Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The air in the collapsed industrial refinery tastes like rust and old rain. Gray light cuts through holes in the corrugated roof, illuminating dust motes that drift like sediment settling in a calm pond. The floor is a mosaic of shattered concrete and oily puddles, strewn with carcasses of long-dead machinery. In a corner where two walls still stand, a single battered lantern casts a low, honeyed glow, pushing back the deepest shadows.

Zanka Nijiku kneels in the circle of that light, his movements precise, calm. The usual frantic energy that vibrates just beneath his skin is absent, replaced by a focused stillness. In his hands lie a roll of clean bandages, a flask of water, and a small tin of antiseptic salve. Spread before him, back propped against a crumbling pillar, is Jabber Wonger.

Jabber is a canvas of pure ruin, battered, as bruises bloom across his brown skin in violent purples and greens, concentrated along his ribs, his throat, and the sharp line of his jaw. One eye is swollen nearly shut, the hot pink of his iris just visible through the slit. A split lip has been clumsily stitched — thanks to Zanka’s work earlier — and dried blood crusts his chin and neck. His breathing is a ragged and wet thing, each inhalation showing visible effort that makes his bruised up chest hitch painfully.

Yet, through the pain, a smug yet dreamy smile pulls on his bloody mouth. His gaze, hazy and satisfied, is fixed on Zanka’s face.

Zanka doesn’t look at him. Not directly. His focus is on the long, shallow gash running from Jabber’s collarbone down to his sternum. He’s cleaning it now, a torn piece of his own uniform sleeve soaked in water and antiseptic. (He tsked as he ripped his uniform sleeve. “Now I gotta get a new one. Piece of shit.”)

His touch is firm, basically clinical, but there’s a deliberate care in the way he avoids pressing too hard on the worst of the bruising. The only sound is the soft, wet shhhk of cloth over skin, and Jabber’s stuttering breath.

“You got… reeaall mean with that staff today,” Jabber slurs, the words bubbling slightly through the blood in his mouth. A tremor runs through him, but it’s not from pain alone. “Thought you were gonna… crack my skull open like for real.”

“Shut up,” Zanka murmurs, his voice low and flat. It lacks its usual exasperated edge. He rinses the cloth and wrings it out, the water dripping pink onto the concrete. “You are the one who dropped his guard. Idiot.”

“Mmm. Felt good.” Jabber’s head lolls back against the pillar, his long locs, heavy with their golden rings, pooling around him. “That last hit… right in the kidney. Saw stars. You’re gettin’ better, Zanzan. Only took you… what, seven tries?”

“It was two.” Zanka’s jaw tightens so hard you can see a muscle jumping. He doesn’t like the reminder of his earlier losses, but the anger is banked, distant. He applies the salve to the cleaned wound, his fingers spreading the cool ointment with methodical strokes. “And ya talk too much when you’re concussed.”

“Gotta fill the quiet,” Jabber whispers, his good eye drifting shut for a moment before snapping open, fixing on Zanka again with unsettling intensity. “Quiet’s when it gets… weird. Y’know man? When you stop bein’ my enemy and start bein’ the guy who patches me up.”

Zanka’s hands still for a fraction of a second. Then he continues, picking up the bandages. “Don’t get philosophical. It doesn’t suit ya.” He begins wrapping Jabber’s torso, leaning in close to pass the roll behind his back. Their proximity is intimate, functional, charged with the lingering heat of violence. Zanka’s blond streaks, damp with sweat, brushes Jabber’s shoulder.

The silence stretches thickly, full of the memory of fists on flesh, choked curses, and the desperate, animal sounds that had torn from both of them not long ago. The fight had been brutal, a snarling, desperate clash that had ended with Zanka pinning Jabber to this very floor, both of them bloody and heaving, something in the air transforming.

Now, in the aftermath, the fight has bled out, leaving just Zanka’s meticulous hands, Jabber’s wrecked body, and a tension that changed into something that felt a little more dangerous.

The bandaging done, Zanka ties off the end neatly, his fingers deft. He sits back on his heels, finally lifting his gaze to meet Jabber’s. His navy blue eyes are unreadable in the lantern light, but the frantic internal storm he usually radiates is subdued, replaced by a weary, dominant focus. He looks at the bruises, the split lip, the swollen eye, as if cataloging his own work. This is how he should stay lookin’ like.

Jabber stares back, the smug smile softening into a more genuine one, even more unnerving. Without a word, he lifts a trembling, ring-adorned hand. It’s a slow, effortful movement, his arm movement delayed almost. He doesn’t touch Zanka’s face. Instead, his fingers curl loosely around the back of Zanka’s neck, a weak pull.

Zanka doesn’t resist. He lets himself be drawn forward, his expression not changing, but his breath catches. Their foreheads meet, a grounding press, a silent acknowledgment of the damage they’ve just inflicted and shared. Jabber’s breath ghosts hot and ragged over Zanka’s mouth. Zanka’s eyes are closed, his long lashes casting shadows on his cheeks.

“See?” Jabber breathes, the word barely audible. “Weird.”

Zanka’s response is to close the last inch of space. The kiss isn’t sweet. It’s deep, hungry, and a continuation of the fight by other means. Zanka’s hand comes up to cup Jabber’s jaw, his thumb pressing against the unbruised side, holding him steady. Jabber makes a low, punched-out sound into his mouth, surrendering to it, his free hand coming up to fist weakly in the fabric of Zanka’s baggy sleeve.

When Zanka pulls back, it’s with a sharp intake of breath. He nips at Jabber’s already-injured lower lip, a quick, possessive bite that makes Jabber shudder. A fresh bead of welled blood appears. Zanka watches it for a second, his gaze dark, before he leans in again and licks it away, the gesture startlingly tender amidst the brutality.

He rests his forehead against Jabber’s once more, both of them breathing heavily in the shared, stained air. The lantern flickers.

Twenty yards away, shrouded in the deep shadow of a massive, toppled generator, Enjin stands perfectly still.

He’d been tracking the residual energy signature of a minor trashbeast, his umbrella tucked under his arm, his expression one of mild boredom. The ruined refinery was just another bleak checkpoint. He’d sensed the faint, familiar vibration of a Jinki—Zanka’s Jinki—and detoured, thinking his teammate might be scouting or in trouble.

This… is not trouble, no. Not at all the kind he knows how to handle.

His yellow eyes, usually squinted in casual assessment, are wide open. The cigarette that had been dangling from his lips is forgotten, the ash growing long. Every detail registers with impossible, slow-motion clarity.

The way Zanka’s hands, usually clenched in frustration or gripping his staff, are now moving with such deliberate gentleness over the Raider’s injuries.

The way Jabber Wonger — the psychotic, masochistic bastard who tried to skin Rudo alive and talks about murder like it’s breakfast — is looking up at Zanka with an expression that is, undeniably, resembling trust.

The kiss... Forehead touch. The fuckin' bite.

Enjin’s mind, usually so quick to strategize and dismiss, whites out for a full three seconds.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

His first, absurd thought is that he’s hallucinating. Maybe some new type of trashbeast spore. But no. The scene before him is horribly, intimately real. The low murmur of voices, the rustle of bandages, the wet sound of the kiss — they’re all too vivid.

He looks around. Is there some giver around somewhere conjuring up this image? To forcefully throw Enjin off his game somehow? Cause it’s workin’. This kid cannot be deadass right now.

A cold knot forms in his gut, right beside the fading tattoo on his chest. This is… way more than a breach of protocol. Zanka. Their Zanka. His little annoyin’ fuckin’ brat Zanka. The hardworking, genius-hating kid he took under his wing, who freaks out when he gets a compliment, who wants to be strong enough to protect the team… tangled up with Jabber. Jabber fuckin’ Wonger???

The care in Zanka’s movements is what undoes him the most. Enjin has seen Zanka fight. He’s seen his chaotic anger, his desperate drive. This is different. This is a sadism that has curled in on itself and transformed into a dark and quite possessive form of nurture. And Jabber is just… accepting it. Reveling in it, even.

Enjin doesn’t move. Fuck, he doesn’t even breathe. The leader in him is already calculating the fallout, the danger of it all, and the possible betrayal to either the cleaners or to Zanka’s dumb little heart. But the big brother in him is just… stunned. He watches as Zanka finally pulls back from the forehead touch, his face still close to Jabber’s, saying something too low to hear, a dark thing in his eyes. (“I’m gonna fucking kill you,” is what Enjin hopes he’s saying. He can’t lip read like this.) Jabber’s smirk returns weakly and he says something back that makes Zanka’s shoulders stiffen, but he doesn’t pull away.

How long? The question echoes in the silence of Enjin’s own mind. How many times? Is this why Zanka’s been so… quiet lately? No longer was he his usual brand of internal mess — or maybe he was, but a heavier, more secretive kind?

He should step out. Should clear his throat, make his presence known, and let the world crash down around them. But his boots feel welded to the grimy floor. He’s witnessing something he was never meant to see… A raw, fucked-up, private truth that exists in the space between punches and whispered curses. To interrupt them right now feels like a violation of a different kind.

So he stays. Frozen in the shadows, the ash on his cigarette finally dropping soundlessly to the dust. His mind races, but his body is statue. Still, a spectator to an intimacy that is both terrrifying and, in some twisted way, painfully vulnerable. The lantern light flickers again, dancing over the two figures — the Cleaner and the Raider, the sadist and the masochist, bound together by something Enjin doesn't have a name for, something that hangs in the ruined air between them, thick as the smell of blood and rust.

But the sight of Zanka trying to haul Jabber to his feet — Jabber’s legs buckling like a newborn deer’s, his laugh a pained wheeze as he collapsed back against the pillar — sent another jolt through Enjin’s system. It was so… mundane. So frustratingly ordinary. A fighter too wrecked to stand, and a comrade helping him up. Except the comrade was a Cleaner, and the wrecked fighter was a Raider who’d tried to poison half of Team Akuta not three months prior.

Man, what the fuck, Zanka?

Enjin watched, motionless, as Zanka stood over Jabber, his silhouette rigid with what Enjin could now recognize not as anger, but an exasperated ook so close to concern. He saw Zanka’s mouth move, the words lost to distance but the shape of them clear, “Get up. Stop bein’ difficult.”

Jabber’s response was to lift a heavy arm, crooking a finger. He pulled Zanka down by the front of his uniform, bringing their faces close again. Enjin couldn’t hear the whisper, but he saw its effect. Zanka’s eyes, usually so busy hiding his internal storm, went still. Wide. He was shocked, proven by how his brows furrowed deeper. A vulnerable shock that Enjin had never seen on him before. Jabber was still grinning, but it wasn’t his usual manic slash of a smile. It was smaller, more focused, his hot pink eye holding Zanka’s with an intensity that stripped away all pretense of this just being about pain or victory.

For a long moment, they were frozen like that, dark shadows in the lantern light. The world outside this ruined corner ceased to exist. Enjin felt like a ghost, haunting a moment that had a terrifying weight to it.

Then Zanka let out a sigh — a full-bodied, put-upon, Zanka sigh — and straightened up. He muttered something, sharp and final, while Jabber just kept grinning, spreading his arms in a weak, taunting gesture of surrender.

What happened next punched the air from Enjin’s lungs.

Zanka bent, slid one arm under Jabber’s knees, the other behind his battered back, and lifted him. Bridal style.

Enjin’s hand unconsciously brought itself in front of his mouth.

The movement of Zanka’s body was awkward, practiced-enough to not be the first time, but still clumsy with residual tension as he hauled the Raider up. Jabber’s head lolled against Zanka’s shoulder, his long locs swaying, his body a landscape of bruises held securely against the Cleaner’s chest. Zanka adjusted his grip, his face a mask of strained neutrality, but he didn’t drop him. He just stood there for a second, holding his enemy, before turning and starting to walk, carefully picking his way through the debris toward a jagged hole in the far wall — an exit Enjin hadn’t even noticed.

That was it.

The line was crossed. The visual of Zanka carrying Jabber, with that specific, intimate care, severed something in Enjin’s ability to just observe.

He didn’t move until their backs were to him, Zanka’s form disappearing into the deeper gloom of the refinery’s guts. Then, with a fluidity born of pure instinct, Enjin melted backward into the shadows. His retreat was silent, like a predator’s retreat, away from the apex predator. But once he was beyond the shell of the building, out under the perpetually bruised twilight sky of the Ground, his pace quickened.

He didn’t run, no. Enjin didn’t run. But his walk was a long, ground-eating stride that ate up the distance between the industrial graveyard and the cleaner sectors. His mind, usually a calm river with a swift, strategic undercurrent, was a riot.

What the fuck, Zanka.

The thought was a blunt, echoing hammer against metal.

Jabber Wonger. The ring-poison freak. The one who giggles when he paralyzes people. That’s who you’re playing nurse to? That’s who you’re… carrying? Bridal carrying?

Scenes flashed behind his eyes:

Jabber’s unleashed brutality during their first encounter, his ecstatic smile as he fought Zanka to a standstill.

Zanka’s furious, humiliated determination afterward.

The recent missions where Jabber seemed to always, always zero in on Zanka, their fights taking on a strange, prolonged, almost ritualistic quality.

Now, Enjin had written it all off as rivalry, as the masochist finding a satisfying punching bag. He’d even been privately proud of Zanka for holding his own.

He felt like an idiot. A blind fuckin’ trusting idiot.

He hit the cleaner, more populated streets, the familiar sight of the HQ tower in the distance. His expression was carefully schooled into its usual relaxed mask, but his yellow eyes were hard, scanning without seeing. He nodded curtly at a few cleaners who called his name, his voice just letting out an absent grunt in response.

Kid’s been sneaking out.

The realization landed with a thud. Those nights Zanka claimed he was “training alone” or “clearing his head.” The slight, fresh bruises he’d sometimes have in the morning, ones that didn’t quite match trashbeast patterns. The way he’d been quieter, less prone to his exaggerated internal meltdowns around the team. He was not calmer, but… preoccupied? Weighed down. Yet his fighting never faltered, in fact, Zanka seemed more… into it. And Enjin had thought it was pressure. Growth.

It was this. It was Jabber Wonger.

He shoved through the heavy doors of HQ, the familiar smell of polished tile doing nothing to clear his head. He barely gave a curt nod to Semiu. He bypassed the common room, where the low hum of conversation and Riyou’s occasional laugh might have grounded him. He went straight for the small, secluded balcony off the west wing, a spot he used for smoking when he didn’t want company.

The door slid shut behind him with a soft hiss. The air here was cooler, carrying the distant, metallic tang of the city. He braced his hands on the railing, head bowed, and just breathed for a minute, trying to let the cold seep into the hot, confused mess in his chest.

Then, with methodical slowness, he pulled out his tobacco pouch.

His hands were steady. That, at least, was a point of pride. He rolled a cigarette, the motions automatic, his mind still churning.

What’s the play here? The captain in him surfaced, shoving aside the bewildered big brother. Zanka was compromised. That was the cold, hard fact. He was engaged in a clandestine, physically and emotionally intense relationship with a high-value enemy operative. The intelligence risk alone was staggering. Jabber was a Raider. He reported to Zodyl. Anything Zanka let slip in those bruised, quiet moments after a fight…

Enjin lit the cigarette, the flare of the match illuminating the grim set of his mouth. He took a deep drag, holding the smoke in his lungs until they burned.

But the image wouldn’t leave. Zanka’s hands, so careful, with the way he’d cleaned the wounds he himself had made. The look on his face when Jabber whispered to him — not the face of a victim, but of someone confronting a profound and very much unwanted truth.

He cares. The thought was worse than anger. Zanka cares even if he’d deny it when asked right now.

It was a complication. Enjin could deal with a betrayal of duty. He could deal with Zanka being blackmailed or tricked. But this… this looked like a choice. A fucked-up, dangerous, mind-bendingly stupid choice that Zanka was making with his eyes wide fuckin’ open.

And Jabber… the way he’d looked at Zanka. That wasn’t the gaze of someone manipulating a source. That was something else. Something possessive and weirdly… trusting. Obsessed, most of all, that must be why…? He’d let Zanka patch him up. He’d let himself be that vulnerable.

Or maybe it’s cause he knows he can just so easily prick Zanka with a little flick of a Jinki-wielding wrist and it’d be over.

“Damn it,” Enjin muttered to the empty air, smoke pouring from his lips. He ran a hand over his face, fingers tracing the scar on his temple.

Confronting Zanka now… it would blow everything up. The kid would panic, shut down, or worse, double down. He might run. Straight to Jabber. To beat the shit out of him and emotionally-constipatedly throw a tantrum. Enjin knew his teammate’s chaotic heart well enough for that. And if the Raiders got wind that the Cleaners knew… Jabber could become a liability to them, no? And what would Zodyl do with a liability?

He finished the cigarette, grinding the butt under his boot heel with more force than necessary. The decision settled in his gut, cold and heavy.

He wouldn’t say anything. Not yet.

He’d watch. He’d figure out the depth of this… whatever it was. He needed to understand if this was a fatal weakness or just another one of the Ground’s twisted survival mechanisms. And he needed to figure out how to pull Zanka back from the edge of whatever cliff he was dancing on, without shoving him off.

He leaned back against the wall, staring out at the glittering, grimy sprawl of the safe zone, his mind already mapping Zanka’s likely patterns, planning discreet surveillance. The easygoing janitor was gone. In his place was a captain, a strategist, and a deeply troubled faux-older brother, standing alone in the dark with a secret that felt like a live grenade in his hand. The taste of smoke was bitter on his tongue, and for the first time in a long time, it gave him no comfort at all.

The flask was cheap metal, cool against his palm. The liquor inside was even cheaper still, a harsh, industrial-grade burn that scraped down his throat and settled like a coal in his gut.

He didn't taste it.

He just needed the numbness, the blunt instrument of intoxication to quiet the roaring in his head. He took long, methodical pulls, his gaze fixed on the distant, flickering lights of the city's outer vents.

The image of Zanka carrying Jabber played on a loop behind his eyes, spliced with memories of Jabber's poison-tipped claws and Zanka's earnest, furious determination to prove himself.

It took just twenty minutes. The flask was empty. The numbness was a thin veneer over a churning sea of disbelief and cold, strategic dread.

It wasn’t enough. He fumbled for his tobacco pouch again, his fingers not quite as steady as before. He was just pinching the paper when the soft shush of the balcony door sliding open made him freeze.

He didn't turn. He knew the weight of that silence, the particular quality of the presence that now filled the space behind him. It was a calm that had gravity.

"Enjin."

Arkha's voice was as warm and deep as ever, but it carried no question, no surprise at finding him here. It was a simple acknowledgment.

Enjin finished rolling the cigarette, taking his time. He lit it, the flame trembling slightly before he got it steady. He took a drag, then finally turned, leaning his lower back against the railing.

The boss stood just outside the doorway, his massive frame silhouetted by the soft light from the corridor. His black hair was a dark halo. The large eye tattoo was, as always, unnervingly present, but his actual face was turned toward Enjin, expression composed, brown eyes reflecting the city's dull glow.

"You're back early from your rounds," Enjin said, his voice rougher than usual from the smoke and the liquor. He aimed for casual, but missed by a mile. It came out flat, guarded.

"I am," Arkha agreed. He took a few steps forward, his movements silent despite his size, coming to stand a respectful distance away, joining Enjin in looking out over the city. The silence stretched, comfortable for him, agonizing for Enjin. It was a silence that saw too much.

Arkha didn't ask what was wrong. He didn't make small talk. He simply stood there, a patient, immovable mountain. Enjin felt the urge to say something, anything, to deflect. But the alcohol had sanded down his edges, and the weight of what he'd seen was too colossal.

Finally, Arkha spoke again, his tone conversational, as if discussing the weather. "You look like you've seen a ghost. Or something equally... disruptive." He paused, then added, the words dropping into the quiet with deliberate softness, "Is it about Zanka?"

Every muscle in Enjin's body locked. The cigarette stopped halfway to his lips. His yellow eyes, usually squinted, flew wide open, fixing on Arkha's profile. The boss wasn't looking at him; he was still gazing at the horizon, his expression thoughtful, almost sad.

How. The single word screamed in Enjin's skull. How could he possibly—?

A torrent of reactions fought for dominance. Denial, outrage, a desperate, useless hope that Arkha was talking about something else — Zanka's training, his mood, anything but that. But the boss's timing, his specific phrasing, and the quiet certainty in his voice… it carved through all of it.

The careful mask Enjin had been clinging to shattered. The leader, the easygoing janitor, the unflappable big brother, whatever – all of it fell away, leaving raw, undisguised shock and a spike of defensive anger.

He took a final drag on the cigarette before flicking it over the railing, a tiny comet extinguished in the void below. He turned fully to face Arkha, his posture no longer lazy but coiled, tense.

.

.

.

"What gave it away?" Enjin's voice was a low rasp, stripped of all pretense, as close as he'd ever come to waving a white flag. His mind was racing again, but on a new, terrifying track. If Arkha knows… then how long? What does he know? What is he going to do?

He searched the boss's face, looking for judgment, for fury. For anything, indicating the cold calculus of a commander dealing with a compromised asset… He found none of that. Only a profound, weary understanding, and a patience that felt infinite.

Huh. Right, he doesn’t know why he expected anything else.

The air on the balcony grew heavier, charged with the truth now hanging between them. The sounds of the city far away faded into a dull hum. Enjin waited, his heart hammering against his ribs, for the other shoe to drop.

Arkha’s response wasn’t what Enjin braced for. There was no stern lecture, no grim pronouncement. Instead, the boss let out a soft, rich chuckle. It wasn’t mocking. It was the sound of deep, weary fondness.

“You care about your team, Enjin,” Arkha said, his gaze finally sliding from the cityscape to meet Enjin’s shocked stare. His brown eyes were calm, knowing. “It’s written in every line of your posture when you think no one is looking. You carry them. All of them. Even when they’re being…” He searched for the word, a faint smile touching his lips. “…particularly themselves.”

He took a step closer, his presence not threatening, but encompassing. “You fret over Rudo’s anger, you indulge Riyou’s whims, you guide Zanka’s turmoil. It’s who you are. It’s why they follow you.” He paused, and his voice dropped, becoming even more gentle, yet somehow more immense. “So when you come back looking like you’ve stared into the sun and seen it blink back… it’s not hard to guess which one of our bright, complicated lights has you wrestling with shadows.”

Enjin stood frozen, the defensive anger seeping out of him, replaced by a bewildered, cold understanding. Arkha wasn’t guessing. He was informing. He was telling Enjin that he saw, that he knew, and that he had chosen, until this moment, to say nothing.

“Boss, I—” Enjin started, the words sticking in his throat. What was he supposed to say? I saw our kid carrying the enemy assassin he’s apparently fucking?

Arkha raised a hand, a gentle, stopping gesture. “You don’t need to tell me. Not unless you want to. Or unless it becomes a threat to the family.” The word ‘family’ held weight. “Some paths… people have to walk themselves. Even the dark, confusing ones. Our job isn’t to block the path. It’s to make sure they know the way home is always open, and that they don’t get so lost that they forget what home looks like.”

He reached out and clapped a massive, reassuring hand on Enjin’s shoulder. The grip was firm, solid, a transfer of unshakable confidence. “You have good instincts, Enjin. Trust them. And trust that you’re not the only one watching over our flock.”

With that, he gave Enjin’s shoulder a final squeeze, nodded once, and turned. He moved back toward the sliding door, his steps silent. Just before he disappeared inside, he paused, not looking back, but the large eye tattoo on the back of his head seemed to hold Enjin in its gaze for an extra second.

“Get some rest, Captain. The shadows look heavier when you’re tired.”

The door hissed shut behind him, leaving Enjin alone on the balcony once more, but the solitude now felt entirely different.

The cold night air bit at his skin, but it was the heat of Arkha’s words that burned. The boss knew. Had probably known for a while. That casual, almost offhand acknowledgment was more destabilizing than outright condemnation. It meant this situation had layers Enjin hadn’t even perceived. It meant Arkha was watching, assessing, and had deemed it… manageable? For now?

‘Our job isn’t to block the path.’

Enjin leaned heavily on the railing, the metal cold under his palms. The liquor’s buzz was gone, replaced by a crystalline clarity, sobering up, and that was somehow worse. He was dealing with Zanka’ catastrophic mistake while operating within the boss’s wider, inscrutable field of vision. He hadn’t received any solution, but he’d just been given a mandate: handle it. Guide him home. Don’t let the family break.

The weight on his shoulders felt different, more responsible. He was an active participant in a secret’s containment, its navigation, no longer just the shocked discoverer. Arkha’s trust in him was a terrifying thing.

He stared out at the city, the lights blurring slightly. He didn’t reach for another cigarette. He just stood there, in the quiet dark, with the ghost of a reassuring hand on his shoulder and the echoing image of Zanka carrying Jabber, now framed by the boss’s unsettling, all-seeing patience. The game had changed, and he hadn’t even known he was playing.

.

.

.

The balcony door hissed open again. Enjin didn't even turn this time, a fresh, sharp flare of irritation cutting through his heavy thoughts. This damn balcony is getting busier than the common room.

"Boss forget something?" he grunted, taking a drag from the newly lit cigarette.

There was a beat of silence, a different quality to it than Arkha's calm presence. This silence was stiffer, charged with a familiar, tightly-wound energy.

"...No."

Enjin's spine straightened just a fraction. He turned his head, looking over his shoulder.

Zanka Nijiku stood in the doorway, silhouetted much like Arkha had been, but where the boss had been a mountain, Zanka was a tense, smaller silhouette. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his baggy pants, his shoulders hunched slightly.

Even in the poor light, Enjin could see the careful neutrality on his face, the forced composure. But his eyes — those navy blue eyes — were wide, scanning Enjin’s face with a frantic intensity he was desperately trying to suppress.

For a long, taut second, they just looked at each other. The distant hum of the city filled the void.

Zanka cleared his throat, breaking the silence with a sound like grinding gravel. "Semiu said you needed the mission debrief from the eastern vent patrol. The one from this morning." His voice was too even, too controlled. It was the voice he used when he was trying to sound professional and was about three seconds from an internal meltdown. "She said you'd probably be… out here."

Semiu, Enjin thought, a flicker of dark amusement cutting through the tension. Of course. The professional. The report was a flimsy excuse. Semiu didn't send runners for paperwork. She’d have just left it on his desk. This was a cover. Zanka had come looking for him.

"Right," Enjin said, turning fully to lean his back against the railing again, mimicking his earlier posture with Arkha. He took another slow drag, letting the smoke curl from his nostrils. His yellow eyes, half-lidded, studied Zanka. He looked… normal. Clean. He'd changed out of the uniform he'd been wearing in the refinery. The sleeves of his current jacket were intact, no bloodstains. His hair was neatly slicked back, the blonde streaks catching the low light. The only hint of anything amiss was a faint, fresh scratch along his jawline, almost hidden in the shadow. From a ring? From a claw?

"You find anything interesting on your rounds today?" Enjin asked, his tone deceptively casual. He kept his gaze steady, watching for the crack.

Zanka’s posture stiffened imperceptibly. His eyes darted away, toward the cityscape, then back to Enjin. "The usual. Minor trashbeast activity near the old pump station. Nothin’ Team Eager couldn't handle." The words were rehearsed. He took a step onto the balcony, letting the door slide shut behind him. He didn't come any closer. The space between them felt like a minefield.

Another stretch of quiet, broken only by the sigh of the wind. Zanka shifted his weight, his fingers flexing inside his pockets. The chaotic energy he usually radiated was being forced down, compressed into a dense, anxious ball.

Enjin could almost hear the internal scream.

Finally, Zanka’s eyes locked onto him again.

The composure on his face fractured, just for a second, revealing a flash of raw, defensive suspicion. His voice dropped, losing its false formality, becoming quieter, almost a challenge.

"Were you…" He stopped, swallowed. Tried again, the words forced out. "Earlier. At the refinery off Sector Seven. Were ya there?"

The question hung in the cold air. Direct. Blunt. So unlike Zanka's usual unsecret roundabout panic.

Enjin didn't move. He held Zanka’s gaze, his own expression unreadable. He took a final drag from his cigarette, the ember glowing bright in the dimness, then flicked it out into the void with a precise twist of his fingers.

"Refinery's a big place," he said, his voice a low, neutral rumble. "Lotta shadows."

Zanka’s breath hitched. The confirmation he heard in Enjin’s non-answer was like a physical blow. The color drained from his face, his carefully constructed calm shattering. His hands came out of his pockets and he clenched them both at his sides. "You were watching," he accused, the words tight. "You were just… standing there. Watchin’. Like some kind of—" He cut himself off, his jaw working. The internal storm was winning, spilling out into his posture, into the wild look in his eyes. He took a half-step forward, then stopped, as if physically repelled by the truth between them.

"Yer’ not exactly hard to spot, Enjin," Zanka continued, his voice gaining a shaky, hysterical edge he was powerless to stop. "Tall. Blonde. Ya stand out like a damn beacon. I just… I didn't think…" He trailed off, shaking his head, a short, jerky motion. The implication was clear, I didn't think you'd spy on me.

The air on the balcony grew thick enough to choke on. The easygoing mentor and the frantic protégé were gone. In their place were two men standing over a crater of a secret, the edges still smoking. Enjin pushed off the railing, standing to his full height. He didn't advance, but his presence seemed to fill the space, the leader's authority settling around him like a cloak.

"Zanka," he said, and he sounded evidently tired. Deeply, profoundly tired, and laced with a disappointment that was far more cutting than rage. "We need to talk. But not here. Not now."

He saw the panic flood Zanka's eyes — the fear of confrontation, the terror of what came next. But beneath that, Enjin saw something else. Like a flicker of shame, and a stubborn, desperate defiance. The kid was cornered, but he wasn't yielding.

Enjin held up a hand, stopping whatever protest or explosion was building. "My office. Tomorrow morning. First thing." It was an order, but the kind he rarely had to give to his own team. "Get some sleep. You look like hell."

He turned then, brushing past Zanka toward the door. He paused, his shoulder almost touching Zanka's rigid arm. He didn't look at him. He kept his voice low, for Zanka's ears only.

"And for the record… next time you wanna have a private conversation with a Raider, pick a place with less echo."

He left him there, on the cold balcony, with the weight of the unveiled secret and the dread of the coming sunrise. The door hissed shut, leaving Zanka alone in the dark, the ghost of Enjin's words and the memory of his own whispered ones to Jabber colliding in the silent, judging air.

The door slid shut with a final, damning hiss, sealing him in the cold and the dark. The silence left behind was absolute, ringing in his ears louder than any trashbeast’s roar.

For a moment, Zanka Nijiku didn’t move. He couldn’t. His body was a statue, every muscle locked, his breath trapped in his chest. The only thing moving was the whirlwind behind his eyes.

He knew. He saw.

The thoughts weren’t even words, just pure, electric terror.

He had known he was being watched. In the refinery, as he’d adjusted his grip under Jabber’s knees, his gaze had flickered to a shattered panel of grimy glass hanging from a bent frame. In its warped reflection, he’d caught a glimpse of a silhouette. Tall. Blonde hair catching a sliver of distant light. Standing so still he might have been part of the machinery. Enjin.

The recognition had been an ice-cold spear through his gut, even as his arms had tightened instinctively around Jabber’s dead weight. He’d finished the motion, carried Jabber through the hole in the wall, his mind screaming while his face remained a mask of strained annoyance. He’d deposited Jabber — gently, too gently, you idiot — in the relative shelter of a collapsed conduit near the agreed-upon neutral zone, a place reeking of decay.

.

.

.

“Don’t get killed before our next round,” Zanka had muttered, turning to leave, his heart hammering against his ribs.

A weak, bloodied hand had snagged his sleeve. Jabber’s grip was feeble, but it stopped him cold. He’d looked down into that one swollen, hot pink eye, glittering with pain and something else.

“Oh, Mr. Bad Attitude,” Jabber had whispered, his voice a ruined, intimate thing. The smug grin was gone. In its place was an expression so raw it made Zanka’s breath catch in his throat. “Carry me. C’mon. Do it.”

“No. Walk it off, you masochistic freak,” Zanka had hissed, trying to pull away, the panic over Enjin’s presence making him cruel.

Jabber had pulled harder, dragging Zanka down until their faces were inches apart again in the gloom. The smell of blood and sweat and something uniquely, poisonously Jabber filled his senses. Jabber’s voice dropped to a thread, a secret for the ruined concrete and the two of them alone.

“It’ll be the only time I feel held,” he’d breathed, the words a confession so stark and horrible it stripped away every defense Zanka had. But Zanka didn’t know what to think, what to trust, when Jabber’s eyes – no, Jabber’s mouth warped into a smirk. A smirk that Zanka doesn’t know how to interpret. “Not fought. Not beaten to a fuckin’ pulp like you sooo love to do to me. But held. So do it, Zanzan. Before I change my mind and hate you for it.”

Zanka had stared, his mind blank. The words echoed in the hollow of his skull, finding a shameful, answering ache he didn’t know he had. He’d said nothing. Just let out a shaky, exasperated sigh that was pure theatre, and bent to scoop Jabber up again, this time with a furious, tender care that felt like losing a war.

.

.

.

‘It’ll be the only time I feel held.’

The memory of the whisper coiled in his chest now on the balcony, a cold loop of unwanted intimacy. It tangled with the image of Enjin’s unreadable face, the disappointment in his tired voice. The two sensations — the terrifying vulnerability Jabber had exposed, and the crushing weight of Enjin’s discovery — clashed inside him, threatening to tear him apart.

He wasn’t panicking in his usual, external way. No shouts, no dramatic gestures that he usually projected onto others, onto himself. It was more of a cold, sinking panic, like a quiet free-fall.

His career as a Cleaner, Enjin’s trust and approval, and the team. All of it, balanced on this terrible secret thing he had with a monster who whispered about being held.

He brought a trembling hand to his face, pressing the heels of his palms against his closed eyes. A low, wounded sound escaped him, trapped behind his teeth.

I’m royally fucked.

But beneath the terror, a stubborn ember glowed. The defiance Enjin had seen. He had confronted him. He’d stood there and asked, knowing the answer. There was a terrible, twisted integrity in that. He hadn’t run, but rather, he walked straight into the confrontation, like walking into a finishing blow.

He dropped his hands, opening his eyes to the indifferent city lights. His breathing began to even out, forced into a calmer rhythm. The internal storm was still raging, but he was building a wall around it, brick by frantic fuckin’ brick. Tomorrow. Enjin’s office. He would have to face it. Explain the unexplainable. He didn’t know how. But the alternative — running, denying — felt like a worse betrayal.

With a final, shaky breath that fogged in the cold air, Zanka turned and pushed through the balcony door, leaving the dark and the memory of the whisper behind. The corridor lights felt too bright, too exposing. He kept his head down, his expression settling into a grim, prepared neutrality, already armoring himself for the dawn.

The corridors of HQ were quiet, the hour late. The polished tiles reflected the dimmed overhead lights, stretching his shadow long and distorted ahead of him. Enjin walked without seeing them, his boots making soft, measured clicks that echoed in the emptiness.

His mind was a strategy room, and the sole subject was the kid he’d just left on the balcony.

He didn’t freak out.

That was the thing that stuck, the anomaly in the data. Zanka confronted, Zanka accused, Zanka practically vibrated with panic — but he didn’t freak out or anything. There was no flailing, no exaggerated denial, no theatrical meltdown…? Well, there was shame, yes, and fear so sharp Enjin could taste it. But there was also… a spine. A grim, fucked-up acceptance. The kid had looked him in the eye and basically admitted it.

He really had the balls to ask. To call me a creep. Right to my face.

A strange, unwanted flicker of something like respect warred with the profound disturbance in Enjin’s gut. This wasn’t a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar anymore. This was a grown ass man — just a seventeen-year-old but grown regardless — standing by a choice, however catastrophic. That changed everything, making it more dangerous, and somehow even more tragic.

He replayed the refinery scene, but now through the lens of Zanka’s defiant, terrified face. The care in his hands as he cleaned Jabber’s wounds wasn’t just a sadist’s aftercare anymore, more of a responsibility. The way he’d carried him… Enjin had assumed it was reluctance, annoyance. But what if it was something else? Like… a duty accepted?

And Jabber.

What had he whispered to make Zanka, who had just said no, relent and pick him up like that? It had to have been a weapon. A threat? No. The body language wasn’t right. It had been too intimate, too… effective.

It had broken Zanka’s resistance cleanly. That kind of leverage spoke of a deep, mutual understanding, a hook set in a vulnerable place.

‘It’ll be the only time I feel held.’

Enjin didn’t hear the words, but he could imagine their shape. Something that bypassed fight logic and went straight for a need that neither of them would ever admit to having.

He reached the door to his small quarters and paused, hand on the knob. The weight of it all settled on him fully. Arkha’s knowing eyes and the image of Zanka’s defiant shame. And the fatal vision of Jabber’s ruined, trusting smile aimed at the man who laid bruises upon his lips.

Tomorrow. In his office. He’d have to navigate this minefield. He couldn’t just lay down the law. That would shatter Zanka, maybe push him right into the Raiders’ arms. He had to find the crack in this madness, the lever to pull his kid back from the edge without making him feel like he was being rescued from something he wasn’t sure he wanted to leave.

He pushed the door open. The room was dark, silent. He didn’t turn on the light. He just stood in the doorway, a tall, weary silhouette, the leader of Team Akuta carrying a secret that felt heavier than any trashbeast, already rehearsing the words for a conversation he never, ever wanted to have.

The breakfast hall was a cacophony of clattering trays and overlapping conversations. Enjin sat at the head of the Akuta table, nursing a cup of bitter coffee, his gaze tracking the room without seeming to.

Across from him, Zanka picked at his food with a mechanical focus, his posture rigid, the shadows under his eyes pronounced. The easy energy he usually brought to meals was absent, replaced by a silent, watchful tension.

Enjin finished his coffee, set the mug down with a soft clink that seemed louder than it was. He didn’t look at Zanka. He simply pushed his chair back, stood, and began walking toward the exit. As he passed Zanka’s chair, his hand came down on the back of his shoulder — a brief pressure, a silent command. Then he was moving again, not checking to see if he was followed.

He was.

He heard the scrape of Zanka’s chair, the quick, light steps falling in behind him, maintaining a careful distance of three paces. The corridor outside was quieter.

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.

.

“Ooo-kay,” Riyou’s voice floated after them, sing-song and far too perceptive. She was leaning back in her chair, twirling a strand of her red hair around a finger, her green eyes sharp. “Is it just me, or was there, like, total tension just now? Somethin’ weird’s goin’ on.” She glanced at Rudo, who just stared blankly, a piece of toast halfway to his mouth.

Enjin didn’t acknowledge her. He just kept walking, Zanka’s presence a silent shadow at his back.

Enjin’s office was less an office and more a glorified supply closet with a desk. It was utilitarian. Metal shelving stocked with spare uniform parts, weapon maintenance kits, and mission reports in neat stacks. A single window, high up, let in a shaft of morning light, illuminating the Cleaners logo stitched to the back of the chair. Enjin didn’t sit behind the desk. He leaned against the front of it, his arms crossed over his chest, blocking the symbol. He left the door open for a beat, watching Zanka hesitate on the threshold, before using his foot to nudge it shut with a soft, final click.

The sound sealed them in. The room felt suddenly smaller, the air stale.

For a long moment, neither spoke. Enjin just looked at Zanka, his yellow eyes calm, assessing, giving nothing away. Zanka stood ramrod straight just inside the door, his hands clenched at his sides. He wasn’t looking at Enjin. His gaze was fixed on a point on the wall just over Enjin’s shoulder, his jaw so tight a muscle jumped in his cheek. The frantic internal storm was visible now, a tremor in his hands, chest heaving.

“Sit,” Enjin said, his voice quiet, devoid of its usual lazy inflection.

Zanka’s eyes flicked to him, then away. “I’d rather stand.”

“Sit down, Zanka.”

The use of his name, the flat command, did it. Zanka moved jerkily to the single, spare chair in front of the desk and sat on the very edge, his posture so tense it looked painful. He finally met Enjin’s gaze, his own navy blue eyes a maelstrom of defiance and dread.

Enjin uncrossed his arms, leaning forward slightly, resting his weight on his knuckles on the desk. He didn’t start with accusations, just an easy question, his tone deceptively mild.

“You wanna tell me what’s going on?”

Zanka flinched as if struck. “You saw,” he bit out, the words tight. “You know what’s going on.”

“I saw you patching up and carrying Jabber Wonger out of a contamination zone,” Enjin agreed, his voice still level. “What I don’t know is why. I don’t know what it means. So. Start there.”

‘Our job isn’t to block the path. It’s to make sure they know the way home is always open.’ Arkha’s words were a hum in the back of Enjin’s mind. He wasn’t here to scream. He was here to map the territory of this disaster.

Zanka looked down at his own white-knuckled hands, his breathing all ragged. “It’s… it’s not what you think.”

“I don’t know what to think, kid,” Enjin said, and a sliver of genuine frustration leaked through. “That’s the problem. So enlighten me. Is he blackmailing you? Threatening someone?”

“No!” The denial was too quick, too sharp. Zanka’s head snapped up. “It’s not like that. He’s not… it’s not coercion.” He wishes it were.

“Then what is it?” Enjin pressed, his gaze unwavering. “A strategic alliance? You plannin’ to double-cross the Raiders? ‘Cause if you are, you’re doin’ a piss-poor job of keeping your team captain informed.”

The sarcasm was a probe, testing the edges.

“It’s none of that!” Zanka’s composure cracked. His voice rose, shaky with pent-up emotion. “It’s just… it’s between us. It’s about the fight. It’s—” He cut himself off, his face flushing with a mixture of shame and anger. How could he explain the brutal, clarifying purity of their clashes? The way pain became a language, and respect was measured in broken bones? How could he articulate Jabber’s whisper— the only time I feel held—and the terrifying, answering void it echoed inside himself?

He looked at Enjin, at the patient, disappointed confusion on his captain’s face, and the words died in his throat. He was a Cleaner. Jabber was a Raider. There was no vocabulary for this in the manual.

“It’s stupid,” Zanka finally whispered, deflating, his shoulders slumping. The defiance bled out, leaving raw exposure. “It’s reckless and stupid and it compromises the team. I know that. Ya don’t have to tell me.”

Enjin watched the fight go out of him, watched the proud, chaotic kid crumple under the weight of his own admission. The anger he’d been holding onto softened, replaced by something more complicated, more weary.

“Yeah,” Enjin said softly. “It is. All of those things.” He pushed off the desk and walked around it just to perch on the corner of it, closer, reducing the formal distance. “But you’re still doing it. Knowing all that. So the ‘why’ must be pretty damn powerful.”

He wasn’t condoning. He was trying to understand. Because Arkha was right. You couldn’t guide someone home if you didn’t know what bog they were lost in.

Zanka just shook his head, mute, his eyes glassy with unshed tears of frustration and fear. The path was dark, and he was deep in it. Enjin could see that now. The job, as his boss had implied, wasn’t to drag him out by his hair. It was to shine a light, however harsh, and wait ahead.

The room stayed dead silent as morning light cut through the dust.

.

.

.

Enjin watched him. Really watched him. The kid wasn't hiding a sly secret or a grand plan. He was just… lost, maybe. Drowning in something he had no name for. The defiance from the balcony was gone, burnt up in the cold light of this room, leaving behind a bewildered, ashamed honesty that was somehow worse.

Arkha’s advice echoes again: ‘Some paths people have to walk themselves.’

But damn if this wasn’t a path leading straight off a cliff.

Zanka’s mind, Enjin knew, was a messy place at the best of times — a calm exterior plastered over a hurricane of overthinking, pride, and desperate need for approval. But this? This wasn’t his usual brand of chaotic frustration. There was deeper confusion, a fundamental ‘I don’t know’ that scared the hell out of him. Enjin could see it in the way his eyes wouldn’t settle, in the tremor of his lower lip he was biting to still. In the characteristic tight fists that trembled at his sides.

Feelings.

The word stopped Enjin cold. Was that it? It couldn’t be. This was Jabber. Jabber Wonger. The guy who treated combat like foreplay and poison like cologne. The idea of Zanka having… feelings for that was more absurd than any trashbeast.

But then he remembered the care. The way Zanka had held him. Not with lust, but with… a terrible, focused tenderness. The way Jabber had looked up at him, not with triumphant manipulation that Enjin wished it was, no. He looked at him with something close to surrender, somethin’ that seemed like it wasn’t even new to them both. It struck something in Enjin's chest and he can't get rid of the dull ache.

Or is it just them… fuckin. A darker, more pragmatic thought surfaced. He was a grown ass man; he knew the world was full of weird, dark corners where people found their pleasure. Zanka was seventeen, wired tight, full of competitive fury. Jabber was a masochist who got off on pain and dominance. Maybe it was just a fucked-up, mutually satisfying transaction. A way to blow off steam with the one person who could actually take what you dished out. Enjin could almost understand that. Almost. If it was just in some neutral zone, a quick, violent tumble and then back to their respective sides.

But it wasn’t that. Didn’t seem like it at all, with all the whispering, the carryin’, and… the patching up. That spoke of aftercare. Investment. That blurred the lines from transaction into… something else.

“Zanka,” Enjin said, his voice low, cutting through the static. He didn’t move from his perch on the desk. “Look at me.”

Zanka’s gaze, which had been fixed on a scuff mark on the floor, dragged upward. His eyes were red-rimmed, glossy, his lip trembling in a bite from the inside.

“I’m not gonna pretend to get it,” Enjin said, holding his gaze. The ‘big brother’ tone was gone. This was the captain, blunt and uncompromising. “Whatever this is, it’s in a language I don’t speak. But I need to know one thing, and you need to answer straight.” He leaned forward slightly, the morning light catching the sharp planes of his face. “Is this putting the team in immediate danger? Right now. Not in some theoretical future. Is he using you for intel? Are you giving him any?”

The question, so direct, so operational, seemed to ground Zanka momentarily. His chaotic thoughts snapped to a point. “No,” he said, the word firm, clear. A sliver of his usual conviction returned. “Never. It’s… it’s separate. It’s just about us. Our fights. And…” — and what happens after said fights — “Nothing else.”

He believed him.

The kid was a terrible liar about anything that mattered. The relief was microscopic, but it was there. It meant the bleeding could be contained, for now.

But it didn’t answer the core, screaming question. Zanka, what the fuck is this, bro?

Enjin sighed, a long, weary exhalation. He rubbed a hand over his face, his fingers tracing the scar on his temple. “Okay,” he said, the word heavy. “Okay. You say it’s separate. You say it’s not a threat. I’m choosing, for this moment, to believe you.” He saw the faint, desperate hope flare in Zanka’s eyes, and he immediately quashed it.

“But that doesn’t make it okay. That doesn’t make it smart. Or safe. For you, or for anyone who relies on you.”

He stood up, turning his back to Zanka to look at the high, grimy window. The light felt accusing. “You’re a Cleaner. He’s a Raider. There’s no version of this that ends with you two holding hands and walking into the sunset. You know that, right?”

Behind him, Zanka was silent. But Enjin could feel the truth of the statement land, a physical weight settling on the kid’s shoulders.

‘... the only time I feel held.’

The whisper, Jabber’s secret, echoed again in Zanka’s skull, taunting him. How could he explain that to Enjin? How could he explain that the most honest connection he’d felt in months, maybe years, was with the person who was trying to break him in a fight? That he spent so much time training to try and break that person in a fight? That in the brutal, unspoken grammar of their clashes, he felt seen in a way he never did when trying to live up to his family name or Enjin’s expectations? That the care he gave afterwards wasn’t pity, but the only form of tenderness that felt earned, that didn’t make him feel weak?

He couldn’t. So he just sat there, in the dusty office, under the weight of his captain’s disappointment and the echoing, confusing need in his own chest, more lost than ever. The path was dark, and he had no map, only the memory of a poisoned whisper and the aching certainty that whatever this was, it was already in too deep to simply walk away from.

Zanka nodded. The motion was small, sharp, a bowing of his head under the weight of the undeniable. He didn’t speak. He just nodded, his gaze dropping back to his hands, which were now limp in his lap, the fight completely drained out of them.

He knows. Enjin watched the nod, and it was somehow more damning than any protest. The kid had been carrying this knowledge — the impossibility, the danger, the inevitable crash — since the very beginning. He’d walked into this with his eyes open. That made it a choice, not a mistake. A conscious, repeated walk into a burning building.

The silence that followed was different. The frantic energy of confrontation had bled away, leaving a hollowed-out quiet. The dust motes in the sunbeam seemed to move slower.

Enjin turned back from the window, studying the top of Zanka’s bowed head, the neat lines of his slicked-back hair, the tense line of his shoulders. He wasn’t dealing with a kid who’d stumbled into something. He was dealing with a young–grown–ass–man who was, for reasons utterly opaque to Enjin, choosing to walk straight into a fire of his own making.

‘... time I feel hel–’ The thought — Jabber’s imagined, poisonous whisper — intruded again.

If the shape of that was even close to the currency here, then this wasn’t about sex or strategy or whatever shallow thing that can be folded up and kept away in the bank. It was about a need so profound and twisted that it saw an enemy’s brutal embrace as solace. And Zanka, with his history of never being good enough, of running from genius, of craving validation he could never quite articulate… Enjin could see, with a chilling clarity, how that specific, fucked-up currency might be the only kind he felt he could afford.

He walked back around the desk, but didn’t resume his perch. He leaned against the wall near the door, putting more physical space between them, giving Zanka room to breathe, to exist in his shame.

Steep yourself in it, kid.

“Knowing it and living with it are two different things,” Enjin said, his voice quieter now, stripped of its captain’s edge. It was just a statement. “The weight of a secret like this… it changes how you move. How you think. It puts a filter on everything. You start calculating not just the mission, but how to hide. You’ll start seeing threats in your own team’s questions. You’ll start lying to people you’d take a hit for.”

He saw Zanka’s shoulders hitch, a minute flinch. He was already there, living it.

“I can’t order you to stop,” Enjin continued, the admission tasting like ash. Arkha’s wisdom was a cold comfort here. You couldn’t order someone out of a labyrinth when they were the one clinging to the walls. “Not in any way that would stick. You’d just get better at hiding it. And then we’d really have a problem.”

He pushed off the wall, his decision solidifying as he spoke it aloud.

“So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to do your job. Flawlessly. You’re not going to miss a single patrol, skip a single debrief. You’re going to be the most reliable, by-the-book Cleaner on the roster. Because the second your performance slips, the second this… thing… affects your work, it stops being your secret and starts being my problem to solve. And you won’t like how I solve it.”

It was just a threat, a contained one, a line drawn in the sand.

“And you’re going to think,” Enjin finished, his yellow eyes hard. “Really think. About what happens when the Raiders’ goals and your… arrangement… finally collide. Because they will. Zodyl isn’t paying Jabber to get his rocks off. He’s paying him to capture Sphereites and dismantle anything in his way. That includes us. That includes you. Where does your little separate world exist when that order comes down?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He’d already given him the parameters. And the miserable, heavy ass truth that he hopes the kid is strong enough to hold on his shoulders.

His shoulders, shoulders that trembled along with his arm. Enjin knows, maybe he’s bein’ a bit too harsh on this kid. The kid who looked up to him with eyes that sought his every approval, be it a nod or a full-on pat of encouragement. Enjin’s eyes softened a bit.

“Get out of here,” Enjin said, nodding toward the door. “Go eat… take care of yourself, then go do something useful. And don’t sulk. I know you will but also, I know you’re strong enough to do somethin’ with all… this… that involves somethin’ actually productive that I’ll be proud of.”

Zanka stood, his movements stiff, like a marionette with its strings cut. He didn’t look at Enjin. He just turned and walked to the door, his hand pausing on the knob. For a second, he seemed to want to say something — an apology, a thanks, a justification, another choked denial. But no sound came out. The words were lost in the internal storm, drowned out by the echo of a whisper and the cold, new reality of his captain’s conditional, watchful trust.

He opened the door and slipped out, leaving it slightly ajar. The sound of his retreating footsteps was swallowed by the corridor’s silence.

Enjin remained leaning against the wall, staring at the empty chair. The office felt colder. He’d done what Arkha advised. He hadn’t blocked the path. He’d just illuminated the cliff at its end and posted himself as a sentinel, watching to see if the kid walking it was brave enough, or stupid enough, to step off into the dark. The taste of failure was bitter in his mouth, mixed with a dread that felt like a coming storm. He had a team to lead, and now one of his key pieces was a walking fault line, and all he could do was listen for the first rumble.

The days that followed were a study in tense normalcy.

Zanka became a ghost of perfect efficiency. He arrived for patrols early, his reports were meticulous, his combat during trashbeast cleanups was sharp, controlled, and must he say, brutally effective. He spoke when spoken to, followed orders without a flicker of hesitation, and maintained a calm, neutral exterior that was somehow more unnerving than his usual chaotic energy. He was, as Enjin had commanded, the most reliable Cleaner on the roster.

And Enjin watched him, noting the shadows that never quite left his eyes, the way he sometimes stiffened when a notification came over the comms, as if expecting a different, poison-tipped message.

.

.

.

The mission was standard: a pack of lesser trashbeasts, hound-like constructs of fused plastic and rusty metal, had been harrying the perimeter of the Southern Sector. Easy work for Team Akuta. They moved with practiced synchronicity, Enjin and his umbrella creating openings, Riyou’s massive scissors shearing through limbs, Rudo using his gloves to launch debris with shocking force, and Zanka, his Lovely Assistaff a blur of precise strikes, dismantling the constructs with cold efficiency.

It was during the mop-up. The last of the hounds dissolved into a pile of inert garbage. Rudo was panting, grinning at a successful hit. Riyou was complaining about getting sludge on her boots. Enjin was scanning the area, his umbrella resting on his shoulder.

Zanka stood slightly apart, wiping his staff clean with a rag, his back to a jagged outcrop of collapsed masonry. He was the picture of a job done.

The attack wasn’t from a trashbeast.

It was a blur of indigo fabric and silent movement from a shadowed crevice in the outcrop itself. A hand — ring-adorned fingers glinting — shot out, not to slash or grab like one would expect, but to press, a quick prick against the exposed skin at the back of Zanka’s neck, just above his collar.

Zanka jerked, a full-body spasm. His staff clattered to the ground. His knees buckled. Not from pain, but from a sudden, overwhelming wave of liquid weakness that flooded his limbs, turning his muscles to water. He didn’t cry out. His eyes, wide with shock and dawning recognition, met Enjin’s across the clearing for one fractured second before his vision grayed at the edges.

It was the venom he was all-too familiar with, but the lightning that shot through his veins, right before it all melted into goo, felt different.

Jabber Wonger unfolded himself from the shadows like a poisonous flower. He caught Zanka as he sagged, looping one of Zanka’s arms over his shoulders with a casual, possessive ease. He was grinning, his hot pink eye sparkling with manic delight.

“Sorry to cut in, folks!” he called out, his voice cheerful, echoing in the sudden silence of the kill zone. “Just borrowin’ your guy for a bit! Don’t worry, it’s a friendly chat! Promise I’ll return him… mostly in one piece! ♡”

And before Enjin could roar a command, before Riyou’s scissors could fully unsheathe, before Rudo could even process what was happening, Jabber moved. He was impossibly fast, even supporting Zanka’s dead weight. He vanished back into the labyrinth of rubble and shattered architecture from which he’d sprung, a trail of faint, mocking laughter hanging in the polluted air.

It all happened within ten seconds.

The silence he left behind was deafening.

Rudo was the first to break it. “THEY TOOK HIM!” he screamed, surging forward, his gloves glowing with furious energy. “THAT PSYCHO TOOK ZANKA! WE HAVE TO GO—!”

“Stand down, Rudo!” Enjin’s voice cracked like a whip, freezing the younger boy in his tracks. Enjin hadn’t moved. His hands were strained where he gripped his umbrella. His mind, usually so swift, was a war zone.

Not on cleaning duty. Not in front of the team, you stupid, reckless, venomous jackass.

He knew that venom. A neurotoxin variant, a non-lethal paralytic. Jabber’s idea of an invitation. A ‘chat’. The violation of their unspoken, terrible boundary was as shocking as the act itself. Jabber had just declared their secret war to the entire world. Enjin’s hold on his umbrella tightened.

Riyou landed lightly beside Enjin, her scissors held low. Her playful demeanor was gone, replaced by a sharp, analytical coldness. “That was too clean. He was waiting. He wasn’t here for the trashbeasts. He was here for him.” Her green eyes narrowed, sliding to Enjin. “Why? What does a Raider want with Zanka specifically? Intel? Leverage?”

He wants to hold him, probably, Enjin thought, the answer so grotesque it made his stomach turn. And the damn kid let his guard down.

“I don’t know,” Enjin said aloud, his voice gravelly with forced calm.

He turned, scanning the faces of his team, Rudo’s furious confusion, Riyou’s sharp suspicion, and the other support members’ alarm. “But speculating on his hemorrhoid of a personality isn’t going to find him. Riyou, Rudo— fan out, search the immediate area for tracks, anything. Do NOT engage if you see him. You call it in. That’s an order.”

He turned his back on them, raising a hand to his comms earpiece, his expression grim. “Semiu. We have a situation. Jabber Wonger engaged during a clean-up op in Southern Ventilation, Sector Gamma. He’s extracted Nijiku. Appears to be a targeted snatch. Requesting full tactical scan of the surrounding sectors for anomalous movement. And… notify the Boss.”

As he issued the commands, his own mind raced in a darker, parallel track.

Where would Jabber take him? Not to the Raiders’ main haunts — too exposed. One of their ‘private’ spots. The refinery? Somewhere new? Was this just Jabber’s idea of forcing a reunion, or was there a colder purpose? Zodyl’s calculating face flashed in his mind. Could this be the collision he’d warned Zanka about?

A low, frustrated groan vibrated in his chest, swallowed before it could escape. His teammate had been taken by his secret, not-boyfriend, masochistic Raider obsession in the middle of a goddamn mission. The team was right to be terrified. These kids were probably imagining torture, interrogation, a body dumped in a ditch.

Only Enjin was haunted by the more intimate, more confusing terror of the image of Zanka, weak and pliant in Jabber’s arms, being carried off not to a dungeon, but to another one of their bleak, quiet places where whispers about feeling held hung in the toxic air. Again. And the even more terrifying question: a part of Zanka, buried deep beneath the shame and the duty, was he, in some twisted way, relieved to be taken? To have the choice, and the blame, taken away from him?

No, no, that’s too much, even for that teenage mess.

“Move!” Enjin barked, shattering his own dark reverie.

The team scattered, a controlled burst of panic. He remained standing in the center of the clearing, amid the dissolving trashbeast carcasses, his yellow eyes hard as flint, staring at the spot where Zanka had fallen. The cliff edge wasn’t in the distance anymore. His kid had just been dragged over it. And Enjin had to lead the rescue party, not knowing if he was pulling him back from an enemy’s clutches, or interrupting something far more complicated and damning.