Chapter Text
Skov was the one who took it the hardest. This was glaringly obvious as soon as Kavinsky’s lifeless body hit the ground with a dull thud. She was on him in an instant and her pain clawed out of her throat in piercing screams. She couldn’t, or wouldn’t, talk for days after. Swan had to carry her twisting body on his shoulders away from the scene, silently leaving Jiang to deal with the fallout.
Swan managed to get her in his car a few feet away and gave her some water to drink. She was shivering violently and her hair kept sticking to her wet cheeks. She wasn’t even trying to wipe the tears away as sobs wracked her small frame. Swan retrieved a hoodie from his seat and draped it over Skov and he petted her hair for a few minutes until her breathing settled and she seemed to fall into a fitful sleep. By then, Jiang was nowhere in sight.
Swan left Kaja sleeping and tried to look around for Proko, not understanding why he wasn’t there with them. The sight of his mangled Golf was really too much to take. The possibility of losing both of them at once made his knees go weak. He checked for a pulse, but going by the blood on Prokopenko’s temple it seemed like a pointless afterthought. And yet. Swan felt under his fingertips the faintest trace of hope.
*
It would be wrong to say Jiang was emotionless. He wasn’t good with words and he wasn’t tactile with his affection as he often witnessed Swan was. He didn’t know how to reach out so he usually turned it all inwards, the good and the bad. This was the worst he’d ever known, and it felt like swallowing shards of glass or a dagger twisting in his gut. Whichever would cause more damage. But he didn’t show any of it. Instead, he dragged Kavinsky’s corpse, untouched save for his singed clothes, and dumped him in his Supra. He couldn’t stand everyone’s heavy stares, not saying a word, not even trying to help. Sure, maybe they didn’t deserve anyone’s help, they were bad kids, rotted to the core. But no one deserved to watch their friend die.
Kavinsky had relied on him to do his dirty business time and again, but he also trusted him with his body. He’d lost count of the wounds he’d patched up and the tattoos he’d given K and he didn’t feel like counting them now, they didn’t belong to him anymore. He carried Kavinsky’s body back to the mansion and cut off his clothes with a switchblade so he could get him in the bathtub and wash away the dirt and ashes. Surely there were people they could pay to do this, but the thought alone made Jiang’s blood go cold.
*
The funeral was a miserable thing in the middle of nowhere because they didn’t want him stuck in a cemetery. The glaring sun and the cloying heat made the black clothes stick to their skin. You’d think it would have the decency to rain, but Swan supposed it was only fitting for the weather to be so contrary and unpleasant. Kavinsky would like it, at least. Kaja insisted on wearing a black lace dress and her long brown hair was braided in a crown. Save for her chucks, she looked uncharacteristically prim and proper. Possibly also because it would amuse K to no end. Jiang was fidgety and kept pulling at the collar of his shirt, then he started twirling a knife until Swan took it wordlessly out of his hands. As for Swan, he towered over their little three people group and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Prokopenko’s comatose state kept him in a hospital, another weight on their collective shoulders.
And K, well. He was being lowered in the ground. The priest kept it short, in turns pitiful and uncomfortable, but they’d paid him enough to do his job and keep quiet about it. They stayed there long after the service was done and the sun started to go down, breaking out a bottle of vodka and passing it around. They traded anecdotes about Kavinsky that went from funny to heartbreaking to unbearable, until all that was left was silence. When it was fully dark, they turned on the headlights and music and did lines off the hood of Swan’s car. It felt like the right way to say goodbye.
Skov fell asleep on Swan’s shoulder, propped up by the car, and Jiang was lying on the ground counting stars. He wondered if Kavinsky was among them.
“You’re joking, right? I loved him, but that son of a bitch ain’t nowhere near Heaven.” Swan spoke softly, barely above a whisper.
Jiang hadn’t realized he said that out loud. He shrugged, as best as he could lying down. “That’s as high as you get. If anyone can break in, it’s him.”
Skov stirred and stretched her limbs with a sigh. “In and out.”
“Like a motherfucking thief”, they said in unison and laughed.