Deep Within , Chapter 7
Title: Reality, Insanity, Strange Normality
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,292
Pairings: eventual Cougar/Jensen
Fandom: The Losers
Series Name: Shades: Deep Waters on AO3 or find it here on LJ
A/N:Thank cougars_catnip for a wonderful beta job again. :)
A/N 2: Hove over underlined text for translations
When Cougar walks into the living room he's not really surprised to see bits of fluff from gutted pillows everywhere, but the tears on the couch with the thick foam inside bursting from them is not something he was anticipating. Paint maybe, possibly glue or other substances that were almost impossible to get out of fabric, but not actual rents in the upholstery that looked like claw marks from a wild animal. It made him wonder if the two younger Jensen's had tried to hide a bobcat or some other feral animal in the house and it got loose while they were distracted; he had a feeling that Beth was like her uncle in that respect.
The cool feeling he gets whenever he's around Jensen makes itself known, this time in stereo as he can feel it from both Jensen and little Beth. It takes him a brief moment of recollection but he realizes he'd felt it from the oldest Jensen sibling, too. Realizing that the whole Jensen family is like him, something more and different from everyone else, from everyone in his family, makes something in him relax. He's content to be around others like him for the first time since his Abuelo's translucent grey visage had passed when he was very young. He doesn't know what he is, what they are, but he knows they protect, that they are warriors that won't let others be hurt if they can help it.
And just like that, without having to interrogate Jensen, the tense hungry feeling he's had to tear the answers out of the tech dissolves into nothing but a subtle curiosity. They'll be in New Hampshire for about a week according to what Clay had said about Caitlin Jensen's orders and that was plenty of time to get Jensen alone and ask his questions. He just had to wait; he was a sniper, he was good at waiting.
Jensen watches from the corner of his eye as Cougar relaxes, his eyes warming and telling him more than any words than the man could have uttered. He thanks his conniving sister silently; glad she'd conspired behind his back to drag his team here while he was out in the woods with Bethie. He feels the tension that had been building in his shoulders since their last mission melt away. He breathes easier, like he's back in the water, and he feels his normal enthusiasm returning, the uneven swaying he'd been doing smoothing out into his normal rhythm of movement.
His blue eyes are crinkled in mischief and he has a real, if slightly sharp, grin on his face when he turns to the sniper and throws one end of the sofa cover at him, "Help me with this, Cougs, and then the three of us can sneak into the garage and get a soda or beer before dinner."
A small smile makes its way across the slighter man's face as he does; smiling wider at the giggling blonde girl as she picks up fluff from the floor and savagely stuffs it back into an empty pillow before putting a matching cover over it. Cougar watches as the two fool around as they finish cleaning the room, Beth swiping at Jensen as he moves around the room and Jensen flicking her ponytail. The two drag Cougar into it when the majority of the fluff is picked up and they just have to put things away; dodging most of their advances, he's whapping Beth on the head with one of the pillows and jabbing Jensen in the kidneys as the taller man pulls his hair and Beth tries to trip him.
It turns into an out and out melee before suddenly, without warning, Beth and Cougar descend on Jensen with pillows smacking him everywhere they can until he trips on one of the stray pillows and his lumbering bulk falls back onto the couch. Beth automatically leaps onto the couch with a hissing growl and takes her seat on her uncle's chest as Cougar secures his hands and Beth has unhindered access to the sensitive area beneath his ribs. The three are having fun, Cougar smirking from his position keeping Jensen captive as Beth attacks him, when they hear giggling and a camera shutter close causing them to turn almost as one to see Jolene leaning against the door jam, her phone in her hand.
"Dinner is done guys and Cait is cracking the whip. She's got Roque mixing salad, Clay setting the table, and Pooch getting drinks so I think you should put the pillows away, let Jake up, and come on before the food gets eaten." Beth leaps off of her perch on Jensen's chest causing him to let out a strangled groan as she pushes off of his stomach and runs cackling into the dining room where they hear a startled yelp coming from Roque and a curse. They hear a solid smack a second after and Caitlin growling at him to watch his mouth around Beth or she'd do worse. This makes Jensen laugh and mutter under his breath to Cougar as he heaves himself off the couch to stand next to him, "It's not like she doesn't cuss herself, woman inured me to cussing a long time ago; she's got a worse mouth than some of the marines I was stuck with in Afghanistan." Cougar just smirks at the tall blond as Jolene leads them into the dining room, his eyes giving away his bemusement.
Dinner is good, Caitlin and Beth slotting in easily with the Losers and Jolene as if they'd always been there, just like Jensen. Beth somehow worms her way into sitting between Jensen and Cougar and across from Roque, her green eyes glittering with a maniacal glee as she peppers them with questions they can't really answer, questions no normal ten year old should want answers too, let alone know to ask. As it is Roque ends up telling her what happens when you shoot someone with a high caliber round in the head just to shut up her incessant questions before he realizes that this is probably a bad thing to do. They all learn how Jensen can interpret Cougar's expressions when they see the look Caitlin gives Roque, blue eyes looking at him coolly as she takes a drink of her wine with a smirk, death certain in her gaze before Jensen starts to snicker and Beth giggles herself. Clay and Roque still almost break out into cold sweats before Jensen explains that Beth isn't innocent when hearing such things, they've watched worse things on TV together, and that Lin just enjoys torturing people emotionally by doing that.
By the end of dinner, and everyone has relaxed from the scare Lin gave Roque with her silent threats, Clay has become Papa Frank, Roque is Uncle Will, and Pooch has become Uncle Lin with Jolene already being Aunt Jo. They're all cleaning up and Cait and Roque have moved on from threats to discussing the best types of knives when it happens. Cougar startles them all when he places his hat on top of Beth's head when she calls him Ti ́o Carlos. They'd all been waiting for the nickname to appear, but the reaction to it and the care that practically radiates from Cougar's expression as he does it makes most of them go still in shock.
The surprise dissipates when Jensen pokes his sister with his elbow and asks about when she had begun teaching his niece Spanish and if she'd started on Chinese yet, in Chinese, a language that isn't in his file, they stare at him too. Cougar just lifts an eyebrow at the blond man as he continues putting their leftover food in containers and Jensen answers the unasked question in almost perfect, if accented, Spanish, "I learned Spanish from a woman that gave me and Lin our first jobs. She paid us mostly in food, but it was a job and it let us survive."
Part of Cougar freezes when he takes in the meaning of that last part, a piece of the odd puzzle that is their tech slotting in place, but he doesn't let it show and just continues to look at Jensen with a raised brow as the man continues in English. "We learned Chinese and Polish the same way. Sadly, I had to learn Pashto and German in the Army, they weren't nearly as good at teaching as the others were. You know, I never realized but I've had a lot of jobs in a lot of restaurants, go figure." The blond shrugged and continued to dry the dishes his sister handed him as Clay's dark eyes met Cougar's own and he realizes that their Colonel had understood what Jensen had left unsaid as well.
The Jensen siblings were used to going it alone, probably with just each other as their back up, and had fought for everything they had; it made their home and the knowledge Jensen had even more impressive.
They all relaxed in the now cleaned up living room, the team sprawled out in their usual positions, despite the new setting. They argued over a movie to watch for a good hour before Beth just rolled her eyes and stuck in Star Wars IV, further cementing that she was definitely Jensen's niece as she threw Skittles at anyone who complained or tried to mock the film. Roque actually gets pelted with a two whole handfuls as he snorts when Solo commented about Wookies ripping people's arms out for losing, one from Beth and the other from Jensen, and he glares at them until a kernel of popcorn bounces off the side of his forehead, Jolene smothering her laughter in Pooch's neck as he grins triumphantly at their Second. Caitlin just sighs and shares a long suffering look with Clay as they settle in their seats on opposite sides of the room and continue to watch the movie and keep an eye out for any foul play from the others.
After the movie, with Jolene and Pooch sharing a room and Clay and Roque sharing another, Cougar was fully expecting to sleep on the re-stuffed couch when he's dragged into Jensen's room and pushed towards the bed. He's surprised to see his bag is already there, sitting on top of a large trunk at the foot of the bed, with Beth grinning at him from on top of the heavy dark walnut desk in pajamas with crocodiles all over them and her sandy blond hair in fresh plaits. When he grins and looks her in the eye his shoulders tighten minutely as brown locks with green, green that almost instantly changes into a slitted bronze gaze and a grin with teeth that are too sharp in her child's grin. The comforting coolness that pooled at the base of his spine turns slightly cooler and when he looks over his shoulder, Jensen's eyes are grey instead of brilliant blue and slitted as well. Suddenly he's yanked to the side and he can't help the startled snarl that bursts from his throat, weight already shift to the balls of his feet before he notices the world around him is grey and muted, the entire Jensen family sprawled across the room, relaxed.
It looked like he'd be getting his answers.
Jensen pulls and pokes and prods his tense form over to the bed and settles him beside himself before Beth leaps from the desk to settle her head in his lap, her feet thrown over Jensen's headboard and her eyes gazing up at him in something akin to awe and glee. Caitlin is sitting in the desk chair, her feet crossed at the ankles and her hands shuffling a deck of cards absentmindedly as her still blue eyes just look at him, her gaze thoughtful and considering. He tenses slightly when she moves suddenly and grabs what appears to be a heavy metal ball of some kind perched on a box and then launches it hard at Jensen's head.
He relaxes as Beth giggles in his lap and Jensen yelps and ducks before looking scandalized at his sister, and glancing at the deep circular dent the orb had left in his wall, "What the hell Lin! What did I do to you?"
Her voice is a hiss, her eyes black, and Cougar watches with curiosity as fangs drop down from her open mouth and black forked tongue flicks out, "What did you do? What DIDN'T you do is more the question, you should have made sure he knew what you were planning you idiot," she leans forward, her tongue flicking out again and her eyes narrowed, her angered voicing hissing out menacingly, "You should have made sure he even knew what he was to begin with! From the looks of things he has no idea what the hell is going on!"
Beth is still giggling in his lap, but the giggles are getting softer and her eyes are drooping as his fingers move through her hair as he used to do to his own hermanita, it startles him slightly when suddenly she shifts in his lap, becoming an adolescent crocodile instead of a little girl. The elder two are still arguing about what Cougar does or doesn't know and not paying them any attention when he hesitates but those bronze eyes look at him lethargically, both sets of eyelids moving slowly, and he can't help it when his hand falls back down and he begins stroking the hardening plates along the young girl's back.
" Callate."
The arguing pair quiet instantly and look at him and the little girl in his lap. "Oh," comes out softly from Caitlin, "Sorry Carlos. In fact I'm sorry for springing all of this on you. Jake was supposed to find out whether or not you knew and understood all of this before he dragged you here with us." Cougar just tips his hat at her as Caitlin glares at her brother and Jensen scratches at what he knows is a tattoo of a bull, something he wants to know the origin of, " Esta bien."
"Do you know what we all are?" The question comes from Jensen, the man's knee bouncing up and down in place as he watches everyone in the room. He locks eyes with the tech and lets his eyes change, letting go of the tight grip he has on the senses he uses to track, " Algo." Jensen grins at him, teeth sharp and jagged, "Do you know where all of these abilities originated from?"
Cougar narrows his eyes at the man, " No, pero mi abuelo y mi tío abuelo fueron los mismos." Caitlin just nodded as Jensen hmm'd, "It runs in families. Jake and I think it was our father that passed our abilities on to us because our mother sure as hell couldn't do what we can. That is probably a good thing though." Already black eyes seem to darken as something he can't see or hear passes through her mind's eye and Jensen continues the explanation, "We learned from an old Chinese woman that owns a restaurant here in the Fade what we are and, well, Chinese too. This place, the Fade, is basically a world of death. Or probably the world of the Dead, I really don't know what to call it. The best we can figure is that this is where people go when they die before they move on. We are Death's kids, his grand kids, and every other permutation that we can be. Our abilities are small branches of Death's own and we use them to help. Most of us, at least."
Cougar looks at them before looking down at the little girl in his lap, " La transformación?" Caitlin answered this time, looking at her little girl with soft eyes filled with what he could only term as love and hope, "Death has no permanent form and I believe that us being able to change is to help us not only protect ourselves and other spirits but is just a small amount of proof that we're Death's family. Very few other deities that I know of can change the way Death changes, even if it is always constant."
"If Death is even a deity," Jensen's voice says back while Caitlin glares at him and rolls her eyes, "Personally I think Death is just a manifestation of a universal constant, a being that doesn't give a rat's ass who you are or what you've done, just that you die as you're supposed too."
Cougar shares a fond look with Caitlin at Jensen's rant and nods, looking at the girl in his lap again before looking at his teammate, " Y tu? " Jensen knows what the man is referring to immediately, jumping tangents easily, while Caitlin's brow furrows in confusion, "I'm a Tiger shark, it's one of the reasons I am always drinking and carry around moisturizer, I'm made for water. The only reason I joined the Army instead of the Marines or the Navy is because I don't think I could handle being around water that much without disappearing and being thought of as going AWOL when I go for a swim. Bethie is an American Crocodile, and Lin is a Black Mamba."
Caitlin tilted her head at Cougar and asked, "What do you think you are, Carlos? Your eyes are a more green-gold now instead of a dark brown." Cougar frowned and looked at the two older blonds before looking at the girl in his lap and running his fingers across her plated back again, " No lo sé." With a soft grin Caitlin shook her head and moved over to him, picking up her daughter before walking to the door and glancing back as she left, "Well, I'm going to put her to bed. Just relax and think of not being you, of freedom and how you'd feel more comfortable out there instead of in here with us."
Cougar couldn't help but quirk a brow at Jensen as he grinned at him and wiggled in the place he'd taken at his desk a little while ago, "Com'on Cougs, I wanna see if you are the same as your namesake." Cougar grinned and shook his head before closing his eyes and thinking back to all of the times he's felt that small part of him pushing a change on him that he wasn't sure he wanted, that one barrier he had yet to cross.
When he opened his eyes next he could feel himself still sitting on the bed in the same spot as he was before and Jensen's mouth was open slightly, wonder in those grey eyes, "Damn, Cougs." When he looks at his own body he sees paws with white and gold fur with dark brown and black spots and a long tail winding its way around in front of him. He's a cat, at least, not a cougar, but either a leopard or a jaguar, but he's not quite sure. Taking a leap of faith he decides to think about being human again and suddenly he's got his opposable thumbs and no tail. There is no feeling of fur being shoved back in his skin, or bones breaking or snapping back in the right places, just a subtle shift of grey as he becomes his human self once more.
Jensen is grinning at him with a smile to sharp to be normal and he grins back, letting his own animal come to the front and feeling sharp teeth some how fitting in his mouth. He can't help but breath out the only word he feels can express how he's feeling, " Increíble."
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,292
Pairings: eventual Cougar/Jensen
Fandom: The Losers
Series Name: Shades: Deep Waters on AO3 or find it here on LJ
A/N:Thank cougars_catnip for a wonderful beta job again. :)
A/N 2: Hove over underlined text for translations
When Cougar walks into the living room he's not really surprised to see bits of fluff from gutted pillows everywhere, but the tears on the couch with the thick foam inside bursting from them is not something he was anticipating. Paint maybe, possibly glue or other substances that were almost impossible to get out of fabric, but not actual rents in the upholstery that looked like claw marks from a wild animal. It made him wonder if the two younger Jensen's had tried to hide a bobcat or some other feral animal in the house and it got loose while they were distracted; he had a feeling that Beth was like her uncle in that respect.
The cool feeling he gets whenever he's around Jensen makes itself known, this time in stereo as he can feel it from both Jensen and little Beth. It takes him a brief moment of recollection but he realizes he'd felt it from the oldest Jensen sibling, too. Realizing that the whole Jensen family is like him, something more and different from everyone else, from everyone in his family, makes something in him relax. He's content to be around others like him for the first time since his Abuelo's translucent grey visage had passed when he was very young. He doesn't know what he is, what they are, but he knows they protect, that they are warriors that won't let others be hurt if they can help it.
And just like that, without having to interrogate Jensen, the tense hungry feeling he's had to tear the answers out of the tech dissolves into nothing but a subtle curiosity. They'll be in New Hampshire for about a week according to what Clay had said about Caitlin Jensen's orders and that was plenty of time to get Jensen alone and ask his questions. He just had to wait; he was a sniper, he was good at waiting.
Jensen watches from the corner of his eye as Cougar relaxes, his eyes warming and telling him more than any words than the man could have uttered. He thanks his conniving sister silently; glad she'd conspired behind his back to drag his team here while he was out in the woods with Bethie. He feels the tension that had been building in his shoulders since their last mission melt away. He breathes easier, like he's back in the water, and he feels his normal enthusiasm returning, the uneven swaying he'd been doing smoothing out into his normal rhythm of movement.
His blue eyes are crinkled in mischief and he has a real, if slightly sharp, grin on his face when he turns to the sniper and throws one end of the sofa cover at him, "Help me with this, Cougs, and then the three of us can sneak into the garage and get a soda or beer before dinner."
A small smile makes its way across the slighter man's face as he does; smiling wider at the giggling blonde girl as she picks up fluff from the floor and savagely stuffs it back into an empty pillow before putting a matching cover over it. Cougar watches as the two fool around as they finish cleaning the room, Beth swiping at Jensen as he moves around the room and Jensen flicking her ponytail. The two drag Cougar into it when the majority of the fluff is picked up and they just have to put things away; dodging most of their advances, he's whapping Beth on the head with one of the pillows and jabbing Jensen in the kidneys as the taller man pulls his hair and Beth tries to trip him.
It turns into an out and out melee before suddenly, without warning, Beth and Cougar descend on Jensen with pillows smacking him everywhere they can until he trips on one of the stray pillows and his lumbering bulk falls back onto the couch. Beth automatically leaps onto the couch with a hissing growl and takes her seat on her uncle's chest as Cougar secures his hands and Beth has unhindered access to the sensitive area beneath his ribs. The three are having fun, Cougar smirking from his position keeping Jensen captive as Beth attacks him, when they hear giggling and a camera shutter close causing them to turn almost as one to see Jolene leaning against the door jam, her phone in her hand.
"Dinner is done guys and Cait is cracking the whip. She's got Roque mixing salad, Clay setting the table, and Pooch getting drinks so I think you should put the pillows away, let Jake up, and come on before the food gets eaten." Beth leaps off of her perch on Jensen's chest causing him to let out a strangled groan as she pushes off of his stomach and runs cackling into the dining room where they hear a startled yelp coming from Roque and a curse. They hear a solid smack a second after and Caitlin growling at him to watch his mouth around Beth or she'd do worse. This makes Jensen laugh and mutter under his breath to Cougar as he heaves himself off the couch to stand next to him, "It's not like she doesn't cuss herself, woman inured me to cussing a long time ago; she's got a worse mouth than some of the marines I was stuck with in Afghanistan." Cougar just smirks at the tall blond as Jolene leads them into the dining room, his eyes giving away his bemusement.
Dinner is good, Caitlin and Beth slotting in easily with the Losers and Jolene as if they'd always been there, just like Jensen. Beth somehow worms her way into sitting between Jensen and Cougar and across from Roque, her green eyes glittering with a maniacal glee as she peppers them with questions they can't really answer, questions no normal ten year old should want answers too, let alone know to ask. As it is Roque ends up telling her what happens when you shoot someone with a high caliber round in the head just to shut up her incessant questions before he realizes that this is probably a bad thing to do. They all learn how Jensen can interpret Cougar's expressions when they see the look Caitlin gives Roque, blue eyes looking at him coolly as she takes a drink of her wine with a smirk, death certain in her gaze before Jensen starts to snicker and Beth giggles herself. Clay and Roque still almost break out into cold sweats before Jensen explains that Beth isn't innocent when hearing such things, they've watched worse things on TV together, and that Lin just enjoys torturing people emotionally by doing that.
By the end of dinner, and everyone has relaxed from the scare Lin gave Roque with her silent threats, Clay has become Papa Frank, Roque is Uncle Will, and Pooch has become Uncle Lin with Jolene already being Aunt Jo. They're all cleaning up and Cait and Roque have moved on from threats to discussing the best types of knives when it happens. Cougar startles them all when he places his hat on top of Beth's head when she calls him Ti ́o Carlos. They'd all been waiting for the nickname to appear, but the reaction to it and the care that practically radiates from Cougar's expression as he does it makes most of them go still in shock.
The surprise dissipates when Jensen pokes his sister with his elbow and asks about when she had begun teaching his niece Spanish and if she'd started on Chinese yet, in Chinese, a language that isn't in his file, they stare at him too. Cougar just lifts an eyebrow at the blond man as he continues putting their leftover food in containers and Jensen answers the unasked question in almost perfect, if accented, Spanish, "I learned Spanish from a woman that gave me and Lin our first jobs. She paid us mostly in food, but it was a job and it let us survive."
Part of Cougar freezes when he takes in the meaning of that last part, a piece of the odd puzzle that is their tech slotting in place, but he doesn't let it show and just continues to look at Jensen with a raised brow as the man continues in English. "We learned Chinese and Polish the same way. Sadly, I had to learn Pashto and German in the Army, they weren't nearly as good at teaching as the others were. You know, I never realized but I've had a lot of jobs in a lot of restaurants, go figure." The blond shrugged and continued to dry the dishes his sister handed him as Clay's dark eyes met Cougar's own and he realizes that their Colonel had understood what Jensen had left unsaid as well.
The Jensen siblings were used to going it alone, probably with just each other as their back up, and had fought for everything they had; it made their home and the knowledge Jensen had even more impressive.
They all relaxed in the now cleaned up living room, the team sprawled out in their usual positions, despite the new setting. They argued over a movie to watch for a good hour before Beth just rolled her eyes and stuck in Star Wars IV, further cementing that she was definitely Jensen's niece as she threw Skittles at anyone who complained or tried to mock the film. Roque actually gets pelted with a two whole handfuls as he snorts when Solo commented about Wookies ripping people's arms out for losing, one from Beth and the other from Jensen, and he glares at them until a kernel of popcorn bounces off the side of his forehead, Jolene smothering her laughter in Pooch's neck as he grins triumphantly at their Second. Caitlin just sighs and shares a long suffering look with Clay as they settle in their seats on opposite sides of the room and continue to watch the movie and keep an eye out for any foul play from the others.
After the movie, with Jolene and Pooch sharing a room and Clay and Roque sharing another, Cougar was fully expecting to sleep on the re-stuffed couch when he's dragged into Jensen's room and pushed towards the bed. He's surprised to see his bag is already there, sitting on top of a large trunk at the foot of the bed, with Beth grinning at him from on top of the heavy dark walnut desk in pajamas with crocodiles all over them and her sandy blond hair in fresh plaits. When he grins and looks her in the eye his shoulders tighten minutely as brown locks with green, green that almost instantly changes into a slitted bronze gaze and a grin with teeth that are too sharp in her child's grin. The comforting coolness that pooled at the base of his spine turns slightly cooler and when he looks over his shoulder, Jensen's eyes are grey instead of brilliant blue and slitted as well. Suddenly he's yanked to the side and he can't help the startled snarl that bursts from his throat, weight already shift to the balls of his feet before he notices the world around him is grey and muted, the entire Jensen family sprawled across the room, relaxed.
It looked like he'd be getting his answers.
Jensen pulls and pokes and prods his tense form over to the bed and settles him beside himself before Beth leaps from the desk to settle her head in his lap, her feet thrown over Jensen's headboard and her eyes gazing up at him in something akin to awe and glee. Caitlin is sitting in the desk chair, her feet crossed at the ankles and her hands shuffling a deck of cards absentmindedly as her still blue eyes just look at him, her gaze thoughtful and considering. He tenses slightly when she moves suddenly and grabs what appears to be a heavy metal ball of some kind perched on a box and then launches it hard at Jensen's head.
He relaxes as Beth giggles in his lap and Jensen yelps and ducks before looking scandalized at his sister, and glancing at the deep circular dent the orb had left in his wall, "What the hell Lin! What did I do to you?"
Her voice is a hiss, her eyes black, and Cougar watches with curiosity as fangs drop down from her open mouth and black forked tongue flicks out, "What did you do? What DIDN'T you do is more the question, you should have made sure he knew what you were planning you idiot," she leans forward, her tongue flicking out again and her eyes narrowed, her angered voicing hissing out menacingly, "You should have made sure he even knew what he was to begin with! From the looks of things he has no idea what the hell is going on!"
Beth is still giggling in his lap, but the giggles are getting softer and her eyes are drooping as his fingers move through her hair as he used to do to his own hermanita, it startles him slightly when suddenly she shifts in his lap, becoming an adolescent crocodile instead of a little girl. The elder two are still arguing about what Cougar does or doesn't know and not paying them any attention when he hesitates but those bronze eyes look at him lethargically, both sets of eyelids moving slowly, and he can't help it when his hand falls back down and he begins stroking the hardening plates along the young girl's back.
" Callate."
The arguing pair quiet instantly and look at him and the little girl in his lap. "Oh," comes out softly from Caitlin, "Sorry Carlos. In fact I'm sorry for springing all of this on you. Jake was supposed to find out whether or not you knew and understood all of this before he dragged you here with us." Cougar just tips his hat at her as Caitlin glares at her brother and Jensen scratches at what he knows is a tattoo of a bull, something he wants to know the origin of, " Esta bien."
"Do you know what we all are?" The question comes from Jensen, the man's knee bouncing up and down in place as he watches everyone in the room. He locks eyes with the tech and lets his eyes change, letting go of the tight grip he has on the senses he uses to track, " Algo." Jensen grins at him, teeth sharp and jagged, "Do you know where all of these abilities originated from?"
Cougar narrows his eyes at the man, " No, pero mi abuelo y mi tío abuelo fueron los mismos." Caitlin just nodded as Jensen hmm'd, "It runs in families. Jake and I think it was our father that passed our abilities on to us because our mother sure as hell couldn't do what we can. That is probably a good thing though." Already black eyes seem to darken as something he can't see or hear passes through her mind's eye and Jensen continues the explanation, "We learned from an old Chinese woman that owns a restaurant here in the Fade what we are and, well, Chinese too. This place, the Fade, is basically a world of death. Or probably the world of the Dead, I really don't know what to call it. The best we can figure is that this is where people go when they die before they move on. We are Death's kids, his grand kids, and every other permutation that we can be. Our abilities are small branches of Death's own and we use them to help. Most of us, at least."
Cougar looks at them before looking down at the little girl in his lap, " La transformación?" Caitlin answered this time, looking at her little girl with soft eyes filled with what he could only term as love and hope, "Death has no permanent form and I believe that us being able to change is to help us not only protect ourselves and other spirits but is just a small amount of proof that we're Death's family. Very few other deities that I know of can change the way Death changes, even if it is always constant."
"If Death is even a deity," Jensen's voice says back while Caitlin glares at him and rolls her eyes, "Personally I think Death is just a manifestation of a universal constant, a being that doesn't give a rat's ass who you are or what you've done, just that you die as you're supposed too."
Cougar shares a fond look with Caitlin at Jensen's rant and nods, looking at the girl in his lap again before looking at his teammate, " Y tu? " Jensen knows what the man is referring to immediately, jumping tangents easily, while Caitlin's brow furrows in confusion, "I'm a Tiger shark, it's one of the reasons I am always drinking and carry around moisturizer, I'm made for water. The only reason I joined the Army instead of the Marines or the Navy is because I don't think I could handle being around water that much without disappearing and being thought of as going AWOL when I go for a swim. Bethie is an American Crocodile, and Lin is a Black Mamba."
Caitlin tilted her head at Cougar and asked, "What do you think you are, Carlos? Your eyes are a more green-gold now instead of a dark brown." Cougar frowned and looked at the two older blonds before looking at the girl in his lap and running his fingers across her plated back again, " No lo sé." With a soft grin Caitlin shook her head and moved over to him, picking up her daughter before walking to the door and glancing back as she left, "Well, I'm going to put her to bed. Just relax and think of not being you, of freedom and how you'd feel more comfortable out there instead of in here with us."
Cougar couldn't help but quirk a brow at Jensen as he grinned at him and wiggled in the place he'd taken at his desk a little while ago, "Com'on Cougs, I wanna see if you are the same as your namesake." Cougar grinned and shook his head before closing his eyes and thinking back to all of the times he's felt that small part of him pushing a change on him that he wasn't sure he wanted, that one barrier he had yet to cross.
When he opened his eyes next he could feel himself still sitting on the bed in the same spot as he was before and Jensen's mouth was open slightly, wonder in those grey eyes, "Damn, Cougs." When he looks at his own body he sees paws with white and gold fur with dark brown and black spots and a long tail winding its way around in front of him. He's a cat, at least, not a cougar, but either a leopard or a jaguar, but he's not quite sure. Taking a leap of faith he decides to think about being human again and suddenly he's got his opposable thumbs and no tail. There is no feeling of fur being shoved back in his skin, or bones breaking or snapping back in the right places, just a subtle shift of grey as he becomes his human self once more.
Jensen is grinning at him with a smile to sharp to be normal and he grins back, letting his own animal come to the front and feeling sharp teeth some how fitting in his mouth. He can't help but breath out the only word he feels can express how he's feeling, " Increíble."