So yeah. If you've read anything else I've written, you might recognize the characters. If not, it's no big deal.
PG-13 - language
<------------------->
Jaguar swung his hand out, catching someone in the wrist as they nudged his shoulder.
“Damn it, Jaguar.”
He knew that voice. He hated that voice.
“Get up. It’s time to get moving.”
Of course it was. He knew that. In fact, he was fairly certain that he’d been lying awake since before the annoying voice had even dreamed of waking up.
Jaguar pulled himself into a sitting position, rubbed roughly at his eyes, and then gazed around. Viper was still lying on his back, his eyes open and staring at the trees above them. Cougar and Fox, the one who had woken him, were busy repacking their backpacks. Grizzly had his backpack already on his broad shoulders and was packing Doe’s backpack for her. Doe, the only female in the group, was missing.
“Where’d the girl go?” Jag grunted, finally pulling himself out of his sleeping bag and standing up.
“Had to pee.”
Doe’s blond hair was pulled back into her usual ponytail and she was adjusting her camouflage pants as she stepped back into the clearing. She kneeled down by Grizzly and finished packing her bag.
“You gonna pack or what?” Cougar grunted, jerking his head towards Jaguar’s half empty backpack.
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled, “get off my ass.”
Morning was not his favorite time of day. Especially after he had only gotten a few hours of sleep on a piece of rock solid ground. Jag rolled his sleeping bag. It was only Monday. That meant that there were still three more days of hell before they would be picked up at the rendezvous point. That was assuming they made it there of course. This was one of the hardest courses the academy offered and they were provided with little more than a fragment of map, a compass, and their intuition to get them from their drop-off point, which was unlabeled on the map, to their pick-up point, roughly fifty miles away, which was marked by a small red ‘x’.
He reattached his sleeping bag to his backpack, shoved his utensils, notebook, and first aid kit back into the bag, and then swung it onto his shoulders. Grizzly was tossing large scoops of dirt onto the fire they had built the night before to keep the animals away. Doe leaned against a tree, picking dirt from under her fingernails, Cougar and Fox were clustered around the map and compass, which left Jaguar feeling strangely useless. It wasn’t a feeling he was used to.
“Let me help,” he said finally, moving to look at the map and compass in Fox’s hand.
It took him only a few minutes to orient himself and then point to his right. “We’re headed that way.”
Cougar frowned and looked down at the map again.
“Are you sure?” he asked, meeting Jaguar’s gaze.
Jag nodded curtly. “I’m sure. Let’s go.”
Jaguar knew Cougar was still unsure, but he didn’t want to pursue it. It was almost seven-thirty, and if they were going to reach the point in time, he couldn’t afford to spend any of it arguing with Cougar. Besides, Cougar was an ass and an imbecile. Arguing with him would get Jaguar nowhere.
Grizzly led the way, followed by Viper, who was still vaguely rubbing sleep from his eyes, Doe, and the others.
<------------------------------>
Viper was toweling off his hair as Jaguar emerged from the showers, towel wrapped around his hips, and feeling clean for the first time in a week. He set his toiletries in his locker as Viper tossed his towel over the door of his own.
“Have you seen the fresh meat?”
Viper was talking about the new cadets that had arrived a couple days ago.
“Not yet. I’ve been enjoying the downtime.”
Viper had a smirk on his face as he gazed at Jaguar. Jag felt Viper’s eyes tracing the tattoo on his chest.
“Stop it.”
Viper shrugged and turned back to his locker to dig for his brush. The smirk was still there. Jaguar hated that smirk. It meant that Viper knew something he didn’t. Curiosity gnawed at him as he pulled on a pair of sweatpants and used the towel that had been around his waist to dry his hair. As he toweled the water from it, Jaguar realized something else. He hated his hair. It was too short.
“Ask. I know you want to.”
Viper received an irritated grunt. He took it to mean Jaguar had relented.
“They’ve brought a couple girls in.”
Jaguar shrugged. “So? They come and go.”
If this was the best information Viper had, Jaguar really needed to work on his self control. It wasn’t worth the bloated head his relenting gave Viper.
“Yeah, but one of them is good.”
Jaguar leveled a serious gaze at the snake. “Doe’s good.”
A gleam in Viper’s eye caught Jaguar off guard. “No, I mean she’s really good.”
The way he emphasized ‘really’ made Jag’s eyes narrow.
“Really good,” he said again. “Give her a little more time and she’ll be kicking your ass.”
Jaguar shrugged, trying a little too hard to look unconcerned. Had he been talking to anyone else, they wouldn’t have noticed. But this was Viper. Damn snake could read Jaguar better than Jag could read himself most days.
“She’s hot too.”
That remark made Jaguar stop in the middle of pulling on a t-shirt and shoot Viper a raised eyebrow. He just smiled wickedly.
“You don’t even know her, haven’t even seen her, and I think she’s already inside your head.”
Jaguar shut his locker door harder than necessary, making Viper jump. He took a small bit of pleasure in it before Viper opened his mouth again.
“I can tell you about her, if you want.”
“Don’t,” Jag answered finally, snatching his book off the bench and heading for the door. “We’ll see what she’s really made of on Monday. I think Wolf’s working us out all together.”
Viper trailed after him. “Whatever you say Fearless Leader.”
<----------------------------->
“Heard you had a run-in with one of the new kids,” Jaguar mentioned casually, shrugging on a t-shirt.
Viper snorted.
“Kick his ass?”
“Didn’t need to. He embarrassed himself.”
Jaguar tugged on his jeans, pulled the towel from around his waist and rubbed at his hair, which was still too short and still dripping. Viper was leaning against his own locker, holding a paper towel to his nose.
“That’s why your nose is bleeding.”
Viper’s eyes narrowed at Jaguar’s jab. Jag smirked. He knew the look Viper was giving him. It was his look for those that Viper found to be suffering from a severe case of stupidity.
“What was it over?”
Viper pulled the towel from his nose and checked it briefly.
“Do you have to ask?”
“Figures.” Jaguar’s disgust was evident in the single word.
Viper’s response was instantaneous. “Don’t.”
Jaguar took a seat on the bench, looking up at Viper who had let his hand fall from his face, paper towel clenched in his fingers. The snake on his arm shifted.
“I don’t want your pity.”
“I wasn’t –“
Viper’s look appeared again. Damn him. Damn his ability to read people.
“You were. I’m gay, not crippled. I don’t want your – or anyone else’s – pity.”
Jaguar nodded curtly.
“There’s always going to be ignorant masses. I can handle myself. Stop being such a mother – it doesn’t suit you.” Viper paused, touching his filtrum. His fingers came away bloody, so he replaced the paper towel before continuing. “I was raised without a mother; what I want is a friend.”
Jaguar started, caught off-guard. No matter how much Jaguar stayed on his toes around Viper, the snake never ceased to surprise him.
“Friend?” he asked stupidly.
Viper’s shoulders rose and fell in an easy shrug. “As close as we’re going to get in this hell-hole,” he answered, crumpling the bloody paper towel and lobbing it easily into a wastebasket a couple yards off.
“Yeah,” Jag muttered, standing up. “I guess you’re right.”
The word touched him, though he was loath to admit it. He’d been working alongside Viper from the day he arrived, but it had taken weeks before they had spoken. And realistically, if it hadn’t been for Jaguar stepping into a fray to pull Viper’s ass out before he was beaten to a pulp, they might never have spoken. Viper had snapped at Jaguar for interfering, Jaguar had demanded to know why three guys had jumped him, and Viper had stormed off without answering. The next day, Viper had sat down next to Jag at breakfast and never left.
“Something’s still bothering you.”
Viper’s assertion was right, as always, but Jaguar didn’t answer. They had ended up in the library.
“Saw your girly today, after Mule jumped me.”
The lurch in Jaguar’s chest was unwelcome and unfamiliar. “She’s not my ‘girly’,” he snapped.
“She’s cool,” he continued, ignoring Jag’s comment.
Jag grunted. He really wished Viper would drop it.
“I’m serious,” Viper told him, sinking into a chair next to the fireplace.
Jaguar noticed the shift in Viper’s tone so he lowered himself into the chair next to Viper, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees.
“We talked in the locker room briefly.”
Despite knowing that he should shut this conversation down, Jaguar pushed forward. “And?”
“She told me how to hold my head to stop the bleeding. I knew she wanted to ask me something, so I figured if anyone should have the truth, it was her. I told her to ask me. So she did.”
“And I suppose she didn’t care that you’re gay?”
Viper’s lips tipped up in a smile. “Hell no; she didn’t ask about that. She wanted to know what I was doing on their floor. Totally came out of left field.” He paused briefly, smiling a bit wider. “Basically told me that my sexuality wasn’t any of her business.”
Jaguar sat back. She was strange. Really strange. His chest lurched again. Jag frowned.
“She’s not like any other girl that’s come through here, Jag. I can understand why –“
Jaguar was preparing to leap down Viper’s throat when Doe breezed in.
“Talking about me again?” she wondered, perching herself on the armrest of Viper’s chair.
“Of course,” Viper lied easily, almost too easily, as he wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged her into his lap. “When aren’t you the center of the fucking universe?”
She snorted. “Only when Falcon’s around.”
Jaguar’s frown deepened. Her icy blue orbs caught his gaze.
“Don’t like her much do you?”
Jag stood up. He wasn’t going to indulge her. Not now. Not this time. Not when it was something that not even he understood. Yet, he added mentally. Not something he understood yet.
Viper and Doe continued to chatter as he left the library and headed for his dorm, mulling over Viper’s opinion and his…feelings – Jag winced inwardly at the word, but couldn’t find a better one to replace it – for Falcon, the girl wonder.
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