Chapter Text
After the amputation of his right arm, Zanka stops performing.
No more sharp retorts. No dry, superior calm. The navy blue of his eyes goes flat, like ink diluted in water. He sits still as he lets Rudo move him, adjust the sling, fasten the buttons, sweep dark hair away from his face when it falls loose from the mullet he once styled so carefully. The tassel earrings hang motionless. He doesn’t even seem to notice or care.
Rudo hates it.
He hates how easily Zanka lets him help. Meanwhile Rudo’s red eyes are ringed dark from sleepless nights but yet he still tracks every flicker of expression, searching. Waiting. He tells himself he’s just doing what anyone would. Taking care of a friend.
One evening, while adjusting the collar of Zanka’s shirt, Rudo hesitates. He leans in and presses the lightest kiss to Zanka’s cheek. Zanka’s lashes lift, just slightly.
Not anger. Not pride. Something warmer.
Something that almost looks like the old fire.
Or maybe Rudo just wants it to be.
His pulse stutters. He stays close, too close, studying Zanka’s face as if it might fracture and reveal the truth.
Zanka doesn’t pull away but he doesn’t lean in, either. He just watches Rudo with that hollow, unreadable gaze and for a second, something sharp moves behind it. A reaction. A crack in the numbness. Rudo’s chest tightens.
If that’s what it takes to bring him back…
Meanwhile in Zanka's mind he tells himself that the numbness he feels is for his own safety. Sadness is catastrophic, grief is complicated and rage is pointless. So he completely empties himself.
Once, that would have irritated him, being handled like something fragile. Being reduced to “average.” Now he doesn’t have the energy to even say something.
When Rudo leans in and presses a careful kiss to his cheek, Zanka feels the warmth but also the tremble in his actions. It’s almost clinical. An experiment. He understood immediately why Rudo did what he did.
Zanka’s first instinct is to recoil. Not from disgust but from pride. He was once someone untouchable. Someone who chose, who decided. Now he is something being tested for signs of life.
But beneath the humiliation, something else stirs. Rudo’s breath catches because he's waiting for something. Zanka purposefully lets his eyes sharpen, just slightly. A flicker. Not deliberate enough to be called a performance but not entirely accidental either.
He sees the hope ignite in Rudo’s face. Sees the desperate relief, the fragile belief that he’s found a crack in the ice. It does something strange to him.
A feeling of control and power, perhaps?
Because he realises that even like this, even broken, he can still move Rudo. Rudo leans closer, encouraged. The air between them tightens. Zanka could stop this but he doesn’t. Part of him is curious how far Rudo will go and a part of him wants to see how badly Rudo needs him to come back. And part of him that makes him hate himself the most is that he wants to feel wanted that fiercely.
When Rudo kisses him again, it isn’t quite as tentative. Zanka’s heart stutters. Not because he’s overwhelmed but because he isn’t sure whether he’s manipulating Rudo or letting himself be saved one kiss at a time.