Losers Fic: Walk a While With Me, 1/?
Title: Walk a While With Me
Author: LadyJanelly
Fandom: The Losers
Rating: Mature
Word count: ~34,000
Characters/Pairing: Jake Jensen/Carlos “Cougar” Alvarez
Warnings: Bullying, hazing, homophobia, racism, internalized homophobia, violence, language, mentions of previous assault and sexual assault, Jeff Foxworthy paraphrase, Leverage cameo
Notes: Thanks to Peaceful_sands for her hand-holding, cheer-leading and beta-reading
Title from the Led Zeppelin song “Over the Hills and Far Away”
Feedback will be adored in any form--from squee to concrit to thinky-thinky thoughts.
(fic is finished, just not sure how many chapters it'll chop into as I finish the last edits)
Summary: AU-Jake Jensen left the Army before he ever had a chance to be a Loser. Cougar meets him anyway.
Sometimes what a man needs to have a chance at happiness is losing the battle he’s been fighting his whole life.
==========
Some missions are quicker than others, simpler. The objective had been clean, to get Cougar into position to kill a man from half a mile away. Three days waiting and a single shot and the fate of an eastern European nation changed forever. Cougar didn’t know more than his name and his face. Didn’t know why he had to die, only that orders said to kill him.
From the scene of the engagement (such as it was), it’s back to the air strip, to a chopper, to a plane, to a carrier. Two days later they disembark at Fort Hood, the Texas sun hot and dry. Tac vest slung over one shoulder, rifle over the other, he follows his CO to the barracks they’re using, an empty building of small dorm-style rooms.
The team settles into the communal living area and Cougar claims a table, spreads a cloth and field-strips his rifle, separating and cleaning her down to the last bolt and spring.
None of his team talk to him, put off by his quiet. Sometimes he thinks they see themselves as soldiers and Cougar as a killer, but the thought has long-ago lost its power to hurt him.
He reassembles the rifle, taking his time, checking every part for wear. Rubs his thumb over the “C” carved into the stock by the serial number, the guarantee that no other soldier will dare check this out of the weapons locker, that the clerks won’t let that happen.
The phone on the wall rings and Corporal Jenkins answers. “Yes ma’am, I’ll check,” he says and looks up, covers the mouth-piece and turns to Cougar.
“You here?” he stage-whispers, “It’s your mom, man.”
Cougar shakes his head. Slings his rifle over his shoulder and heads for the door. He should fill out the paperwork to deny her calls. The letters are bad enough. The “What have we done?” and “You are our son and we love you,” hard enough to read much less hear.
He wishes that she would stop. Would just take the money he sends every month and let him be the best son he knows how to be, far from where he can shame or hurt them.
===============
Sometimes Cougar thinks he’s been in the Army too long. When his captain announces a week’s leave before the next time he’ll have to crawl through some god-forsaken swamp or lie in wait on top of a burning mountain of rock in the desert, his first thought is “Shit.”
Down-time is never kind to him. Too much time to think, too much time to sin. He thinks he’ll be strong for once, as he trades out his uniform for civvies, as he leaves all but his personal gun behind and takes his bike the couple hours’ drive up to Dallas.
He gets a motel room but barely sleeps there the first night. He’s up with the dawn, leaving his pack of clothes on the bed, his hat on top of it, dog-tags pooled inside. Then he’s out of the room and wandering restless. Searching, though he won’t admit it to himself.
Pink neon catches his eye that second evening, in a neighborhood he’s been to before, the last time he was in town. It’s a club with lots of men and few women hanging around. He’s drawn in, towards the things he can’t allow himself to examine, the wickedness in him that he can’t smother down with duty or faith. He tightens the band on his hair, leaves everything he has except his ID and some cash in the motorcycle’s glove box and heads into the club.
It takes three drinks for him to start to loosen up. To meet the eyes of the other putos as they cruise him where he stands at the bar.
A tall blond faggot stumbles off of the dance floor, flushed with exertion and excitement, brushes against his side as he orders a drink. “Hi,” the blond says, grinning and puppyish. He’s tall and strong and handsome with his odd round glasses and short goatee. Somehow wholesome, even in this place of sin. He looks like everything Cougar has spent his adult life avoiding, and the boy goes back to dancing when Cougar deliberately looks away from him.
“He not your type?” a voice asks from Cougar’s other side, low and dangerous. This, maybe, could be more like it. He looks over and the guy is young and over-muscled, his eyes cold over his make-believe smile. “Can I buy you a drink?”
Cougar nods and pretends he doesn’t notice when the guy drops something into it on its way to Cougar’s hand. His stomach shivers in anticipation as he raises the glass to his lips. This is going to be bad, he thinks, and he feels a flare of hope, that this will finally be the one so bad that his fucked-up desires will learn their lesson. That he’ll be able to stop looking at men, wanting men.
He downs the shot and doesn’t flinch away from the over-warm hand on his waist.
Whatever the guy gave him, it’s quick, layering over the drinks he’s already had. “Want to get out of here? Get some fresh air?” the guy asks and Cougar nods. Feels heavy and dizzy and glad for the arm around him helping him balance.
It’s dark outside, as they slip down an alley and behind another building. “Holy shit, look at this,” a voice says and there are suddenly two other men with them. “You did it,” one of them says and Cougar is shoved over at him. They push him around a bit. Working themselves up in the way cowards do, words like faggot and cock-sucker spilling from their mouths, nothing Cougar hasn’t thought of himself before. Spic and wet-back, words he’s heard too many times before for them to have any bite. He swears back, Spanish rolling off of his tongue.
The first punch is almost a surprise, catching him in the gut and doubling him over. He swings back at them, but the drug makes the world slide around him, and when he does connect it’s without force. He takes three more of their hits before he falls, but one grabs him by the hair and pulls him to his knees.
“Souvenir?” the one from the bar asks and they laugh. Cougar catches a glint of silver from the corner of his eye as the man holding him pops open a knife, and then a sawing, ripping sound as his hair is cut from his head. He falls to the asphalt, harsh on his bare palms.
He’s kicked in the stomach again, and the face, then cold liquid is rushing over him, stinging in the cuts their blows and the knife have made and he flinches away, tries to stand, to crawl. It reeks of alcohol, vodka probably. The empty bottle clubs him in the side of the head and he falls and he can see the third guy there with a lighter in his hand. “No,” Cougar says, and of all the ways he has seen a man die, burning to death is one of the worst.
“Hey!” A voice cuts down the alley and Cougar’s tormentors freeze. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
It’s the blond from the club, pink shirt bright against the griminess of the alley as he runs towards the conflict. Go, Cougar wants to tell him, but can’t make the word.
The biggest of the men is first to swing at the blond, and even Cougar is impressed by the way he dodges the blow, catches the fist as it flies by and with a twist of his hand and a strike to the elbow leaves the man screaming and incapacitated. The second he takes out with a forehead to the bridge of his nose and the third he closes in tight with and strikes him in the ribs with his knee, three, four, five times within seconds, until the man falls down.
After that it’s just the blond driving the men off with half-hearted kicks and insults, making sure none of them tries to circle back to where Cougar is lying in a pool of booze and blood.
Cougar must have blacked out there for a moment, because cool fingers are on his face and he jerks back from the man that’s way too close.
“Hey,” the blond guy says, calm, soothing. “Oh, baby, what have they done to you?” Cougar’s battered brain can’t reconcile the queer words with the calm competence of his touch, strong hands searching out his injuries, firm and steady. Cautiously, the man helps him sit up.
“Thought you were gay,” Cougar mutters, because the guy has to be an undercover cop or something. He means it as a compliment, but the way the guy’s jaw clenches he knows it wasn’t taken that way.
“Yeah, the most bad-ass hairdresser in the state just saved your sorry ass, so you were right about that part.” He strips off his t-shirt and Cougar tries not to appreciate the very naked, muscular chest in front of him. The pink cotton is wadded up and pressed to the back of Cougar’s head, where they cut the ponytail off of him, and fuck that stings! Cougar’s rescuer guides Cougar’s hand to put pressure on it, then sighs and draws back. “Okay, shit. You should really be seen by a doctor. Between the head wound and who-knows-what that guy put in your drink, you sure shouldn’t be alone. You got anywhere to go? Someone I can call?”
The thought of calling his Captain sends a shiver down Cougar’s spine. “No.”
“Okay,” the blond says in an ‘I can deal with this’ voice. “Behind door number one, we’ve got a trip to the ER, and hope those guys don’t beat us there, and if they do, that the police don’t get involved.” That’s almost as bad as calling Cougar’s captain, for his chances of not getting reprimanded at best and kicked out of the military for being a fag at worst.
“Door number two, I drive you back to my place and I watch to make sure you don’t get any worse than you are right now. I was back-up medic for my unit, back in the army, so I’ll at least know when to call an ambulance. I gotta warn you though, I’m a little short on furniture right now, and the house is still in rough shape.”
Cougar cringes under the torrent of words. “I have a hotel room.”
The blond shakes his head. “That’s not working for me, sorry.”
“No hospital,” Cougar says, jaw clenched, and his rescuer nods.
“Okay, let’s get you on your feet. My truck’s over by the club, it’s not far.”
The blond helps him up, holds him steady until Cougar’s got his balance. It hurts. The world spins and pain lances through his ribs and his head, but fuck all that, he’s a soldier. He’s dragged himself half a mile over desert rocks with a broken leg. Getting rolled by some asshole civilians isn’t going to take him down. He grits his teeth and doesn’t cry out and doesn’t puke on himself.
“Jake Jensen,” the man says as he hovers ready to catch Cougar if he should fall.
“Carlos,” he replies, “Cougar to most.”
Jake laughs. “Cougar, I like that, all rarrr,” and the only good thing about Jake’s babble is that they’re at his battered blue 80’s truck a lot sooner than Cougar had expected. Jake helps him up into the seat and then comes around to the driver’s side. He rummages around behind the seat, finds a crumpled t-shirt. Sniff-test comes up negative for wear-ability, judging by the face he makes, but he puts it on anyway.
“Why help me?” Cougar has to ask.
Jake just shrugs and starts the engine. “You look like you’re having a really shitty week,” he replies, which is no kind of answer at all. He grins and gives Cougar a wink, “And I’ve always had a thing for soulful dark eyes.”
“I won’t…” but the words die as Cougar isn’t even sure what it is that he won’t do.
Jake snorts a laugh through his nose. “Hey, you shot me down pretty definitively back there at the bar, I get it and I can take no for an answer. So hey, what do you think those guys are going to say about their injuries? Run over by a biker gang? Mugged by mutants?”
Cougar rests on the drive back to Jake’s place, eyes heavy but never closing.
=================
When Jake had said something about his place being sort of rough, Cougar thought of the apartments he’d been to with his random hookups. He expected maybe some clothes on the floor, a beer can or pizza box here or there.
The house Jake parks in front of is bigger than he expected, but as he follows Jake through the front door, he realizes that size isn’t everything. His first impression is that the place is trashed. Bare cement floor and naked studs where the walls used to be. Stripped down empty, there are pipes hanging out of the wall in what must have been the kitchen.
“It’s a work in progress,” Jake protests as if Cougar had voiced his opinion of the place. Seriously, he’s crashed in third world countries in houses more comfortable than this.
Jake leads him through the home, past a bench of tools and stacks of boxed tile. “Deconstruction is done, should take me about four more months to get it sell-able. I’ll show you my master plan in the morning.”
They duck through a plastic tarp covered doorway and into the space where Jake must sleep, a room not yet demolished, with brown-gold carpet and peeling wall-paper. There is a mattress on the floor in the corner, with a mini-fridge for a nightstand. Along the other side of the room is a table with multiple computer monitors (facing the door, the chair-back to the wall). The light of a bare bulb casts everything into harsh contrast. Jake gestures him through a second door and into the world’s pinkest master bath.
“How’re you feeling?” he asks as Cougar sits down on the closed toilet lid.
“Better,” he answers, because you don’t lie to the medic. “Queasy still. I’ve had worse.”
Jake goes out for a moment and comes back with a serious first-aid kit, all neatly organized supplies. He washes his hands in the sink and then pulls on blue gloves. He checks Cougar’s head wounds first, the blow to the side of his head, the places he was kicked, the knick in his scalp from where they cut his hair off. Flashes a pen-light in his eyes.
“Need help with your shirt?” he asks, and Cougar is sore enough that pride loses and he nods. Jake’s strong hands run over his ribs, noting what makes Cougar tense or wince. “Don’t think they’re broken,” he says at last. “Nothing’s still bleeding, so you don’t need stitches.” He gets the iodine out and cleans all of the broken skin. “You want to shower and then I’ll get the worst of it covered with gauze?”
Cougar nods and Jake helps him to his feet. “You got it on your own?” Cougar nods again and Jake leaves him there. He showers alone, washing the blood and alcohol and a certain amount of shame down the drain. He hears the door open and close but Jake doesn’t say anything and when Cougar comes out of the shower there’s a towel and change of clothes on the toilet. The sweat-pants are a little bit long but the t-shirt fits fine, and it’s good to be clean.
Jake sits at the computer desk when Cougar comes out of the bathroom, the glow of the monitor turning the lenses of his glasses to bright circles covering his eyes. “Hey,” he says as he looks Cougar up and down, appraising the way he moves, the state of his injuries.
He gets Cougar’s scrapes treated and covered. “Get some sleep,” Jake tells him as he gives him a glass of water. “I’ll wake you up in a couple hours, make sure you’re okay.”
Jake’s bed is soft, sheets cool against Cougar’s skin. Cougar sleeps sooner than he expects to. If Jake was going to hurt him, he could have done it much earlier. Sleeping with Jake in the room is like having a trusted teammate on watch, and Cougar is surprised to realize he not only trusts the man, but his competence as well.
Later, Jake’s voice wakes him to the twilight glow of the computer monitors, calling a soft “Cougs, Cougar,” until Cougar’s eyes open and focus on him. A couple Tylenol are pressed into his hand, and another bottle of water from the mini-fridge.
“Gonna sleep a little,” Jake explains as he pulls one of the pillows Cougar wasn’t using and a sheet off of the bed and to the floor. “Got work tomorrow. You need to be anyplace before ten?”
Cougar shakes his head. “Nowhere ‘til Thursday.”
“’Kay,” Jake replies and Jake sits down beside the bed (between the wounded man and the door) and fluffs the pillow.
And this is ridiculous, even given Cougar’s lack of experience with the sleeping habits of maricónes, he can see that Jake’s treating him like some traumatized virgin. “Two will fit,” he says and slides back but Jake shakes his head.
“I don’t deal well sharing a bed,” he says. “Wrong touch, wrong time, it can be really not-good.” He shrugs. “I’m good here, don’t worry about it.” Glasses gone and he looks softer, more open.
Cougar nods, because it’s damn late and he just wants to curl up and sleep it all off. He lies awake on the bed, listening as Jake’s breathing evens out, as he sighs and shifts and finally is still.
===================
Jake’s typing is what wakes Cougar the next time, along with soft, off-key singing and the occasional gleeful cackle. "Oh yeah,” he croons to the computer, “I got you now, mother-fucker.”
He’s wearing headphones and all of his attention is on the computer. Cougar just lays there a bit, watching Jake’s extreme focus on whatever he’s playing. He watches the younger man with his bright smiles and intense energy, handsome face and beautiful body, and the wrongness in him imagines himself stalking over, tipping Jake’s head back, looking into those blue eyes as he ruts against Jake’s muscular chest like an animal until he spills himself over the bright teal of his shirt.
Cougar disgusts himself, and he throws the sheet back so he can get up, get away from even the vague temptation that Jake represents.
He doesn’t mean to startle the other man, but the sudden movement in Jake’s peripheral vision was clearly unexpected. He shoves himself back and away from the desk, one hand grabbing down under the tabletop and coming up with a 9mm as he spins and throws himself on his back on the floor, weapon aimed down between his knees at Cougar’s head.
Cougar only has a split-second’s view down the barrel of the gun before it’s jerked away to point elsewhere and Jake is wheezing out a “Jesus, man, don’t do that.” He shudders all over and sits up, slides the gun back into the holster under the desk (doesn’t put the safety on, didn’t have to take it off in the first place).
“Sorry,” Jake says as he rolls to his feet, not meeting Cougar’s eyes as he rights his chair and goes over to a duffel of clothes at the foot of the bed. He pulls out a change of clothing and heads for the bathroom. Eyes too wide, his breath ragged. “I’m gonna shower, I’ll be right back.”
Cougar hates the dimming of the other man’s light, the tension around his mouth and shoulders. Hates that he did that, even inadvertently.
“Lo siento,” he says when Jake comes out again, but his easy smile is back and he waves off the apology.
“Nah, man, my issues not yours. Sorry I pointed a gun on you on our first date, you know?”
Cougar’s lips quirk and he nods and all is forgiven.
“So what are your plans for today?” Jake asks as he pulls on his sneakers and laces them up. “’Cause if you didn’t have any, I was thinking there’s still time for breakfast, and then I’ve gotta be at the salon at ten, but there’s a washer and dryer there, so if you wanted to do your laundry, I could see what I can do to tidy up the mess they made of your hair.”
Cougar can’t think of a plan that sounds better, so he nods and bags up his stinking clothing and they walk together to Jake’s truck.
Breakfast is at a trendy sort of Brazilian-fusion cafe, but the migas are good and the coffee hot. Jake grabs the check before Cougar can think to and waves off his attempts to pay.
The salon where Jake works is the kind of hideously glossy place that Cougar would never have gone on his own, all sharp chrome and green neon. It smells like chemicals and the ghost of singed hair.
“I have any appointments first thing?” Jake asks the girl at the front desk and she checks the computer for him.
“Not until eleven unless there’s a walk-in.”
Jake thanks her and guides Cougar back past the work stations to the back room, gets his laundry started and then leads him to the wash-sinks. He can feel the eyes of Jake’s co-workers on them, their unasked questions about the bruises on his face and the limp in his walk.
“Trust me,” Jake murmurs at him as he nudges Cougar into the chair, guides him back to the towel-padded edge of the sink, runs his fingers through what’s left of Cougar’s hair. The water is warm and the shampoo is cool. Jake’s touch is firm yet sensual. Intimate in a way that he hasn’t felt since he was a child. “So tense,” Jake scolds, as he catches a rivulet of water before it can get to Cougar’s eye. “I’ve got you.”
He rinses Cougar’s hair. The cut on his scalp is stinging, but not unbearably so, not enough to distract from Jake’s touch as he sits Cougar up again and towels his hair dry, draping the towel around him like a cape. He leads Cougar back over to a chair and Jake’s smiling face beams at him from the license photo beside the mirror. He combs out the tangles and tips Cougar’s head down to examine the damage.
The scissors come out and he begins to cut, no consultation, no explanation. Cougar watches in the mirror as the blades snip and the comb guides. Jake puts away the tools and slicks some pomade into his hands, runs his fingers through Cougar’s hair and tugs it back away from his face.
“This is the best I can do,” he says, and looking in the mirror, Cougar has no complaints. The front is still long, swept back and suitably serious. “It’ll be easier to grow out again, if you don’t have to wait for the bangs to catch up. Couple of months and you should be able to get a pony-tail going again.”
“Gracias,” he murmurs, and means it for everything.
Jake laughs and swats him with the towel and tells him “Okay, get out of my chair now, I’ve got paying customers.”
================
Cougar is left at loose ends until two when Jake gets off of work, so he walks. One familiar landmark leads to another and he finds the club he’d been at, dull and grimy in the light of day with its neon turned off and its crowds gone. His bike is still there and he still has his keys, so he drives back to the hotel, changes into his own clothes and gets his hat.
He slides the chain of his dog-tags over his head, feels the beads cool against the back of his neck. He knows who he is with the tags on. He can call himself soldier and know that it is true.
He returns the keys to the hotel office and considers his options. It would be so easy to leave, he thinks. There’s nothing of his left behind except a change of clothes in the salon washer. Nothing of Jake’s to bring back except the sweat pants and t-shirt, and he can leave those on his doorstep if he can find the house.
But then he imagines Jake waiting for a Cougar who never returns. It’s been less than a day, but he thinks Jake is the type who will worry about him, and be hurt that he left without a word, and that’s a shitty thanks for a man who saved his life. He parks the bike and finds a bench to sit on. He watches Jake through the windows of the salon, watches him grin and joke with his clients and co-workers, watches him flirt and tease and feels a little less special, but less pressured too, knowing that Jake can’t help the way he is.
A few minutes after two, Jake comes out of the door, a spring in his step and the bundle of Cougar’s clothes under his arm. “Hey, cowboy,” he grins and looks Cougar up and down and an entirely involuntary smile twitches at Cougar’s lips.
“I want to repay you,” Cougar says, and Jake hesitates.
“Tell me what you’re thinking over lunch?” Jake suggests and they walk to a little Italian place with huge calzone and Jake gets the damn check again.
“I can help with your house,” Cougar offers as they eat. “If you can show me what to do. Maybe some job that is easier with two.”
Jake thinks it over. “Yeah, that would be useful, if you think you’re up to it, man.”
So Cougar ends up following Jake back home, then riding over with him to the hardware store and helping him load sheetrock into the truck and moving it into the house. The gypsum boards are more awkward than heavy, and he can see how it’s easier with two people to move.
The sun is going down by the time they’ve got the supplies in, and most of the house is not light enough to really do much more than stack the sheets in the right rooms.
“I’m thinkin’ this place isn’t so much set up for entertaining. What say we get cleaned up and head down the street to this little bar? Drink some beer, play some pool, relax after our hard day of work?”
Cougar is amiable to that so they shower and change. The bar down the street is sort of a classic rock, no dance-floor, pool-table and dartboard sort of place. A quick glance around shows straight couples and friendly singles. He’s not sure why Jake didn’t choose a gay bar, maybe something as simple as proximity.
They drink some beers and play a few rounds of pool. Jake is not bad, but if there’s one thing Cougar knows it’s the interplay of velocity and angle. A couple of local girls come up, shiny lipstick and flashy nails, and Jake and Cougar coach them through improving their game before yielding the table to them. Jake flirts shamelessly with all the women and a few of the men, but there’s no heat behind it. He watches the room; Cougar sees his eyes check the exits each time he turns around. Jake and Cougar end up slouched into a booth, grinning and half-drunk. Jake talks about his plans for the house, and what he did to the one before that and Cougar listens and nods at all the right places.
They stumble back to Jake’s at the ridiculously early hour of eleven P.M., into the dark house and the air feels heavy, or maybe that’s just Cougar’s own anticipation. Jake gets ibuprofen into them, and a bottle of water each, and they stretch out, Cougar on the bed and Jake beside it.
Cougar can hear Jake sigh in the dark as he settles.
“Jake,” Cougar murmurs into the stillness, and Jake hmms at him in reply. “Will you fuck me?”
It’s dead silent for way too long. “Now?” Jake asks into the dark.
“Si.”
Jake groans in reply, a pained and frustrated noise. “Mother of fuck, you can’t say something like that when a man’s trying to go to sleep.”
“Lo siento,” Cougar says, “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Jesus, Cougs,” he can hear Jake roll over, see the outline of him turn Cougar’s way. “If I even had an idea of what this is, man…” And Jake seems to have no more luck expressing himself than Cougar does. “No, just no. I’m not up for this.”
“Forget that I asked,” Cougar tells him, and there’s no bitterness in his voice.
It’s a long time before either of them sleeps.
==================
He thinks it will be awkward in the morning, but it isn’t. That Jake will treat him different, but he doesn’t.
They get up not long after dawn and drive to a little country breakfast place, then back to the house to start hanging the drywall, working together to get the sheets into place, Cougar holding while Jake drives the screws into the studs. The house seems smaller as they work, but brighter, cleaner, and Cougar is starting to see the potential.
They go to bed that night with no awkward offers of sex, and Cougar thinks that’s probably for the best. He’s not used to being turned down. Women have always been easy for him to seduce (even if he left so many of them disappointed) and he’s never really done much to attract men except for be available.
Jake picks up another four hour shift at the salon on Wednesday and Cougar cracks open the five gallon bucket of joint compound and starts mudding and taping the walls while Jake’s out. He’s not sure how long Jake’s been working on the house, but the change over just a few days is awesome. It feels really good, for someone who has spent so much of his life engaging in destruction, to look at something at the end of the day and say “I made that better.”
Jake drags home a grill, charcoal and some thick steaks, and they eat dinner on the back porch, overlooking the wasteland that is the yard.
“You headin’ back to base today or in the morning?” Jake asks, slipping it in between random facts about hair relaxer and the stats of some MMA fighter he follows. Asks it even though Cougar has never said he was in the army.
“Should probably go tonight,” Cougar answers as they watch the sun start to set, “Traffic,” and that’s all that’s said about it for a while. They stuff the paper plates into a garbage bag and clean the utensils with the garden hose. Cougar goes in and packs his stuff and takes one last look at his work. Wonders what it’ll look like a week and a month and more from now.
Jake meets him at the front door, hands in his pockets. “It’s been nice having you around,” he says, and Cougar isn’t sure what is the right thing to say, or do, so he touches the brim of his hat in silent salute.
“Here.” Jake passes him a folded card. “Call me sometime.” He knocks his shoulder against Cougar’s and turns back to the house without another word.
=====================
Cougar gets back to base before midnight, crashes in an empty barrack and is awake before reveille. He reports to his commanding officer, a dour man by the name of Hitchkins, only to be told “You’re on loan. Losers need a sniper. Report to Lt. Colonel Clay.”
He goes where he’s told. Presents himself to his new CO. The man is tall and tough and all business. He doesn’t hassle Cougar about his hair. Cougar’s first impression is that Clay is probably less likely to get him killed than any other officer he’s worked under, and if he does get Cougar killed, it’ll probably be for a good reason, and that’s all a soldier can ask for.
Roque is the SiC. Harsher around the edges than Clay, but just as strong. Competent and brusque.
Wilkes is their Tech and Comms guy. Weasely fellow with narrow teeth. Egotistical and bitter, and Cougar thinks of them all he’ll be the liability.
Pooch is their wheelman. He’s like fresh air in the desert, light and easy to be around. Devoted to his girlfriend and his dream of the future. Cougar avoids him when he can, unwilling to get caught by another man’s hopes, to be hurt if they crash and burn.
They ship out for Nicaragua the next day, targeting drug and gun runners destabilizing what Uncle Sam would rather stay quiet.
Their first contact with the enemy, Cougar picks off eleven targets and feels nothing. When it’s over, he takes the card Jake gave him and tears it into tiny pieces, lets them drift from his fingers into the wind. Whatever Jake’s lived through in the army, he doesn’t deserve the shit of having someone like Cougar in his life.
When they get back to the US, Clay plays poker with Hitchkins, the title of his Mustang against Cougar’s transfer papers, and when the hand is done, Cougar is a Loser permanent. Roque nods, Pooch claps him on the back and Wilkes spits between his teeth.
The next job sees them shipping out less than a day later. “Long flight, sleep on the plane,” Clay tells them, but Cougar can see he’s not exactly thrilled by the quick turn-around. They’re dropped off in the back-ass of some third-world African country, with operations to disrupt, bad guys to capture.
It all goes pear-shaped a week in. Their exit chopper takes a rocket coming to pick them up and Wilkes steps on an IED as they run for safer ground. No long-distance comms, no allies, no ticket home. They end up hiking two hundred miles to a country that at least pretends to be friendlier to the Americans. Roque and Pooch are able to blend in enough to get close to the embassy, and they finally, finally get pulled out.
Cougar loses twenty pounds and more over the months they’re on the run, his body burning through every ounce of fat and on into the lean muscle mass. He comes out with three brothers and a team that’s been tested in fire and blood, and that counts for a hell of a lot.
The whole time he’s fighting and marching and trying not to die, he thinks he’s running away from death, but after they’re lifted out, he still feels restless, yearning. A week in the infirmary and then they get three weeks of medical leave on their own recognizance to get their health back. Pooch goes to stay with his grandmother. Clay and Roque stay on base. Cougar catches a transport to Hood, and from there gets one of the motor pool guys to drive him into Dallas. He sleeps on the plane and only speaks to his driver to give him directions to a house he hasn’t been to for months.
He passes it twice before he’s sure which one it is, all the houses on the street built to similar plans, a similar look. The yard is different than Cougar remembers it, crisp hedges and flowering borders. “Here,” he says, and the driver stops, coming around to get Cougar’s sack from the trunk for him.
Standing is a chore; he feels weak and tired. It was so much easier to make himself move when stopping meant dying. When falling meant one of the others would stop and carry him and they’d both die.
The driver looks to wait for Cougar to get to the door before he leaves but Cougar waves him off. If he’s wrong, if Jake isn’t here anymore, or if it’s the wrong house, or if Cougar just isn’t welcome, well, he’ll figure something out then.
He rings the doorbell when he gets to it. Hears it echo through the house. There’s nothing but silence after, no footsteps, no hand on the door. It doesn’t mean too much. It’s still early in the afternoon, and Jake could be at work, or out at a bar. It doesn’t mean he’s already sold the house, that some suburban family is going to come home to find Cougar on their front step.
He sets his pack behind him and pulls his hat down over his eyes and hopes the neighbors don’t call the cops.
( Next Chapter )
Author: LadyJanelly
Fandom: The Losers
Rating: Mature
Word count: ~34,000
Characters/Pairing: Jake Jensen/Carlos “Cougar” Alvarez
Warnings: Bullying, hazing, homophobia, racism, internalized homophobia, violence, language, mentions of previous assault and sexual assault, Jeff Foxworthy paraphrase, Leverage cameo
Notes: Thanks to Peaceful_sands for her hand-holding, cheer-leading and beta-reading
Title from the Led Zeppelin song “Over the Hills and Far Away”
Feedback will be adored in any form--from squee to concrit to thinky-thinky thoughts.
(fic is finished, just not sure how many chapters it'll chop into as I finish the last edits)
Summary: AU-Jake Jensen left the Army before he ever had a chance to be a Loser. Cougar meets him anyway.
Sometimes what a man needs to have a chance at happiness is losing the battle he’s been fighting his whole life.
==========
Some missions are quicker than others, simpler. The objective had been clean, to get Cougar into position to kill a man from half a mile away. Three days waiting and a single shot and the fate of an eastern European nation changed forever. Cougar didn’t know more than his name and his face. Didn’t know why he had to die, only that orders said to kill him.
From the scene of the engagement (such as it was), it’s back to the air strip, to a chopper, to a plane, to a carrier. Two days later they disembark at Fort Hood, the Texas sun hot and dry. Tac vest slung over one shoulder, rifle over the other, he follows his CO to the barracks they’re using, an empty building of small dorm-style rooms.
The team settles into the communal living area and Cougar claims a table, spreads a cloth and field-strips his rifle, separating and cleaning her down to the last bolt and spring.
None of his team talk to him, put off by his quiet. Sometimes he thinks they see themselves as soldiers and Cougar as a killer, but the thought has long-ago lost its power to hurt him.
He reassembles the rifle, taking his time, checking every part for wear. Rubs his thumb over the “C” carved into the stock by the serial number, the guarantee that no other soldier will dare check this out of the weapons locker, that the clerks won’t let that happen.
The phone on the wall rings and Corporal Jenkins answers. “Yes ma’am, I’ll check,” he says and looks up, covers the mouth-piece and turns to Cougar.
“You here?” he stage-whispers, “It’s your mom, man.”
Cougar shakes his head. Slings his rifle over his shoulder and heads for the door. He should fill out the paperwork to deny her calls. The letters are bad enough. The “What have we done?” and “You are our son and we love you,” hard enough to read much less hear.
He wishes that she would stop. Would just take the money he sends every month and let him be the best son he knows how to be, far from where he can shame or hurt them.
===============
Sometimes Cougar thinks he’s been in the Army too long. When his captain announces a week’s leave before the next time he’ll have to crawl through some god-forsaken swamp or lie in wait on top of a burning mountain of rock in the desert, his first thought is “Shit.”
Down-time is never kind to him. Too much time to think, too much time to sin. He thinks he’ll be strong for once, as he trades out his uniform for civvies, as he leaves all but his personal gun behind and takes his bike the couple hours’ drive up to Dallas.
He gets a motel room but barely sleeps there the first night. He’s up with the dawn, leaving his pack of clothes on the bed, his hat on top of it, dog-tags pooled inside. Then he’s out of the room and wandering restless. Searching, though he won’t admit it to himself.
Pink neon catches his eye that second evening, in a neighborhood he’s been to before, the last time he was in town. It’s a club with lots of men and few women hanging around. He’s drawn in, towards the things he can’t allow himself to examine, the wickedness in him that he can’t smother down with duty or faith. He tightens the band on his hair, leaves everything he has except his ID and some cash in the motorcycle’s glove box and heads into the club.
It takes three drinks for him to start to loosen up. To meet the eyes of the other putos as they cruise him where he stands at the bar.
A tall blond faggot stumbles off of the dance floor, flushed with exertion and excitement, brushes against his side as he orders a drink. “Hi,” the blond says, grinning and puppyish. He’s tall and strong and handsome with his odd round glasses and short goatee. Somehow wholesome, even in this place of sin. He looks like everything Cougar has spent his adult life avoiding, and the boy goes back to dancing when Cougar deliberately looks away from him.
“He not your type?” a voice asks from Cougar’s other side, low and dangerous. This, maybe, could be more like it. He looks over and the guy is young and over-muscled, his eyes cold over his make-believe smile. “Can I buy you a drink?”
Cougar nods and pretends he doesn’t notice when the guy drops something into it on its way to Cougar’s hand. His stomach shivers in anticipation as he raises the glass to his lips. This is going to be bad, he thinks, and he feels a flare of hope, that this will finally be the one so bad that his fucked-up desires will learn their lesson. That he’ll be able to stop looking at men, wanting men.
He downs the shot and doesn’t flinch away from the over-warm hand on his waist.
Whatever the guy gave him, it’s quick, layering over the drinks he’s already had. “Want to get out of here? Get some fresh air?” the guy asks and Cougar nods. Feels heavy and dizzy and glad for the arm around him helping him balance.
It’s dark outside, as they slip down an alley and behind another building. “Holy shit, look at this,” a voice says and there are suddenly two other men with them. “You did it,” one of them says and Cougar is shoved over at him. They push him around a bit. Working themselves up in the way cowards do, words like faggot and cock-sucker spilling from their mouths, nothing Cougar hasn’t thought of himself before. Spic and wet-back, words he’s heard too many times before for them to have any bite. He swears back, Spanish rolling off of his tongue.
The first punch is almost a surprise, catching him in the gut and doubling him over. He swings back at them, but the drug makes the world slide around him, and when he does connect it’s without force. He takes three more of their hits before he falls, but one grabs him by the hair and pulls him to his knees.
“Souvenir?” the one from the bar asks and they laugh. Cougar catches a glint of silver from the corner of his eye as the man holding him pops open a knife, and then a sawing, ripping sound as his hair is cut from his head. He falls to the asphalt, harsh on his bare palms.
He’s kicked in the stomach again, and the face, then cold liquid is rushing over him, stinging in the cuts their blows and the knife have made and he flinches away, tries to stand, to crawl. It reeks of alcohol, vodka probably. The empty bottle clubs him in the side of the head and he falls and he can see the third guy there with a lighter in his hand. “No,” Cougar says, and of all the ways he has seen a man die, burning to death is one of the worst.
“Hey!” A voice cuts down the alley and Cougar’s tormentors freeze. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
It’s the blond from the club, pink shirt bright against the griminess of the alley as he runs towards the conflict. Go, Cougar wants to tell him, but can’t make the word.
The biggest of the men is first to swing at the blond, and even Cougar is impressed by the way he dodges the blow, catches the fist as it flies by and with a twist of his hand and a strike to the elbow leaves the man screaming and incapacitated. The second he takes out with a forehead to the bridge of his nose and the third he closes in tight with and strikes him in the ribs with his knee, three, four, five times within seconds, until the man falls down.
After that it’s just the blond driving the men off with half-hearted kicks and insults, making sure none of them tries to circle back to where Cougar is lying in a pool of booze and blood.
Cougar must have blacked out there for a moment, because cool fingers are on his face and he jerks back from the man that’s way too close.
“Hey,” the blond guy says, calm, soothing. “Oh, baby, what have they done to you?” Cougar’s battered brain can’t reconcile the queer words with the calm competence of his touch, strong hands searching out his injuries, firm and steady. Cautiously, the man helps him sit up.
“Thought you were gay,” Cougar mutters, because the guy has to be an undercover cop or something. He means it as a compliment, but the way the guy’s jaw clenches he knows it wasn’t taken that way.
“Yeah, the most bad-ass hairdresser in the state just saved your sorry ass, so you were right about that part.” He strips off his t-shirt and Cougar tries not to appreciate the very naked, muscular chest in front of him. The pink cotton is wadded up and pressed to the back of Cougar’s head, where they cut the ponytail off of him, and fuck that stings! Cougar’s rescuer guides Cougar’s hand to put pressure on it, then sighs and draws back. “Okay, shit. You should really be seen by a doctor. Between the head wound and who-knows-what that guy put in your drink, you sure shouldn’t be alone. You got anywhere to go? Someone I can call?”
The thought of calling his Captain sends a shiver down Cougar’s spine. “No.”
“Okay,” the blond says in an ‘I can deal with this’ voice. “Behind door number one, we’ve got a trip to the ER, and hope those guys don’t beat us there, and if they do, that the police don’t get involved.” That’s almost as bad as calling Cougar’s captain, for his chances of not getting reprimanded at best and kicked out of the military for being a fag at worst.
“Door number two, I drive you back to my place and I watch to make sure you don’t get any worse than you are right now. I was back-up medic for my unit, back in the army, so I’ll at least know when to call an ambulance. I gotta warn you though, I’m a little short on furniture right now, and the house is still in rough shape.”
Cougar cringes under the torrent of words. “I have a hotel room.”
The blond shakes his head. “That’s not working for me, sorry.”
“No hospital,” Cougar says, jaw clenched, and his rescuer nods.
“Okay, let’s get you on your feet. My truck’s over by the club, it’s not far.”
The blond helps him up, holds him steady until Cougar’s got his balance. It hurts. The world spins and pain lances through his ribs and his head, but fuck all that, he’s a soldier. He’s dragged himself half a mile over desert rocks with a broken leg. Getting rolled by some asshole civilians isn’t going to take him down. He grits his teeth and doesn’t cry out and doesn’t puke on himself.
“Jake Jensen,” the man says as he hovers ready to catch Cougar if he should fall.
“Carlos,” he replies, “Cougar to most.”
Jake laughs. “Cougar, I like that, all rarrr,” and the only good thing about Jake’s babble is that they’re at his battered blue 80’s truck a lot sooner than Cougar had expected. Jake helps him up into the seat and then comes around to the driver’s side. He rummages around behind the seat, finds a crumpled t-shirt. Sniff-test comes up negative for wear-ability, judging by the face he makes, but he puts it on anyway.
“Why help me?” Cougar has to ask.
Jake just shrugs and starts the engine. “You look like you’re having a really shitty week,” he replies, which is no kind of answer at all. He grins and gives Cougar a wink, “And I’ve always had a thing for soulful dark eyes.”
“I won’t…” but the words die as Cougar isn’t even sure what it is that he won’t do.
Jake snorts a laugh through his nose. “Hey, you shot me down pretty definitively back there at the bar, I get it and I can take no for an answer. So hey, what do you think those guys are going to say about their injuries? Run over by a biker gang? Mugged by mutants?”
Cougar rests on the drive back to Jake’s place, eyes heavy but never closing.
=================
When Jake had said something about his place being sort of rough, Cougar thought of the apartments he’d been to with his random hookups. He expected maybe some clothes on the floor, a beer can or pizza box here or there.
The house Jake parks in front of is bigger than he expected, but as he follows Jake through the front door, he realizes that size isn’t everything. His first impression is that the place is trashed. Bare cement floor and naked studs where the walls used to be. Stripped down empty, there are pipes hanging out of the wall in what must have been the kitchen.
“It’s a work in progress,” Jake protests as if Cougar had voiced his opinion of the place. Seriously, he’s crashed in third world countries in houses more comfortable than this.
Jake leads him through the home, past a bench of tools and stacks of boxed tile. “Deconstruction is done, should take me about four more months to get it sell-able. I’ll show you my master plan in the morning.”
They duck through a plastic tarp covered doorway and into the space where Jake must sleep, a room not yet demolished, with brown-gold carpet and peeling wall-paper. There is a mattress on the floor in the corner, with a mini-fridge for a nightstand. Along the other side of the room is a table with multiple computer monitors (facing the door, the chair-back to the wall). The light of a bare bulb casts everything into harsh contrast. Jake gestures him through a second door and into the world’s pinkest master bath.
“How’re you feeling?” he asks as Cougar sits down on the closed toilet lid.
“Better,” he answers, because you don’t lie to the medic. “Queasy still. I’ve had worse.”
Jake goes out for a moment and comes back with a serious first-aid kit, all neatly organized supplies. He washes his hands in the sink and then pulls on blue gloves. He checks Cougar’s head wounds first, the blow to the side of his head, the places he was kicked, the knick in his scalp from where they cut his hair off. Flashes a pen-light in his eyes.
“Need help with your shirt?” he asks, and Cougar is sore enough that pride loses and he nods. Jake’s strong hands run over his ribs, noting what makes Cougar tense or wince. “Don’t think they’re broken,” he says at last. “Nothing’s still bleeding, so you don’t need stitches.” He gets the iodine out and cleans all of the broken skin. “You want to shower and then I’ll get the worst of it covered with gauze?”
Cougar nods and Jake helps him to his feet. “You got it on your own?” Cougar nods again and Jake leaves him there. He showers alone, washing the blood and alcohol and a certain amount of shame down the drain. He hears the door open and close but Jake doesn’t say anything and when Cougar comes out of the shower there’s a towel and change of clothes on the toilet. The sweat-pants are a little bit long but the t-shirt fits fine, and it’s good to be clean.
Jake sits at the computer desk when Cougar comes out of the bathroom, the glow of the monitor turning the lenses of his glasses to bright circles covering his eyes. “Hey,” he says as he looks Cougar up and down, appraising the way he moves, the state of his injuries.
He gets Cougar’s scrapes treated and covered. “Get some sleep,” Jake tells him as he gives him a glass of water. “I’ll wake you up in a couple hours, make sure you’re okay.”
Jake’s bed is soft, sheets cool against Cougar’s skin. Cougar sleeps sooner than he expects to. If Jake was going to hurt him, he could have done it much earlier. Sleeping with Jake in the room is like having a trusted teammate on watch, and Cougar is surprised to realize he not only trusts the man, but his competence as well.
Later, Jake’s voice wakes him to the twilight glow of the computer monitors, calling a soft “Cougs, Cougar,” until Cougar’s eyes open and focus on him. A couple Tylenol are pressed into his hand, and another bottle of water from the mini-fridge.
“Gonna sleep a little,” Jake explains as he pulls one of the pillows Cougar wasn’t using and a sheet off of the bed and to the floor. “Got work tomorrow. You need to be anyplace before ten?”
Cougar shakes his head. “Nowhere ‘til Thursday.”
“’Kay,” Jake replies and Jake sits down beside the bed (between the wounded man and the door) and fluffs the pillow.
And this is ridiculous, even given Cougar’s lack of experience with the sleeping habits of maricónes, he can see that Jake’s treating him like some traumatized virgin. “Two will fit,” he says and slides back but Jake shakes his head.
“I don’t deal well sharing a bed,” he says. “Wrong touch, wrong time, it can be really not-good.” He shrugs. “I’m good here, don’t worry about it.” Glasses gone and he looks softer, more open.
Cougar nods, because it’s damn late and he just wants to curl up and sleep it all off. He lies awake on the bed, listening as Jake’s breathing evens out, as he sighs and shifts and finally is still.
===================
Jake’s typing is what wakes Cougar the next time, along with soft, off-key singing and the occasional gleeful cackle. "Oh yeah,” he croons to the computer, “I got you now, mother-fucker.”
He’s wearing headphones and all of his attention is on the computer. Cougar just lays there a bit, watching Jake’s extreme focus on whatever he’s playing. He watches the younger man with his bright smiles and intense energy, handsome face and beautiful body, and the wrongness in him imagines himself stalking over, tipping Jake’s head back, looking into those blue eyes as he ruts against Jake’s muscular chest like an animal until he spills himself over the bright teal of his shirt.
Cougar disgusts himself, and he throws the sheet back so he can get up, get away from even the vague temptation that Jake represents.
He doesn’t mean to startle the other man, but the sudden movement in Jake’s peripheral vision was clearly unexpected. He shoves himself back and away from the desk, one hand grabbing down under the tabletop and coming up with a 9mm as he spins and throws himself on his back on the floor, weapon aimed down between his knees at Cougar’s head.
Cougar only has a split-second’s view down the barrel of the gun before it’s jerked away to point elsewhere and Jake is wheezing out a “Jesus, man, don’t do that.” He shudders all over and sits up, slides the gun back into the holster under the desk (doesn’t put the safety on, didn’t have to take it off in the first place).
“Sorry,” Jake says as he rolls to his feet, not meeting Cougar’s eyes as he rights his chair and goes over to a duffel of clothes at the foot of the bed. He pulls out a change of clothing and heads for the bathroom. Eyes too wide, his breath ragged. “I’m gonna shower, I’ll be right back.”
Cougar hates the dimming of the other man’s light, the tension around his mouth and shoulders. Hates that he did that, even inadvertently.
“Lo siento,” he says when Jake comes out again, but his easy smile is back and he waves off the apology.
“Nah, man, my issues not yours. Sorry I pointed a gun on you on our first date, you know?”
Cougar’s lips quirk and he nods and all is forgiven.
“So what are your plans for today?” Jake asks as he pulls on his sneakers and laces them up. “’Cause if you didn’t have any, I was thinking there’s still time for breakfast, and then I’ve gotta be at the salon at ten, but there’s a washer and dryer there, so if you wanted to do your laundry, I could see what I can do to tidy up the mess they made of your hair.”
Cougar can’t think of a plan that sounds better, so he nods and bags up his stinking clothing and they walk together to Jake’s truck.
Breakfast is at a trendy sort of Brazilian-fusion cafe, but the migas are good and the coffee hot. Jake grabs the check before Cougar can think to and waves off his attempts to pay.
The salon where Jake works is the kind of hideously glossy place that Cougar would never have gone on his own, all sharp chrome and green neon. It smells like chemicals and the ghost of singed hair.
“I have any appointments first thing?” Jake asks the girl at the front desk and she checks the computer for him.
“Not until eleven unless there’s a walk-in.”
Jake thanks her and guides Cougar back past the work stations to the back room, gets his laundry started and then leads him to the wash-sinks. He can feel the eyes of Jake’s co-workers on them, their unasked questions about the bruises on his face and the limp in his walk.
“Trust me,” Jake murmurs at him as he nudges Cougar into the chair, guides him back to the towel-padded edge of the sink, runs his fingers through what’s left of Cougar’s hair. The water is warm and the shampoo is cool. Jake’s touch is firm yet sensual. Intimate in a way that he hasn’t felt since he was a child. “So tense,” Jake scolds, as he catches a rivulet of water before it can get to Cougar’s eye. “I’ve got you.”
He rinses Cougar’s hair. The cut on his scalp is stinging, but not unbearably so, not enough to distract from Jake’s touch as he sits Cougar up again and towels his hair dry, draping the towel around him like a cape. He leads Cougar back over to a chair and Jake’s smiling face beams at him from the license photo beside the mirror. He combs out the tangles and tips Cougar’s head down to examine the damage.
The scissors come out and he begins to cut, no consultation, no explanation. Cougar watches in the mirror as the blades snip and the comb guides. Jake puts away the tools and slicks some pomade into his hands, runs his fingers through Cougar’s hair and tugs it back away from his face.
“This is the best I can do,” he says, and looking in the mirror, Cougar has no complaints. The front is still long, swept back and suitably serious. “It’ll be easier to grow out again, if you don’t have to wait for the bangs to catch up. Couple of months and you should be able to get a pony-tail going again.”
“Gracias,” he murmurs, and means it for everything.
Jake laughs and swats him with the towel and tells him “Okay, get out of my chair now, I’ve got paying customers.”
================
Cougar is left at loose ends until two when Jake gets off of work, so he walks. One familiar landmark leads to another and he finds the club he’d been at, dull and grimy in the light of day with its neon turned off and its crowds gone. His bike is still there and he still has his keys, so he drives back to the hotel, changes into his own clothes and gets his hat.
He slides the chain of his dog-tags over his head, feels the beads cool against the back of his neck. He knows who he is with the tags on. He can call himself soldier and know that it is true.
He returns the keys to the hotel office and considers his options. It would be so easy to leave, he thinks. There’s nothing of his left behind except a change of clothes in the salon washer. Nothing of Jake’s to bring back except the sweat pants and t-shirt, and he can leave those on his doorstep if he can find the house.
But then he imagines Jake waiting for a Cougar who never returns. It’s been less than a day, but he thinks Jake is the type who will worry about him, and be hurt that he left without a word, and that’s a shitty thanks for a man who saved his life. He parks the bike and finds a bench to sit on. He watches Jake through the windows of the salon, watches him grin and joke with his clients and co-workers, watches him flirt and tease and feels a little less special, but less pressured too, knowing that Jake can’t help the way he is.
A few minutes after two, Jake comes out of the door, a spring in his step and the bundle of Cougar’s clothes under his arm. “Hey, cowboy,” he grins and looks Cougar up and down and an entirely involuntary smile twitches at Cougar’s lips.
“I want to repay you,” Cougar says, and Jake hesitates.
“Tell me what you’re thinking over lunch?” Jake suggests and they walk to a little Italian place with huge calzone and Jake gets the damn check again.
“I can help with your house,” Cougar offers as they eat. “If you can show me what to do. Maybe some job that is easier with two.”
Jake thinks it over. “Yeah, that would be useful, if you think you’re up to it, man.”
So Cougar ends up following Jake back home, then riding over with him to the hardware store and helping him load sheetrock into the truck and moving it into the house. The gypsum boards are more awkward than heavy, and he can see how it’s easier with two people to move.
The sun is going down by the time they’ve got the supplies in, and most of the house is not light enough to really do much more than stack the sheets in the right rooms.
“I’m thinkin’ this place isn’t so much set up for entertaining. What say we get cleaned up and head down the street to this little bar? Drink some beer, play some pool, relax after our hard day of work?”
Cougar is amiable to that so they shower and change. The bar down the street is sort of a classic rock, no dance-floor, pool-table and dartboard sort of place. A quick glance around shows straight couples and friendly singles. He’s not sure why Jake didn’t choose a gay bar, maybe something as simple as proximity.
They drink some beers and play a few rounds of pool. Jake is not bad, but if there’s one thing Cougar knows it’s the interplay of velocity and angle. A couple of local girls come up, shiny lipstick and flashy nails, and Jake and Cougar coach them through improving their game before yielding the table to them. Jake flirts shamelessly with all the women and a few of the men, but there’s no heat behind it. He watches the room; Cougar sees his eyes check the exits each time he turns around. Jake and Cougar end up slouched into a booth, grinning and half-drunk. Jake talks about his plans for the house, and what he did to the one before that and Cougar listens and nods at all the right places.
They stumble back to Jake’s at the ridiculously early hour of eleven P.M., into the dark house and the air feels heavy, or maybe that’s just Cougar’s own anticipation. Jake gets ibuprofen into them, and a bottle of water each, and they stretch out, Cougar on the bed and Jake beside it.
Cougar can hear Jake sigh in the dark as he settles.
“Jake,” Cougar murmurs into the stillness, and Jake hmms at him in reply. “Will you fuck me?”
It’s dead silent for way too long. “Now?” Jake asks into the dark.
“Si.”
Jake groans in reply, a pained and frustrated noise. “Mother of fuck, you can’t say something like that when a man’s trying to go to sleep.”
“Lo siento,” Cougar says, “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Jesus, Cougs,” he can hear Jake roll over, see the outline of him turn Cougar’s way. “If I even had an idea of what this is, man…” And Jake seems to have no more luck expressing himself than Cougar does. “No, just no. I’m not up for this.”
“Forget that I asked,” Cougar tells him, and there’s no bitterness in his voice.
It’s a long time before either of them sleeps.
==================
He thinks it will be awkward in the morning, but it isn’t. That Jake will treat him different, but he doesn’t.
They get up not long after dawn and drive to a little country breakfast place, then back to the house to start hanging the drywall, working together to get the sheets into place, Cougar holding while Jake drives the screws into the studs. The house seems smaller as they work, but brighter, cleaner, and Cougar is starting to see the potential.
They go to bed that night with no awkward offers of sex, and Cougar thinks that’s probably for the best. He’s not used to being turned down. Women have always been easy for him to seduce (even if he left so many of them disappointed) and he’s never really done much to attract men except for be available.
Jake picks up another four hour shift at the salon on Wednesday and Cougar cracks open the five gallon bucket of joint compound and starts mudding and taping the walls while Jake’s out. He’s not sure how long Jake’s been working on the house, but the change over just a few days is awesome. It feels really good, for someone who has spent so much of his life engaging in destruction, to look at something at the end of the day and say “I made that better.”
Jake drags home a grill, charcoal and some thick steaks, and they eat dinner on the back porch, overlooking the wasteland that is the yard.
“You headin’ back to base today or in the morning?” Jake asks, slipping it in between random facts about hair relaxer and the stats of some MMA fighter he follows. Asks it even though Cougar has never said he was in the army.
“Should probably go tonight,” Cougar answers as they watch the sun start to set, “Traffic,” and that’s all that’s said about it for a while. They stuff the paper plates into a garbage bag and clean the utensils with the garden hose. Cougar goes in and packs his stuff and takes one last look at his work. Wonders what it’ll look like a week and a month and more from now.
Jake meets him at the front door, hands in his pockets. “It’s been nice having you around,” he says, and Cougar isn’t sure what is the right thing to say, or do, so he touches the brim of his hat in silent salute.
“Here.” Jake passes him a folded card. “Call me sometime.” He knocks his shoulder against Cougar’s and turns back to the house without another word.
=====================
Cougar gets back to base before midnight, crashes in an empty barrack and is awake before reveille. He reports to his commanding officer, a dour man by the name of Hitchkins, only to be told “You’re on loan. Losers need a sniper. Report to Lt. Colonel Clay.”
He goes where he’s told. Presents himself to his new CO. The man is tall and tough and all business. He doesn’t hassle Cougar about his hair. Cougar’s first impression is that Clay is probably less likely to get him killed than any other officer he’s worked under, and if he does get Cougar killed, it’ll probably be for a good reason, and that’s all a soldier can ask for.
Roque is the SiC. Harsher around the edges than Clay, but just as strong. Competent and brusque.
Wilkes is their Tech and Comms guy. Weasely fellow with narrow teeth. Egotistical and bitter, and Cougar thinks of them all he’ll be the liability.
Pooch is their wheelman. He’s like fresh air in the desert, light and easy to be around. Devoted to his girlfriend and his dream of the future. Cougar avoids him when he can, unwilling to get caught by another man’s hopes, to be hurt if they crash and burn.
They ship out for Nicaragua the next day, targeting drug and gun runners destabilizing what Uncle Sam would rather stay quiet.
Their first contact with the enemy, Cougar picks off eleven targets and feels nothing. When it’s over, he takes the card Jake gave him and tears it into tiny pieces, lets them drift from his fingers into the wind. Whatever Jake’s lived through in the army, he doesn’t deserve the shit of having someone like Cougar in his life.
When they get back to the US, Clay plays poker with Hitchkins, the title of his Mustang against Cougar’s transfer papers, and when the hand is done, Cougar is a Loser permanent. Roque nods, Pooch claps him on the back and Wilkes spits between his teeth.
The next job sees them shipping out less than a day later. “Long flight, sleep on the plane,” Clay tells them, but Cougar can see he’s not exactly thrilled by the quick turn-around. They’re dropped off in the back-ass of some third-world African country, with operations to disrupt, bad guys to capture.
It all goes pear-shaped a week in. Their exit chopper takes a rocket coming to pick them up and Wilkes steps on an IED as they run for safer ground. No long-distance comms, no allies, no ticket home. They end up hiking two hundred miles to a country that at least pretends to be friendlier to the Americans. Roque and Pooch are able to blend in enough to get close to the embassy, and they finally, finally get pulled out.
Cougar loses twenty pounds and more over the months they’re on the run, his body burning through every ounce of fat and on into the lean muscle mass. He comes out with three brothers and a team that’s been tested in fire and blood, and that counts for a hell of a lot.
The whole time he’s fighting and marching and trying not to die, he thinks he’s running away from death, but after they’re lifted out, he still feels restless, yearning. A week in the infirmary and then they get three weeks of medical leave on their own recognizance to get their health back. Pooch goes to stay with his grandmother. Clay and Roque stay on base. Cougar catches a transport to Hood, and from there gets one of the motor pool guys to drive him into Dallas. He sleeps on the plane and only speaks to his driver to give him directions to a house he hasn’t been to for months.
He passes it twice before he’s sure which one it is, all the houses on the street built to similar plans, a similar look. The yard is different than Cougar remembers it, crisp hedges and flowering borders. “Here,” he says, and the driver stops, coming around to get Cougar’s sack from the trunk for him.
Standing is a chore; he feels weak and tired. It was so much easier to make himself move when stopping meant dying. When falling meant one of the others would stop and carry him and they’d both die.
The driver looks to wait for Cougar to get to the door before he leaves but Cougar waves him off. If he’s wrong, if Jake isn’t here anymore, or if it’s the wrong house, or if Cougar just isn’t welcome, well, he’ll figure something out then.
He rings the doorbell when he gets to it. Hears it echo through the house. There’s nothing but silence after, no footsteps, no hand on the door. It doesn’t mean too much. It’s still early in the afternoon, and Jake could be at work, or out at a bar. It doesn’t mean he’s already sold the house, that some suburban family is going to come home to find Cougar on their front step.
He sets his pack behind him and pulls his hat down over his eyes and hopes the neighbors don’t call the cops.
( Next Chapter )