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(no subject)

There are a couple of weeks of freedom, after his summer tour is done but before classes begin, where Jiang feels free and alive. The tour was hard, to be out and away from Prokopenko and Kavinsky for so long, but he's back now, and Annapolis feels like home because it's where his heart lives.

As soon as he's stepped foot back on solid ground, he calls Proko. It's the middle of the day, and he's exhausted and feels like he hasn't showered in a year and a half, but it's probably closer to three days.

"Are you home?" he asks, as soon as the line picks up. "Can I come over? I've got a damn minute where I just get to be still and I want to do it in your bed."

Mad Max AU

Out in the dust of it all, out in the red-hot of the desert, things feel more real. More certain and true, that what they've done cannot be taken back even if they want to, and now they must live with it. They are a knot and a knit that only obliquely knows each other, at first. War boys nowhere near their half-life ends, none of them really tried and tested except for Jiang, who's done a run or two or five. Nothing hard or serious, but he's done it, and he is known, a face and a name. A call at least. Named for his wheels, but he remembers his names, the one from his parents and the one they gave him before he became a pup.

It's a mess. He tries to keep his eyes ahead. They've got three cars between them, between five boys, and they'd probably be better off with just one, but that would be much easier to track down, to know where they were going and know how to find them out in the red-hot dust.

Today, he's got the prize. The fair boy who isn't but is. Jiang doesn't know what to think of him. He'd first seen him years ago, as a child, through a spy glass when refugees entered the city. That was before he was even a pup, he thinks; those days are blurry things, before he was a war pup. Now, he's grown. They both are. Much has changed, as they head into the red-hot desert.

Now, he's dressed in the layers and coats they've managed the scrounge together for him, but Jiang knows about the gauzy things he was wearing when they stole him from the Imortan in the middle of the night. Even without a mirror to glance back at him, he can see, in his mind's eye, the shape of his shoulders and the length of his legs, and the deep, terrible frown on his face.

He drives. In another car, he knows Kavinsky drives alone. In the third, Skov drives while Swan rides, their only lancer. The desert stretches silently out in front of them, and the silence stretches on inside the car, beside the rumble of the engine.

(no subject)

On Saturdays, the plebes get town liberties on a rotating basis. That weekend, Jiang and his unit have town liberty. He's known for three weeks, and he's been planning it for the whole time, fastidious in that planning, because if all he gets is twelve hours, he's going to use it to his advantage.

He sort of wishes he could get out earlier, but that means a fair amount of trying to talk the Marines into things, and he wants to keep having liberties, and he wants his classmates to keep having liberties, so he'll take what he gets. So he's up early, does every ounce of homework he has, and at promptly 11:59 in the morning, he leaves Bancroft for Gate 3.

"Morning Jiang," the Marine at the gate greets him. Jiang salutes. "You have liberties today?"

"Town liberties today, sir, yessir," Jiang replies simply. The Marine nods and checks his watch, and at prompts noon, lets him through the gate. It's sort of a glorious thing that Jiang basically only has to jog across the street to get to Proko's place. He pulls his phone out on the way, calling him. "Time for brunch, bitch. You get me for a full twelve hours."

(no subject)

The silver Fisker had been sitting on the opposite curb for at least an hour, windows rolled up and music thrumming from inside it because there was no engine noise to drown it out. For most of that hour, Jiang and Proko had been sitting on the roof of the garage, over his little room, passing a joint back and forth.

"Pretty sure he's thirsty as shit," Jiang said casually, holding onto the joint and considering the smoke burning in his lungs. He breathed it out slowly and handed the joint over to Proko. "He's been after my dick since he started going here."

(no subject)

He gets privileges so rarely, and when he does they're mostly supervised, so it isn't him who finds the video, it's one of the other guys. He walks into his dorm, exhausted, to a clutch of other boys, and one blurts out, "Hey, Jiang. Ain't this your bitch?"

It took him a second to figure out what he was looking at.

Next weekend, he gets a phone call. He's been sitting on it, waiting for the time, but he's got free time, and his phone, and Proko's number pulled up. He dials it, hand on the back of his neck, thinking about what to say and how to say it.

"Pick up," he mumbles to the ringer. "Pick up, pick up..."

(no subject)

Spring arrives with rain in Henrietta, and baseball practice at Aglionby starts anyway. Jiang doesn't normally give two shits about most of the sports at Aglionby. But he has a special, quiet spot for baseball.

Mostly that has to do with watching Illya Prokopenko in tight white pants and a navy jersey that manages to make his shoulders look wide and his waist nipped in neatly. He looks handsome in the baseball uniform, even when his knees and ass are muddy. A lot of the guys do, but especially Proko.

Jiang is aware that he's got it, and bad. But he's not about to say a damn thing.

(no subject)

For once, there isn't a substance party. It's a goddamn miracle. Still, they're all fucked as hell, and it's Swan that has the brilliant idea: there's a lake, not very far. A man-made reservoir, but it's safe for swimming and fishing and shit, and they're young and fucked, and it's summer, and they should all go to the lake.

They're all down. Even Proko, who always seems weirdly hesitant about those things, lakes and other bodies of water and shit, and always has. Jiang has constantly choked it up to maybe the motherfucker just can't swim. It's entirely possible.

They drive out, for once not in their caravan. Proko rides with Kavinsky, a perpetual passenger installed in the Evo's shotgun seat since Kavinsky came up with his first fake ID when he was barely fifteen; Jiang rides in the back of Skov's car with Swan in the front, and tries to not think about how many people Skov has fucked on these seats.

He drinks a beer as they head out, and it occurs to him, a slow dawning, that Jiang doesn't even think he's seen Prokopenko in a gym class. He's never really thought of it--just that it must be true, because he knows he's seen Skov and Swan and Kavinsky in them. He's snooped a little. Watched them, sweaty and rowdy and horsing around, naked, and said absolutely nothing because Skov is all fun and games until you look like you might be acting queer. But Proko's never been in on that.

Unlike the swimming thing, that strikes him strange. So, when they stop, when they're at the lake and everyone else is already heading down to the water, Jiang veers toward Proko, bringing up the rear.

"You cool, man?" he asks, as bland as he can manage.

(no subject)

Everything is light and sound and color. Everything is dust, car exhaust, smoke. Jiang feels alive under his skin. He feels alive in his skin. What a curious feeling. He's pretty sure Kavinsky gave him acid. Or something like it, at least.

There's music, someone. Conflicting narratives pumping from car stereos and speakers, clashing but thumping, thumping. Jiang wishes it were more contained, that he could feel the pulse of the bass in his bones. That he was pressed close to someone.

He pushes his fingers into his hair, lets himself sway a little bit on the spot. He needs a fucking drink.

(no subject)

Jiang is aware that he's always been sort of on the outside of the group, of any group, at Aglionby. He doesn't come from an up-and-coming family, like most of the Vancouver kids. He isn't white, like the rest of Prokopenko and Kavinsky's miscreants. But he is vital. He is reliable. He is dedicated to these boys.

He is aware that, in more than just what he looks like or where he comes from, he's a little outside of the group. It comes in waves, in whispers. In a tiny scowl when Skov sneers something nasty, or Swan assures that his watching Jiang at soccer practice isn't a gay thing. Jiang never says anything about it. He isn't, so it doesn't matter.

But his eyes linger. He looks at boys as much as he looks at girls, and that's probably pretty dangerous for him to do. So he's quiet and doesn't say anything about it.

Tonight, they're getting high in Kavinsky's weird in-home theater. Kavinsky has taken over three seats all to himself. Skov's wandered off to hit on Kavinsky's mom. Jiang has no idea where Swan is. But Prokopenko is nearby, half glancing toward Kavinsky's ostensibly sleeping form as if no one will notice. Jiang does. He pinches his joint between his fingers and sits down, offering it to Proko as he exhales slowly.