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The rain makes that rhythmic, hollow beating sound against the car's half-rolled windows, spitting stray drops through and soaking Jabber's hoodie in a million little wet specks. It's dark, properly, when they pull away from campus, from whatever dorm party Zanka has dragged Jabber away from. Sodium streetlight's smearing windshield in violent orange, bending with the wipers, as Zanka pulls out a little too hard. Car rough on gravel. Ground protesting under the wheels.
First mistake: Jabber's in a good mood.
Maybe it's a prerequisite to the mess they always find themselves in. Some spark before the fire. Zanka's nerves are already frayed from…something. In general. Always. Day clinging to him like static, or the little fuzzies that cling to sweaters when you wash them wrong. And, sure, Jabber treads a fine line regardless. Walks thin ice like a hobby. But something about today, now, the dark and the rain and Jabber slouched too easily in the passenger seat, gets under Zanka's skin in irrational anger he knows is ridiculous.
Jabber doesn't notice. Or maybe he does and chooses not to. Whatever.
Jabber's just chatting. Usual self. He lives in his own space. Words needing neither permission nor response to keep going. They fill the car easy and lazy, like smoke in a tight space, lingering, and impossible to ignore. Jabber hums along with the low R&B track bleeding through the cars speakers. He talks about the party: who showed up, who got drunk, who played games. All those near misses that morph into stories.
Jabber's not innocent to Zanka's annoyance, either. Zanka knows him well enough. Knows the way his tone shifts, just barely, into casual, teasing irritation just to get under Zanka's skin. Like jamming fingers into a bruise. Jabber's stories flirt with human interaction, with playfulness, with touch, with the tea he spills when Zanka isn't around. That kind of easy warmth Zanka might admit he craves under oath.
To make Zanka jealous, maybe.
Though they don't acknowledge jealousy as something that can exist between them. That's…rude.
“I's good you didn't come, anyway. Party was dead,” Jabber speaks conversationally, smiling to himself as he slumps in the seat and plays with some of the jewelry in his hair. “Hey, at least somebody knew how t'move, right?”
Ah.
Zanka deliberately, consciously, keeps his eyes on the road. The asphalt stretching ahead. The streetlights. The road. The road.
His jaw clicks, a little.
“Somebody.”
The word sits between them,
Jabber grins, all lazy. Mouth crooked, as if this whole thing is exactly as entertaining as he wants it to be. “Yeah, you know that dude from the art building? Tall, gay lookin' one?” he flicks the hair jewelry again, it creates a dangerous little speck in the rearview mirror, “we danced.”
Somebody.
And now danced.
“Oh,” Zanka comments, mild to the point of dull, foot still easing the gas down as the car settles into its forward pull. “Did you.”
“Yeah,” unbothered by Zanka's creaking grip on the wheel. He doesn't need to look. “He's cute, sure. Can't hold rhythm for shit, though-ha! You'd hate it, man.”
The speedometer creeps. Not fast. Enough. The world outside loosens into an easy, blurry mess. Sidewalks melting into smears.
Jabber feels it, sure, he's always vaguely aware of the motion, the tension, the growing pit between them. That shift in the air when something sharp is probably going to happen. He's aware of it but registers as he does most things: interesting rather than alarming. It's them, and wire-thin tension, and a gritty late-night drive.
And the messy part of Jabber's head follows that tension with morbid curiosity, like observing bacteria in a petri dish.
“Heh, you jealous, Zanka?”
Baiting. Always waiting, always baiting.
“No.”
The car surges.
The car roughly thumps over a ragged part of the road and surges them forward, a fraction. The engine responding with this low snarl. Jabber's shoulder bumps the door sharply.
Jabber glances over, finally granting Zanka his attention. Really takes him in. He's still calm, though. Almost painfully calm, amused, even. He eyes the needle climbing, then the tension in Zanka's shoulders, his grip, the road head. Long, dark and empty.
Something clicks, then.
“Oh-oh!” he's delighted, of course he is, “we playing this game.”
“Drop it.”
Another press on the gas.
Amped up enough that the streetlights smear into long, molten streaks. The music suddenly feels annoying, grating. Too close. Thudding in Zanka's chest. And he wants to turn it off. To shut something off. But he's too locked in, focused, vision tunnelling, not on the road, but on whatever this is. The way the street blends, real ugly, when he speeds. A matching ugly to the one in his chest, or the one Jabber spits in easy, rhythmic words.
Jabber clocks the speedometer, again. That climbing little needle. Sitting up in his seat a little, one hand braced on the dash, and yet still miraculously unbothered. More like he's just holding on, rather than making any attempt to, what? Diffuse, maybe. He laughs lightly.
“You, my man,” he gestures vaguely towards Zanka's grip on the wheel, “gotta relax, you know that? It's jus' dancing.”
Zanka doesn't reply right away.
Perhaps a part of him wants to say it's not that. He's not jealous. It doesn't feel like jealousy. Nah, it's not. Jealousy is small. It's petty. Catty. A word you use when you already know what you want and you're mad someone else touched it first.
This isn't that feeling.
It's something…sharper? Like bone-deep irritation, as if his body knows something essential has been…replaced without his consent.
Jabbers time?
Jabbers attention?
The car hits something in its ever-growing speed, a dip, or a crack or a raised seam in the road, and they both jolt forward violently.
Jabber laughs again, heart picking up, racing just right, breathless “damn, Zanka! You really care that much? 'Bout little ol' me?” his voice becomes a mock touched sincerity,” I'm real touched by that, man-”
It's just-it's just noise? Right? It's irritation. It's Jabber being Jabber. He’s always been like this: open, needling, honest to a fault about how good he is at pressing buttons.That ain't ever been a secret between them. Zanka knew that when he drove to pick him up, knew that when Jabber left, knew that when he came back, knew that when he got in the vehicle and started talking.
“Drop it, Jabber!”
“Ha-ha! Or what?” eyes big and amused and curious about this strange, emotional reaction. This feral edge. Because it's not like Zanka isn't emotional, he's a whole mess. But this? Jabber smirks, “you gonna drive us into a buildin'? You gonna hit something, Zanka? What? Tell me.”
The speedometer answers in its ever-growing tick, tick, tick.
Jabber hums, leaning back into his seat, rain tapping an applause onto the window. “Yeah, das my guy.”
Oh, screw Jabber!
Screw his mouth. His tone. The way his words curls around Zanka's nerves with this sick entitlement. Screw Jabber's stupid, deliberate…language.
Something inside Zanka rears dangerously, snapping in two at the center.
He slams the accelerator like he's punishing it, like it's personal. Making the engine roar this world-narrowing noise. Zanka's chest is too small, too tight for his lungs, as if breathing through a straw. Heat blooms behind his eyes. There's this treacherous buzzing underneath his skin, electrical and wrong.
It's a real ugly look on him.
Beside him, Jabber is still smirking.
And Zanka want-he wants-
He doesn't know what he wants! A reaction. A sign. A crack in that face Jabber makes. Something that proves Jabber wants him, sees him, feels him. And right now, floating above it all, he ain't taking this seriously and it pisses Zanka off.
“This little routine you doin'?” Jabber says smoothly, “real sexy, you ever think about street racing? You on some Tokyo Drift type shit?” he grins. “That's hot.”
“Quit jokin',” Zanka snaps, “fuckin' quit it!”
Jabber nods, all solemn and mocking. “Awe, I see. You no fun when you're pretending to be scary, you know that?”
Fuck this.
Zanka swerves.
Not a lot. Just enough to feel it from the interior, the shift, the sudden wrongness. To rock them dangerously and stretch the moment into something tight and thin and sharp. Like a latex glove stretched tight over a clenched fist.
Jabber's laugh cuts off mid-breath.
It's not fear. Not yet. Surprise, more like. As if the joke's finally changed punchlines, no warning.
“Okay,” Jabber says it slow, “a'ight.”
Zanka's breathing is loud now, raw and ragged. Scraping over the music, even over the engine. Hands shaking in their death grip against the wheel. He hates that. Hates that Jabber sees. Hates that Jabber doesn't.
Hates him, probably, maybe, not at all.
“Z, man,” his tone is still lighter than the conversation deserves, not laughing but not solemn either, fake or maybe real, it's a coin flip with Jabber. “You can stop now.”
Too fast. Too close.
Zanka runs a red.
“Zanka.”
Still speeding.
Jabber's grin is gone, replaced by something entirely different, heavier. As if he's comprehending the extent of Zanka's crazy with a morbid seriousness. An 'oh' moment.
“Stop the car.”
The world cuts out, as if a cord’s been snapped!
Zanka slams the brakes.
The seatbelts bite in hard, tires screaming. There's several, scary seconds where the car does this painful little shuddering skid before lurching to a dead stop on the shoulder.
Zanka's hunched over the wheel, forehead against it, heaving anxious, vibrating breaths. Like his air is dragged through barbed wire on the inhale. His vision swims, chest hollow and yet so, so full.
Jabber processes for several, silent blinks. Once. Twice.
Then he laughs. But it's off.
More like a reflex. Not humor, more like a natural reaction. Seeping out like a slow gas leak from a pipe.
“Shit,” Jabber says, “y'fuckin' crazy.”
Zanka snaps, whipping around hard enough that his neck cracks awkwardly. “Fucker! You think this is funny?”
Jabber looks at him. Like, really looks. Takes in the sweat on his temples and the white-knuckled hands. The way he’s barely holding himself together, something feral pressed tight under his skin. Dangerous, even.
He sobers up, a little.
“No…” Jabber twitches, “I think you are, though.”
That's probably heavier than Jabber intends it to be.
“You don't take anything seriously.”
“Ay,” Jabber laughs, incredulous, “you out here tryna kill me and that's my fault? I told you to stop.”
“At the last second!” Zanka spits. “You-you liked it!”
“Das a whole different thing.”
“No it ain't! You don't even care if we get hurt!”
“And you don't care 'bout hurting us!” Jabber fires back. “How's them apples? Hm? You're the one doing a buck-fifty on the highway and now you all mad cause-cause, what? Cause I didn't kiss yo' fucking pride better?” He scoffs. “That's sad, even for you, man.”
That shuts Zanka up, at least.
They sit there for several seconds while the engine cools. Silences stretched over them tightly.
Jabber reaches out after several moments, fingers brushing Zanka's thigh in a barely-there touch. He'd never usually, maybe it's acknowledgement, or just another version of him worming his way under Zanka's skin. Something light and possessive and testing.
“You were mad about the dancing. Admit it, and I'll forgive you for tryna kill us both.”
“It's not that,” Zanka doesn’t move. “I was mad cause you act like it don't matter.”
Jabber nods, “it didn't.”
“See, this is the kind of shit I'm talkin' about-”
“You do, though,” Jabber cuts in. “That's the fun part.”
And-
Oh.
Jabber didn't give a fuck about the guy he danced with. Not even a little. He cared about the story. About the reaction. About getting under Zanka’s skin.
That's what matters to him.
Zanka stares at him, something dark coiling tight in his gut. Recognition, or horror, or maybe even want.
He…how fucking dare he-
“Anyway,” Jabber continues, easing back into the seat, “don't go tryna out crazy me like that.” A thin, knowing grin, “shit's weird.”