Work Text:
Zanka Nijiku was an obedient child. He listened to his mother and father silently, bowing his head low, nodding solemnly to whatever they ordered him. He studied hard to get into the university his parents had been obsessing over, and to nobody’s surprise did he secure his place with a mark that screamed smug.
He attended church for eighteen years straight without a peep, striding into its stone walls behind his parents in his Sunday best, shirt ironed right to the hem of his collar. He nodded along to whatever the pastor had to mumble about Adam and Eve and the devilish gays and whatnot. He half nodded in agreement to his parent’s passionate…comments about these ‘mentally ill devils,’ as they referred to them as they drove back home from service.
Well, fuck them all, Zanka thought, as another overwhelming wave of pleasure tightened the knot in his stomach, sending his eyes rolling to the back of his head.
The pleasure had entirely eliminated the guilt pitted at his stomach. He almost heard the chains physically snap, as he sharply inhaled. No, it wasn’t one constricted with guilt and shame, but now free. And it had never felt so clear, so good.
His fingers curled deeper into a head of thick dreadlocks, eliciting a muffled groan from the man beneath him. Desperate pink eyes met his own blue ones, need and passion reflecting in each other’s eyes.
Between heaved breaths, Zanka lifted himself from the bed, one snaking around Jabber’s bare waist and the other beneath his right arm, drawing their bodies together. He softly kissed the corner of Jabber’s lip, murmuring whispers of reverent praise.
“No god out there ever gonna know this worship, Zan,” Jabber muttered, sinking into Zanka’s bare, bitten chest as he lowered himself back on the bed.
“This is worship. My worship. ‘F You.”
Jabber didn’t grow up within the stone walls and stained glass windows Zanka grew up in. He didn’t recite verses and commandments from memory, hell, he didn’t even know what they were. Jabber didn’t grow up believing he’d be thrown into hell’s gates for loving a man.
Zanka did. And he did until he met Jabber. Until he wrenched free of his parents’ grasp upon him. Until he kissed him for the first time, and truly believed in love. Not a printed definition read out over and over again in Sunday school classes, but one he felt from the beating rhythm of his heart pressed against another.
Silently, Zanka brought a hand up to the latter’s dreadlocks, gently raking his fingers through his scalp. He felt his body above him melt ever so slightly more into the touch. Rolling his head, he gazed at the sight beyond the open windows. Pale moonlight flooded Zanka’s bedroom, illuminating the tousled white bedsheets and Jabber’s toned, scratch-filled back. His scapulae stretched out slightly with every breath, Zanka’s own breathing falling into natural sync. His hand slithered to them, tracing the coffee coloured skin adorning Jabber’s muscle and bone.
“Y’know, there’s a sayin’ that here-” Zanka dragged a finger along the ridge of Janka’s shoulder blade, “this is where wings used t’ be.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“You reckon we were once angels, Zan?”
“Dunno. But I’d believe it.”
“Mm?”
Jabber tucked his hands beneath his chin, resting them on Zanka’s chest to meet his gaze. The corner of Zanka’s eyes softened ever so slightly, as he cupped Jabber’s cheek, thumb stroking his cheekbone. God, he could stare into those eyes the rest of his life.
“‘Cause God must’ve listened to my prayers, ‘n sent you down to save me.”
The stars peered into the small window of their shared dormitory, twinkling with wonder and awe. Millions of stars, from beyond the microcosm of their shared world, paid their testimonies to a love that stretched beyond the outstretched fingers of parted lovers across the world, that burned more intensely than the artist perfecting his art, that clung on tighter than the mutters of half-hearted prayers masked with genuine care and belief.
In their world cradled between intertwined arms and beating hearts filling the void in the other side of their chests, they held on.
“Ya don’t need savin’.”
“You think so?”
“You’re human. S’ don’t apologise for bein’ you.”