Work Text:
Control.
Control.
And.
Focus.
Zanka doesn't hate food. The world would be a simpler, easier ordeal if that was the case. If he could just turn off desire. Some aching, bone deep hole in the gut. No, Zanka doesn't restrict with some aching desire to shrink into the cracks in the walls.
Hunger is…measurable.
It's simple. It's biology. Arithmetic. Hunger is something, one thing, one thing in this world he can win against.
Zanka likes to win. Craves the win.
Zanka learned pretty early on that one thing worse than a traitorous body is a traitorous mind. It chews him whole, some days. Zanka sees himself and highlights the ugly parts. It's too soft in some places. Too curved when he wants angles. Chest, a double-dotted punctuation he didn't ever consent to. Rounded, disgustingly rounded, even when the numbers drop. The world reads the evidence before he even opens his mouth and speaks accordingly.
So Zanka, ever the problem solver, thinks: that's fine. If I can't control the engine, I'll control the fuel.
You can't dismantle a vehicle, stick it back together with spit and spare parts and expect to survive the rocky roads. But you can lower your foot on the gas, find the bite and roll out in control governed by you and only you.
Just like that, restriction becomes a handle, a lever. A logical cycle. The gear-shift he can grab and move in time with the gas. If softness feels like vulnerability then it'll be removed. Amputated. Less body is equal to less vulnerability, then. It's a mathematical equation. Shrinking becomes safety. If curves feel like wrong waiting to happen then Zanka will stick to the straight roads, flat planes read as masculine anyway. Erasure; the fastest route.
And so what? So what if destabilization sits shotgun with an ever judgmental gaze. So what if Zanka becomes colder, angrier, more brittle around the edges. It does not matter because Zanka is chasing androgyny, yes, but also predictability. Jumping through enough hurdles, winning enough races, to land in a safety net.
Zanka's grip shakes on Assistaff and she hums, weaker, in some kind of kindred-spirit of shared exhaustion.
"Don't start, girl" Zanka says. Because he can't afford it now. Not when he's so close. Not when Jabber's stumbling in the bloody aftermath and Zanka's so close, so, so close to the win. Ignore the shakes. Ignore them. Zanka remains ignorant in favor of slamming his foot on the gas.
Zanka swings, hard, or as hard as he can manage. And suddenly, he feels everything all at once. Zanka is weightless. Light and free and flat. Not burdened by weight or stackable numbers counted between stray chews.
And in that-
In that, Zanka forgets about how small the world shrinks when hunger comes a main character.
"Zanka, do you copy?" Enjin said it as a joke, waving his hand gently in Zanka's eye line as they all sit at the messy excuse for a dinner table. Plates piled high with various sources.
Zanka says 'yeah' before he registers the actual question being asked. It's easier, that way, to phrase it as a spacey moment. Several blink-and-you'll-miss-it seconds where he can excuse his absence in easy lies. Zanka was thinking about the mission earlier. Zanka was thinking about training. 'Yeah' and 'sure' and calculated nods.
It's easier. Because the truth is that he was eyeing the plate in front of him and mentally calculating. Adding up, under the table, behind his eyes. Attempting to live with a normal exterior when what lies beneath is something more controlled. Oiled and working so long as he counts and cuts accordingly. There's a way these things work. Something that makes him tick. If he eats now, then he can't eat later. He can work with the illusion of normality. The little anxieties stacking up throughout the day are manageable when you're in control. Zanka counts them up, the food, the fear that isn't fear, the control, the focus. Adds them up and draws lines underneath and carries the zeros. All in his head.
He tracks things. Wins need tracking. Numbers need tracking. Dates need tracking. There are things the body does on schedule, a speedometer in eye line. Predictable. Cyclical. Maybe even annoying.
And so what if Enjin is speaking, still. Zanka looks present enough. No one will notice.
Speaking of dates.
Zanka washes his hair and then his face then his body. Careful drags of a cloth around tender ribs. They're painted with little discolored, purpling spots around the chest, the back, the places the binder digs in. It's layered like concrete blocks. Bones with no meat. Pressed under fabric and wrapped. There's nowhere for the pressure to go so it stays and it aches, even when he's taken his top off.
"Ah, ah," quiet, under the breath little grunts as he wraps a towel around his waist, then hesitates and wraps it higher on his chest too. Zanka quickly goes back to his room and cradles the tender spot, left ribs, backside, with one hand angled up to cushion. It doesn't help, but it felt supportive to have warm sitting in the achy place at some point. It's not warmth anymore, chronic cold hands, but that's neither here nor there.
Zanka tracks, the tracking is established. It's part of the control. Part of the routine. He tracks even now, as he stands there, rib still held, and stares down the neat, ticked off little calendar on the wall of his room.
Tracks.
Tracks.
Tracks.
Zanka blinks at the wall with this zoned out, bodily detachment. And realizes, again, lining up the numbers and drawing a line and carrying the zeros and-
Zanka's…late.
The body, a well oiled machine.
Feminine-coded questions. In reality, it's biology. It's science. It's someone looking at you with soft eyes and a gentle voice and asking what you've been up to. The brain doesn't consider it that way, or at least, Zanka's doesn't.
Zanka falls into a hole and doesn't bother climbing out, this time. Because when you weigh the pros and cons it feels like victory to hit the bottom. Bleeding stops, and there's less evidence of 'femaleness'. Less reminded. To Zanka, it's one less thing he has to count, which is handy in a world of numbers and numbers and numbers.
Of course part of him feels affirmed. Of course, he does. The bleeding felt like betrayal, something else he fought a losing battle against. A monthly flare that says something about him he doesn’t want broadcast. In its absence, there's peace.
Zanka is weightless. Light and free and-
Back to the fight, he sees his life in several, humiliating bursts, before he crashes to the ground on shaky, baby-animal legs-
When your system, the one that's worked so well, the one that's controlled and functional and built on mental math and calculated meal-times, fails, who do you call?
A doctor.
A mechanic.
A vet.
"Fightin' ain't fun when you're weak like this."
Jabber says it like he wants to leave. But he stays. Stays and forces water from Zanka's flask down his throat in some bid to stop the shaking he doesn't understand.
Jabber pokes and prods and tries to untangle it, sure, ever the scientist. Tilts his head like a cat in some vague attempt and understanding why his favorite fight's suddenly died. Like the oxygens been cut off from a candle flame.
Zanka wants control. In a moment where everything crumbles, that's all he craves.
"I stopped bleedin'."
He says it casually, like it's a flex. Like it's evidence, plain as day, that something in this world still works.
What he really means is: I pushed myself far enough that my body fought back.
Again.
He's real good at pushing.
Jabber-
Jabber thinks that's lame.
It's not like Zanka is expecting affirmation from Jabber. The best thing about him is his indifference. There's no world where Jabber claps him on the back, tells him he's made it, gets him an 'it's a boy' balloon and a pair of boxers and welcomes him to the 'man-cave'.
But indifference. Spare Zanka indifference. Please.
"And what?" Jabber says instead. "What? You think das tough? You think I'm gonna celebrate less bleeding," he huffs, "Zan-ka, you got Jabber all wrong."
Then, worse than affirmation and indifference combined, Jabber whips out a curveball. Something to twist the whole thing like clay. Warped and stretched in the palms. Jabber grabs the wheel from the passenger side and rears off to the left.
"Y'body's throwin' a tantrum," almost introspective, "shutting down when we fight 'cause you think it makes you a big man. It ain't sexy. It's just a waste."
A waste.
Jabber continues, reading Zanka's mind like a worn out old book. Knowing him down to the bone marrow as a byproduct of the most intimate thing they've shared between them. Blood, sweat, ugliness.
"You wanna lose blood?" Jabber gestures to his own chest with a stabbing finger, "you lose it with me. Not 'cause you skipped breakfast."
Then, oh then:
"You owe me the pleasure of killin' you. It's mine. Your body ain't gonna dictate no terms with Jabber."
Right.