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“Because, if you could love someone, and keep loving them without being loved back … then that love had to be real. It hurt too much to be anything else.” – Sarah Cross, ‘Kill Me Softly’
Mrs. Cadima comes up to him after his shift has finished, just as the sun is setting and the day is finally cooling down.
Jake cuts off his singing when he sees her.
"Why'd you come in here lookin' like that, In your high heeled boots and your painted-on jeans, All decked out like a cowgirl's dream, Why'd you come in here lookin' like that-"
“Señor Williams,” she says in her grandmotherly way, “You did a lot of work today.”
“Thank you,” Jake replies, pausing in wrapping up today's bulk order of horrifying dolls.
She nods and then shifts, hands ringing around each other as she leans in close. Jensen looks at her skeptically, he and the little old lady aren’t that close, so he is hesitant to hear whatever she wants to tell him.
“Your Señor Ruiz has been … making eyes at Marla. I do not mean to pry it is not my place-”
Jensen feels his face frown. She grasps his hand and shakes her head.
“Do not worry. I am sure it is a passing fancy.”
Jake is so lost. Has he suddenly forgotten Spanish? Is the translation cortex of his brain on the fritz?
“Yeah,” Jake agrees hesitantly, “I’m sure.”
“Men always come back. Though they stray from the path it is always there waiting for them.”
“…Yeah. Ain’t that the truth.”
Mrs. Cadima smiles at him again, this time looking more pleased than worried, pats his hand once more and then toddles off back to her office to do the end of day business before the night shift comes in.
Jensen looks down at the dolls beside him.
“I have no idea what the hell just happened.”
They don’t answer, the cowards.
See almost four months ago when they decided to integrate aka disappear into the surrounding population while Clay came up with a plan, and Cougar had sweet-talked them into these jobs he hadn’t exactly been … paying attention. Like, at all.
He was preoccupied! While the immediate debilitating sting of what had happened had faded somewhat, and the forever ache of the rest of his existence settled in, Jensen had been mentally preparing himself for his projected schedule of sanity. Well, he was making lists.
Lists make up the universe. A code is just a list, a hack is just an altered list, lists are everything.
On that day, leaning against the outside of the building while Cougar sweet-talked the owner just a few steps away, Jensen was making a list on how to continue in his new reality
- Get safe, get low , get ready
- Watch the others backs. They are messed up and they won’t be looking so you have to.
- Keep Cougar from going dark
- Keep an eye on the civvies left behind. Keep them safe.
- Don’t. lose. It.
That last one on the list was already giving Jensen trouble at the time. He knows what he is. He’s a chameleon, and a yappy little dog, and a ball of gooey-sticky lies all rolled into one. He is all trauma and quick-change personalities tailored to who he meets. And he’s scared. All the time. Shit scared almost constantly. Of being vulnerable, of being discovered, of dying before he gets to see his niece grow up, of watching his team die one by one and leave him alone, of someone besides his sister seeing the actual horrible truth of him.
It's heavy shit.
So, he makes a list and tunes out of conversations, so he can properly stow his shit and keep his inner turmoil from bleeding through.
So, he missed what Cougar said to land them their jobs in the mostly female run factory. The mostly female run factory that has a strict feminist hiring policy, and even stricter policy regarding how men act in their employ, restricts interaction with hostile or antagonistic males either hired to be security or from supplier companies, and tends to hire women who are divorced or are coming from violent backgrounds-
Huh.
He really should have thought about this earlier. It's too hot in Bolivia.
Why the hell would Mrs. Cadima hire him and Cougar? As much as they tried to blend they were obviously the rough type of guy, and the scars they couldn’t hide day to day because of the risk of overheating screamed that they had led violent lives.
Why would she want to hire them when she had taken precautions up until now to keep men like them away from her factory?
He gets an answer two days later.
He is loading up one of the small trucks that supplies local stores. The factory mainly exports but some local business keeps their profile chummy with the locals, or so Jake suspects. Maybe there is a demand for creepy dolls here as well as in America. Frankly, Jake doesn’t care as long as he has to look at the hellspawn as little as possible.
So, he is loading up the truck, trying not to make eye contact with the faces that peek through the plastic wrap and yeah maybe he takes off his shirt because it is hot as fuck outside and he is sweating out all of last night’s whiskey-
Which is when he hears the giggles from behind him.
Deliberately he doesn’t turn around. That old high school self-consciousness comes back but he pushes it down because the people here are nice and not Suzie Paulson who liked to pull up jakes shirt and laugh at the way his ribs stuck out and whoa, he did not realize he was still carrying that around.
He keeps loading the truck and listens in to the women behind him.
“Shh, Mija!” a voice he recognizes as Old Lady Vasquez says behind him, “It is not polite.”
“It is not every day we get such a show,” a younger voice he recognizes as Marla replies, also in Spanish, “Why shouldn’t I enjoy it?”
Okay, do they think Jake can’t understand them? Because maybe his big dumb American mouth makes a mess of the beautiful Spanish language, but he still understands most of the language, none of that romantic stuff, and very little of the other related languages, but still. He gets what he’s saying.
“It is not polite, and he is a taken man! You should not stare in such a way!”
Um. Taken man?
Is-
Is Jake in the matrix?
Because Jake hasn’t seen any action since they were in Atlanta and Jesus god that was years ago. That’s not a dry spell that’s a drought. That’s a sell all the cows and board up the windows we aren’t coming back kind of dry.
Why the hell do they think he has a girl?
“I don’t understand it,” Marla continues, “Señor Ruiz has all of that to go home to and he still flirts with me at lunch break? He should know he does not have to hide from us!”
“It is still dangerous, Mija. Not everyone is as kind as we are. Hiding can keep them safe.”
“Still, I feel bad for him. Such nice men, they should not have too.”
“I know, Mija I know. Come, let's get back to work, we have our own worries.”
There are the sounds of retreating footsteps and Jensen comes back to himself, finding that he has frozen mid-stretch to close the roller door of the truck.
They think-
The whole factory thinks that he and Cougar-
He and Cougar are-
Is that what Cougar said to get them their jobs? That they won’t pose a threat to the staff because they are gay? Gay together. Gaying together. Gaying it up. Together.
Jensen needs to lie the fuck down.
No, he needs to find Cougar.
No, he needs a drink.
Okay;
- Find Cougar
- Beat some sense into Cougar
- Except don’t actually beat him he’s too sneaky he’d win
- Drink
- Lie down
- Maybe look for a new work place
- Maybe stop wearing pink shirts? Not helping with gay lies.
After finishing his shift and finding that Cougar has already headed out (probably to the bar where he is every night before he brings home a new smoking hot woman because Cougar is so not gay) Jensen makes an addendum to that list;
- Drink
- Get drunk
- Stay drunk for a long fucking time
Yep. He is in complete control of his life. Spiralling who?
Pooch finds him a couple hours and half a whiskey bottle later.
“Jay,” he sighs, “You have got to be shitting me.”
Jensen just smiles up at Pooch. Because he is perfect, he is floating and warm and in the last place where cougar would look for him because three pulls into the bottle he had decided that no, he didn’t want to see Cougar. He wanted to be mad at him for a while, get a good sulk going, really crack the shits. Because he has the right and the ability too and if cougar gets a chance to explain himself Jensen will fold like so much laundry.
“A cemetery,” the blurry Pooch says, voice laced with forced exasperation, “You are drinking alone in a cemetery.”
“’m not alone. You’re here.”
Pooch sighs, drops down onto the grave beside him and takes the bottle from him.
“Hey!”
“If your gonna scare Cougs enough for him to ask me to help to look for you I deserve some freaking whiskey.”
Jensen feels himself pout at the mention of Cougar. Pooch sighs again, and seriously he might hyperventilate if he keeps this up, Jensen is worried.
“What happened no?” he asks, soundly like he really doesn’t want to know, “What domestic are you and Cougs engaged in now? Fight over the color of the kitchen cabinets? Is he snoring too loud? Did he not get you that diamond-studded tennis bracelet for your birthday?”
“I am meant to have the jokes and the sarcasm, you are meant to have the driving and the common sense, not the Jokes, Blurry-Pooch. The jokes are mine! And why would I want a diamond-studded tennis bracelet? I want one of those fucking diamond necklaces that look like a collar, like Audrey Hepburn wears in Breakfast at Tiffany’s right before she loses her mind-”
Suddenly a hand is moving over his face and placing his glasses back into position. Blurry Pooch is blurry no more.
“-oh thanks.”
“Audrey Hepburn doesn’t lose her mind in Breakfast and Tiffany's.”
“It’s open to interpretation.”
“Jay.”
“What?”
“Why are you drinking in a cemetery at eight at night, all on your own? And furthermore, why drink in a cemetery where you know Cougar won’t think to look for you because he is a decent human being who doesn’t want to disturb the dead?”
“Furthermore,” Jensen mocks and Pooch glares.
“Do not make me smack you in front of all these ghosts, man.”
Jensen sighs and flops back against the ground.
“Cougar lied to our boss at the doll factory and said we were gay lovers so that she would hire us, but I didn’t know until said boss came up to me to tell me I shouldn’t worry about Cougar cheating on me with women because men always ‘come back to the path’ or something, and also some of my fellow doll constructors were gossiping about said fraudulent gay relationship practically in my face because they think I’m a dumb American who doesn’t understand Spanish.”
“That’s … that’s a lot to process in one sentence.”
Jensen snorts and pulls the bottle back from Pooch, taking a long slow drag.
“So, this is about your ‘thing’.”
“The thing you swore you would never talk about ever in your life so help you god and forever hold your peace? Yeah, that’s the thing.”
“Jake, its really not that big a deal.”
“It is.”
“I-”
“It really, really is Pooch. And now it’s- … it's worse.”
“How could it be ‘worse’?”
Jensen rubs his eyes with a groan.
It’s worse now because he and Cougar had decided to stick together. To have each other’s back was the story they floated. But really, they had been scared shitless that the other was going to lose it. Jensen was watching Cougar for any sign he was going to eat his gun, and he could feel Cougar watching him to make sure he didn’t slip so far into cyberspace fuelled depression he couldn’t pull back out. They had been wrapped around each other so tightly when they were soldiers, like a tree and a carnivorous vine, holding each other up. Suddenly they stopped being soldiers but they couldn’t risk pulling apart. The tree always dies when you remove the vine.
But all of that meant that Cougar and him were spending all day, every day together, and then coming home to the same shitty hotel room every night. The only time Jake doesn’t see Cougar is when he is with a lady, and that … that doesn’t help.
On his first mission as a Loser he decided that he was scared shitless of Cougar.
Three missions later and he was butt crazy, write a letter home to Ma to get his dowry ready, in love with Cougar.
Because Cougar is a sneaky bugger. He is a sneaky sniper who snuck up on Jensen with his hidden smiles, and his weird niche sense of humor, and his unending loyalty, and his damned face, and his damned hair, and his god damned hat.
Jensen knows everything about Cougar, and not from hacking his files because most of those are redacted, not that Jake knows. He knows from the way Cougar acts. Jensen has seen him go through hell, come out bloody and raw, and keep going. Jensen has seen him drunk and giggling, seem him use a small soft voice when talking to children, seen him nail a terrorist from a kilometer away. He’s seen him grumpy with ice cream men, and seen him steadily stitch up wounded soldiers. Jensen has seen small bits of Cougar and Jensen has seen enough to know he is honestly a good man. How could he not fall in love?
And, about two years ago, he made the mistake of telling Pooch.
There were pink margaritas involved. And Mardi Gra. And he had just seen Cougar be led off by the most toned and athletic woman he had ever seen, so he was feeling a bit weepy.
DADT who? No DADT at Mardi Gra when you’ve got your arms around an equally as drunk Pooch.
Only Pooch, the bastard, remembered what he said the next day.
Every single word about Cougars eyes, and his hands, and his smile and his god like ass-
“You know I’m keeping an eye on her right?”
Jensen says it to throw Pooch off and it works, he feels Pooch tense beside him, just like he planned.
“Oh,” Pooch says with fake nonchalance. His twists his wedding ring around his finger. He’s nervous.
“She uploaded some sonogram pictures to her cloud drive,” he continues in a soft voice, “I can show them to you if you’d like. And I read the transcripts from her doctor’s appointment. They’re both doing fine, completely healthy.”
Pooch bites his lip and looks away.
“That’s good,” he whispers, “That- thanks.”
“Just don’t tell Clay. He’d whoop my ass.”
“Man would he ever.”
Jensen laughs. Then, with a loud comical groan, he gets up on to his feet and extends a hand to Pooch.
“Come on. I’ll take you back to my place and show you.”
“Worst pick up line ever.”
“You think you have jokes.”
“I know I have jokes. Better jokes than you. Jokes that don’t scar hardened black ops soldiers for life.”
“That was one time and I apologized.”
“I still have nightmares about nun’s man.”
“Not my fault you’re sensitive.”
“And it’s not my fault you are deranged.”
A list rearranged in Jensen’s head when the whiskey leaves his system;
- Hide it better
- Make sure he doesn’t find out
- Stow your shit, corporal.
- You can’t lose him
Because when it all comes down to it being dead and free from the clutches of DADT doesn’t mean anything. Cougar finding out would still mean Jensen would lose him.
Because Cougar isn’t gay, and he isn’t interested in Jensen in that way. It was just a cover, is just a cover. Jensen will not be tricked into spilling his love guts by a cover to get hired in a freaking doll factory.
And maybe Jensen is gay, bi, queer whatever. But that doesn’t mean he gets a happy ending.
He isn’t coded for happy endings.
This is enough, he tells himself. What he has is enough and it's more than some people get. A best friend and a unit that has his back. He is content with that. He is.
The next day he goes to work and sits beside Cougar and he tunes out the world. Whatever the cover needs he will provide. It doesn’t mean anything. He won’t let it scare him into a confession that will get him dead.
The next night Cougar brings Marla back to their hotel.
And the next night, Aisha happens.
It's their first mission after the Port of L.A. Their first without Roque when Jensen slips.
Well, he slips in his own blood, and then he emotionally slips.
He gets captured in the server room of a company they have connected to Max. from the outside it looked like a normal medical supply company, boring as dishwater. But a closer look shows something hinky in their funds and an even closer look shows that they were actually a money laundering front for several large illegal outfits, mafias, and terrorist groups. All under the watchful eyes of Max.
So, they set up an op, low risk because they had cased the place as not having any combatants. Jensen was to go in while Cougar provided long range cover from across the street and Pooch waited outside for extraction. Clay and Aisha are off god know where, probably fucking or fighting, either way, Jensen doesn’t want to know.
But then Jensen had got in, got into the server room and all its precious memory drives, and tripped a silent alarm.
He ran, tossed the drives down the mail shoot with a tracer on them so someone else could get them, but then he turned the wrong corner right into a big ugly dude that screamed gun for hire. The butt of a gun was coming down on the back of his neck before he could even move. He didn’t even get the chance to say something cool over the coms. Something for them to remember him by.
He just says;
“Cougs-”
And then the world goes black.
He wakes up in a dark room, his glasses gone and stripped down to nothing but his underwear.
He looks around as much as he can without light or 20/20 vision and notes everything;
- It’s cold
- The ground is shifting, like he’s on a ship
- He has no weapons and can see nothing to be used as a weapon
- A pipe is leaking in the corner, but it doesn’t smell like water
- Concussion
- His mouth takes like blood, bitten tongue
- Restrained, but not completely
- No shoes
- Bit scary mother fucker of a door
- Approaching footsteps, heavy, military issue boots-
A man comes in with a small black case and Jensen feels himself go faint. Mentally faint, while his face goes blank.
The man lays down the case and rolls out the side, showing small, shining silver tools.
Oh, frack-tastitc.
“What were you stealing?” the man asks, accent eastern European, tough and unyielding.
“Suck my ass.”
Jakes all about diplomacy.
“I cannot help you if you do not cooperate.”
Jake grins.
“Suck. My. Ass.”
The man starts by breaking his toes. One by one.
Jake lists the order he breaks them in, and leaves.
Leaving is something Jake is good at. Maybe that’s why Cougar was so worried in Bolivia. He had seen Jake mentally leave his body during torture more than once. He had seen what he was like after.
Jake doesn’t see it as a dangerous thing. He’s always done it. Ever since he was small, and his father would get drunk and violent. Or when his mother would get mad and bring out the belt. It was easier to leave rather than try and run away, or try to fight back. It scared his sister too.
But it was warm and safe in the place he left to. He didn’t have to worry about pain there. Or how his genetics doomed him to a life alone. He didn’t know a single relation of his that had a happy, healthy relationship. His parent's hat literally killed each other, his sister had to leave the state and change her name to get away from her ex, and from what he knew about his family from before his first name change they were all big heaping piles of shit who treated their families like shit. He’s coded for destruction, so why would he want a relationship?
Why would he want to do that to Cougar?
Maybe is sadistic. He loves so much but that won’t stop it. All the compiled data points to destruction if he were ever to have someone love him back.
But he doesn’t have to worry about any of that.
Not in here where it is warm and safe, where there is no heartbreak, only a sequence of numbers over and over again lulling him off into the dark and-
Jake comes back when he slips and falls against the steel of the ships hallway.
He gasps brokenly as panicked breathes start to overtake his body. He looks around wildly, the world still blurry without his glasses. He’s in the hallway just outside the room he was in. Still mostly naked, but he is clutching something. He looks down and sees a bloody, broken, scalpel. He looks down further and sees the floor is covered in blood.
Some of it is his. Some of it isn’t. He doesn’t know how he got out here, doesn’t know how he got away-
Then, the pain comes rushing in.
He gasps against it and slumps further against the wall, slipping in the blood as he does.
His toes are either broken or dislocated and he has several deep cuts up his calves and one small cut on his neck that is bleeding like a son of a bitch, but it isn’t anywhere near a danger spot.
And his reflexes must be damaged too because a man comes around the corner, shouts something Cyrillic and raises his gun-
Only to drop down on the deck like a sack of crap.
And then Cougar is there.
Jake smiles.
“Cougs,” he rasps, “You’re a sneaky son of a bitch. You need a bell.”
Cougar doesn’t answer. He just walks down the hall, clears it in both directions, clicks his coms in a sequence and the seizes Jake by the chin. Or, seizes sounds more violent than the action actually is. It's more like cupping. Cougar is cupping his face.
Jakes' legs go wobblily. Maybe it’s the blood loss.
“Maybe is Maybelline.”
Cougar frowns at him, a spark of anger in his deep brown eyes.
“Aww, Cougs,” he sighs as the sniper checks over his injuries, “Don’t be mad. I didn’t mean to get taken hostage, honest. Scouts honor. Or soldiers honor- no. dead man’s honor.”
Cougar pinches his eyes in a glare.
And Jensen-
Jensen is still losing blood, and he had already lost a lot, and his mind is foggy from being in the other place, so he really can’t be blamed for looking at Cougar and seeing sparkly hearts and singing Disney cartoon birds and shit maybe he can hear the score from the little mermaid he is so out of it but-
He leans forward and kisses Cougar.
It's not very suave but, hello, blood loss.
Cougar doesn’t kiss back.
And reality catches up quickly. Jake rears back, eyesight blurry but he can still see the look on Cougars face he looks-
He looks blank.
Cougars blank face … he never uses that face against Jensen.
All of a sudden Jake feels like crying. Why does he have to have fucked up genetics?
He closed his eyes and leans his head down and away from Cougars.
“Ah, sorry,” he hisses, “Sorry, I’m all- I just- fuck, fuck, sorry.”
A cool calloused hand tips his head back up and he feels a pair of glasses slip onto his face.
“We have to move.”
“Yeah.”
“Clothes?”
“They took them I don’t know where.”
“Okay.”
Jensen opens his eyes and focuses on a spot somewhere over Cougars ear. He smiles, and he knows it must look hollow.
Another list takes over from the ones he just blew out of the water;
- Get out, get safe, get low
- Come up with an excuse; you were tired, you were bloody, cougar really looked like a lady in that light, you were just so happy to see him
- Make everything go back to the way it was
- It has to go back to the way it was
- If all else fails … run.
“After you, Cougar my man.”
Cougar looks at him, his face unchanging, and then he hooks Jakes arm around his shoulders to support his weight and guides them off the ship where Pooch is waiting with a stolen ambulance.
They strap him down, Cougar and Aisha assessing the damage while Clay talks Pooch through traffic. They dose him up with something that makes him feel all floaty and then he’s asleep.
When Jensen was little, and before he was ever Jake Jensen, he had a list that he would write down every night, so he would never forget;
- Don’t look them in the eye
- Don’t make noise
- Don’t take up space
- The only one you can trust is your sister
- This will end one day
Then years later, when he finally was Jensen and he made the choice to join up he made a new list that he wrote on a piece of paper and tucked into the sole of his boot;
- Don’t die
- They need you to stay alive or they’ll starve and get sick
- They need you to come back alive because Jess can’t do this alone
- You need to make sure Holly grows up nothing like you
- Don’t. Die.
The day he realized he was in love with Cougar he scratched a list into the wooden frame of the bed he was sleeping in;
- Fuck my life.
He wakes up and before he opens his eyes he knows he’s lost a fair few hours. From the scratch of the sheets and the vague feeling of a ceiling fan going, he is in a cheap hotel room. Probably in Jersey, from the smell.
When he does open his eyes the first thing he sees is Clay.
“Colonel.” he tries to say, but his voice is worse than a whisper.
Clay just frowns at him, face cast in its usual severity, and hands Jensen a glass of water.
“We got the drives,” he tells him, “You got security in suck a tizzy we just walked in and grabbed them.”
“Good.”
“Then we had to spend an hour convincing Cougar not to go on a murder spree to get you back.”
Jensen winces and tries to sit up. Clay plants a heavy hand down in the middle of Jensen’s chest, stopping him.
“No permanent damage, though you won’t be able to go out in the field for a few weeks.”
“I’ll be better in two weeks tops.”
Clay snorts.
“As if Cougar would let you,” then Clays frown changes to a thoughtful one, “Where is he anyway? Usually, when you get hurt he won’t leave you alone even to piss.”
Jensen winces.
Clays frown turns into a scowl.
“I’ll fix it, Colonel,” Jensen says almost frantically, “I promise, I’ll make it go away.”
Clay continues to look at him for a few agonizing minutes, then he stands with a groan and announces;
“You’re an idiot.”
And then he leaves.
Jensen slumps down against the pillows and sighs defeatedly.
They are legally dead soldiers carrying out illegal operations on American soil in pursuit of an immoral puppet master, and Jensen manages to fuck all of it up by kissing his teammate.
They didn't teach him about this kind of thing in basic.
They really should have pamphlets. Maybe an instructional video.
Jake slips back into sleep while thinking of the terrible graphics said video would have.
When he wakes again Cougar is perched on the end of his bed. Jake damn near jumps out of his skin.
“Fuck! Cougar!” he shouts, wincing when the stitches in his leg wounds pull, “A bell- the bell was a joke but seriously if this keeps happening-”
Cougar doesn’t look amused. He doesn’t even look like he does when he is hiding amusement. He looks mad.
Jensen feels his blood go cold.
“I’m sorry,” he blurts, fear making him babble, “I was woozy from blood loss and torture and- sidenote did I kill that guy? Big ugly head, Igor accent? Though if I killed him you wouldn’t have heard his accent I guess, and he totally had it coming I mean who starts the torture on someone’s feet? but- anyway. I was out of line- completely batshit. I didn’t know what I was doing I mean- what even really happened? Did anything really happen in reality … where we dwell?”
"You kissed me.”
Jensen feels his stomach sink. Cougars voice sounds cold.
“I-” for once Jensen feels like he’s out of words, “I- Sorry.”
Cougar raises an eyebrow.
“Sorry for-for getting kidnapped and tortured, and … for kissing you after said kidnapping and torture.”
Cougar still doesn’t say anything.
“I mean I didn’t plan it and I don’t- I know what I am, man. I’m a doomed avatar. Bad Code. And- and I never meant to imply that I wanted anything more from you than what I have, no matter what my chemicals seem to want. But I have no desire to end up bloodied and alone and dead, because that’s how it will always end, and that’s not an exaggeration, I’m compiling statistics here and I don’t want you to kill me-”
Jensen feels his breath coming too fast, so he stamps it down. He will not have a panic attack right in front of Cougar, he won’t.
And Cougar. Cougar looks … floored.
He lookes surprised.
And Jensen-
Jensen has never seen Cougar look like that.
That’s somehow more terrifying than the sort-of-confession he just spat out.
Cougar raises his hand as if to reach out and touch Jensen, but then he drops his hand, strange expression still on his face.
“I thought you were making fun of me.”
“Huh? No really, just- huh? How could I possibly be making fun of you by kissing you?”
“Because I want you.”
Jensen feels his heart stop in his chest.
“Don’t do this.”
Cougar looks away, bites his lip and looks back. They would be subtle movements on anyone else, but for Cougar it's practically screaming. He’s trying to keep his cool.
“You can’t,” Jensen all but whispers, “I mean you’re Cougar! You’re a ladies’ man, a real ladies’ man. And I’m- I’m not anything special …”
Cougar reaches out and circles his hand around Jensen’s wrist. He squeezes lightly.
And Jensen keeps talking because he always talks for Cougar.
“-So, what? Have you been secretly pining away for me for years now? Because that’s just unrealistic. Because one; I’m not that much of a catch and two; no way would probability have both of us secretly in love with each other at the same time I’m sorry I- … I don’t believe you.”
The room descends into silence, and this time Jensen makes no move to break it. His mind can’t comprehend that Cougar would be attracted to him, or love him, or even think of him as anything other than a brother in arms.
Because its-
It’s not like Cougar spends almost all his time with Jensen, or brings him his favourite foods, or knows everything about his family, or knows what foods he’s allergic to by heart, or has memorised the plots of tv shows he hasn’t even seen just cause Jensen talks about them so much, or always listens to Jensen no matter what shit he is spewing, or knows what he is going to say before he says it, or lets him speak for him even in important situations because he trusts Jensen to know what he would say, or-
Oh fuck.
“You… oh crap, you-”
“Since before Bolivia,” Cougar admits, voice soft but oh so loud in the silent hotel room, “Since Turkey.”
“Turkey! I almost died in Turkey, I got an infected wound and was babbling shit for four days straight and you almost had to saw my leg off!”
“I was scared.”
“You’re never scared.”
Cougar smirks, but its small.
“I was. I thought I would lose you.”
Oh god, a full sentence. Cougar is really, very, serious about this.
“So, in Bolivia telling people that we were a gay couple wasn’t just a cover it was wishful thinking- oh yeah buddy I found out about that.”
Cougar, miraculously, looks a little embarrassed. Jensen must still have some painkillers in his system because this can’t be real.
“I thought it would be … my only chance.”
“Cougs, you had to know I was down if you were. Hell, from the way the others joke about it I’m not nearly as subtle as I should be.”
“I didn’t want to risk it.”
“Risk me saying no?”
“Risk you leaving.”
Jensen feels like he’s been gut punched.
“Cougs, how could you think I would ever leave you? We’re symbiotic man. Like a tree and a vine, or those little bitchy fish that follow sharks around … lamprey? Not important, what’s important is that I am in this, one hundred percent, not leaving ever. I don’t know how I ever could.”
“They why think that I could hurt you?”
“That’s genetics Cougs, not choice. My parents killed each other, my sister’s ex-boyfriend lost his mind and tried to kill her, it's only logical that the same would happen to anyone I tried to be with.”
“They did not date me.”
“And I am damn sure glad for that or whatever very gay thing that is happening between us would be downright creepy.”
“We could be different.”
“Or we could die bloody and hating each other.”
Cougar shrugs and suddenly all the doubt and surprise is gone from him. He looks like the same cocky damned attractive Cougar he always is, damn him.
“We will try.”
“What? I never agreed to be boyfriends- no, that sounds weird. Partners? Soulmates?”
Cougar nods.
“Soulmates.”
“No, wait.”
Cougar reaches up and cups Jensen’s face stopping the words in his throat.
“We are dead,” he says softly, “We have a chance to live now.”
“Cougs I- … I don’t want to get hurt.”
“I won’t hurt you.”
“I know you wouldn’t but- but-”
Cougar leans forwards and kisses him.
Jensen has seen Cougar kiss a lot of women. Its usually hot and sensual and makes Jensen’s pants feel two sizes too small. This isn’t like that. This kiss is soft, and slow and makes all of Jakes' bones feel like jelly. No one has ever kissed Jensen like this before. Not once in his life.
One kiss and Jensen is addicted.
He can’t live without this.
They break apart and Jensen grins.
“Alright you’ve convinced me,” he says with fake forlornness in his voice, “Just promise me that if you start feeling homicidal towards me you’ll at least try and sit down and talk it through first.”
Cougar laughs and takes off his hat. He lays it on the side table and moves to straddle Jensen’s lap.
“So long as you promise not to leave.”
“Cougar my man, where the fuck would I want to go?”
So Jensen has issues. And so does Cougar. And maybe this is a really bad idea. But with Cougar sitting in his lap he doesn’t feel the need to slip away into another place, to get out and start running for his life. He feels safe. He feels warm. And he feels real.
He makes a list of everything Cougar dose;
- Shifts in jakes lap so he’s doing the good kind of pressing against him and not hurting his wounds
- Tilting Jakes head to the side for a better angle so he can slip his tongue in and turn the kiss more feverish
- Groans when Jensen tugs on his hair and pushes his hips down sensually
- Bites Jensen’s lip making his hips buck
- Screams
No, wait. That one wasn’t Cougar.
Jensen breaks away to see Pooch standing in the doorway shielding his eyes.
“Oh god,” he whines, “My eyes. Why man, why? You knew I was coming in to check his wounds you bastard.”
Pooch throws a bag into the room, still covering his face.
“Patch him up yourself you weirdo nurse kinking jerk. See if I care if he gets proper medical treatment.”
Then he slams the door shut.
“Wow. You’d think we were naked and fucking from his reaction.”
Cougar grins and Jensen shivers.
“Okay.”
“O-okay?”
Cougar chuckles and Jensen shivers.
He may be cursed, but holy lord he is glad Cougar convinced him to ignore it.
“I was born sick, but I love it,” he sings with a hysterical little giggle.
“Shut up,” Cougar laughs and rips the sheet off of Jensen.
Oh yeah.
Cougar is awesome.
Suck on that, curse.