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The alley is frigid, each one of her breaths forming a cloud in front of her face as she leans against the wall of the dingy apartment building.
A woman walks up to her, brown tendrils of dark hair hanging from her face and swinging below, snowflakes visible in the collections of hair.
She leans on the wall a little away from her, pulling a black lighter out of her pocket and lighting a cigarette, the scent of rot from nearby dumpsters mixing with the scent of putrid clouds of smoke as the woman exhales. Wordlessly, the woman offers it to her after her hit, with tender hands she holds it in her fingers, pale and nimble compared to the other girls'.
Her lungs burn with the sensation as she inhales, watching as the tip of it burns bright yellow, a stark contrast to the dark environment around them. A slight chuckle leaves the woman next to her as she fails at her attempt at holding in, and coughs, each one wet and dragging a puff of smoke out of her; the flavor burns her tongue and lungs with just how horrible it is, the scent making it harder for her to come down. Remembering all of the times the other woman reminded her about not holding it, she figures that must have been what amused her, so she offers a mocking smile to the dark-skinned woman.
The laughing and coughing calms, and Zanka leans against the wall again, passing the cigarette back and allowing the cool air to prickle and numb her hands.
"So, why'd ya call me out here?" Jabber starts, taking a drag and glancing over, before exhaling and speaking again, "With the way your little crash out last time sounded, along with the radio silence, I thought you were done."
Crash out might have been an understatement, but Zanka doesn't really have much of a scale to go off of, swearing, cursing, tears, blood, the whole nine yards. She grimaces at the memory. God, she wanted to be done with Jabber. She had hoped that her shouting about how, even after they had been going well for months, she didn't care about her. By the way, Jabber instantly shows up to her late-night call, showing she failed. The small stick is pressed into her other hand, and the woman picks up her other. Jabber always ran warm; she was practically a human heater. Which wouldn't matter if she didn't constantly joke about how she is the perfect solution to Zanka's regular numbness, jokes that Zanka liked. She always acted as if she hated them, though. That was how it was supposed to be. She calls Jabber for a fight, a smoke, a tripsit, a makeout; it wasn't supposed to feel like anything. Zanka.. Didn't understand how romance was supposed to work. She was expected to have a husband, someone who was strong and would provide, because she was a Nijiuku, and since she, apparently, failed her parents so badly, she had to make it up with some guy. She never felt like any of her classmates. Didn't giggle at the guys, or even the other girls. She thought she had grown content with the thought of just having to live with a guy, pretend to be happy, but someone changed that.
"I used to be normal before I knew you."
It was something simple, almost disturbingly so. A raider plus a cleaner who still wishes her parents loved her makes for something weird.
"mm, yeah?" Jabber draws her hand up carefully, allowing the cloth to fall.
She presses warm lips to scarred skin, breathing in Zanka's scent for a moment before sighing and allowing the arm back down, fingers still entwined.
"Shut up." She thinks about taking her hand away and leaving right then, but even the thought burns.
"Realized I've been training myself for your fighting style. Realized that when I woke up hungover from my blackout, I had a pack of your brand of cigs in my hand and had smoked half the damn box. Realized I started getting whisky over beer because it tastes how your lips do. Realized I started looking at knives I'm thrift shops or that I found, and thinking about how close to Mankira's they seemed. You run my fucking life. And I think I'm too deep to do anything about it. Fuck.."
The words fall out of her mouth before she can stop them. A mess of emotion erupts from her tongue as her hands tighten, crumbling the cigarette in her grasp, before she lets it fall to the ground and brings her hand to her head, allowing it to rest on her forehead.
"You're an asshole for leaving." Jabber's voice is firm yet soft as she looks forward, eyes following the lines of the ground that make up the tall walls of the building in front of them.
"Yeah." Zanka sighs.
"Two months, seven days, I thought you'd either died or really hated me."
"I got scared, I guess. Needed some time to think."
Jabber turns to her, without the normal excited expression, and she looks oddly empty. "What happened to being alone together? Fucking, don't even worry about it. Take all the time in the fucking work for all I care. Cause Jabber doesn't worry. I don't care about anyone and have never had a feeling outside of kill kill!" She shakes her head, and her hand leaves Zanka's, moving to cross her arms and look away.
Zanka glances at her face and down at ring-clad hands.
"I'm sorry."
Jabber lets out a long breath and makes an odd humming noise. She had a plethora of those. Zanka recognizes this as a displeased sound.
“Jabber.” The thought, no, the knowledge of knowing, she made her upset, hurt, hurts the same way being without her did.
The woman faces her and carefully places her hands on either side of the woman's face, cool and slender fingers causing goosebumps to rise in tan skin. Teal eyes stare into pink, she leans forward and presses a kiss to her lips. It isn't something heavy, a light peck that she backs away from after a mere moment. Her eyes are soft, desperate in a way that Zanka would never let anyone else see.
Jabber takes a breath and dives. Her arms pull around the other woman's waist, one traveling up her back. She kisses hungrily, the tease of Zanka's lips, the taste of her lover is addictive, her warmth, the small noises of contentment as Jabber deepens the kiss, oh god, she had missed it so. Her tongue digs deeper, the other woman having opened her mouth in slight shock when Jabber had initiated the kiss, and she feels as Zanka lets herself succumb to the onslaught of attention and sensations. Their positions change slightly as she puts Zanka's back against the wall; her hands move to Jabber’s shoulders. Jabber takes the opportunity to run her hands along her sides. Zanka by no means wears revealing clothing. Jabber slips her hands under the woman's coat and uses a firm grasp to trace along prominent ribs, drawing a shiver out of the girl. She moves her head back, separating the kiss and drawing a pathetic noise out of Zanka.
“If you ever leave me..” She pants slightly out of breath from the kiss, “I'm gonna find ya and I'm gonna fucking kill ya.” Staring into Zanka's blown eyes, the other woman nods, wordless for a moment.
How was Jabber so pretty? She uses a hand to move some of the dreadlocks out of the other woman's face, a motion much too soft for the words that are being exchanged, but she wonders if she will ever get to wash her hair for her.
“Same for you, Wonger.”