Chapter Text
Zanka made a mistake.
He did so often, this wasn't a surprise to him, shouldn't have been a surprise.
He would've laughed if he could, but through the fog in his head all he could muster was a vague sense of dread. He tipped backwards into the black to the sound of what might have been a shout.
꧁⎝ 𓆩༺✧༻𓆪 ⎠꧂
He was itching, a voracious clawing of ants under his skin, scratching raw with his nails. He’d died twice today already but the feeling persisted. Maybe it's the method? That had happened a few times before, where his body wouldn't calm down at all until he died the “proper” way, whatever it ended up being that time.
Blood loss wasn't it this time, it was his preferred method, hence him dying twice from it already. Zanka sighed, running a hand through his hair as he reached up to squeeze ruthlessly at his own throat; he wanted the rasp in his voice to be believable when he rang Enjin to say he was taking the day off.
He had a list to go through. He Itched
꧁⎝ 𓆩༺✧༻𓆪 ⎠꧂
Zanka surfaced from his bathtub, breathing in air for the first time in a while, head blissfully clear, yet with the unmistakable draw towards a different End. Sighing again, he let the water drain from underneath him.
One down, however many to go.
꧁⎝ 𓆩༺✧༻𓆪 ⎠꧂
Blood Loss, Drowning, Electrocution, Blunt Force Trauma, Asphyxiation(Somehow, it was a different feeling of death to drowning, despite them both lacking oxygen), all wrong. His list of what was available at Home HQ was running short. Zanka had…two, maybe three options left if he wanted something he could feasibly do quietly.
He sat on the edge of his bead, tank top bunching up his waist, legs crossing under him, one hand playing with the drawstring of his sweatpants. Cervical dislocation wasn't one of his favorites, he, as much as he loved to hate it, preferred the deaths that he could feel. The pain was a pleasant reminder of his temporary mortality, the space between when he was alive and dead both, an instant of maybe this time, maybe I won't come back threading itself through his mind.
Both hands raised, left one sideways, fingers pressed into his left cheek, palm flat under his chin, the right gripping tight to the top of his skull. A slow exhale, pressing hands, steady.
The thing that no one ever really tells you is that snapping a neck is easy, really easy. A short few found of strength is all you need, the fun part is if you do it wrong, all you get is paralyzed. Which for zanka, means that he can't move for a good few hours, stuck wherever he is, completely immobile. He gets better of course, unlike other people, but the fact stands that it would be awful if he messed this up and someone walked in whilst he was stuck.
He Itched-
Another breath, his shoulders relaxed. On the exhale, his arms moved. Left hand wrenching his head to the side and up, right hand yanking back and down.
CRACK!
Zanka fell, strings cut, collapsing back onto his bed. Eyes wide and blank, limp limbs steadily cooling on the sheets.
Painless and Instant.
꧁⎝ 𓆩༺✧༻𓆪 ⎠꧂
Hands twitching as he Woke Up, Zanka groaned. He hated this. Pins and needles that he couldn't quite feel, yet somehow the sensation remained. Like faulty blood flow was the cause and not all his nerves reconnecting themselves.
So. His skin still felt Too tight, too loose, not right not right notrightnotrightititchesititchesgetitoffgeTITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFF and the last thing he could think of was…
Poison. Of course it would be poison.(He hoped it was poison. It was the only thing left here that he could try the only thing safe to try. Zanka wasn’t strong enough to live with the itch, he knew he would start trying the louder, more noticeable methods if this went on for much longer. He wasn’t sure if he would have the wherewithal to sneak out first by that point. Poison. It had to be poison)
Poison was safe, something that Zanka has always used like a reward of sorts, honestly. It stayed pleasantly in that category until he met Jabber, and everything changed. Jabber was fun, he was energy and chaos and ruthlessness wrapped in a sickly sweet coating that made Zanka’s teeth ache. He was also, Zanka noted, the only one that he knew of that knew Zanka wouldn't stay dead. Jabber had found out a few months ago, a chance slip when Zanka had died on a rooftop after a long day.
They were different after that. In a good way, he thinks. Zanka still wasn't as strong as Jabber, still lost most of their fights and died in over half of them, by and large Zanka should hate him. Ho doesn't.
꧁⎝ 𓆩༺☠︎︎༻𓆪 ⎠꧂
Surprisingly enough, Zanka was the one to make the first move. He had, mid fight, bleeding sluggishly from a nasty set of slices in his side, grabbed Jabber by the front of his stupid hood and dragged him in for a violent kiss. It wasn't tender, nothing like movies or books. There were no fireworks, no flowers blooming nor fluttering hearts, it just was. The raider’s lips clashing with his, teeth biting into him, blood blooming across his tongue as Zanka wrestled the other to the ground.
It was filthy, was everything he should have never even thought of, let alone acted on. Cruel, Zanka thought, the gods must be cruel. There was nothing sweeter he could have thought of than the sight of Jabber beneath him, pinned with Zanka straddling his hips, pupils blown wide with kiss bitten lips and an almost drunk expression painted on his flushed face. The gods must be cruel to tempt him with this, knowing he would never be able to deny it, deny Jabber.
There was nothing that could have stopped Zanka from running his hands up Jabber’s chest and leaning down for another collision, nor anything he would want more. It felt, he knew, diametrically perfect. Something that was never meant to happen, never thought up, even as a joke. They clawed, fought, bit and bled like always. Fallen together in a tangle of limbs and violence, like everything together, savage and vicious and honest.
꧁⎝ 𓆩༺☠︎︎༻𓆪 ⎠꧂
Poison was different for him now, something he was still trying to figure out. Blood and teeth and something softer. Still, when the buzzing under his skin made itself more known, Zanka stood shakily, stumbling to his dresser and pulling the false bottom from a drawer. Multiple glass bottles laid before him, liquids and powders and pills sorted into neat rows. Hemlock, aconite, Belladona, Queen Anne’s Lace, and Lily of the valley were just a few that he could name, trailing a finger along the glass. He preferred poisons that grew naturally, the purer the better. There was probably a reason for it, he knew, something with how they were once alive, yet closer to death than most things(like him).
He let his eyes skim over a few more vials, slowing over a few before he stopped at one. Foxglove. He stared at it for a moment longer, gently tracing along the cork. Foxglove, it must have been a personal favorite of Jabber’s, he always seemed to smell like it. Mind made up, he grabbed the gently splashing glass, placing the false bottom back into the drawer proper and stepping back to his bed.
He let it tip back and forth in his hand, watching the murky purple liquid move from the motion. He uncorked the vial, tipping it back into his mouth, the spicy acrid taste hit immediately, bitter and unpleasant. Still, he swallowed, aftertaste lingering in his mouth like a first frost, stubborn and cold.
It wasn’t long before he could feel it, the burn in his blood, the sharp and twisting pain in his chest. And then, a call. Not from his choker, from down the hall, his name, brightly lilted and pitched in a teasing tone he could almost taste.
Riyo.
Fuck. He was- he couldn't- Zanka could already feel the thundering of his heart, the strained wheeze of his breathing, he couldn't just stop that. He blinked rapidly, panic clawing in his throat as his door opened. Red hair, a playful expression, doubtlessly she came to tease him about getting “sick”, it would’ve been touching if he was. They would have eaten snacks, watched a trashy movie and bundled on his bed in far-too-many blankets.
Instead, Zanka got to watch Riyo’s expression drop from mischievous to shocked, shocked to concerned when she spoke something to him and all he could hear was static, concerned to pale when he tried to say something back to her, reassure her, something. And then, as Zanka’s eyes fluttered again, fruitlessly trying to stay awake for his sister Riyo, pale to frantic.
Zanka could only hope that Riyo ever forgave him.