Chapter Text
Despite having precautions and friends who didn’t care about what he was, Jabber was still isolated from the world around him. Did that keep him from being loud and obnoxiously himself? Absolutely not.
Jabber was a confident guy, one most would apply the word obnoxious to. Despite that, he was well-liked but not often trusted, and that was for one big reason.
He happens to turn people into stone when he looks at them…
Now, he didn’t like it much more than the statues did, but he made the best of a bad situation. He made friends with the snakes attached to him, and they were typically well-behaved. They even stayed back in loose buns and ponytails most of the time. It was a symbiotic relationship, and generally Jabber was happy.
But a relationship with snakes that were quite literally stuck to him was not the same as having a relationship with an actual person. But as he mentioned before, no one exactly likes to stay close by.
That was until Zanka.
Zanka was his angel both figuratively and literally. Jabber's powers as a gorgon reach just about anyone, but they don’t reach the blind, the immortals or the gods, which, for whatever reason, extends to angels. With angels and gods being closely related and often thought of as accompanying each other, gods passed down many of their abilities to angels, especially one’s in higher ranking, one of them being immunity from certain powers. However, Jabber didn’t know that when he met Zanka.
And Jabber was thrilled when he found out this information.
Jabber had suffered a year at his monster college and moved into his second year when Zanka made his appearance. Angels were rare, not often spotted outside of their own territory, hidden away in a forest. For one to make an appearance most likely meant they were cast away or, in less likely cases, ran away.
It made sense just how many people gawked after Zanka in his first year. Despite the school being filled with mysticals, he still had everyone caught in a trance, and Jabber was no exception.
The gods must have heard his prayers since he and Zanka were paired together in a project. At the first meeting, Zanka kept staring at Jabber like he’d grown a second head. Well… a 20th head might be more accurate with all the snakes.
“What do you keep staring at there, Zan-zannn?” Jabber finally asked one afternoon.
It took Zanka a moment to answer, as if he was debating within himself.
“Just wondering what you look like without those things covering your eyes.” He answered in earnest.
Jabber scoffed in reply, “I’m sure you are, but no one can handle finding out; they all turn to stone at the sight of my beautiful eyes.” A couple of his snakes lifted their heads at the mention.
Zanka hummed, and Jabber turned back to his work. He wished he had a different answer for people when they asked, but that was the simple truth. Jabber could never look someone in the eyes without his shades on. He’d never really get to see the shade of their skin or the hue of their eyes. Jabber’s reminded of that fact every day he sits in bed and forces himself to place his glasses on for the day.
Then he saw movement out of the corner of his eyes and was just a fraction of a second too late. Zanka's hand reached for the arms of his glasses and pulled them from his face. Instantly, his hand flew to his face, dropping the pen he was holding. His snakes broke through the elastic previously holding them and were now hissing furiously at Zanka, but the damage was done. Jabber had glanced into those perfect blue eyes and was too scared to see the damage he already knew occurred.
“Jabber, look at me,” a voice called out
But that wasn’t right. Zanka couldn’t speak if he was turned to stone. He should be stone. Maybe he was fast enough to catch it before the effects took hold of Zanka. Still in his surprise of hearing Zanka's voice, Jabber peeked out from behind his hands and met Zanka's quiet smile.
“What the hell is happening?” Jabber muttered as Zanka remained exactly the way he was.
Zanka just huffed out a laugh and pulled at Jabber's wrists, removing the hands that were still on his face.
“Can’t turn an angel, didn’t you know that?” He muttered sarcastically.
Jabber in earnest just gaped at Zanka, finally looking at someone not through a lens.
“Oh, and I’m sure being blind helps with that too,” Zanka spoke as if it were an afterthought.
But that didn’t make any sense. Zanka's eyes were vibrant blue and always set in focus. They had no indication of blindness to them. Zanka moved perfectly fine around campus, didn’t have to feel braille to read textbooks or have auditory projects. Jabber should know since he was working on a written project with Zanka right now!
“Ah,” sensing Jabber's confusion and clearly linking it to his appearance, Zanka decided to help the man out a bit.
In the blink of an eye, his deep-set blue eyes turned milky white, and two new sets of wings found their way behind his back, along with his original set. The top two wings briefly came up to protect Zanka's eyes before falling behind him again. And finally, two pairs of eyes, one pair settling above his original eyes and one settling below, matching the same blue irises that now made themselves known on a six-ring halo above Zanka's head.
Jabber couldn’t help but stare. Zanka laughed in amusement. He’d managed to shut Jabber up and the snakes that retreated ever so slightly at the new appearance.
“I am blind by your typical standards, the cost of evading my family in the holy land, but the other ones make up for what I cannot see with only two. Perks of being a seraphim, I guess. Plus, the transformation and stuff, it’s all really complicated, actually,” Zanka went on, and Jabber was sure there were things beyond his feeble comprehension. He didn’t even clock that he dropped the absolute bomb that was him being seraphim, but he’d pay for that later.
But that didn’t matter. What did matter was that Jabber could see Zanka. Could look at Zanka and stare at him until he memorized every single detail of Zanka. And Jabber took it all in, and for once in his life, he did it very, very slowly, going over every detail 4 times over. The stupidly fair skin that a poet would describe as porcelain. The deep-set blue in the 40 doe eyes that were following his every move. The stupidly soft-looking feathers that kept shaking out from what Jabber assumed was from being tucked away for so long.
He must've stared at the wings for a little too long because Zanka's many eyes all hardened like he was glaring at the gawking students.
“Don't even think about it,” Zanka spat out, pulling his wings further behind him, folding them close to his back.
The sudden hostility snapped Jabber out of his trance; he'd fallen into a grin splaying across his lips. “Ooh, sensitive about your little wings there, Z?” Zanka visibly shivered; it spurred Jabber on.
“Cmon Zan, let me feel those delectable wings, and you can make friends with some of my snakeys,” Jabber taunted in a low voice, his snakes snaking down to get closer to Zanka.
For a moment, Zanka hesitated, but his deposition didn't change. “No, you are not allowed to touch them. No one is,” and in yet another blink, all the amazingly unique features disappeared, and Zanka was back to his normal form.
Jabber just stuck out his tongue but didn't push. Certain attributes were special to certain species and often weren't trusted in the hands of others. For Jabber, it was his snakes; for Zanka, it was apparently his wings. Jabber was an asshole, but not that much of an asshole.
~
For the next couple of weeks, Zanka and Jabber kept meeting up even after their project had been handed in – which they got nearly 100 on, thank you very much – and ended up quite close. Between coffee runs to a cute little shop, Zanka was apparently acquainted with, because he'd basically wretched every time they passed some big coffee enterprises. And the random walks around town when Zanka said the campus was too stuffy to stay on, they argued just about every day. But that didn't keep them from trusting each other more than others. Zanka switched forms more often the more they hung out privately, and Jabber’s snakes – who were mean to everyone – started to warm up to Zanka, slithering their way onto his shoulder when they'd sit beside each other.
Most of the time, they'd study together considering their shared classes. Despite Jabber’s annoying tendencies, he sure knew how to shut up and study. Sometimes even geniuses had to study. Zanka was good at straightforward logic, things that had set answers, calculus, for example. Jabber was better at thinking outside the box, finding answers out of thin air and subjects that didn't always have an exact answer, things that could be debated about. They helped each other out, though being top students in their class – Zanka having been moved up to second year classes despite being in his first year – everyone had their own areas of struggles.
It was… nice.
Then Jabber caught himself staring for too long. Watching the way Zanka's wings would flutter and tense like any other muscle in his body. How much he actually laughed when no one was watching. How those doe eyes would stare at his wings with something sad, like he was missing something.
Jabber started noticing things he never thought he'd be able to see in a person.
That specific shade of red that ran down from the tips of Zanka's ears to his neck when he got flustered. The small moles that Jabber just managed to catch a glimpse of when the Zanka shirt rose up from stretching. The slight shimmer to the tips of Zanka's wings he wouldn't have been able to see through his lens’s.
And suddenly Jabber found himself falling in love.
So he did what any logical person did.
He ran.
He started avoiding Zanka at every turn, keeping his glasses on to avoid the specificities he would only ever see on Zanka. Chose different partners in class, skipped out on study dates times for the excuse of family things, speaking of a family he didn't even have. He completely removed himself from the situation he'd suddenly found himself in.
He'd been trying to ignore it for weeks. Since the first time he saw Zanka with his bare eyes, really. That gnawing feeling that Zanka was different and not just in the way Jabber could really look at him. In this way, Zanka wouldn’t shy away from Jabber, not just because he wasn't afflicted by the idea of being turned into stone, but also because he wouldn't shy away from the fight Jabber gave him. Wouldn't run when Jabber admitted one too many things about himself. Would fight him when he asked him to. Zanka was different in every way possible, but Jabber didn't want to acknowledge that.
He didn't want to have to deal with what that meant.
The possibility that Jabber didn't have to be alone all his life, as he'd accepted long ago. That someone could keep up with him and not get tired of it, instead, encourage it. That someone could love like him the way he did them. Unresolved, messy, undying and obsessed.
That thought alone horrified something deep inside Jabber, and he didn't know what to do with it.
So he did the only thing he knew and got high. He went to parties just because he knew Zanka wouldn't be at them. He started to skip lectures because he knew Zanka wouldn't dare. Started spending time strictly on the school campus because Zanka hated it; he wouldn't stay to check for Jabber. Started ditching his favourite coffee for some shitty coffee enterprise because he knew Zanka wouldn't dare step foot in one of them.
Jabber did all these things because he knew Zanka wouldn't. Jabber hated that he knew Zanka that much to completely reform his life around what Zanka hated. He hated that he knew Zanka that well.
No one ever piqued Jabber's interest long enough for him to care. No one ever even tried to stick around long enough for him to try. Not even his parents. Some shitty afair broke them up when he was born, his mom fucked some guy who apparently was a gorgon. 9 months later, Jabber comes around with snakes on his head and a statued doctor and his dad connects the dots. Takes off with Jabber when his mom becomes too unstable to keep around and raises Jabber surrounded by substances because he couldn't care that much about another man's child.
So Jabber ran from that to. Not that his dad gave him much choice, running off as soon as Jabber was competent enough not to die the first day he was alone.
Jabber got sober because he knew his parents wouldn't. Protected people from himself because he knew they wouldn't care enough to. Got himself into college because he knew they wouldn't help him. Isolated himself from people because he knew they were right. That he was a monster made from lust and hate.
There was nothing sweet about him.
Now Jabber was back to when he was a kid, surviving off poisons he made himself because any typical drug doesn't work on him. Keeping himself from anyone who could remotely help him and running from his problem that came in the form of love. And Jabber survived.
~
Jabber survived like that for weeks. Dodging the demon with fiery red hair, a garmr with frosted hair tips mimicking the natural fur one would carry, and a psychopomps with large yellow wings matching his hair, all demanding answers. Had they been anyone else, Jabber would have flashed them a quick glance and frozen them to stone, but they were clearly close to Zanka, and despite his need to run from Zanka, Jabber didn't want to hurt him anymore.
Then it came crashing down.
Jabber, stoned out of his mind, went stumbling into his room after a particularly hard day that he finished off with a nasty frat party that left more than a few people completely incapacitated, including Jabber if he were any normal monster like the werewolves, witches and vampires. But he wasn’t, so he managed to scrape by. Or so he thought.
Hastily, he found his bed and quickly collapsed into it, staring up at the ceiling like it might give him an answer to a question he hadn't even asked yet. Zanka would've probably known; he was rational like that. Knew how to worm an answer out of you without you knowing what you were admitting.
Fuck, Zanka.
And without warning, there were warm tears running down Jabber's face. At first, he didn't even notice them, but then they started falling faster, and Jabber started to have a hard time breathing. Naturally, Jabber sat up, grasping at his hoodie with one hand and hurriedly wiping away tears with the other, but it just wouldn't stop.
By the time Jabber realized what was going on, it was way too late. His heart rate kicked into high gear, his entire body shook profusely, and his whole body felt cold despite being covered in sweat. Jabber barely even made it to the garbage can with the dizziness before he was emptying what felt like everything he had eaten all week. His whole body convulsed even after the heaves started coming up dry.
Jabber noticed the lack of snakes hanging beside him but didn't think much of it.
A few more minutes of just sitting over the garbage can, heaving straight stomach aside and any saliva Jabber managed to swallow down, he finally started clearing up.
“Shh, it's ok, you're ok, Jab” was the first thing he heard, and then Jabber swore he was hallucinating. He knew that damn voice, but it was way too comforting to really give a shit about right now.
“Here, sit down,” the voice helped Jabber sit down against the wall, letting go of his snakes, who curled off of his wrist reluctantly.
Jabber whined when he retreated into a direction Jabber was definitely too disoriented to recognize. He was met with a promise that he would just be a second. But with the lightheadedness that took over as Jabber tried to catch his breath, his now overly heated body and palpitating heart a second felt like a goddamn hour before he came back.
When he finally did return, he crouched in front of Jabber, holding a glass of water out to Jabber and after weeks of avoiding those bold blue eyes and milky white ones, they finally met Jabber’s own again.
Gently, Zanka smiled as he lifted the glass to Jabber’s mouth, tilting it to help him take careful sips. There was Zanka in his full, gorgeous form, helping Jabber drink water after he just puked his guts out because he got too high. Jabber could never measure up to the grandeur of Zanka, yet here he was taking pity on Jabber and helping him out even after avoiding him for just over a month.
When Zanka hesitantly pulled the glass away, Jabber only had one thing on his mind.
“I'm so sorry, Z,” he managed to mutter out, sounding more broken than he expected he would.
Zanka, for all his glory, simply smiled back at Jabber, a sweet smile that could make cities fall in love with him by a single glance. “Tell me that when you're not greening out on your own damn drug,” he muttered with amusement tacked on.
Jabber just hummed with a small smile as he tilted his head back against the wall, his snake’s finding purchase draped over his shoulders and bundled on his head. Despite his racing heart that wouldn't slow, either from the drugs or the fact Zanka was right in front of him and the general confusion Jabber was experiencing at the moment – still not entirely believing Zanka wasn't just a hallucination – Jabber found himself quite comfortable leaning against the cool wall. Maybe he should just sleep there…
“Oh no, you don't,” Zanka answered. Oh.. Jabber thought he thought that.
“Nope, I definitely said that outloud. That too, stupid.”Zanka answered with even more amusement.
When Jabber didn't answer a third time, not entirely in control of what stayed in his mind or went out his mouth, Zanka just huffed out a laugh and got up to place the glass down before turning to Jabber with an expectant look on his face and hands held out.
“Alright cmon let's get you up. I’m not letting you sleep on the floor even if you dodged me for a month.” Jabber all but flinched at the mention, Zanka took notice, “yeah maybe too soon,” he said, mostly to himself.
Carefully, Jabber reached out his arms and grabbed onto Zanka's wrists, and Zanka grabbed his. Together – mostly Zanka pulling – they managed to get Jabber standing. Admittedly, he was leaning heavily on Zanka, but he was still up on two feet. Zanka instructed Jabber to put his arm over his shoulder, and even in his state, Jabber was careful not to knock Zanka's top set of wings. His snakes apparently loved the close proximity, as the closest ones were nestling their heads through Zanka's hair and finding purchase on his shoulder. Zanka giggled a bit at the sight. Jabber almost died right then and there.
The walk to the bed felt more like a trek to get there, but they did it in the end. Zanka gently dropped Jabber onto the bed after pulling the blankets back and even placing some of the snakes onto his free hand to let them off his head and shoulder gently so they didn't just drop straight off. God couldn't make Zanka any better even if he tried.
Carefully, while Jabber was still sitting up, Zanka pulled off his sweater, leaving bare skin to the cool air of his room. Initially, Jabber shivered at the sudden rush of air but quickly melted into it when it eased his burning and sweating skin. It didn't do much for the shivering, but hey, beggars can't be choosers. Then Zanka gently guided Jabber down to his pillow and pulled the blankets over his legs and halfway up his torso.
At first, Jabber thought that would be the end of it, that Zanka would disappear and Jabber would have to find him in the morning, but Zanka sat down on the bed in front of Jabber, gently petting the snakes on his head. They were put to sleep easily by the constant comforting contact of cool skin and easily turned into a pile of noodles, essentially. Jabber wasn't far behind them, confusion and adrenaline wearing off, leaving Jabber yawning.
“I really am sorry, Zanka,” Jabber slurred lazily
Zanka's lips pressed into a smile yet again. “I know, Jabber, I know. Now get some sleep.”
Jabber just managed to catch Zanka's wrist when he stood up from the bed, clearly aiming for the door. “Stay?” Jabber asked quietly.
Zanka's eyes softened, and he lightly nodded his head. Jabber smiled something genuine at the acceptance and was instantly shuffling backwards until his back hit the wall. These beds were not necessarily built for two people, let alone two people and six wings. Still, Zanka climbed into bed in front of Jabber, quietly shifting to his typical form, draping one wing over Jabber and letting the other hang off the bed carefully. Finally, Zanka pulled Jabber's hand to his mouth and kissed his knuckles.
“Go to sleep, we'll talk in the morning,” Zanka whispered against his hand like a prayer and dammit if that wasn't good enough for Jabber.
Soon after, Jabber's breathing evened, and Zanka watched him through hazy eyes. Jabber really just one big mystery, wasn't he? Zanka smiled to himself. Yeah, well, now he was his mystery.
Zanka fell into a peaceful sleep for once after a month of restlessness, a smile still playing on his lips.
They'd be ok.