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Jiang liked to complain about the insanely hot summer but when autumn rolled around, he found out he almost missed it.
They spent the summer in the best way, doing absolutely nothing. The days were usually too hot, so they mostly slept through them, emerging during the evening when the temperature became bearable again. They threw countless parties, in the house and outside, getting roaring drunk, they went for night swims in the pool, naked, which usually ended with sex, and they raced because the roads were abandoned during the night. It was easy to believe that Kavinsky was the king of the world during the summer.
They all dread the start of their senior year, so it’s only natural it comes faster than they’d wish. With it, the summer turns into harsh autumn, the temperature creeping down as the days get shorter. None of them are too happy about it, but Kavinsky seems particularly down, although he does his best to hide it. Before they started dating, Jiang probably wouldn’t have noticed anything was amiss, but now he was quite skilled at reading K’s micro-expressions.
“I’m going to bed,” K announces one evening, halfway through the episode of the show they’ve been watching.
Jiang frowns. “It’s not even ten,” he points out. Usually, they couldn’t get K to go to sleep before midnight.
K shrugs, like it’s completely normal behaviour.
“Are you feeling okay?” Proko asks, also frowning.
“Yeah, just tired.” He doesn’t offer any more explanation, only steals one of the blankets from the couch, wraps it around his shoulders like a cape, and pads upstairs, his socked feet barely audible on the hardwood floors.
“He’s been acting weird,” Jiang says pensively.
Proko sighs. “You’ve noticed it too? I hoped I was imagining things.”
“Has something happened? With his father maybe?” Jiang suggests, because that was usually the one thing that made K’s mood plummet.
Proko shakes his head. “Nothing that I know of.”
Jiang is secretly almost relieved that Proko is as clueless as he is, that K hasn’t confided in him and Jiang isn’t left out. They’ve been together for a couple of months now and Jiang wasn’t feeling so insecure about his position in their relationship anymore, but it was still nice to be reassured.
“Hopefully, it’s nothing,” Proko says, reaching for Jiang’s hand.
“Yeah,” Jiang agrees, intertwining their fingers, and giving him a reassuring squeeze. He didn’t like seeing K like this, tired and unhappy. He liked the energetic summer Kavinsky, who looked like he didn’t have a single thing to worry about. Jiang knew it was just an act but still. It was nice seeing him so content, especially compared to this.
…
They genuinely believe it will get better on its own, but Jiang notices how Proko watches K as closely as he does, trying to figure out what’s wrong. There are only small signs. K sleeps more, eats less, and complains about everything from the cold and how it’s always dark and raining, to the school. He doesn’t seem particularly interested in anything, but Jiang isn’t too concerned about the apathy until something crazy happens.
“There’s something seriously wrong with K,” he announces when he barges into the kitchen one evening, where’s Proko putting away the few dishes they used. K’s already in bed, as he usually is at this time.
“What happened?” Proko asks without taking his eyes off the plate in his hands.
“He said he isn’t in a mood for sex.”
Proko doesn’t seem too concerned. “So?”
“So?”
Jiang repeats, almost hysterical. “When has that ever happened?”
“He’s probably just tired.”
“It’s ten thirty. Come on, this is serious.”
Proko rolls his eyes at him and turns his full attention back to the dishes. “Stop overthinking this. I’m sure he’ll be happy to fuck you once he gets some sleep.”
“I feel like you’re not grasping the gravity of the situation here,” Jiang says, fully aware he’s sulking.
Proko snorts. “You two fuck like rabbits, one of you was bound to turn the other down at some point.”
Jiang frowns at him. He’s probably right, but it doesn’t exactly lift Jiang’s spirits. “You’re not helping.”
“Would you like me to fuck you instead?” Proko offers.
Jiang blinks at him in surprise. “Yes, actually, that would be great.”
Proko shakes his head at him, but he’s smiling. He puts away the last plate and turns to face him. “Couch or bed?”
“Bed.” Jiang loved Proko’s bed. It was always made, the sheets clean, smelling like Proko’s shampoo and laundry softener and it took no effort to be comforting. They rarely slept in it, since it wasn’t as big as K’s, but sometimes when Proko was sleeping at the dorms (which thankfully didn’t happen often), K and Jiang would crawl there, seeking solace.
Proko takes his hand and leads him upstairs. His bedroom is simple, just the bed and a stupid number of books on every other available surface. Jiang starts undressing as soon as the door closes behind them, impatient, horny and still kind of anxious about K and ready to do anything Proko wants. It was horrible, how easy he was for Proko. He’d be embarrassed about it if he didn’t know that K was down just as bad.
Proko smiles at him then, and Jiang would kill everyone and then himself for that smile alone.
…
They end up falling asleep in Proko’s bed and are harshly awoken by Proko’s alarm in the morning. Jiang would gladly silence it and skip school for a few more hours of sleep, but he knew that while K might be persuaded, Proko couldn’t.
“I’ll go make coffee,” Proko says sleepily and gets up.
Jiang yawns and resignedly follows him out of bed. “I’ll go wake up K.”
Unsurprisingly, he finds K still deep asleep, burrowed under blankets like a bear preparing for winter.
“Wakey, wakey,” Jiang says cheerfully, flicking the lamp on. It’s less harsh than the overhead light but K still groans and hides his face in the pillows.
“Come on, get up.”
“Leave me alone.”
Jiang tugs the blanket down a bit, revealing K’s head and the top of his shoulders. He’s wearing one of Proko’s sweatshirts and he frowns at Jiang. The ever-present circles under his eyes look bruise-like in the dim light.
“You okay?” Jiang asks, reaching to brush the hair from his face so he can feel his forehead for fever. K allows it without protest, which seems strange on its own since he always grumbled when someone was fussing over him, but his temperature seems normal.
“I’m fine,” K assures him and tugs the blanket up to his chin. “Just tired.”
Jiang sighs. “Are you going to get up?”
“No.”
“Do I need to get Proko to talk you into going to school? Is that what you want?”
K blinks at him sleepily and doesn’t answer but makes no move to get up either. Jiang sighs again and resignedly goes to find Proko.
Proko has the coffee ready and offers Jiang a cup as soon as he walks into the kitchen. “Where’s K?”
“He’s not getting up.”
Proko frowns. “Is he sick?”
“He says he’s fine. I checked his temperature, and it seemed normal.” Jiang shrugs. “But he says he’s still tired.”
“Maybe it’s just a cold.”
Jiang isn’t too sure about that. “A cold that lasts like a month?”
Proko shrugs. “I don’t know. Let him sleep and we’ll see in the afternoon, I guess.”
“Okay.”
Proko goes to check on him anyway, bringing him his cup of coffee, and Jiang hopes he’ll talk him into getting up, but he returns a few minutes later, K nowhere in sight.
When they get to the school parking lot, Swan and Skov are already waiting for them. “Where’s K?” Skov asks immediately and Jiang wonders if he’s actually worried about K or if he simply wants to steal the good brand of cigarettes K always kept in stock.
“Home.”
“Is he okay? He’s been acting kinda off lately,” Swan says.
“I don’t know,” Proko admits with a sigh and lights a cigarette.
“Maybe it’s a seasonal depression. He always gets moody during winter,” Swan suggests.
Proko shrugs. “Yeah, but it’s never been this intense.”
Skov thinks about it for a moment, before asking: “How would you even treat seasonal depression?”
Swan shrugs. “Get him a lamp.”
“He’s not a fucking houseplant,” Jiang says, irritated and worried.
Proko steps closer to him and takes his hand in support. “He’s gonna be fine,” he assures him, before turning back to Swan. “What about some vitamin D supplements?”
“Maybe, I don’t know. I’m not a doctor.”
“I know, but your mom…”
Swan rolls his eyes. “My mom didn’t have a seasonal depression, she just said it so everyone would feel bad for her, and she could spend the entire winter in the Caribbean.”
“You should have just bought her the lamp,” Skov says with a smirk and Swan nudges him with his elbow.
That’s how Jiang spends the majority of his English class googling symptoms of seasonal depression and SAD and how to treat either. The symptoms mostly fit but since it’s a seasonal thing, there aren’t any magical remedies. He sends a few of the most relevant articles to Proko and texts K if he’s feeling better. Proko answers within minutes, saying he’ll look into it, while K pointedly ignores him. Jiang pulls up the conversation with K, his fingers hovering above the keyboard, unable to come up with anything useful he could say to K right now, besides asking if he’d like a new lamp. He sighs. Who knows how K is doing?
…
K spends the day in bed. He doesn’t actually sleep, although he does believe he nods off for a bit here and there, but mostly he just stares at the ceiling, unable to force himself out of the bed. He hears his phone ping with a message but it’s all the way on the far side of the bedside table and he can’t bring himself to reach for it, or the cup of coffee Proko left him before he left.
When he hears the front door open, he’s almost relieved. He hates being alone. He hates the fucking cold. He hates the dark. He wishes keenly for the summer, the long days, the sun and no school.
“Hey,” Proko greets him as he walks inside the bedroom, Jiang in tow. “Are you feeling better?”
K makes a noncommittal sound. Should he feel better?
“Have you gotten out of bed at all?” Jiang asks, his eyes fixed on the untouched cup of coffee.
There’s no point in lying. “Not really.”
“Aren’t you hungry? Thirsty?”
K shrugs. He only wants the two of them to crawl in the bed with him and never leave.
Jiang sighs. “I’m gonna go order some food. Try getting him out of the bed,” he says to Proko in a low voice and K doesn’t bother pointing out he can hear him perfectly fine. He doesn’t want him to leave but he doesn’t have the energy to do anything about it. Proko nods and Jiang leaves and K feels like dying.
“Okay,” Proko says to K, his voice soft but firm. “Either you’re getting up and showering on your own or I’m dragging you, it’s your choice.”
K looks at him and weighs his options. A hot shower does sound nice. “Will you go with me?”
“If you want me to, sure.”
It takes all of K’s energy to heave himself out of the warm bed, but he’s comforted by Proko’s unyielding presence.
“You didn’t come to bed last night,” K mentions when they step into the shower. He slept like shit without the two of them there, but he was too exhausted to get up and look for them.
“Oh. We fell asleep in my room.”
K has no trouble interpreting that. “Was Jay mad at me?”
“Why would he be mad at you?”
“Because of the sex.”
Proko laughs. “God no. He was freaked out, but not mad.”
K nods unsurely. “Do you think he’ll want to leave once he realises just how fucked up I am?”
Proko gives him a fond look. “Baby, he’s had that realisation a long time ago and he’s still there, I think you have nothing to worry about.”
K nods again and lets Proko shampoo his hair, hoping he’s right. Jiang never made any indication that he’d be repulsed by all the shit that was going on in K’s life, from the drugs to his father, but K could never be too sure. It was easy to believe Proko wouldn’t leave because he’s been there from the start, he’s been by K’s side through the ups and downs. But Jiang was a recent acquisition and sometimes K worried Jiang still believed K to be the person he tried too hard to pretend to be, in school or at parties, in the presence of strangers. In reality, he could never be that. Proko knew that, but did Jiang?
“Food’s on its way,” Jiang announces as he walks in.
“Good. Are you joining us?” Proko asks.
“So you can hog all the hot water and leave me standing at the side, freezing my ass off? No, thanks.” He sits on the edge of a tub, offering them a loopy smile. “I’m just gonna enjoy the view.”
K gives him the middle finger in return but can’t help smiling as well. He is stupidly in love with the two of them.
When he steps out of the shower, he gets bundled up in a sweater, sweats and fuzzy socks and when he reaches for Jiang’s hand, Jiang offers it without hesitation, smiling at him.
They relocate to the couch and Proko wordlessly hands him a huge mug of tea, giving him only a pointed look and K knows better than to protest. He shuffles close to Jiang, who throws a blanket over them and together they wait until Proko joins them before putting on some dumb cartoon. When the food arrives, K is happy to find it’s the soup from the Armenian place that opened over the summer.
“So,” Jiang begins slowly when K finishes his portion. “How would you feel about a lamp?”
K blinks at him dumbly. “A lamp?” He repeats. What the hell would he need a lamp for?
“Yeah, we figured that maybe more light would be helpful.”
“What am I, a moth?” He sneers.
Proko snorts and Jiang frowns. “I don’t know what else to do.”
K rolls his eyes. “You don’t need to do anything.”
“Right, so I’m just supposed to watch as you spend the entire winter miserable, refusing to get out of bed?”
“Do you seriously think a lamp is going to fix me?” He sneers.
“I’m not trying to fix you,” Jiang hisses back.
K sighs. He doesn’t want to fight with him. He wants to cuddle and watch the stupid cartoon and maybe eat more of the soup. “Sure, get me a lamp.”
Jiang rolls his eyes. “Can you say something to him?” He asks Proko.
“I think you’re doing great,” Proko assures him with a smile but turns to K and says: “We’re getting you a lamp. And some vitamin D.”
K is pretty sure protesting will get him nowhere, yet he still tries. “The only D I need is –”
Proko immediately clamps his hand over K’s mouth. “Please, do not finish that sentence.”
In retaliation, K licks his palm. Proko gives him a pained look but puts his hand down. “I’m fine,” K insists once he can speak again. He’s just been feeling a little down lately, but surely it will pass on its own.
“We’ll believe that when we see it,” Proko says and Jiang nods.
K rolls his eyes but there’s no way he’s winning this fight when they gang up on him like that. “Fine, whatever.”
Proko smiles and kisses his cheek and K lets him. He snuggles even closer to Jiang, who wraps an arm around his shoulders and okay, maybe winter won’t be so bad. Even if he has to spend it under a fucking lamp.