden them enough being here, show one final act of selflessness and leave.
“.. they would miss me.”
Quit lying to yourself.
Zanka looks up at Asisstaff. Her presence feels dim.
His hand closes around the bottle. The plastic is cold and hard.
The door is closed. It's late, nobody is awake right now. The room looks darker. The light outside flickers harshly, plunging Zanka in darkness for a split second.
The shadows look longer when the light comes back. Like they're slowly infecting the room.
Zanka looks back over at the bottle in his hands. The orange, slightly translucent casing shows that roughly half the bottle is full. The lid is screwed on tight.
Zanka unscrews it. Looking at the small, oval shaped pills. They're white, with small inscriptions in them.
His mouth feels dry. Everything around him feels like TV static washed over it. The shadows are getting worse.
His stomach flips. He can remember blood pouring out. Can remember the feeling of cold metal where cold metal should never touch.
He could feel the poison course through his veins. Could feel it slowly warp his vision, then poke and prod his brain, making him see shit he tried so hard to bury.
It burned. Felt like he dived headfirst into a pool of lava, and then lost the ability to swim. His limbs went numb. His body not listening to him at all.
All while Jabber stood over him. Watching. Like a predator that finally captured its prey.
He did, didn't he?
If it weren't for Riyo, Zanka wouldn't even be here right now.
He can never just save himself, can he?
Zanka grips the bottle. Feeling the sting of tears behind his eyes. His ears start ringing again.
He's still in the well, he's still that stupid little boy from all those years ago that thought he was better, when really, he was no better than the trash in a dump.
Useless. Broken, and weak.
Who could ever love trash?
Zanka squeezes his eyes shut. Willing the tears away. He can't cry, he's already weak enough as is, and now he's about to cry?
Disgusting.
How would Kyouka feel if she saw Zanka like this?
Disappointed. Disgusted. She'd probably look at him like he's nothing more than a broken tool.
He's little more than that, isn't he?
Goka wouldn't be any better. He probably wouldn't even look at Zanka. He'd talk to the wall, like that was more of a person than Zanka would ever be, like that was more worthy his gaze than his own little brother.
It probably is. Isn't it?
At least it supports an entire building. It stands strong, pushing its weight, helping the group.
And what does Zanka do?
Tear everyone else down? Hold them back? Make things infinitely harder?
He's worth less than a wall. Less than two pieces of drywall bolted together with some paper over it.
Seriously, just how pathetic could he possibly get?
How does a living, breathing human offer less than a wall?
His own brother probably wouldn't even look at him. Probably wouldn't even say his name.
His sister probably doesn't even see him as human anymore. Just a useless tool. Enjin said she visited.
What did she think when she saw him?? Zanka doesn't wanna know. It had to be bad. It had to be horrible. There's no way it wasn't. He ran away from home just to fail again, there's no way she thought anything good about seeing him.
Zanka runs a hand through his hair. Pulling at the strands. His other hand flexes around the pill bottle.
If he waits too long, they might wake up.
If he doesn't hurry, it might not work.
He can't fail again.
How pathetic would it be to fail at killing yourself?
“That wouldn't kill ya, ya know? You'd throw your guts up though. Might feel like you're dead after that.”
A familiar laugh. The voice sends chills up Zanka's spine. The clink of the rings he knows is on every finger makes his skin prickle.
He drops the pill bottle, whipping his head around. Only to be met with hot pink eyes inches from his own cerulean ones. Zanka almost yells, but a hand clamps over his mouth.
“Shhh! shh-shh-shh.. quiet, bad attitude. I don't feel like high tailin’ it outta here if ya wake up the entire Cleaner HQ.”
Zanka freezes. He blinks. But he doesn't get much time to think, because Jabber doesn't shut up for long.
“But anyway. I can't have ya dyin’ on me, Zanka. You still haven't given me that beat down I've been itchin’ for. So, you gotta stay kickin’, ‘aight?”
Zanka feels his eye twitch. Before he can think, his fist makes contact with Jabber's nose. Jabber makes a noise that sounds like a mix of a moan and a groan.
Zanka doesn't give Jabber time to recover. He pounces on him, trying to pin his arms and legs down. But of course, Jabber fights back.
Zanka grabs onto some of Jabber's hair, yanking it hard. Jabber jabs his fingers into Zanka's sides in return. The bed creaks as the two throw each other around, hands grappling for purchase on one another, hair being yanked, old wounds and bruises being pressed and new ones being made.
Eventually, Zanka ends up on top. His knees digging into Jabber's arms, his shins holding Jabber's legs down. His hands around Jabber's throat. Jabber is grinning up at him, not trying to buck him off.
Zanka is panting softly. He isn't squeezing. His hands are just resting there, holding. He feels sick.
But the emptiness is gone. He can think clearly, and things don't feel so horrible anymore. Zanka leans down. Tears finally spilling down his face, dripping onto Jabber's.
“Why are you here.. why is it always me?”
Jabber tilts his head a little. Their foreheads press together.
“Because I know you can take it.”
Zanka closes his eyes. Then he leans closer, his lips pressing against Jabber's. Just as his hands tighten, squeezing, digging his nails into the flesh.
Jabber's breathing hitches. But he kisses back. His hands twitching under Zanka's knees.
The kiss is far from nice. Teeth clack together, lips are bitten till they bleed, and both of their tongues get bitten by the other at least once.
Zanka pulls back a few minutes later, panting worse than before. He keeps his forehead pressed against Jabber's. Feeling their breathing mix in the charged air between them.
He can taste the metallic twinge of blood on his lips. Jabber is flushed, and looks more content than a cat who caught the mouse. It ticks Zanka the fuck off.
“I hate you, so fucking much.”
“Yeah yeah. I know, Mr. bad attitude.. squeeze a little harder for me?”
“Fucking freak.”