Chapter Text
On February 2nd, the day before his 20th birthday, Zanka gets the nerve up to ask Jabber out again. For over a week he’s spent every waking hour—that is not otherwise dedicated to work or Team Akuta—talking to Jabber. Half the time it feels like they're locked in the pettiest, most unserious little squabbles Zanka has ever had, and he still can never get enough. It’s freeing, not monitoring every little thing he says to be palatable. He can ramble to Jabber for hours on end and vice versa without getting bored. This, he realizes, might make him at least a little special in Jabber’s eyes. Jabber seems to get bored of everything else in his life quite quickly (For example, “I try to keep conversations with my coworkers under five minutes lest I want to blow my fuckin’ brains out.” when Zanka mentioned spending most of his time with Akuta)
Even when he’s being somewhere between annoying and insane—What the fuck do you mean you called in to work because you got lost in the woods? Why were you in the woods at 7 am in the first place? No, I don’t want to see a picture of a rotting deer carcass. Go home. When was the last time you slept?
Zanka can’t help but crave Jabber’s undivided attention, but it’s maybe a little weird to realize he can message any time day or night and get a response.
Excluding the one time he didn’t hear from him for 15 hours straight because he was finally asleep.
He never has to ask for that attention. Or even do anything special. Jabber just seems to like talking to him, no matter how often he feels weirdly unworthy of it. He always circles back to wanting it more than he can doubt it.
Zanka: Hey can I call you? It’s important but not urgent.
Jabber: Sure.
That might be the first one word answer he’s ever gotten from Jabber. It makes him desperatly uneasy.
Jabber picks up on the first ring.
“Hey Zanka,” he doesn’t sound sad, exactly, but there’s a hard and serious edge to his voice that Zanka hasn’t encountered much in their endless insomnia-fueled phone calls. All of those have ranged from manic rambling that Zanka can use as background noise to quiet, mumbled conversation about nothing and everything.
“Hey, um,” Zanka says, “So,”
“Just get on with it.” Zanka can hear the click-clack of him fiddling and fidgeting with Mankira. That, he’s heard many times. The sharpness of his tone stings in a way that makes him want to snap back, but he needs to lay it all out there before he decides this is an argument now for some reason.
“Hey. Tomorrow’s my birthday. I was just wondering if you wanted to meet up in person again?”
“Oh! Shit!” Jabber exhales dramatically, “Gahdamn, use an emoji or something. Thought it was something bad.”
“Ohhh sorry. Am I a little hard to read? Over text? In my second language?” Zanka sneers as all that built up nervous energy bleeds away. He cringes a little at himself immediately after he says it. Why is his instinct to get so mean with someone he wants so badly?
Jabber giggles on the other end of the line.
Right. Because he likes it.
It’s nice, to be rewarded with affection and approval when he doesn’t bother to hold his tongue. He likes that Jabber keeps asking him to be as honest as he wants to be with the parts of himself he’d once presumed undesirable. As long as he’s honest, nothing he wanted to say or do seemed too much for Jabber.
“Yeah. I’d love to see you again, Zanka,” Jabber says, purring his name in the same tone of voice he uses when he’s touching himself. (Zanka knows that because two nights prior Jabber sent him a voice message full of breathy moaning in the middle of the night, then deleted it a few hours later while Zanka was still playing it over and over as he tried to figure something to say in return that wasn’t embarrassing. They never talked about it. Zanka pretended he was asleep that whole time, unaware of what the deleted message had been, and Jabber pretended he’d hit record by mistake and sent ten minutes of dead air.) “Y’know. My birthday was like. Right before we met. A week or two before we met.” Time tends to bleed together for Jabber.
“Oh yeah?” Zanka says, “Was it a good one?”
“Fuck if I know,” Jabber says, “I blacked out before noon. Roommate had to configu—confiscate my phone so I didn’t bug the shit out of my boss.”
“Your boss at the pharmacy?” He’s never mentioned his boss before.
“…Nah. Who’s just got one job in this economy?”
“Ah. Fair enough,” Zanka says, “sometimes I teach Kendo classes for kids when I need extra cash.” Usually when there’s something wrong with his truck that him and Gris (and sometimes several YouTube tutorials) couldn’t fix.
“Oh. Adorable. What the fuck.” Jabber says, “Sometimes you say shit and I wanna squeeze you ‘til your eyes pop out. Whasit called? Cuteness aggression?”
Zanka feels his face burn and hunches his shoulders, glad Jabber can’t see this either, “Where else you workin’ that you gotta worry about drunk texting your boss?” he pivots yet again.
“…How much illegal shit you good with knowing about?”
‘You drugged me the first time we met, dipshit. Clearly I’ve got a certain tolerance.’ Zanka thinks.
“More than you’d expect?” Zanka says. He won’t get into the Hellguard stuff right now, when Jabber wants to see him again and he’s feeling so so good, “We don’t have to talk about it. But. More than you’d expect.” Zanka watched the strange metamorphosis of his wealthy, outwardly upstanding cop parents into absurdly, suspiciously wealthy pseudo cult leaders convinced that they needed a stockpile of weapons and supplies for the end of days. He could not give a shit about Jabber selling weed and pills to college kids if he tried.
“Maybe better if we don’t talk about it right now,” Jabber says, then because he regularly just guesses exactly what Zanka is thinking, “I’m not dealin’ anything, for the record. Too much networking and talking to people I don’t care about in sales. Shit. Half the time I forget to charge people for their meds, ‘cause I get distracted talking about weird side effects. There’s a chemotherapy drug that can cause your fingerprints to disappear, ain’t that shit wild?”
“Sorry you don’t remember most of your birthday. We can celebrate together, if you want.” He’s realized within about a day of knowing Jabber that he would occasionally need to put conversations back on track. Or just ignore whichever tangent he’s gotten sidetracked by.
“Yeah,” Jabber says, then he pauses like he’s actually thinking about what he’s gonna say next, “You still wanna fuck me, right? Getting to know me hasn’t killed your boner yet?” The casual, almost offhand way he says it makes Zanka want to hide somewhere deep, dark and far away from anyone who could fathomably see the way his whole face goes red and his underwear gets tighter just from the mention of sex with Jabber. He’ll be twenty years old in a few hours, and he can’t even handle You still want to fuck me, right? “We haven’t done nothing over the phone so I just want to make sure before I waste a slutty outfit and make an ass of myself on your birthday.”
‘Don’t be a loser. Don’t be a coward. Don’t get in your own way,’ Zanka reminds himself.
“Yeah,” Zanka says. Just put it all out there, “Of course I do. I wasn’t fucking around when I told you I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Still can’t. I maybe don’t know what I’m doing, but I wouldn’t lie about that kind of thing.”
On the other end of the line, he hears what he thinks is Jabber full-volume yelling into a pillow or something. He doesn’t really understand why Jabber seems this excited about his attention. Zanka is, by his own estimate, just some guy. Like he said, he doesn’t even know what he’s doing when it comes to the kind of relationship Jabber probably wants.
He has almost no experience in dating, and Jabber is smart, funny, and hot. He’s long decided that all of Jabber’s red flags are not going to stop him, so at this point he feels like he’s getting a huge, beautiful mansion for pennies just because a couple of people got murdered in the basement.
“So does like 5 pm work for you? I already had plans with my friends in the morning.”
“Yup sounds great. I’ll text you the address.”
———
Zanka spends most of his birthday, same as usual, with team Akuta. They give a lot more weight to birthdays than him and his family ever did, so it always becomes a string of whatever Zanka wants to do. Early on, he had no clue what to do with that. He’s gotten used to it. This year he’s happy to drag the rest of the team (minus Shikage, who doesn’t leave his room at HQ but did send a very nice happy birthday text somewhere around midnight) to a museum exhibit he wants to see and a restaurant he wants to try.
At lunch he announces, “I’ve got a date this evening,” and from the reaction he gets you’d think he sat a live grenade down in the middle of the table. His friends are so distracted by the news that they forget to try and make the waitstaff sing happy birthday to him this year, which is exactly what he was hoping for.
Afterwards they end up in Rudo’s favorite bakery for the yearly tradition of trying to talk Zanka into a birthday cake he doesn’t really want. Or, at least, a cake he never ends up eating more than a slice or two of. This is Rudo’s favorite tradition, because he always ends up eating the rest of it.
Zanka surveys the bakery case for a while. His eyes catch on one cake in particular—lavishly decorated in earth tones with a few merengues shaped like little mushrooms around the edges. The decorator was definitely going for a storybook forest sort of vibe, but all he can think about is Jabber: the cute little mushroom bag he had when they met, following this stranger into the woods just for a taste of guilt-free violence, his first encounter with what Mankira can do, Jabber’s shitty friends not doing anything for his fucking birthday.
“Did you find the one?” Enjin says behind him, suddenly too close in a way that makes Zanka jump.
“I think so,” Zanka tells him, “Not for me, but….”
“Do you mean—You’re gonna buy him a whole cake?” Enjin asks, “That might be a little much for a first date, bud.”
“His birthday was right before we met,” Zanka tells him, desperate for Enjin to approve of every little thought that ever pops into his head, “And. He didn’t really get to celebrate it. I get the impression that people have been shitty to him until he just decided it was normal.” Zanka knows what that feels like.
Enjin’s expression softens, “Who taught you to be such a charmer?” He asks, “You’re a good guy, Zanka. Hope this dude appreciates it.”
“Thanks,” Zanka sheepishly mumbles. His phone buzzes. He angles it so Enjin can’t see just in case, but it’s nothing objectionable. Jabber sent him a picture of his outfit, in all its (somewhat mall goth-y) glory. He’s strategically cut up a shirt for a band that Zanka doesn’t recognize and his shorts are, as promised, a little slutty. The pretty bruises on his face are healed up but Zanka can see his arms now, which feels like an even trade off. He was swimming in the hoodie he was wearing last time, but now Zanka can see every inch of trim waist and lean muscle.
Jabber: excited for you to fuck me up all over again, birthday boy.
God, what would Enjin think if he saw the bruises he left on Jabber? What would he think if he knew he’s planning on hurting him like that again tonight? He certainly wouldn’t be calling him a good dude for buying him a cake in between all the other shit he plans on doing to him. One more thing about him that Enjin probably won’t ever completely understand.
‘That’s probably why he likes the others just a little bit better,’ a vicious bit of Zanka’s brain tells him, as Rudo calls Enjin away because he knows his big brother will get him whatever he wants. Whenever this bullshit hits he always has to remind himself: Enjin does care about him—deeply and genuinely and without condition. Thats not nothing. That’s better than he used to have.
He messages Jabber back, asking if he can make him dinner. He wants this to be a real date. Jabber seems mildly confused as to why he wants to put all that effort in on his own Birthday, but he’s ultimately agreeable to the idea.
Zanka buys the mushroom cake. He wants to pay for it himself since it’s ostensibly for Jabber. Enjin allows it so long as he gets to buy Zanka an assortment of pastries that he will actually eat.
He tries to get it personalized, but the girl behind the counter informs him that she’s not allowed to write curse words on the cakes.
So Zanka has to write “HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, ASSHOLE” on top in cheap red decorating icing all by himself. It looks terrible, but you can technically read it. By the time he realizes he should have asked Remlin to do it, it’s already too late.
———
Zanka is already annoyed with himself and the GPS in his phone by the time he parks in front of Jabber’s huge, looming house in the woods. Their city isn’t massive or particularly sprawling, probably because it sits at the edge of the largest garbage dump in the state, but it’s still quite a drive out to the sticks. To get here he had to go down a bunch of winding backroads while shifting gears constantly. There are no neighbors for miles, and he gets the feeling that’s maybe on purpose.
The house looks haunted. It looks like the kind of place where kids dare each other to go up to the door because allegedly a witch lives there.
Still, he knows it’s the right house because Jabber comes bounding out of it before he even has time to send the I’m outside text. He waves at Lovely’s carrying case in the truck bed before he climbs in. He knows Zanka brought her along without even asking.
“Happy Birthday,” Jabber says, leaning in. At first, Zanka thinks he’s going to kiss him on the cheek, but instead he just sort of butts his head into Zanka’s shoulder. Hard. It reminds him of a needy stray cat begging to be scratched behind the ears, “You drive a stick shift? Hot,” Jabber says. He settles into the middle of the bench seat rather than the passenger side, “And appropriate. You and your sticks.” Jabber throws a look over his shoulder at Lovely and makes a crude jerking-off motion, so Zanka isn't sure which stick the joke is supposed to be about. Both, he supposes.
“Shut up and put a seatbelt on.” Zanka tells him, “And how is that hot? It’s just a truck.” He didn’t even pick it out or pay for it. Gris just gave it to him for getting his license. Zanka starts the truck again and takes off.
“I ‘unno. It does something for ‘ol Jabber. Maybe it’s the country boy in me.”
“You said you were from ATL, that’s a whole metropolitan area.”
“Still Georgia!” Jabber says, “and technically my parents moved us out here to fuckin’ Garbagetown when I was like ten.” Garbagetown was an unkind but not factually incorrect nickname for the area where they now resided. The gigantic landfill was just up-wind and it did cause a certain atmosphere to permeate the town limits—particularly in summer. The whole city fuckin’ reeks by August every year, in a way that you never truly got used to.
“They still live around here? Your parents?” He could meet parents. He’s pretty good at projecting an air of respectability in short bursts. As they get closer to town, the roads get a little less awful.
“Well. They’re dead, so I guess they don’t live anywhere.” Jabber says it so calm and casual even as Zanka physically cringes.
“Oh, shit. I’m really sorry,” Zanka says, “Fuck. I’m so sorry.” Half the people he knows are missing at least one parent, and he still doesn’t know how you’re supposed to talk about it. His own parents have played such a minimal role in his life before removing themselves from it entirely that he wonders if he’ll have to force tears when one of them passes. That’s the appropriate response to losing a parent, isn’t it? Even an absent one? Even one you disagree with at every level—one who disagrees with everything you are?
Jabber doesn’t really appear affected either way, shrugging one shoulder, “Why? You didn’t do it.”
“I know. That’s just what you’re supposed to say, isn’t it? I’m sorry for your loss or whatever.” He’s looking at the road, obviously, mostly, but he catches a glimpse of Jabber’s eye twitching. He thinks his awkwardness has been mistaken for pity. He hits a pothole in the road so hard he thinks he can feel something in the truck rattle loose. Jabber unbuckles and moves over so he can lean against the window.
“Well. Say something else.” Jabber tells him, Zanka thinks he hears him echo back ‘what you’re supposed to say’ low under his breath, “Your parents still kickin’? You haven’t mentioned them one way or another either.”
“I assume so,” Zanka says, “Haven’t actually spoken to either of them in a long time. I’ve been disowned for years.” Even before that, they’d obviously shipped him off to school halfway across the world and left him to be tortured trained by his siblings during school breaks for a reason. His absence from their lives probably didn’t even require an adjustment period.
“For being gay?” Jabber guesses. There’s that eye twitch again.
“Oh, I don't even think they know that part.” Zanka says, “It was for being a giver, actually. Or for being a failure in general, maybe? I don’t know. I was pretty hysterical for most of that last conversation.” Anger flares in Jabber’s body language like an oncoming storm and Zanka doesn’t even know why. Is it on his behalf? Is he angry at Zanka for being weak? Zanka keeps stealing glances over to him, but at least the backroads are empty this evening.
“Seriosly?”
Zanka nods. There’s a lump in his throat. They probably don’t even remember that today is his birthday.
“Fuck them, then. You don’t need that shit,” Jabber tells him, “My parents were good. Loved me even though I was a massive little shit. A-and I still don’t need ‘em. Sounds like your family doesn’t deserve another second of your time.” Well. Jabber being angry on his behalf is probably better than the alternative.
Zanka shrugs. He should probably be more respectful of his family’s perspective. They really do believe unchecked anima will inevitably destroy the world as they know it. If he believed that, he’d probably not like givers very much either. And no matter what Jabber thinks, he was probably a real let down of a progeny when stacked up against his siblings.
Instead, with Jabber’s rage radiating out and over him, he leans into the part of himself that just feels unfairly disregarded. Third best out of three. Leftovers. “Yeah. Fuck ‘em,” Zanka says, as a low boiling anger ebbs and flows through him, “It doesn’t matter. I’m better off here as a cleaner. I’m better off here with you.” The little version of Enjin that rattles around in his brain reiterates ‘That might be a little much for a first date, bud.’
That, apparently, was the correct answer. Jabber calms and scoots closer to him across the bench seat. He curls closer to him, and Zanka manages not to swerve into the other lane when the tips of Jabber’s fingers slip under his sweatshirt.
“I’m glad you’re here with me too.” Jabber murmurs, “Everybody else is so fucking boring. S’why I’m trying to lock this shit down before someone else takes my prize away.” Zanka doesn’t know how to tell him that there’s no competition and that he’s hardly a prize.
Jabber stays there for a moment, offering up everything Zanka’s ever wanted from another person, before getting distracted by the ancient stereo system in the truck.
Zanka spends the rest of the ride to his apartment trying to will-away a burgeoning erection while listening to an apparently endless parade of horrible local radio DJs.
———
“Have you eaten anything today?” He asks Jabber the moment they’re inside his apartment. Saying shit like that always makes him feel like he’s channeling Gris. (Because Gris is the one who asks. Enjin just chucks a fast food bag at you if he thinks the answer is no.) Still, he already feels like he needs to ask. At least in the short time he’s known him, Jabber seems to subsist only on substance abuse and very occasional junk food. His body will end up eating itself alive if he’s not careful, and it’d be a shame to lose all that muscle mass—Perhaps safer for everyone else, but a shame nonetheless.
Jabber has to think about it for a while, which isn’t a great sign, “Depends on how you define today. I had cereal at like 3am?”
“Incredible. Sit your ass down.” He points at the little kitchen island that rarely sees use as anything other than a place for doing paperwork.
He’s already got the joint and lighter Jabber gave him the night they met laid out on the island. He figures if they’re both a little stoned, no one will notice that he’s only a passable cook. He’s making a ‘throw a bunch of ingredients in a pan’ sort of stir fry over rice, which are both incredibly difficult to fuck up. Jabber lights up as he turns on the stove, and they pass it back and forth over the counter a few times before Zanka decides he’s done. He’s not completely new to smoking, but it’s always been restricted to a few puffs when Gris or Enjin offer so they won’t secretly, maybe even unconsciously think he’s still sheltered and stuck up. Jabber would absolutely just let him know if he was acting sheltered and stuck up, so that pressure is off. The soft, floaty feeling is a lot nicer when he’s not so painfully aware of himself.
There’s still the matter of the cake, of course. Which has felt like less of a good idea with each passing moment since he bought it. What if Jabber hates his birthday, and that’s the reason he spent it blackout drunk? What if he’s weirded out by Zanka’s over enthusiasm? What if he just laughs at him?
He’s got it hidden in the fridge as best he can, so he can still decide to forget the whole thing. He’ll scrape the words off and give it to Rudo. This can be a casual hookup, if that’s what Jabber wants. He’ll take scraps, if that’s what he can get.
“Nice place. Rent must be wild.”
“Not really. I think the city owns it or something like that. Most of the local cleaners live here.” Or maybe Corvus does? Or it’s technically a housing co-op of some kind? He doesn’t really remember. He didn’t fully read the lease when he signed it, but he’s pretty sure the nice apartment is technically a job benefit.
“No roommates?” Jabber asks. He’s suddenly right beside Zanka, their shoulders nearly bumping together. Like he fucking teleported. He can’t decide if he’s too stoned or if Jabber really does move that fast.
“Nope. Just me.”
Jabber brandishes the quickly disappearing joint, “Shotgun?”
Zanka nods, trying not to look like a deer in the headlights. Jabber takes a long drag and pulls Zanka close. He hovers, a few centimeters away from Zanka’s face. He makes Zanka close the tiny gap between their lips before he breathes into him. Zanka puffs a little wisp of smoke right into his face without meaning to and Jabber laughs at him. Jabber lets the roach burn his fingers and wipes the ash on a dirty dish towel.
His rice cooker sings them a little song. “Food’s ready,” Zanka mumbles.
Jabber says, “It could wait a minute…” He rests his head on Zanka’s shoulder and rolls his hips toward him suggestively.
“You haven’t eaten all day. You need to eat something.” It’s embarrassing the moment it leaves his mouth. Jabber groans and pushes him away, really sealing that feeling in. Being a cleaner, surrounded by all these giver kids who are younger and hungrier and more vulnerable than he ever was, has made him such a fucking nanny. He fought it for years but he can’t help but make sure Rudo eats something other than candy and Riyo takes her meds and Enjin, even fucking Enjin, takes a breather when he needs it. ‘Giving a shit about people and objects is also a skill you have to train sometimes,’ Enjin told him once—after he nearly bit through his own tongue to keep from punching a coworker for crying during training.
He’s too soft now. Jabber hates it. He would have liked the version his siblings tried to raise up better.
“I need a drink,” Jabber grunts, wrenching open the fridge before Zanka can stop him. The stupid fucking cake stares back at him. Zanka can’t even pretend its his own. He’s got to know it’s for him, because it has little mushrooms on it and, more importantly, Zanka wrote “Happy Belated Birthday” on the fucking thing like a moron.
“You got me a cake?” He can’t read a single thing in Jabber’s tone.
He’s too soft. Too sensitive. Stupid stupid stupid.
“I- Uh-”
“Huh.” Jabber says, just staring down at the cake, “That’s a new one.”
“Listen it was stupid, I just thought since you didn’t really celebrate—”
“I’m hard.”
“Excuse me?” He was somewhat under the impression that wasn’t a possibility. Also, what the fuck?
“Right? New one.” Jabber says, “Don’t think it’s a fetish thing for once, so it must just be you. Crazy. Wanna feel?”
“What?”
Zanka’s back to square one. He doesn’t understand a single fucking thing about this freak.
“Can’t feel it through my pants, obviously, but testosterone is a hell of a drug. C’mere.”
He lets Jabber take his hand and guide it into his shorts. Sure enough, Zanka’s fingertips make contact with Jabber’s dick and he can feel it jolt at the sensation. Jabber bites into his shoulder and moans. It’s not lost on Zanka that Jabber is getting exactly what he wanted while the stir fry gets cold on the stove.
That is, until they’re interrupted by a sharp, insistent knocking on the door to Zanka’s apartment. Because of course they are. Jabber screeches his frustration into Zanka’s shoulder as he yanks his hand away.
“Oh come the fuck on.”
“Whoever that is, I’m going to beat their ass,” Zanka mutters.
At least there’s a little humor in his voice when he says, “Ugh! Tell ‘em to get in line.”