Work Text:
Picked up a lot of habits, babe
But you're the worst I've had to date
I feel like I can't cope without you
And that's the part I hate
“Shit,” Jabber swears, looking down at the clump of bloodied flower petals in his palm that he’s just coughed up. “This is fuckin’ annoyin’.”
Jabber knows that one day, Zanka will kill him.
It’s what these meetings of theirs were leading up to, after all. Why else would Zanka continue obliging him whenever he asked?
That didn't mean that Jabber wasn't going to indulge himself while he could, though.
“Oh man,” he pants, chest heaving as he struggles to breathe through the pain in his lungs. He’s about half sure that Zanka’s fractured his ribs again, and maybe one of those sharp pieces was pressing into his lung with every inhale. His Zanka did land a real good smack on his side during their fight today, another deciding factor in the outcome of it. He’d broken Jabber’s rib, and it brought him right back to their fight in the trash beast, where he first glimpsed the thing he’d end up dedicating the next few months of his life to chipping away at a thick exterior to see. “That was—that was good, Zan-Zan. Real good.”
Zanka huffs, grumbling to himself like he’d just been insulted, yet the tips of his ears flush bright red. Still, he pushes himself to stand from where he’d been sitting next to Jabber, then bends to lift the Raider into his arms. The movement jostles Jabber’s broken rib, and he moans, only partially playing it up. Subtly, his thighs twitch.
“Quit yer whinin’,” Zanka scolds delightfully, and Jabber decides not to point out how the flush on his ears spreads down to his cheeks. “And you were goin’ easy on me today, so this win don’t mean nothin’.”
Jabber shrugs. He hadn’t this time, not really, but he knew arguing with Zanka on this was a lost cause, and he was feeling too floaty to care, so he went along with it. “Only a little. Was feelin’ kinda tired today and I really needed to feel you beatin’ my ass, so I say it was worth it.” Zanka scoffs.
“What a freak.” He mutters, and this time, instead of pointing out that this was the pot calling the kettle black, Jabber keeps his mouth shut. It was odd—there was this weird sort of twinging feeling in his chest at the ‘insult’ this time. His throat felt sort of itchy.
He knew he was a freak—how couldn’t he, when that was all everyone had ever called him for as long as he'd understood words? From the moment where he was cast out of his hometown because he was ‘unsettling’ and ‘too attached to those rings’, all the way up to the moment he joined the Raiders because he was 'a perfect fit for group of crooks like them’—as one of his village's aunties had said when she found out—he’s known that there’s was something ‘wrong’ about him. He hadn’t cared about it then, and he doesn’t care about it now.
So why does his chest suddenly feel so weird?
“If I’m such a freak, how come you’re carryin’ me right now? Ain’t I your enemy?” Jabber retorts, ignoring the twinge. “Anyone else woulda jus' left me there, Zan-Zan.”
Zanka kisses his teeth, and Jabber’s mind very rudely strays to the way his mother used to correct him for that very thing. “I’m only doin’ this ‘cause I’m a nice person, so don’t get used to it.”
There it was—that weird twinge again, and this time, Jabber thinks he might know why it was happening.
Zanka is a nice person. Zanka is a good person, mostly, and good people don’t usually leave the injured there to die. Good people don’t join the Raiders and help them steal from others. Good people don’t strip their mother’s fresh corpse of her hair, hand, and arm jewelry to wear for themselves. Good people don’t get high for days at a time and kill things when they’re bored. Good people don’t like pain the way Jabber does.
Good people kill people like Jabber to rid the world of his filth, and Zanka was going to be a very good person one day.
“You know,” Jabber starts, letting his eyes slip closed in Zanka’s hold, knowing Zanka is too good to do something bad like drop him, even though they both know Jabber wouldn’t mind. “I’d argue that you’re actually pretty terrible, Zanka.”
It takes about a week for Jabber to realize that the flower he was coughing up hasn’t been found on the Ground for damn near centuries, now.
With real flowers being as rare as they were on the ground, it was no surprise that Jabber couldn’t immediately recognize them. It didn’t seem to be among the toxic varieties that Jabber had managed to cultivate (which took an incredible amount of work that was totally worth it), and he didn’t have much interest in any of the other ones. With this in mind, it wasn’t hard to come to the conclusion that this species of flower probably died out a long time ago, unable to withstand the worsening conditions of the soil the way the scarce few current species could.
It had deep violet petals that erred more on the side of being a true dark blue, just a step away from the color of Zanka’s eyes when he wasn’t using Lovely. It was the very thing that confirmed just who these petals were for—this illness was funny that way, forcing you to reconcile with your feelings in the form of having you cough up the eyes of your beloved. They made him feel as though he were throwing up perfume; they were so fragrant, and they left his stomach churning uncomfortably for hours afterward.
When this illness first started becoming a nuisance, he decided that he had to hide it from the rest of the Raiders, knowing that it would take them less than a second to realize who he was dying for once they saw the petals. He doesn’t think he’d be able to take the way they’d look at him for it.
So, he figures he’ll just disappear for a little while, until he figures out how to get rid of these flowers himself.
It takes Jabber another week of no noticeable changes to realize that the flower choking him is toxic when he finds himself hallucinating Zanka for almost all of the following week. It was a bit jarring, waking up one day and finding Zanka staring at him from where he crouched in front of Jabber. He was utterly quiet, gaze unblinking, and almost unnerving. How had he found him? And better yet, how had he gotten so close without Jabber noticing? He’s always been a light sleeper, jumping at the slightest of sounds, and Zanka has always been heavy-footed—he knows it like the back of his own hand at this point, the crunch of the ground beneath the Cleaner’s feet.
At first, Jabber hadn’t moved. His heart had leapt into his throat, stifling his breathing, and he stared right back. It took him a moment to wave a hand in front of him; it passed straight through, confirming that it was a hallucination. It’s not the first time he’s seen Zanka in the edges of his vision as a side effect from a new venom or concoction of some sort after all, even if it was the first time that he’s seen one be so bold as to appear right in front of him.
So, he lives with a gauzy Zanka following him around as he goes about his business. It was easy to ignore most times, merely a false presence at his side with no real bearing on any other aspect of his reality. It didn’t smell like wood the way Zanka did, wasn’t warm the way Zanka was, didn’t hit him the way Zanka would. It never even glared at him, and that might’ve been the only thing about it that truly disturbed Jabber.
Jabber’s never had a hallucination that lasted more than three days. Ones that came and went, maybe, but never constant, and the duration of this one could probably be attributed to the fact that he was consistently breathing in the fumes of this flower, seeing as it was sitting right in his lungs.
Once the hallucination ends, though, that floaty feeling returns. It was the same one from the last fight that they had, the one that marked the start of the persistent itchiness in his lungs that still hasn’t left him.
It was a bit like being high, though considerably weaker than the feeling he’d usually chase. His fingertips felt odd, and thinking felt like wading through thick, viscous bubbles. At times, he almost felt out of body, like his hands and feet were far away from him, which certainly didn’t help with the already damaged nerves in his hands. It fucked over his hand-eye coordination, and he imagined that it would make fighting much less enjoyable. It wasn’t like when he’d poison himself enough to pass out—at least then, his strength wasn’t hindered, unlike now.
Still, there was something to be said about the fact that Zanka had found a way to hurt him without even being there. Zanka truly was the perfect amount of horrible, and really too good to him.
Leave me alone 'cause I want all your attention
I can't let go but know the root of all suffering's attachment
In the third week of Jabber’s seclusion, he surmises that the flora growing in him was just as resistant to toxins and things as he was, and that the only things capable of killing it were probably things that’d kill him in the same swing, an outcome he wanted to avoid.
When Jabber dies, it will be by Zanka’s hand—his physical one, and not the one wrapping roots around his lungs.
There was the option of having the surgery to remove these flowers; there was always a market for poisonous concoctions, and he’d certainly be able to sell enough to afford it. The problem was that, from what he’s heard, it removed your memories with it, and Jabber…Jabber doesn’t want that.
That was the problem with this illness—it made people sentimental, and aside from his wonderful Mankira, Jabber hadn't been that until Zanka had cursed him. See, he knows that Zanka isn't a saint—that was what made him so perfect for Jabber. He'd have been boring if he were truly so honorable; he'd have been like that one supporter that Jabber nearly killed when they first met, the one that yammered on about the Sphereite being 'one of us' and about how 'we protect our own' and other bullshit like that. If Zanka had been like that, then that would have been the last time they saw each other.
Instead, when Zanka had recovered from his paralysis enough to limp his way toward Jabber, he bitched about the fact that Jabber had left him behind to find Rudo instead of finishing him off. Jabber hadn't even been conscious at this point, but Zanka had told him later about the rage that boiled the blood in his veins and clouded his vision.
Jabber remembers the look in Zanka's eyes as he recounted it, and that was what Jabber didn't want to lose. It would be like having candy for the first time, then being told that you'd never taste it again, and Jabber didn't want to go back to being the way he was. He didn't care if losing his memories meant forgetting he'd ever tasted that forbidden candy in the first place—his mind might forget, but his body wouldn't. He knows this because he already hosts the insatiable itch for a high he hasn't experienced since he was literally born—addiction ran in the family, after all, and it was his mother's own that killed her.
Unlike her, though, he didn't want to die. Not like that, at least. He knows that he comes close to overdosing while in search of the same high his mother chased, the one that led her to her death, but it was the thrill of toeing the line that kept him alive, and it had to be what led him to this very moment here. Jabber doesn't want to die just yet, but he knows that he will.
He knows that one day, Zanka will kill him, but somewhere along the way, this fact went from something he could easily accept to something that had his chest aching fitfully, even in moments where he wasn’t currently suffering under the effects of another toxin.
Jabber wants to live and fight Zanka forever, but that won’t be possible because Zanka was Good, and Good people like Zanka kill people like Jabber.
(And sure, there was the option of attempting to mold himself to fit more properly against all of Zanka’s morality and his wavering yet still straight-edged ideals, but if his only options were that and death, he’d choose death every time. Why live when it would be a life caged?)
In the fourth week of his seclusion, his coughing had only gotten worse, and that was probably because of the fact that he was alone in the first place. It left him with too much time to think, and most of that time went into thinking about Zanka, which in turn triggered coughing fits that worsened as time went on. Despite this, he didn’t risk taking trips outside of his base for too long, fearing that Zanka would somehow manage to find him, because their meetings weren’t always due to Jabber’s (before Zanka) fleeting whim. Sometimes, he’d be sent on a mission that happened to coincide with the Cleaners, and Zanka happened to be there. Sometimes, he’d simply be minding his business while walking around somewhere—usually a city or something of the sort—when Zanka would grab the sash he always kept tied around his waist and tug Jabber into him, wrapping an arm around him in promise and whispering things like, ‘found ya’ into his ear. Sometimes, Zanka would call his choker under the guise of casual conversation before eventually suggesting that they meet up.
Sometimes, just sometimes, Zanka would call his choker because he couldn’t sleep, and neither could Jabber, and he’d let Jabber talk until either the sun rose or they both fell asleep.
Leave me alone, don't give me any attention
I can't let go but know the root of all suffering's attachment
It strikes Jabber randomly, the urge to be angry about all this.
There he was, attempting to enjoy his life to the fullest, and now he's dying over a love he shouldn't have. He and Zanka were like shards of broken glass whose pieces didn't slot perfectly into each other. Instead, Zanka was forcefully grinding down Jabber's sharp edges to make himself fit against him, and Jabber, apparently, loved him for it. Enough to start coughing up flowers at the realization—and subsequent acceptance—that this love wouldn't be returned.
He wished he hated it. He wished he hated Zanka's need to pretend he was still chivalrous with the way he'd keep Jabber company after their spars when he didn't need to, or the way he'd let Jabber talk his ear off with barely a word of complaint. He wishes he hated the fact that there were still parts of Zanka locked away from him, like Jabber hasn't been begging to see all of him since their second fight. He deeply, deeply wishes he could hate the fact that Zanka was just intriguing enough to keep Jabber's interest for longer than a week. Then, he wouldn't be an unwilling participant in this suffering at all.
But he doesn't hate these things, and that urge passes almost as soon as it comes. If anything, it only proved just how perfect Zanka was for him—his cruelty clearly knew no bounds, first capturing Jabber's attention in an iron grip, then tearing his heart straight from his chest and replacing it with this flourishing flora that is slowly choking him to death. Jabber loves that he hates how much he would serve both this flower and his heart to Zanka on a silver platter.
A month into his seclusion, Jabber is deep in another experiment with another tincture meant to get rid of the flowers growing in him when the door to his warehouse-turned-laboratory-turned-home bursts open. It startles a puff of lingering petals from an earlier fit out of his nose, somehow, and he’s quick to sweep it out of the air before it can taint the mixture he’s making.
“Jabber!” An awfully familiar voice bellows through his home, and he nearly drops the vial in his hand.
He buffers for a moment, torn between announcing himself to the current bane of his existence or keeping quiet in the hopes that it might go away. Jabber isn’t very prone to silence—quite the opposite, much to the annoyance of his peers—but right now, he feels more inclined to it, given that being discovered would likely mean having to explain himself, and that was the last thing he felt like doing.
Unfortunately for him, the decision is made for him when those damning heavy–footed steps get louder. In the next moment, the door to his makeshift kitchen and living room slams open, and there stands Zanka Nijiku, ex-hellguard trainee, current associate of the Cleaners, and simultaneous love and end of Jabber Wonger’s life.
Zanka, upon spotting him, stomps over to the counter Jabber stands at, setting Lovely aside to crowd him against it. His slumping eyes are narrowed with tightly wound frustration, deep and dark as they bore into Jabber harder than they ever have before. Jabber feels a root shifting deeper in his lung.
“Where the hell have ya been this past month?” Zanka asks, his accent the thickest Jabber’s ever heard it, and it has his throat bobbing when he swallows down both more flower petals and slight arousal.
Jabber shrugs, going for a casualness he doesn’t feel. “I’ve been busy, man, what can I say? And anyway, how didja find this place? I don’t remember tellin’ you where my secret hideout was. You a stalker or somethin’?”
Zanka doesn’t rise to the bait. He only leans closer, so close that their chests nearly touch. “You ain’t been answerin’ my calls. Why?”
Another swallow. “Like I said, I’ve been busy. Too busy to entertain you, an' unlike some people, I got shit to do, so if you don’t mind—”
“Don’t lie ta me, Jabber.” Zanka cuts him off rather rudely, and Jabber clutches the countertops behind him desperately. That floaty feeling has him feeling like he’s about to fly away, now. “Why have ya been avoidin’ me?”
“Why, you miss me?” He puts a hand on Zanka's chest with the intent of pushing him away—he’s too close and Jabber can’t think, can hardly breathe because Zanka is looking at him and those wretched flowers are—
“And if I did?” Zanka says the words like they’re as sharp swords rather than an admission of vulnerability, and Jabber wonders, for a moment, if his hallucinations have returned and become both auditory and visual. He’s had one before—as it turned out, eating one of those brightly colored mushrooms that grew in the dark and musty tunnels of abandoned cities makes you think you’re wading through an ocean of flames by tricking both your eyes and your ears. Jabber learned this the hard way when the sound of rushing water followed him for nearly an hour straight after ingesting one of said mushrooms.
It takes Jabber a long moment to respond, but when he does, it isn’t words that burst from his lips. Instead, he laughs, loud and with disbelief, directly into Zanka’s face. He laughs hard, and it only lasts longer at the sight of the worsening frown on Zanka’s lips. He laughs so hard that it eventually turns into a cough, and where there was a cough, there were petals.
He coughs, and coughs, and coughs, and his breath evades him as petals surge through his airways, clogging them until eventually, they’re dislodged with a few good smacks on the back from Zanka, who had begun calling Jabber’s name with worry when his coughing didn’t stop.
Zanka slaps Jabber on the back, and those dark blue flower petals come tumbling out. Most of them land in a wet clump on the floor between them, though some of them are somehow completely dry, and they flutter sweetly as they make their slow way to the ground. When Jabber’s eyes clear of the tears that had gathered, he realizes that what he spat up wasn’t just a few stifling petals, but rather entire flower heads.
Zanka knows that one day, Jabber will leave him. It’s inevitable, of course, this abandonment. It’s what people like Jabber did to people like Zanka.
It’s what Hyo had done to him back in the Hell Guard, what Rudo would do to him soon enough. Geniuses like them only ever stuck around average joes like him until he was no longer useful.
But can Zanka really be blamed for being a bit hopeful that maybe this time would be different?
It was Jabber, after all, whose entire thing seemed to be exceeding expectations. He kept Zanka alive the first time they met when he really should have killed him because he saw something in him that Zanka couldn’t—and still doesn’t—see in himself. He chose Zanka to fight with in the trash beast because he had hope that Zanka would deliver. He continued calling Zanka up after the trash beast because he continued having hope, never seemed to waver with it, even when eight times out of ten, Zanka was the one left spasming on the ground.
They would cross paths during missions, and Jabber would smile at him, at first in that wild way of his until it slowly morphed into something more…personal, maybe. It was a smile that became reserved for Zanka alone, and Zanka knows this because that smile would shift when Jabber turned his gaze onto Riyo or Rudo. It would go back to being wild, back to being impersonal, back to being for everyone.
Jabber would call his choker and tell him to meet him at some nondescript place, and Zanka would do it with hardly a second thought because he was only human, and what normal human would turn down the chance like that? He didn’t mind that Jabber had this misguided notion that Zanka was something more than he was.
Jabber would call his choker just to talk, sometimes, and Zanka would let him because then it meant that Jabber wasn’t spending that time doing so with anyone else. Jabber had called him after all, and who was Zanka to turn him down?
Zanka would relish it while he could because Geniuses like Jabber will always leave average joes like Zanka behind, and though he knows this, he hadn’t thought that it would be so soon.
Here he stands in Jabber’s warehouse laboratory, watching as the Raider coughs up his love for another, and his own throat begins to feel a bit itchy.