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You get used to noise when you live amongst trash. And now is no different. The sounds of near constant movement under weighty, scrap metal strain. Wind scrapes through stacked debris. The people, their own kind of noise, some distant far off argument punctuates the occasional metallic screech.
Zanka perches on some half-bent railing, or what once was one, sticking halfway out a brick wall overrun with trash. One foot braced against the frame as he stares out into the mess off it all with this twitchy disdain.
Footsteps interrupt the wallowing, brooding. Fast and uncareful enough that he hears them before he sees them. And, with that, Jabber's suddenly hop, skip, jumping and planting himself beside him.
"Thought you was dead," Zanka says without looking over. Muses, really. It's not an unrealistic thought. Several days without Jabber's voice spitting through the choker and Zanka can't help but assume he's kicked the bucket. It's one of those quiet truths in their messy world.
Jabber just snorts.
"Not today."
He's smiling like he always does, enough that you could almost mistake it for his resting expression. Zanka's cracked the code, though. There's different tells. One grins when they're hurt and they grin when they're happy and they grin when they're sad and there just has to be a tell. Even with Jabber Wonger and his expert display of faux-nonchalance.
Now, he's smiling in the way he always does after a fight. Grin all wide and showing teeth, like joy mixed in with that thing animals do where they puff up in an attempt to look all scary. And with that weird grin is a split on his lip, yes, dried blood all splattered across his knuckles, and pupils blown into fat little saucers.
Zanka notices. Of course Zanka notices. He's done pretending not to, it gives him a real fat migraine.
Still, he doesn't comment. And Jabber doesn't comment. One of the few things either of them can be honest about is their own astute refusal to mingle with the touchy-feely shit. Instead, they just sit there a while with a silence that isn't quite comfortable and isn't quite not. Like this declaration, this truce, that gets ripped to shreds the second one breathes wrong.
Jabber breaks it. Ever the breaker-of-truces.
"Y'ever think about it?"
Jabber flattens both of his palms either side of himself, against the rough part of the exposed concrete, and starts to idly rub them back and forth over the grit.
Zanka bites, "'bout what."
"How this ends."
Zanka nods, bites his lip a little and thinks for all of five seconds-
"Pretty sure I'll kill ya eventually."
Jabber laughs, sharp and delighted, hands moving in slightly quicker little motions as he sighs all dreamily into the pain and the messed up romance of the promise.
"Yeah."
He says it like it's a fond hope for the future. The city will awaken with hustle and bustle. The sky will turn a seasick green come sunrise. And Zanka Nijiku will kill Jabber Wonger.
Then the laughter trails off.
"You should probably stop hangin' round me. 'Til the day you're ready to keep that promise."
Zanka raises an eyebrow. "That so?"
"Yeah."
"Why you bein' all introspective and shit?"
Jabber shrugs like he means it. "I'm bad news."
"No shit."
Zanka huffs at his own joke, but Jabber isn't joking. He's just staring out at their crap field world, beyond it, at something only he can see.
Then, "shit around me jus' gets worse."
"'Cause you always startin' fights."
"Not-not just that. Not just that, Zanka."
Zanka watches as Jabber lifts his hands up to inspect the damage. He's scraped them raw on the concrete. Jabber observes the abrasions with interest, like inspecting a bug. Then presses his thumb into one like he's checking if it still hurts.
It does. Heh.
Then settles his hands down again, backs down, and scrapes the knuckles instead.
"Sometimes I think I jus' like to ruin things," Jabber mutters, "people. Places. Whatever."
Zanka tilts his head.
"So what? You tryna apologize?"
"Pfft, fuck no-"
Jabber looks over at Zanka with this weird expression. Mania dulled to something rawer, realer.
"I'm just say-ing," Jabber starts like he's got the math down in his head, "you stick around me long enough? Grow all fond and shit?"
He shrugs lazily.
"Then you gonna hesitate when that time comes. A-and Jabber will have to kill you, instead."
Jabber sniffs. A quiet little laugh under his breath that’s probably involuntary.
"And it would suck. A real party pooper."
Zanka blinks. Jabber talks as if the future is short, coming quickly, a car with the gas pressed low. Like he's already given himself the power of deciding where and when. Zanka knows that better than he'd ever admit.
"Y'think I don't regret this already?" Zanka says honestly, "why don't you stop."
"Man, fuck you-"
"No, I'm askin'. If you're such a disaster, then leave."
Jabber grins. Wide and sly and weird. Like a catch light, bouncing off a blade. That's what Jabber is, isn't it? Half nihilism, half coping mechanism. If everything burns eventually, then you might as well enjoy the fire.
"Heh, can't."
"Why."
Jabber finally pulls his hands up and looks at them, again. They're bloody on both sides now.
"'Cause this is fun."
He wipes his whole palm down Zanka's jacket with no hesitation and Zanka shoves him. It only works to momentarily throw Jabber, swinging back and forth before he's leaning back in until their shoulders almost touch.
"You know it is, Zan-ka," Jabber does this breathy, quiet laugh, "that's why you ain't left yet, neither."
Then, because Jabber's got a really funny way of 'leaving', of staying, of caring, of not caring at all, he leans his head on Zanka's shoulder, so his hair brushes Zanka's back and his weight presses just enough that Zanka has to consciously adjust to accept it.
“You ever think we’re gonna look back and realize we had something good for like… five minutes?”
Zanka wonders if he's on something. Probably.
"You ain't makin' sense."
"Yeah."
Jabber adjusts. Zanka adjusts. They both adjust and neither pushes the other away even though they should.
"I'm just sayin'… if all this crashes n' burns tomorrow-"
He looks up at Zanka.
"At least the ride was good."
And then he smears his bloody mouth all over Zanka's shoulder.
"Ew!"