Chapter Text
“You’re staying here.” Jabber can’t see the expression he’s making through his mask, but the solemn tone of his voice lets him know that this wasn’t something he’d be persuaded on. Jabber tries anyway.
“Why?! I’m fine! I’m walkin’ and talkin’, ain’t I? Good enough to fight!” He almost yells, but they’re too close to Tori, and though he’s frustrated, he’s not dumb enough to trigger the King of this land before they’ve even set foot in it.
“Jabber, you threw yourself off a moving vehicle. I don’t give a damn if you’re talking, ‘cause that could just as easily change in the next few minutes. This is a No Man’s Land, and I won’t risk you dying ‘cause you came in already injured. You’re staying here, and Fu is gonna stay here with you to keep you safe, right, Fu?” He turns to the ex-raider, who doesn’t flinch under his dark voice.
“I already told ya, it’s Hii.” He huffs, crossing his arms, yet he nods anyway. “But if those are my orders, then yeah, I’ll keep ‘im safe. Promise.” He holds a hand over his chest, making sure to meet Enjin’s masked gaze.
“That promise will mean a lot more when we come back to him and see that he’s alive, so make sure you do your damndest to keep him from doing stupid shit, got it?” Another curt nod from Hii. “Good. We’ll be on our way, then, and when we come back, it’ll be with the information we need.” His announcement is one that bolsters the rest of the crew, with Rudo visibly perking up, so Jabber can’t bring himself to be too put out. At least, for the moment.
“Fine. Don’t be lame and die or some shit, got it? I don’t wanna hafta go in there and fight the info broker to avenge y’all asses, ‘cause he don’t seem like he play fair.” Heaving a tired sigh, he drops to the ground, leaning against the brick railing that lines the path to the entrance to Tori.
“You got it,” Enjin promises with a light chuckle, and he reaches down, holding out a fist. Jabber glares at it for a moment before lifting his own, and they meet in the middle.
“So…” Jabber starts not even five minutes later. “Hii, huh? What’s up with that?”
Hii shifts on his feet beside him, keeping a vigilant eye on their surroundings. Something about it has Jabber feeling a bit…odd. It’s a fluttering thing in his stomach, awkward and horribly distracting, but at least it wasn’t the dredges of the arousal he still felt within him from before. As loath as he was to admit it, there was a part of him that almost wished they hadn’t been interrupted.
Jabber blinks. Stares into space for a little. Closes his eyes.
What a ridiculous thought. Those are the ones he needs to keep away from, so he shakes his head firmly.
Hii glances down at him, eyes unreadable as he looks over Jabber. When he looks away, he sniffs. “I’m the doll hangin’ off Fu’s hip. I give ‘im orders when he ain’t got no one else to do it for ‘im, and I fight when he needs to.” He glances towards Tori. “‘S a pact we made; his body becomes mine when the situation calls for it, and Enjin asked us to get rid of the trash beasts followin’ y’all, then to find ya, so I did.” He phrases his answer as if it were simple, but it only raises more questions for Jabber, which he has no qualms asking, seeing as he currently has nothing better to do.
“When did the two a’ you meet? And how?”
Hii is quiet for a long moment. “...Better to ask Fu.”
“When will he be comin’ back then?”
“When all this is over, prolly.”
“Why not right now? Ain’t nothin’ happenin’ at the moment.”
“Yeah, but somethin’ might, so I gotta stay on guard, ‘cause if I let Fu come back now an’ somethin’ happens, he’ll freeze up, and that ain’t no good.”
Jabber scoffs without meaning to, rolling his eyes. “So what? It ain’t like I actually need protectin’. Don’t believe all of that bullshit Enjin was spoutin’—I can handle myself.”
“Yeah?” Hii looks at him again, tilting his head as he does so, and pinning Jabber with a raised eyebrow. There’s a note of something that might be amusement in his voice that has Jabber frowning irritably. Who the hell was this guy not to believe him? “Well, orders are orders, and I’m followin’ ‘em until I can’t, or I get new ones, so you’ll hafta get over it.”
Jabber pivots. “What is it with y’all and orders anyway?”
“What is it with you and all these questions?” Hii fires back, and before Jabber can respond, there’s a loud boom, deafening enough that it has Jabber flinching as he whips around to look at the entrances to Tori, then upward as birds go scattering from the trees. His heart stutters in his chest; there was only one trash beast in this No Man’s Land, and with good reason. Surely they weren’t dumb enough to go agitating it…
More booms, crashes, and other more worrying sounds emanate from the jungle, all of them having Jabber twitching with the urge to go see what was happening. He had spotted the Raider’s car parked right next to Kuro’s chariot at the entrance, so it wasn’t a far off assumption that they might be causing trouble too, but that just felt like all the more reason for Jabber to be in there with them, fighting them off instead of staying back here to miss out on all the fun.
Their boss looked strong as all hell, and Jabber was itching for a good fight, one that wouldn’t end with…with…
Unwittingly, his thighs clench, and he shakes his head again, hard enough for the beginnings of a headache to form.
“You good?” Hii’s voice reaches him through the brief haze of frustration that had fallen over him. Mankira was humming, too, upset with him for opting for a fistfight with Zanka rather than letting her envenomate him again. Hell, even just clashing with that staff again would have been enough for her, but Jabber wanted to see Zanka’s face bloodied again, wanted to see bruises littering his pale skin, and surely there would be marks from where Mankira connected with his cheek, so that should be enough, right?
But…but that was unnecessary. What Jabber needed to do was incapacitate him, nothing more and nothing less. It was good that Hii found them when he did.
“I’m fuckin’ bored,” Jabber answers, standing with a huff and firmly not swaying to the side. Hii frowns at him.
“Bossman told ya to stay here—”
“And I will, promise, I’m just…stretchin’ my legs, since you carried me all the way here.” He doesn’t quite glare at Hii as much as he narrows his eyes for the sake of scrutinizing the ex-raider. “Why’d you do that anyway? And how the hell didn’t you get tired? I know I ain’t light, and you don’t look all that jacked…” Absently, his gaze roves over Hii’s—Fu’s—jacket. Abruptly, he realizes that it was open now, where it had been zipped up to Fu’s neck before, and he can see the defined set of his collarbone.
“Fu is more athletic than he looks, and you ain’t as heavy as you think ya are.” Jabber hums in answer as he starts walking, in a circle at first, then toward the raider’s parked car. Hii follows close behind him, gaze hot on his back. Damn. There went his plan to make a break for it into the jungle. At least, for right now. There was no way in hell he was gonna let himself stay stuck here for much longer, not when he could see the plants that ached to be collected and made into a concoction. Not when there was a trash beast that needed taking care of, and a huge one at that. He obviously wasn’t allowed to travel to a No Man’s Land alone, but Tori was especially high on the list of ‘Places Jabber Can’t Go’, as Semiu had put it.
“Given your proclivity for everything toxic, you definitely ain’t allowed to go on any mission that might even get you near Tori. We’ll let the south branch handle that.”
Now that he was here, though, surely it wouldn’t hurt to kill two birds with one stone, right? Collect a few spotted leaves of that flower that seemed to be inching toward him, then go in there and help his crew take care of anything that was giving them trouble. He’d get new materials and a good fight out of it, so clearly it was the perfect—
“Jabber!” A frantic voice yells out, and he blinks to find Gris barreling toward him, carrying something—someone in his arms.
His feet are moving before he realizes, and he’s meeting Gris halfway, blinking again to find Riyo in his arms, bloody and injured.
“What—” His voice catches in his throat, and he forces himself to swallow around the lump in his throat as Gris places Riyo gently on the ground. “What the hell happened? Didn’t I tell y’all not to be lame and die while you were in there?” His hands are moving without his conscious thought, and he’s digging through the pack at his side for the medical materials Eishia made him carry, more than the usual first aid that everyone had with them.
Riyo, despite her battered state, finds enough energy to chuckle weakly, though it devolves into a horrible wet cough. “I mean…you never said anything about getting injured, so…”
Gris heaves a heavy breath, deflating as Jabber starts the process of cleaning and dressing the wounds he can see. “She had a run-in with the King of Tori and hit the ground pretty hard.” Then his fists clench, his gloves creaking from it. “Kuro was using us as bait so he could grab something off the King of Tori and make a run for it.”
“Don’t be too mad, Gris,” Riyo cuts in, coughing again, and Jabber remembers that he had tried out a new paralytic on himself recently, different from the one he threatened to inject Zanka with. Quickly, he manifests one of Mankira’s claws and pokes Riyo with it, only giving her a small enough dose to take most of the pain away. The relieved sigh she lets out relaxes both Gris and Jabber. “Like I said before, it’s my fault for getting careless. I needed a reminder that this is a No Man’s Land we’re in.” Her breathing is still a damp thing, weak and quiet, but at the very least, it is no longer accompanied by her pained whimpers. Slowly, she manages to turn her head in Jabber’s direction. “You should have let me sit with the pain for a little bit longer. Let it serve as a reminder for me for next time.”
Jabber snorts. “Next time? Shit, if this ever happens again, I’m rubbin’ dirt in all your wounds.” Riyo chuckles again.
“So what happened?” Cthoni asks when she eventually finds him sitting in the shadow of the highway, to make the process easier. She sticks her head out of her portal, takes stock of his injuries, disappears for a moment, then comes back with bandages and antiseptic. Now, she sits beside him, cleaning the multitude of cuts he had garnered when he went flying off the roof of the cleaner’s car.
“Fu—Hii—found us before I could…Before I could take care of Jabber, and ya know I can’t beat him, so I let ‘em go. Figured I’d be better off livin’ ta make up for my mistakes rather than dead with my failure.” Cthoni nods, eyeing the marks around his neck. It was as though he could still feel the cool metal of Jabber’s rings on his skin, so cold that they burn, leaving their claim on him clear. He’s restless with the urge to run his fingers over it, wondering if he could convince Cthoni to leave that particular mark alone. He doesn’t want anyone to touch it; he wants to wear it like a necklace for the next time he sees Jabber.
“Well, luckily for you, Zodyl will be more upset with my failure to stop them than yours.” Zanka’s eyebrow lifts, and he glances at her, spying a subtle furrow of her own nestled between her brows. It’s the most expression he’s seen from her thus far, and something he can’t quite look away from.
“Not enough ta get rid a’ ya, if yer worried. Yer too useful.” He’s not sure why he’s reassuring her—it’s not like she’s ever needed it before—but Cthoni relaxes her shoulders anyway, so he lets it go.
“I know.” She says, then there’s silence between them once more. At least, until— “What’s with you and that cleaner with the claws anyway?”
At this, Zanka can’t stop the frustration that rolls through him, another wave of heat lingering under his skin.
“He’s—” Zanka starts, then stops because he realizes that he has no idea how to explain to Cthoni that Jabber was perfect without sounding crazier than he likely already does. She’s heard him go on many a rant about how much it pissed him off that Jabber holds back the way he does, how much it dug under his skin that Jabber wasn’t even trying to be as strong as he is. She’s been subjected to Zanka’s moods over the thought of Jabber refusing to let himself loosen up, something he feels just slightly apologetic about, seeing as this wasn’t her fault. Now, though, he’s sure that his moods will be even worse since he had actually been so close— “He’s just somethin’ else, is all.” Zanka says, eventually, seeing as she had paused in her wound treating to look at him questioningly when he’d gone quiet for too long.
“...Right.” Her tone makes it clear that she doesn’t believe him, finishing with a wrap on his arm. “Well, like I said before, so long as your…fondness…doesn’t get in the way of any of the missions, you’re free to do whatever you want in your downtime, I suppose.”
“It won’t, I promise, but…” Zanka trails off, rubbing at the back of his neck sheepishly. “Would ya mind doin’ a couple a’ favors for me?” At Cthoni’s dubious look, Zanka clasps his hands together. “Please? Promise I’ll pay ya back somehow.”
She scrutinizes him for a long moment. Then, “...Fine. What is it?”
“So you’re staying behind, Jabber?”
Jabber nods from where he sits at Riyo’s bedside. His leg bounces—not anxiously, no, because he knows Riyo will be fine. She was still breathing, for starters, which was always a good sign considering all the internal damage she’d sustained. Plus, Eishia was on her way, and she’s the best healer he knows, so obviously she’d be fine. “I ain’t ever been here before, so I wanna do a bit of explorin’.”
Enjin narrows his eyes dubiously, and Jabber makes sure not to meet them. They both know he’s lying, and likely because of this, Enjin decides to let it go. ‘Jabber’ and ‘exploring’ in the same sentence only ever meant bad things.
“Alright, then. Can you at least promise me that you won’t cause any problems while you’re here? I don’t wanna hear anything about you causing havoc when you get back, or Semiu will have my ass for even leaving you here in the first place.”
Jabber kisses his teeth, rolling his eyes and leaning back in his chair. “I ain’t some hyperactive kid ya need to keep on a leash, Enjin.” That’s exactly what he is most of the time, another thing they both know.
Enjin sighs, and Jabber can practically hear the way he drags a hand down his face. “...Fine. I’ll leave you and Riyo alone, then. Tell her we dropped by when she wakes up.” And with this, he’s gone.
When Riyo wakes up, Jabber is there, accompanied by two new people who introduce themselves as supporters with the Cleaner’s South Branch. Riyo’s never seen Jabber be intimidated by anything in the time that she’s known him, but he looks the closest thing to it sitting next to the supporter named Mildretta. Something about the stiff way he holds himself has her giggling quietly to herself. Even though Jabber hasn’t dosed her with another numbing agent since the first time near Tori, she feels as though she’s been healed already.
“Rudo’s going on a mission? Can I come with?” Jabber announces his presence with a loud question directed toward Semiu, who, surprisingly, shakes her head.
“Nope. Both you and Enjin are barred from going with him on this mission, since it’ll be his first mission as ‘Rudo, the Cleaner’.”
Jabber arches an eyebrow questioningly. “Why does that mean I can’t come with him? And what the hell was he before?” Any mission with Rudo involved was almost guaranteed to be an interesting one, and Jabber is just itching for a good fight, seeing as he missed out on all the fun with King in Tori, and Eishia had forced him to accept her healing this time around. It left his muscles aching for the familiar soreness of a good battle.
“Rudo needs to stop relying on you and Enjin to pick up his slack as a cleaner, so Boss’s orders are for him to go without the two of you. If you’ve got a problem, take it up with him.” She waves him away, but Jabber doesn’t get the chance to point out that she hadn’t answered his second question before she holds up a finger. “Actually, better yet, you can take one of these other jobs that I have here for you, since you’re so eager to do something. I’ve got a report here detailing a trash beast as large as a skyscraper.” She holds up the report for him to give a cursory glance through. “Should be right up your alley, since you love dealing with the larger ones.”
And large it was.
The thing had been rampaging through the abandoned city of Klutess Town. Good for Jabber, because it meant that he didn’t have to worry about damage to any important structures as he defeated it, and it was the perfect chance for him to test out the recently unleashed Mankira.
She’d been ignoring his calls to use her true form since the Incident, insistent that it had merely been ‘for his safety’ and that he ‘wasn’t quite ready just yet’. Sure, she couldn’t verbally say these things, but she was expressive enough despite it, and she’s been adamant against putting such strain on his body again.
At the prospect of there being people for Jabber to fall back on if things were to go wrong, as well as a perfectly suitable trash beast to use as a dummy, Mankira finally gave in to his pleas, and damn did it feel worth it.
As expected, she was beautiful, especially now that he could properly commit her new form to memory, and Jabber makes sure to do so. Just as Mankira had predicted, Jabber wasn’t quite ready, and her form had shrunk back down to her normal size shortly after being unleashed, but that was long enough for them to deal with the trash beast before them in just two blows. Besides, Jabber had made sure to catalogue her newfound weight in preparation, etching the feeling of her on his fingers into his mind once more. She had vibrated affectionately at this, and Jabber had pressed her cool metal to his lips once the defeated trash beast crashed into another building.
Then, just like last time, he passed out.
“Holy fuck, I leave for one minute, and I miss everything!” Jabber exclaims as soon as he hears the news about Follo becoming a giver. “Congrats, man! I knew you always had it in you!” He slaps Follo on the back excitedly, snorting at the wheeze that escapes him.
“That, you did.” Follo manages after he recovers, his lips wobbling like he was resisting the urge to smile wider, only faltering further when Jabber grins at him.
“Actually,” Gris chimes in from Follo’s side. “How did you know that anyway?” He asks, remembering what Jabber had said shortly after Follo asked to join the Cleaners as a Supporter those years ago.
“That guy’s got potential,” Jabber says, pointing a thumb at Follo’s back as he disappears into the crowd after begging to be in the Cleaners, no doubt in a hurry to prepare for his departure with them later.
“Potential to what?” Gris asks him curiously, waiting for Jabber to finish loudly sipping his drink before he continues.
“Potential to be a Giver.” He answers easily, shoving more food into his mouth before he continues, “He’s got that spark in his eyes. Was holdin’ onto that hammer way too tight to be normal.” Then he shrugs. “Plus, I just have a gut feelin’.”
Jabber shrugs. “Gut feelin’ I guess. I could just tell.” He sniffs before moving on. “So, when d’ya think we can spar? I wanna see what that hammer a’ yours can do now that you’ve finally unlocked it. Bet it looks sick!” His excitement is infectious, and Follo is about to agree before Enjin forcibly pulls Jabber off him.
“Not anytime soon, I’ll tell you that much.” Jabber immediately begins pouting, but Enjin plows on. “Follo’s still wet behind the ears in the area, and there’s no way in Hell that I’m letting you fight him before he can get a handle on himself. You can watch him practice, though, if you’d like.”
“Watch him? But that’s just lame!”
“Yeah? Well, too bad.” And the note of authority in Enjin’s voice is one Jabber decides to listen to this time, letting him know that the conversation was over. “So, Follo, you wanna join Akuta?”
“Hold on—you and Rudo fought? Over what?”
“...I didn’t like his attitude.”
A startled burst of laughter that quickly turns into guffaws, with Follo flushing a deep red that makes his shame obvious. It looked as though it’d be a long while before Jabber stopped laughing, and the only reason Follo doesn’t huff about it is because part of him feels like he deserves it, at least a little bit.
“Riyo?” Jabber hand makes contact with her shoulder, and she startles, inhaling sharply. Then she blinks, her eyes clearing, and when she looks up at him, he can tell that it’s him she’s seeing. Her entire body seems to loosen, and so rapidly that she sways, so he tightens his grip on her shoulder by way of support. He’d put an arm around her, but given Amo’s powers, he knows she’d only flinch, and Jabber doesn’t think he can take the sight of that at the moment. “Hey, it’s alright—I’m here,” he says, hoping that his words reach.
Jabber is bored.
Follo was figuring out his jinki with Gris and Tomme, the process of which Jabber was strictly banned from participating in. Rudo was out completing more missions without the help of either him or Enjin, who was probably off dodging his responsibilities again, likely bar-hopping despite it being midday. August was busy making costumes for the Doll Festival, and even Jabber knew better than to interrupt that process when he got into the swing of things, evidenced by the loud music blaring from his room. Hell, even Fu was busy doing who–knows–what; Jabber’s only seen him here and there, smiling brightly as he’s tasked with doing one thing or another. At one point, Jabber swears he saw the ex-raider carrying a stack of porno mags, but Fu was speedy despite his short stature, and he was gone before Jabber could get a proper look.
So, as he was prone to do when boredom struck, he wandered.
He walks aimlessly through the halls, looking into open doors as they present themselves, but never stepping into one. That is, until he walks past Riyo’s room and finds her and Amo sitting on her bed, chatting quietly with each other. Then he stops, intrigue pulling him to knock on her door.
“Yo,” he lifts a hand in greeting when they look at him. Riyo’s face lights up with a grin, and she waves him over.
“There you are! We were just talking about you.” She says as he settles into the chair beside her bed.
“Only good things, right?” He looks between them curiously. “Otherwise, she’s lying.”
Amo giggles, shaking her head. “Riyo was only telling Amo that you are one of her favorite people!” Riyo cuts a sharp glance over to Amo, poking her in the side to make her startle.
“I did not say that.”
“You didn’t, but Amo could tell from how you spoke about him!”
Riyo pauses, her expression going a bit stiff at this, though it’s gone a second later. “Is that so?” She asks, somewhat quietly, and Amo’s expression softens as she nods. Then, she sighs, her shoulders drooping subtly with it.
“Amo has never had siblings, but she bets this is what it would look like.” Her gaze falls, her fingers lacing themselves together, and the display rings a bell in Jabber’s mind. The outline of her saddened state strikes Jabber as familiar somehow, aligning itself with the memory of someone he hasn’t thought about in years. He thinks he’d like to keep it that way when the memory makes a disgusting lump form in his throat, so he swallows it down as he works to say,
“I can be your big bro, then.”
It’s a spur-of-the-moment decision that Jabber can’t find it in himself to regret when Amo’s breath hitches in her throat. When she looks at him again, her eyes are wide. They’re as boundless as Rudo’s, an unending, unnerving void that he can see himself in. It clings, adhering to one of his lungs, forcing him to adapt and learn how to breathe around it. For a moment, Jabber wonders if this is what it felt like to fall under Amo’s Jinki.
“You…you would do that for Amo?” She asks him, her voice as soft as a feather as it floats through the air toward him. He nods, feeling numb. The lump he had swallowed down returned with a vengeance, and it thickens at the sight of tears welling in the corners of Amo’s eyes, but she scrubs them away before they can fall. “Then…does this mean Amo can braid your hair now?”
The question takes Jabber aback, and he blinks at her in bewilderment. Were all Watchman users so…odd?
“I mean…if ya want to, I guess. Might be a lil’ weird with how thick my locs are, but be my guest.” Scooting his chair closer, he turns his back to Amo, pulling his hair out of the ponytail it had been in. He didn’t often allow people’s hands in his hair. He’d let the occasional ruffle from Enjin or Corvus slide (with much more leniency given to the latter), and sometimes Semiu would help him with his retwists, if she was feeling particularly charitable, but aside from them, there weren’t many exceptions to the rule. It just so happened that Riyo was one of them, and for a long while, the only one, but Amo’s hands in his hair didn’t feel…wrong. They were gentle, despite his not needing it, and deft as they split Jabber’s hair into sections. It’s surprisingly comfortable, Jabber finds as he leans back, eyelashes fluttering lazily.
“Jabber is one of the coolest people I know. Don’t tell him I said that, though, or he’ll never shut up about it, and trust me, it’ll get old fast.” Riyo combs her fingers gently through Amo’s hair, admiring their colored ends.
“Amo promises.”
Some time later, Jabber emerges from Riyo’s room with a surprisingly intricate braid and slightly more tired than he was before, which only really served to make him want to do something even more. Afternoon naps always left him groggy, a state that irritated him to no end, and why would he waste his time sleeping when he could be doing literally anything else?
Even the job rush from before has died down, and it was an incredibly slow day for Cleaners, which would have been a blessing were he anyone else.
‘Someone needs to keep track of your hardheaded ass’, Semiu has said hundreds of times in the past, whenever Jabber would ask to do something as simple as walking around HQ. ‘You get into too much shit way too easily.’
And sure, he may be a slave to his own spontaneity, but it wasn’t as though he couldn’t handle himself. He’s proven time and time again that he didn’t need to be kept on such a short leash. Hell, he didn’t need to be on a leash at all, so why would he let himself?
He keeps this thought with him as he makes a quick visit to Shikage’s room to convince him not to tell anyone of his hasty exit (‘Promise I’ll bring ya a month supply of those chips you like so you won’t hafta ask anyone to get you more’), then he’s on his way. All he would do was walk around town a bit, maybe do a bit of people watching, buy Shikage’s snacks, then leave. It was infinitely more interesting than lazing around HQ all day, and he didn’t plan on chasing any fights (this time), so what was the harm?
Zanka swears he’ll do anything Cthoni asks of him after this.
“Y’know, technically,” Jabber starts, activating his jinki, his delicate rings turning into those beautiful claws, filled to the brim with everything Jabber needs to be terrible and oh-so-perfect. “I prolly shouldn’t be fightin’ you, since I ain’t s’posed to be out here in the first place, but,” He flexes his hands, and his rings glint beautifully under the light. Zanka shivers under the goosebumps that break out across his skin. “I’m bored, so don’t be boring, cool?”
Not bothering to push down his excited grin, Zanka pulls Lovely Assistaff out of her holster on his back, spinning her as she activates. The song of her metal swinging through the air resonates in his veins, and he feels light on his feet.
It’s as though he can hear Jabber’s high and breathy whines already.
“...Are you serious?”
“Please? I said I’d pay ya back for this, and I just—I need ta get out there. It’s for trainin’.”
Cthoni taps her finger, her expression deadpan.
“It is for trainin’!” A pause. “An’ maybe I’m hopin’ I see him again.”
“This is ridiculous. I’m giving you twice as many missions as I usually do.”
“Does that mean you’ll do it?”
“...I’ll do it. Don’t get used to it.”
He’s gotten faster.
It’s harder to dodge his swings, being in a populated city as they were, but Jabber feels as though the calls were closer than they were last time. He can feel the disturbance in the air as Zanka’s staff nearly slices a good chunk off one of his locs. The realization is startling, and it has his stomach doing flips, but that could very well just be the result of the actual flips he was doing in his attempts to keep Zanka following him into the outskirts of the city.
See, despite what some might be led to believe (Enjin), Jabber wasn’t completely reckless. He knows how he fights, knows that he isn’t well-suited for tight spaces and restricted movements. He knows that fighting within city limits is just asking for attention, which just so happens to be the opposite of what he wants. He doesn’t need word of this getting back to Semiu before he can get back to Semiu, so he keeps an eye out for where he’s going as he keeps himself out of Zanka’s reach.
Zanka, whose determined glare brings him right back to their fight in the trash beast. Zanka, who still had some restraint of his own, for his swings never brought damage to any of the structures that surrounded them. Zanka, whose smile matched the one Jabber knows he mirrors, a wretched thing he couldn’t fight down.
He’s gotten stronger.
Jabber can feel it when they make it to a spot a bit away from the city, far enough that he knows no one will go investigating the commotion they were sure to stir up. Mankira and Zanka’s staff clash properly for the first time in this interaction, and Jabber can feel the vibrations surging through him. Metal on metal, and Zanka leans in close, the glow in his eyes feeling like they burn Jabber’s skin. Bright blue and electric, Jabber is enthralled.
They spring away from each other, but Zanka wastes no time closing the distance once more, and they start their dance. It’s the first true fight they’re having against each other, one with no unwanted third party to interrupt them, and Jabber allows himself to fall into it.
After all, it wasn’t like Zanka would mind if Jabber hit a little harder than he should, right? He’s been begging Jabber for a proper fight since they first met, so Jabber should be nice to him and grant him that, just this once.
They fight, and their jinki’s collide over and over and over, and Jabber feels himself growing more and more breathless with it. He’s not tired, though, no, far from it, in fact. If anything, he’s never felt more awake.
Zanka has gotten better, and Jabber knows that it’s all for him.
He knows it because Zanka has become fluid with it. He remembers very clearly how rigid Zanka was when they first met, how he swung his staff with the utmost precision until the very end of their encounter, when Jabber had made himself a weapon through Rudo, and Zanka could do nothing but react. Then, he became more unrestrained, and it carried through into their next fight, where the angrier the Raider got, the more fierce his movements became. In their last clash, Zanka had forgone his rigorousness altogether, all thrashing instinct and wild eyes that—that—
Jabber slips.
He’d been thinking too hard, been too distracted by Zanka’s eagerness, by his developed strength, by his everything, and he’d slipped. He misses a beat, and Mankira’s next slash goes sideways, and Zanka is hounding him in the very next second.
Jabber knows he’s in trouble the moment he’s pushed onto his stomach, held down by a knee on his back, his arm kept captive in Zanka’s grip.
“Feel like givin’ in yet?” The Raider murmurs into his ear as he leans down, his voice slithering its way down his spine the way Jabber imagines silk would, if he’d ever felt it.
“‘Course not,” he answers easily, harshly smothering a shiver as Zanka places a firm hand on his neck, sliding it up to his head to press his face harder into the ground. The action has Jabber’s breath catching in his lungs. An awful heat that’s been building this whole time flutters between them before spreading to his stomach. When he tries pushing against the hold, he’s met with Zanka’s unforgiving grip, and that heat slips down to between his thighs like the horrible thing it is. He can’t move, and that’s bad, obviously, but he’s so warm, so hazy, so gooey that he doesn’t think he’d move even if he could. Zanka was just—just so strong, so unyielding, so impossible to ignore that Jabber feels like he can’t breathe.
“Thought so.” He sighs dreamily, and Jabber thinks he feels the raider’s nose nuzzling behind his ear. “That’s what makes ya so perfect for me.” His voice is so soft, almost reverent, as he speaks, and it makes what he does next all the more staggering.
In a swift yet brutal yank, he dislocates Jabber’s shoulder.
The sound that escapes Jabber is a curdling one, a disturbing cross between a cry of pain and a vulgar moan, torn straight from his throat like it was stolen.
“There it is,” Zanka breathes, inhaling deep like he could smell Jabber’s spike in arousal. It’s so animalistic, so wild, and it washes over Jabber, blankets him in a fuzzy feeling, like he’s fading around the edges. “So damned gorgeous,” he mumbles against the skin of Jabber’s neck, who can only manage a weak whimper in response. “An’ it’s all for me.”
This pain, it’s sharp, it’s dull, it’s throbbing, it’s gone, it’s here, it’s all-consuming, it melds with the pleasure that crashes over him. Hell, it is the pleasure that crashes over him, good in all the wrong ways and fierce in its plight to ruin him.
Zanka needed this. He needs this, needs to see the look on Jabber’s face, sure that it’s already a ruined thing, so he flips the cleaner again, puts him on his back. Now, he can behold Jabber’s beauty in its entirety, and he does so unabashedly. His gaze roams from Jabber’s parted lips and watery eyes, down to his heaving chest, then even further, where those thighs he hasn’t stopped thinking about twitch subtly. He remembers the feel of them around him very clearly since they first met, remembers how they felt clenched around him the last time they met, when they had just been so close. They hold a softness to them that isn’t common on the Ground, and he’s suddenly filled with the urge to touch them, so he does.
There’s a hand on his stomach. It slides under his shirt, and calloused fingers graze his side. He shivers, the only thing he can do while he feels like this, so weightless that those fingers were the only thing tethering him to the ground.
There are lips on his stomach. They move downward, and Jabber can’t remember when his shirt had been lifted. The lips are startlingly, horribly soft, almost damp as they pass over the ridges of his abs, which jump in response.
There’s a face between his thighs, those stroking hands from before holding them apart. The face moves from the side of his left knee down to his inner thigh, where it lingers for a few moments as those hands tighten their hold on him.
Then, there are teeth.
They sink meanly into the sensitive flesh of Jabber’s inner thigh, hardly even stifled by the fabric of his pants, and he barely even has the chance to whimper out a weak, “Wait—”, before he’s gone.
The sharp pain that bolts through him, right next to the already throbbing heat between his legs, is enough to push him over the edge, and that all-consuming pleasure finally comes crashing down over him.
His mind feels startlingly blank as he comes, his body locking up as those pleasure-filled lightning bolts pass through him. His thighs go tense, and his hips jerk, and he trembles with it, his body unused to this kind of intensity. When the lightning passes, they leave him loose and languid, and his limbs feel as heavy as lead. He pants as he recovers, liquid warmth sloshing down his spine and leaving him twitching minutely from the aftershocks, and vaguely, he’s thankful that they’re isolated enough for no one to hear the cry that escaped him, for he hadn’t even had enough mind to muffle it.
It’s one of the most intense things he’s ever experienced, this pleasure that was brought to him by an avenue he never dared to explore before, one he hadn’t even realized was an option until recently. Now that the gateway was open, though, Jabber wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to shut it again.
Suddenly, though, there’s an odd shifting sensation settled right between his legs, and he swiftly remembers just how not alone he was.
Right there, face pressed against the apex of his thighs, is Zanka, wide-eyed and panting against him as he gawks at Jabber as if he’s hung the stars in the sky.
His body moves faster than his mind, and he’s springing away from the raider, forgetting his dislocated arm and crawling backward. The throbbing pain rekindles the heat between his legs briefly, but it’s quickly snuffed out by his panic, and in the next moment, he’s pushing himself to stand and, without an ounce of shame, running away.