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Soulmates were so rare that many still believed them to be old wives tales. Zanka knew that this, unfortunately, was not true. Soulmates were a real, documented phenomenon. The Hellguard had records, research, and documentation detailing every folk tale, modern rumor, and verifiable proof about it.
Soulmates could hear one another's thoughts. The definition for what constituted a “soulmate” was debated. The term originated from tales about lovers made for one another, a pair where one perfectly matches the other. Perhaps the gods cut them from the same cloth. Or perhaps they were forged in the same fire. In some tales, finding a soulmate was like finding a missing piece of you. Once a pair, you were complete.
Zanka hated these. He did not like to think of himself as incomplete. In all likelihood, of course, he had no soulmate, but in the miniscule chance he did, it seemed an insult that one would not be complete without the other.
He liked much more to think of soulmates as a compliment to one another. Two dancers in perfect rhythm. Two musicians with instruments whose sounds would entwine to make the most beautiful melody.
If he'd had a soulmate, he thought they would of course be a great fighter like him. They would be a hard worker, as well. He hoped beyond hope that they would be kind, that they would soothe that burning anger he felt. They would smooth his sharp edges. That this heat he felt in his chest would be balanced with the right person.
But the truth was he didn't want to have a soulmate, whether they were his missing half or his perfect match. Because the Hell Guard’s records also detailed all the horrific experiments they did on soulmates to test that rarest of connections.
How far apart could they be before one could not hear the other? There seemed to be no distance they could find, nor substance that blocked it, though losing consciousness did, whether through drowning, torture, or other methods.
Could you sever a soulmate bond once the connection was made? Connection was made upon first meeting, and the only way they found to sever it afterwards was brain death. There were many experiments on exactly which part of the brain to no conclusion.
What level of distress could one party go through before the connection was lost? Evidence inconclusive. Further testing necessary.
He had no illusions that his family name would save him from being a “test subject x” on a coldly analytical report. It certainly would not save his soulmate.
So Zanka did not dream of having a soulmate. He did not wish to hear someone else’s voice in his mind and he did not wish to send his own to theirs. He focused on himself, and put the haunting images of report descriptions away in his mind.
Zanka actually didn't even think about it when Jabber’s deranged laughter echoed in his mind through ktheir first fight. He was drugged to the gills, surely it was a side-effect of that. He didn't even think about it in the trash beast, because everything they said to one another was said with lips and jinki.
He still had not thought about soulmates when he had seen locs shimmering with gold and a purple hood disappear into an alley, nor when they subsequently beat each other bruised and bloody and hungry. He didn't think about how he didn't see the other man’s lips move but still heard his own name sung in his mind after falling to another dose of poison from Mankira’s claws before everything went black.
In hindsight, perhaps he should have. Of course there were reasons he didn't - being drugged, one, it being Jabber of all people, two. His belief in his own inability to be fully loved might be up there.
Whatever the reason, they had already exchanged blood and had been fighting or sparring one another weekly for some time before he connected the dots.
They hadn't arranged a fight that day. It had been pure happenstance that the cleaners had run into Jabber. He was alone, and they came upon him with his back to them and out of uniform, so whatever he was doing in the waste it wasn't on Zodyl’s orders.
He'd heard them coming and turned, grinning ear to ear when his eyes fell on Jabber. Of course, they were there for a trash beast. A trash beast that had manifested in the instant the Raider had been distracted by the Cleaners.
Zanka felt it through Lovely Assistaff a moment before it broke the ground. Had it been lying in wait for its prey? He didn't even have time to scream. Even if he did the other man was too far to hear. Mankira wasn't even activated - Jabber was going to be swallowed by the earth.
So he screamed a warning with his mind. A desperate, illogical hope that somehow the location of the beast would be known to the other man. That he would feel his fear before he could say a word.
Maybe it could have been the widening of his eyes. Maybe it could have been that they had been fighting enough that the other man was in tune with his movements so precisely. Maybe even he had felt the trash beast itself.
Jabber activated Mankira into full form and was enveloped by her. A split second later he was inside the jaws of a giant worm-like trash beast bursting from the ground. Only moments after that the thing was shredded and Jabber Wonger was standing in the trash-carnage. He didn't seem to have a scratch on him.
Even at this distance Zanka could see Jabber's wide eyes. It was all the confirmation he needed. It was not any of those “maybe”s. Jabber had heard him. He knew. And he knew that he knew. And he knew that he knew that he knew.
Zanka watched as the Raider turned tail and ran.
No one chased him, as they had three more trash beasts to deal with.
Zanka didn't remember much of the following fight, subsequent celebratory dinner, or ride home. He was staring at Jabber’s back and then he was in his bed, staring at the ceiling.
He ran through approximately a million thoughts. Perhaps he was wrong. Was there any way he was wrong? But the pieces were falling into place. The laughter and words and whispers in his mind while drugged were not hallucinations or side effects.
He tried very hard not to think about the implications of Jabber Wonger being his perfect match. He then tried very hard to pretend like it didn't make sense. To act as if he had not pushed him to grow and better more than anyone else ever had. To act as if he didn't find himself itching for their next fight, forcing himself not to be the one to ask.
He tried particularly hard to not think about Jabber’s moans when he broke something or how those sounds and the exact red of his blood had made its way into his dreams where he woke up sweaty and gasping. Unfortunately the more you tried not to think about something the more you did.
Zanka held his hands over his face and groaned.
He most of all did not think about how Jabber had turned and ran. He didn't think at all about the chance that even his soulmate, his fucked up and mentally deranged soulmate, would not want to be with him.
He needed a smoke.
Zanka pulled on the Cleaner’s uniform overcoat without bothering to zip it up over his more casual sleepwear. He dug under the mattress for where he hid his emergency pack (that Enjin would surely kill him for if he knew - the hypocrite), shoved it in his pocket, and grabbed Lovely before slipping out the back door.
He walked aimlessly for a bit, just trying to put distance between himself and HQ. Eventually he found a nice enough alley with a sturdy enough crate to sit on. It might have even been a spot for the nearby restaurant’s workers to smoke, as he saw the back door not too far off. The lamp over it was dead, of course. Or maybe just off. The restaurant had been closed for hours.
It was still out of the way enough that the sounds of nightlife from the street were muted, so he leaned against the wall and rummaged for the pack in one pocket and matches in the other.
In short order he was taking a long drag, sucking in and then...
“Dontcha know? Those things can kill ya, Mr. Bad Attitude,”
... promptly choking and sputtering on the smoke.
Zanka coughed, banging on his chest, his eyes watering, before he managed to get ahold of himself and look up at the grinning figure standing above him. He reached for Lovely, resting at his side, and then aborted the motion. Jabber’s hands were in his pockets, and since there were no gaping holes in his jacket, she was not activated.
Zanka sighed and rubbed his temples. “I'm really not in the mood for a fight tonight.”
“That'd be a first.”
Zanka glared at the man through his fingers, but he was still just lazily looming over him. Was he studying him more closely? Was there a tension in that crazed grin? It didn't seem like he was about to pounce, but if he wasn't looking for a fight then what was he here for?
He sighed and ran his hand down his face before taking another drag, exhaled, and offering the open pack to Jabber. The other man scrunched his nose and waved a dismissive hand. Zanka put the pack back into his pocket before leaning against the wall again, his eyes closed, letting the small buzz of nicotine calm him.
“I thoughtcha'd be a ‘my body is a temple’ type.” He heard Jabber shift as he spoke, and peeked an eye open to see him unceremoniously plop on the ground, leaning against the wall across from him.
“I thought you wouldn't mind a little smoke with all the other poison running around in yer veins.” He looked at the other man now through lazily lidded eyes. Studied him. Jabber was studying him right back.
“It's boooring.” The rest went unsaid. Jabber didn't bother with anything boring. So why was he looking at Zanka like that right now?
When Zanka exhaled next smoke blew from his nostrils. It burned. It didn't burn enough.
“I don't often,” he finally said. He didn't say he only did when he had a lot on his mind. When he had sent himself spiralling and needed a break. When he couldn't stop thinking about something - or someone.
Jabber didn't say anything, but he licked his lips, and Zanka couldn't stop himself from watching.
I know something else that can take your mind off things, if ya don't wanna fight. Jabber said. Except he didn't. His mouth never moved, and it wasn't Zanka’s ears that heard the words, but his mind.
He felt his own eyes widen, and saw Jabber’s narrow. He looked hungry, but also eerily still and taut. Like a dog holding himself back from prey on an owner’s command.
“You did hear me.” It was barely a whisper, but it didn't matter, because he knew it would also be echoing in Jabber’s mind now. He could feel it, like at once the words were escaping his lips and entering the other’s mind.
Jabber ever so slightly shuddered, his eyes rolling back slightly. Zanka bit his lip so hard it bled. His fingers dug into his thigh hard enough to bruise. He dug the butt of the cigarette into the wall and involuntarily imagined it was Jabber before dropping it to the ground.
They both looked at one another through a haze of lust. Neither spoke or thought a word, but it was palpable between them. The alleyway felt muggy and hot.
I hate you. Zanka felt his own words in Jabber's mind, saw him shudder again, and then pounced.
He slammed Jabber against the wall, his fist bunched in his shirt. He gasped, a moan behind it before grabbing Zanka by the hips, shifting his weight, and throwing him to the ground.
Zanka gasped as his back hit the concrete, but used his momentum to hook his legs around the Raider, bringing him to the ground and raising himself above him in one motion. The movement dislodged his hands, and Zanka swiftly pinned them above his head.
Jabber looked up at him through half-lidded eyes, breathing heavily though they had barely moved at all. He writhed beneath him, but didn't seem terribly bothered by the position otherwise.
He lifted his jaw ever so slightly, baring his neck to Zanka. He felt his own heart pounding in his own throat. Watched Jabber's Adam's apple bob as he swallowed.
He didn't make the conscious decision to bite Jabber's neck. One moment he was watching sweat drip down it and the next he had hot flesh against his teeth, his tongue swiping and tasting salt.
Jabber moaned beneath him, and when his hips rose he could feel his arousal against his own. Zanka bit, nipped, and sucked from just below Jabber's ear to his collarbone, savoring every gasp and little noise.
It felt unbelievably good to have him at his mercy like this. He felt powerful. He felt hungry. He wanted to eat and hurt and watch bleed and fuck and -
Zanka froze. Jabber froze beneath him barely a breath later.
What the hell am I doing? Zanka felt his breathing get swift, his grip loosen, as his forehead fell against Jabber’s chest.
I thought that was obvious. Jabber’s voice echoed in his mind. He couldn't help but let out a strangled laugh into his shirt.
It was all so ridiculous. It only got more ridiculous when Jabber freed a hand and instead of doing anything Zanka could have possibly guessed he'd do with it, began running his fingers softly through Zanka’s hair.
Zanka tensed, and then relaxed. He fell against the other man, not caring that his body weight was probably digging Jabber’s back into the concrete. The freak probably liked it.
One hand’s fingers were loose around Jabber's wrist, and his fingertips could feel the faint pulse of a heartbeat. He shifted slightly, pressing his ear against his chest, and listened to it beat in steady synchronized rhythm. Between that and the fingers carding through his hair, he was oddly soothed.
By Jabber, of all people. By his soulmate.
“You knew. The first time we met,” Zanka whispered. It wasn't a question, but Jabber still hummed in affirmation. The sound reverberated pleasantly against his skull.
Why didn't you say anything? Jabber stilled beneath him at the question, his hand stopping its ministrations for a moment.
I wanted to see you again. The word “see” felt a lot like “fight” which of course was laced with a certain erotic undertone. It felt like when something was conveyed with inflictions, but somehow more. They weren't just communicating with words, but with emotions, thoughts, implications. There was more than Jabber was saying and his mind was spinning trying to decipher it all.
He was interested in Zanka from the beginning. Not because they were soulmates, but because Zanka himself interested him. He liked fighting him, and wanted to do it again. And then again and again. More and more with each taste.
Zanka had felt similarly, so why...?
“You thought it'd scare me off,” he murmured. Jabber stiffened, his fingers digging lightly against Janka’s skull, tangled in his hair, somewhat possessively. Zanka smirked. “Jabber, that's almost cute.”
He didn't have to look up to know he was scowling, but he did anyway. He finally lifted himself up enough to be looking down at him again. Jabber's cheeks puffed a little as he frowned, like a child’s. His hand fell as he moved from his hair to rest on his hip. He stubbornly looked away from him.
Zanka’s hand ghosted over his skin before his thumb gently kneaded at the little angry crease between his eyebrows. Jabber's eyes widened and for a moment he didn't breathe. Then he shuddered a breath and looked at him sidelong, from the corner of his eyes. Zanka thought maybe it was supposed to be in anger, but it looked frightened instead.
He let his fingers slide softly, gently over his face, resting finally along his jaw. His thumb moved little circles along the bone and Jabber closed his eyes, a little frown forming again in his eyebrows and mouth.
I didn't tell, ‘cause I don't do this soft shit. It was a lie. There was a tremor of truth beneath it, though. A fear. Jabber was not used to being anything but abrasive.
Zanka bent down and brushed his lips against his forehead, then his cheekbone. His hand slid down his neck as his lips ghosted along his jaw, then trailed down his chest as they followed ever-so-gently against his throat. Jabber let out a soft gasp.
“I'll teach ya,” Zanka whispered against the soft skin of his bruised throat. He nipped gently at the skin, trailing up until he tugged at his earlobe with his teeth. “Or maybe we'll learn together.”
With the murmured words, he sent Jabber the memory of his fingers through his hair, of how they calmed him, and felt Jabber relax beneath him once more.
Then he felt his own breath against Jabber's throat, the heat of his own body pressed against Jabber’s. He felt his own now almost forgotten arousal mix with the thought - the feeling of Jabber’s now very much not forgotten desire.
“Oh,” he gasped.
Jabber hummed in approval, and took the opportunity of Zanka’s disorientation to flip them over. He was surprisingly gentle, using his hand on his hip to soften the fall.
Zanka grabbed him by the collar and pulled him into a bruising kiss. They crashed against one another, mouth against mouth, tongues fighting one another, hot breath mixing. Their fingers dug into flesh and Zanka moaned at the thought of all the little bruises he was going to leave on him.
Mine, mine, mine, mine... Zanka's thoughts pressed possessively into Jabber's mind.
Jabber moaned into his lips, and Zanka flipped them again, this time tearing at clothes as he did. The last layer of shirts he left tangled and twisted around his wrists in lazy restraint. It didn't stop Jabber from pulling at Zanka’s own clothes, and greedily pawing at his bare stomach as he pulled his shirt over his head.
He could feel the smooth pressure of Mankira, warmed by her Giver’s body heat. She felt impossibly burning hot against his bare skin, like she could conduct the electricity between them. He leaned into the touch.
His own fingers dug into Jabber's hips, pinning him down. He slid down, letting their arousals meet for only a moment before he was lower, lower, trailing kisses from his chest down to licking his happy trail.
Jabber fisted his hand in his hair and tried to buck his hips, but was kept pinned against the ground, now with Zanka’s forearms against his thighs, his fingers gripping his hips.
He didn't so much see Jabber's view as feel it. He felt his arousal. His desperation. He felt how much he wanted his mouth everywhere.
He squirmed beneath him, desperate. He told him half in words and half in feelings and desire how much he wanted his mouth, his fingers, his cock.
Zanka felt electric. His skin felt like it was buzzing. The taste of sweat and skin melting against his mouth, and he wanted to taste more.
He pulled at Jabber's pants, and as he let him scramble out of his, tugged off his own.
Then they were bare before one another. In some grimey alleyway. Jabber looked unbelievably beautiful bathed in the diffused light of the city. There was nothing in the world but them, and neither the rest of the world nor Zanka’s mind had ever been so quiet.
He drank in the sight of him, feeling dizzy. God, yer gorgeous. flowed into Jabber's mind as Fuck. panted into his. It felt a little like a prayer.
Zanka was making some sort of animalistic growling noise he hadn't known himself capable of. To say he lunged at Jabber was not an exaggeration. He was kissing him again. He bit down on Jabbers lips and they both moaned as he drew blood.
Their teeth clacked against one another, their hands were digging, pulling, pushing. Zanka’s fingers dug into the flesh of Jabber's thigh, first bruising, then his fingernails breaking skin in little bloody crescent moons.
Jabber shuddered beneath him. “Zan-zan~” That stupid nickname a breathy moan. Zanka wanted to shut him up, and even more than that he wanted to make him beg.
He lowered his head tantalizingly close to Jabber’s cock, watched it twitch and throb in want, and then bit his inner thigh. Jabber arched beneath him, gasping. He felt fingernails scratch against his scalp and bit harder, eliciting them to dig and pull at his hair.
He sucked hard, a little lower, closer to his groin. After a few more bites, hickeys, and nips he admired his work. Bruises were blossoming, framed by teeth marks weeping little droplets of blood. He could see the unique pattern of his own teeth, and got hard enough at the sight pleasure verged on pain. The two were rapidly mixing in his mind.
Jabber whined and just the sound was enough for Zanka to consider taking him right then and there.
Instead he began trailing kisses down the abused thigh, licking and lapping at the blood. Jabber squirmed.
You're such a tease, Zan-zan. Jabber whined in his mind.
Zanka slowed as he got closer to his cock. He looked up at the Raider with his head between his thighs and blinked slowly. His mouth got so close he knew the other man could feel his breath on his cock.
Ask nicely.
Jabber's eyes darkened, his pupils expanding impossibly larger. He tried to move his hips closer, but Zanka held him in place, his fingers digging into flesh harder than necessary. Jabber grinned.
Please, baby.
Zanka shuddered an exhale as a pleasant thrill ran down his spine. He wanted to hear that again. He wanted him to lose that stupid grin and say it between wrecked breaths.
His tongue ran a long line from the base to the tip of his cock before swirling around the slit. Jabber let out an obscene moan, his hand fisting tighter in Zanka's hair than ever.
He hovered over his cock again, then opted to bite the yet unadorned thigh. Jabber pulled at his hair and Zanka let go, again simply breathing hot and moist breaths over his thigh. Jabber whined.
“Please, baby, please, please-”
Zanka bit his inner thigh and was rewarded with a pleasant little squeak, cutting off the begging. He then returned to his leaking cock, lapping at the tip. His reward, a breathy moan.
He slowly wrapped his lips around the other man's cock. Jabber's fingers were now just cupping his head obediently, but he had a feeling the hips he was pinning down were trying to move on their accord.
He looked up at Jabber, and saw him already nearly wrecked. His locs fell around his face in a halo, framing his sweating, panting, desperate face. His mouth hung open in a beautiful little “o”.
Zanka took him just an inch further, swirling his tongue as he did. He felt Jabber shiver as he did. His eyes still didn't leave him. God, Zanka was hard.
He wanted to tease and tease, but he was getting close to his own limit watching the effect he had on him. He wanted to fuck him, desperately.
So, he released his cock from his mouth with a little “pop”. Jabber sounded close to tears as he whined.
Zanka pumped him with his hand, once, twice, before swirling one finger over his still gently leaking cock. Precum secured, he resumed his ministrations with his mouth while simultaneously ever-so-gently sliding his finger around Jabber's entrance.
Jabber's breathing got quick, and his eyes widened. He brought him further into his mouth and slowly slid his finger inside. Just a little.
His mind was filled with Jabber’s ecstasy. His vision went a little white with it.
He tried to keep the slow and steady pace. He tried so hard to keep teasing. But he knew how badly Jabber wanted it. He knew how much he'd enjoy the burn of being fucked by his finger with so little lube. And he knew how badly he wanted to fuck him.
Quickly, he found himself taking him to the back of his throat while his finger pressed deep enough to brush his prostate. He knew both from the arch of Jabber's back and from the explosion of feeling in his mind.
They were the only two people on earth. He wanted them to be one. He wanted to be inside him, he wanted to forget where he ended and Jabber began. He added another finger.
He could feel Jabber's orgasm building before it happened, and he pressed a third finger to that sweet spot to push him off that ledge.
He watched as his jaw tilted to the sky, looked at the bruises that painted the history of where Zanka's mouth had been, and moaned around Jabber's cock. Warmth spilled down his throat, and he struggled to swallow it all quick enough.
His mouth and fingers left Jabber with sounds that made Zanka’s dick twitch painfully. Jabber let out a breathy little sigh, his fingers finally releasing Zanka’s hair, and trailing lazily down his neck.
Tell me ya can go again. Even his thoughts were breathy and desperate. He felt his fingers digging into the soft skin of Jabber's thigh.
Magenta eyes danced as they looked down at him. Mindless bliss still buzzed on the edges of his grin. He bit his lip, still grinning wildly as a drop of blood trickled down his chin. What do you think, baby?
He was already getting hard again. Zanka's eyes widened in shock before narrowing again in hunger. He leaned forward, ghosting over Jabber’s mouth, letting their breath mingle.
Hot breath against his lips eclipsed everything else, and they were crashing into one another again. Mouth against mouth, biting, kissing, gasping, warring.
Their tongues fought for dominance, Zanka winning only when he slid his cock across Jabber’s entrance, earning a little gasp.
He trailed a lazy finger along the base of Jabber’s dick, smiling into his mouth when it twitched and hardened under his light touches.
Jabber tried to press against his hand and cock, but with his other hand Zanka held him in place. He whined.
Zanka pumped his dick with a fist, once, twice, and it fully hard again. Once more and it was leaking, Jabber shuddering beneath him.
Zanka lapped at the blood on his chin, on his lips, and gasped into his mouth. “Make that pretty face for me and beg.”
Jabber glared at him for just a moment, but pressing just the tip in had his eyes rolling back and a stream of barely legible “pleasepleaseplease”s falling from his lips. Jabber sent him nigh delirious thoughts of how he thought his cock might feel in him, how much it might hurt, how much he wanted it to hurt.
Zanka lost track of where his desire began and where Jabber's ended. Everything was screaming at him to just go, just abandon all hesitation and fuck him.
So he did.
Zanka plunged his cock into Jabber, bottoming out in one impossible breath.
Jabber cried out in equal parts pain and pleasure. Zanka bit into the junction of his neck and shoulder to muffle his own sounds of ecstasy.
The feeling was indescribable. Jabber pressed against him impossibly tightly, hot and perfect. Their only lube was each of their precum, and probably some blood, but it didn't matter.
They stayed like that for a long moment, still and overwhelmed. Then Jabber shifted his hips and Zanka gasped.
Please-
It was like Jabber’s vocabulary had narrowed to a single word, but Zanka was already too far gone to keep denying him. He slid almost entirely out, then bucked his hips sharply while pulling Jabber’s hips to him. There was an audible slap of skin against skin.
Jabber cried out as he hit his prostate. Zanka moaned against his collarbone.
He wanted more, more, more, but he was terrified he was going to cum right then and there. He bit Jabber's collarbone, drawing little pinpricks of blood.
“Fuck,” he moaned, unable to stop himself from thrusting into the man again and again.
They were both sending thoughts of pleasure, of sensation, of raw eroticism. Zanka felt both at once the sensation of fucking and being fucked. He felt the pleasure of pain and the pleasure of inflicting it. He was at once himself and also more.
He had never been closer to another person in his life. For a moment he forgot they were even separate entities. Jabber, Zanka, Makira, Lovely, all felt intermingled. One was the other was the other.
Sensation and pleasure were overwhelming. He wanted to finish as badly as he wanted to stay in this moment forever, constantly teetering on the precipice of eruption.
He desperately tried to hold out, but the flood of pleasure between them was too much.
He wasn't sure who came first, because the second one crested their orgasm, the other joined almost instantaneously. They were lost in waves of pleasure, feeling both orgasms at once.
Zanka felt dizzy and exhausted when it was over. He barely had enough energy to slide out, earning a soft sigh from Jabber at the loss.
His head laid against Jabber's chest, and for a long moment they just breathed. A lazy hand made it to Zanka's hair once again, and the sluggish motions very nearly put him to sleep.
Jabber was so warm beneath him, he was like a damn oven despite his lanky build. It felt like waking to a cold room when you were beneath warm covers. He was drowsy with warm comfort.
“Do ya think it's gonna be that good every time? I wanna know what it's like with this new thing I got ...” Jabber's voice was strangely melodic as he rambled on about something or another. Zanka felt his consciousness drifting.
“Shuddap,” he mumbled against the Raider’s chest. “Yer voice is too nice ... can't sleep out here ...”
Jabber giggled.
He felt a prick in his side. Unconsciousness washed over him in an oddly pleasant feeling of vertigo.
When he woke, his clothes were on. Had Jabber dressed him? He was also in his own bed. How the fuck... ?
For a moment, he felt the icy fear that none of it was real, that it was all some dream or a poison-induced hallucination.
But no. Now that he'd identified it, he could feel their connection thrumming softly in the back of his mind.
He looked down to his right and on the bedside table saw a hastily scribbled note.
[I think your creepy base knows about us xoxo]
Zanka put his head in his hands. Of course Shikage knew about them, or else Jabber wouldn't have gotten in. Did anyone else see him sneak in? Surely not, or they'd have killed him for bringing in an unconscious cleaner, no matter how much they looked like they had been ... active together recently.
Zanka moaned into his hands. If he was lucky it'd just be Shikage and Semiu who knew, but if he were unlucky ...
Soothing waves of calm flowed through his mind.
Was I thinking too loud?
A gentle hum shushed him. Was this the same man who thought himself incapable of soft comforts? Amusement peeked through the anxiety, and slowly his thoughts unraveled themselves.
He would figure it out. They would figure it out, together.
After all, they were soulmates.