ladyjanelly

Title: Walk a While With Me
Author: LadyJanelly
Fandom: The Losers
Rating: Mature
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”

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 be happy is losing the battle he’s been fighting his whole life.

Cars pass on the small road in front of (what he hopes is) Jake’s house, and Cougar tunes them out as background noise. Then one stops nearby, idling, and Cougar opens his eyes. Jake leaves the beige sedan he drove up in, and Cougar can see the faces of a woman and child still in the vehicle. Jake’s wearing a white button down shirt and khaki pants, polished shoes and his hair is neat and sharp. He has his “who the fuck is on my lawn” face on, at odds with the yuppie costume he’s wearing. His body is loose and ready for a fight and Cougar has a moment of really hoping it doesn’t come to Jake physically kicking him out.

He tips his hat back instead, and smiles, because even if Jake’s pissed at him, it’s damn good to see him. The restlessness that’s plagued him since they got back to the States is suddenly eased, and no matter what comes next, at least he made it home.

The change in Jake as Cougar shows his face is instantaneous. He drops the wary stalking and rushes those last few steps as Cougar manages to get himself to his feet. He freezes, like he’s not sure where he can touch and then he pulls Cougar into a crushing hug.

“What the hell, man?” he asks against Cougar’s temple, then pulls back to look at him again. “You look like shit, you know that? You never called, dick-head.” His hands are warm on Cougar’s shoulders, even with the Texas sun shining down on them.

Cougar opens his mouth to tell Jake that where he’s been is classified, but Jake’s already shaking his head and he leaves the words unspoken. “You’re back,” he tells Cougar, “You’re back, that’s enough.”

The car doors close behind Jake and Cougar looks over his shoulder to see the woman and a little girl walking up the path. He has a sick moment where he wonders if Jake has managed to make himself normal, build a family. They’re all dressed up and Cougar realizes it’s Sunday, Madre de Dios, they were probably at church and he’s brought himself into their lives. If he fucks this up for Jake…

“Hey,” Jake says and shakes him a little by his shoulders. “Come on, let’s get you inside, how long have you been sitting out here waiting for us?” He steps around Cougar and unlocks the door, leading the way in. Cougar has to pause a second on the threshold, to appreciate what Jake’s done with the place, the soft warm colors, mossy greens and honey golds. Crown molding and granite counter-tops. The cool air washes over him and Jake catches him by his elbow like he was going to faint or something, leads him through to the kitchen table. There is a crock pot on the counter and the smell of cooking roast fills the room and makes Cougar’s stomach rumble.

The woman follows, the little girl hiding half behind her skirts.

“Cougar, this is my sister, Teresa, her daughter Sophie. Guys, this is my friend, Cougar.”

The woman, Teresa, she smiles at that. “Cougar, nice to finally meet you,” she says and offers her hand.

“Carlos,” he says in return, “Por favor,” because he’s Cougar to people that he wants to respect him, but Carlos to people he wants to like him, and sisters and nieces definitely fall into that category, even if neither of them looks a thing like Jake. He tries to stand up to greet her properly; his mama taught him some manners after all, but Jake’s hand on his shoulder is distraction and discouragement and then the moment’s gone.

Jake bustles around, getting Cougar a big glass of orange juice, waters for himself and his family. "Sophie, set the table?” he asks and pulls down a stack of bowls for her. “Lunch will be up in a few minutes,” he tells Cougar. “Anything special you need?”

He shakes his head, nearly overwhelmed by the domestic chaos of it all, the little girl plinking down silverware in front of him, Teresa dishing out steaming bowls of beef and vegetables, Jake toasting slices of some heavenly-scented bread. The house is like something out of a magazine, everything so sharp-edged and shiny.

He won’t flinch, won’t make them think they’ve done something wrong, but he should not have come here, should have left things as they were between him and Jake, let it go.

Everyone finally sits at the table. They do a little heads-bowed moment of silence and then everyone’s eating. Teresa asks Sophie questions about Sunday school and Jake watches Cougar like he thinks he’ll disappear if he takes his eyes off of him. He’s not sure if it’s just him or if the room is too tense, if the child is too quiet. He feels like he’s intruding, making people uncomfortable.

“Hey,” Jake says as Cougar puts his fork down, stomach over-full even with as little as he ate, “You wanna go see the new house I bought?” It sounds an awful lot like an offer to go somewhere quieter, somewhere simpler, and Cougar nods.

“Thank you for the meal,” he tells Teresa. Jake stands and puts his lunch into a plastic dish to take with them and Cougar is sorry to notice that he’d barely eaten.

He walks Cougar out through the side door where his truck’s in the garage. “You got a hotel yet?”

Cougar shakes his head.

“So this new house, it’s in better shape than the last, if you wanna crash. There’s a spare bed here that I can bring with us so neither of us will have to take the floor.”

He should say no. He should ask why the hell Jake would do so much for him when he’s given back so little.

The thought of being alone in a hotel room is almost painful and a man less practiced at utter stillness might have shuddered.

“I would be in your debt,” he says, his words softly formal.

Jake takes his rucksack and tucks it into the cab of the truck behind the seats. “Go ahead, get in. I’m gonna go get the mattress, back in a sec.”

Cougar settles into the truck’s bench seat, stretches his legs out and pulls his hat low over his face. Breathes in the smell of Jake and tries to find some crack in this perfect picture. Some flaw that keeps this from all being too good to be true, too good for a man like him.

=====================..

This house is in better shape than the other had been when Cougar first visited, except for the pervasive ammonia smell of animal piss, even with the flooring pulled up to bare cement. Cat, dog, maybe ferret too. All the walls still have their drywall on, although bright red spray-paint spells out “FUCK YOU” on every surface.

Jake catches him staring and laughs. “It was a foreclosure. When you really mean it, say it with Krylon.”

Jake leads him through to his ‘base camp.’ This time it looks like he started there, finished the room and the bathroom before moving on to work on the rest of the house. There’s a sheet of plastic hanging over the doorway and a window unit air-conditioner keeps it cool without circulating the stench of the rest of the house here. The bed is different, a full instead of a queen, but the computer table looks almost exactly the same.

Jake leans Cougar’s sack at the foot of the bed. Cougar sits down on the edge of the mattress and Jake joins him there. “It’s not much, but mi casa and all that. How long are you in town for?”

“Three weeks medical,” Cougar answers.

“Doctor’s orders?” Jake asks and holds out his hand. Cougar pulls the creased instruction sheets out of his pocket and passes them over.

Jake skims through it all in a few seconds.

“So we’re looking at one week to get some meat on your bones, one to bring your cardio up and a third to work on speed, agility, reflexes, all that?”

Cougar nods that yes, that’s the gist of it.

“I’ll get a microwave in tomorrow, so we can have more small meals for you here. Next week we can do early morning road work, or I’ll get you a gym membership, whichever works best. Not sure if I’ll be challenge enough, but we can spar in the back yard, or there’s a couple MMA schools around that have open fight-nights we could hit.”

“That would be good,” Cougar murmurs, a little amazed to have all this planned and taken care of for him. “I’ll help with the house again.”

Jake nods and passes the instructions back. “Awesome. Whenever you’re up to it. I’ve got work at the salon from ten to two, three times a week, and I’m watching Sophie from three to six on school days. I’m cutting your hair tomorrow. Non-negotiable.”

Cougar snorts but isn’t really arguing.

Jake grins. “Come on, I have to. Being seen with this mess would be bad for my reputation.”

“Bien,” Cougar agrees, and Jake goes serious again.

“How’re you sleeping? Since you got back?” Cougar’s frown is answer enough to that.

“What do you need?” Jake asks in that too-earnest way of his. Like if Cougar said he needed silk sheets and a gold-plated headboard he’d make it happen. “I can set up another room if you need the space, or I can put the other bed in here…”

“In here,” Cougar says, too damn quick for his pride to take, and Jake nods.

“You look wiped, man. You want to crash out for a while? Am I gonna keep you up if I work on the house some?”

“It’s fine,” Cougar tells him. “Some noise, it’s fine.” Anything is better than the echoing beeps and clangs of the infirmary.

Jake smiles at him, warm and real. “Get some sleep then.” He leaves the room to Cougar and goes to do some work. Cougar falls asleep to the tinny echo of classic rock coming through the walls; the soft thumping and scraping of whatever Jake’s working on is more soothing than it should be.

==================

Cougar wakes as the sky is turning orange, crawls out of bed and shakes himself off. Hungry again, so he goes to find Jake. He follows his ears and finds him working in the living room, working by the light of a leaning lamp as he spackles texture on the wall over the graffiti.

“Cougs,” Jake smiles as he sees him, “Hey, just thinking about dinner. You up for it?”

They get ready and go out. Jake takes him to a restaurant that serves coastal-Mexican cuisine, delicate fish and lime, and Cougar eats more than he had expected to.

Jake drinks a beer with dinner and Cougar drinks water, afraid of embarrassing himself by getting drunk on so little. Jake chooses the wrong time to hit the head and Cougar gets to throw his card on the bill for the first time since they’ve met. Small victories.

After, they go back to Jake’s and Jake brings the second mattress in out of the truck, lays it down a few feet away from Cougar’s spot and sets it up. Close enough to hear each other breathe, far enough that there’s no chance of accidentally touching in the night. Later still, they strip down to boxers and t-shirts and Jake turns out the light and they lie in the dark.

For a long time, Cougar waits for sleep to come. Breathes deep and slow. Calms his heart and feels his body become heavy. He doesn’t sleep though. He can feel himself trying to listen over the hum of the AC, the whoosh of cars on the street outside. Listen for enemies or danger.

“Cougar,” Jake whispers in the dark, “You still awake?”

“Si.”

“What do you need?”

And hell if he knows. He’s still trying to come up with something that’ll help when Jake sighs. He can see the silhouette of the other man shift around on the bed, pull the 9mm out from between the mattress and box springs.

“Move over,” Jake says and Cougar does. Jake settles down on the edge of the bed, his back to the wall where the headboard should be. Gun in his lap. Not touching Cougar, but close. Standing watch even though all the danger is in Cougar’s head.

“Cougar?” Jake whispers again and Cougar makes just enough of a movement to show that he’s still awake. “Your team have your back through whatever the fuck this was?”

“Si.”

“You trust them?”

“With my life.”

“With who you are?” Jake asks, and even though Cougar doesn’t think about himself that way, he knows what Jake means.

“No.”

“Good,” Jake says and sighs with relief.

It’s too much to puzzle out and Cougar is too tired to bother. Jake keeps watch, and Cougar sleeps.

==================

Jake takes him in to work the next morning, and Cougar may have some reservations about letting a sleep-deprived man near his head with scissors, but he mans up and keeps his mouth shut about it, trusting that Jake wouldn’t cut his hair if he didn’t feel capable.

Maybe, just maybe, the temptation of Jake washing his hair again, touching him so gently, is part of what makes him risk it, but damn, it’s worth it, when he’s got his head tipped back and Jake’s fingers massaging over his scalp, grumbling over his split ends and working the conditioning treatment into his hair. If Clay and Roque and Pooch could see him now, there would be no end to the shit they’d give him over it, but it would be worth it still.

Jake finishes squeezing Cougar’s hair out, wraps his head in a towel and helps him to stand. He gets Cougar draped and in the chair and starts in with the comb, picking out the overnight tangles and testing the lay of his part. His hands move quick, precise, competent, and even when Jake’s cutting hair, Cougar can see the soldier he must have been and isn’t anymore.

“The army to…this?” Cougar asks, and Jake’s eyes meet his in the mirror, and he smiles.

Jake’s quiet a moment and Cougar lets it ride.

“So, I was in the Army, and then I wasn’t anymore. Long story. I’ll tell you sometime, but not here, not in my happy place.” He shakes off whatever dark thought accompanies his departure from the military and goes back to fussing with Cougar’s hair, not cutting it yet, just combing it this way and that, seeing how it falls when he drops it. He finally smiles a little and gets his scissors.

“So I was out, and I got my GI Bill money, for school or vocational training or whatever. It wasn’t much, just a couple hundred dollars, and I said to myself ‘Self? What would piss these guys off the most if they knew?’ And I used their money to enroll in beauty school.” That’s so funny and so very Jake that Cougar can’t help but smirk at the idea of it.

He makes a pass over Cougar’s hair, snipping the very end off of each and every hair, section by section. He tests the fall again, pulls the sides down along Cougar’s jaw to compare the symmetry, goes back and cuts some more.

“I’m glad I did,” he says as he pulls the front up, checking to see how the back is growing in, shaping and molding the shorter hairs. “I would have become a hermit, seriously. And I like it. Working with people, making them pretty.” He meets Cougar’s eye in the mirror and honest-to-god winks at him.

He puts away the scissors and shifts the comb to the other hand. Something about the situation is stirring Cougar’s attention. The combination of Jake’s hands and Jake’s voice. The comb against his scalp as Jake draws the hair back from Cougar’s face, ties it back in a small samurai knot at the back of his head. It’s nothing like anything he’s found erotic before, but he does now. Feels heat rising in his cheeks and a tightening in his jeans as his abused body tries to get it up.

“What do you think?” Jake asks and it takes a second for Cougar to get that he means the haircut.

“Gracias,” Cougar says because he has no idea what the criterion for ‘good’ is , or how to judge such a thing. Hair is hair and he’s not sure what the point of the cut was besides making Jake happy. He looks at himself in the mirror, too-thin and less than tough-looking.

Jake grins and drops his hat onto his head.

“Sometime before you leave, you’re taking me dancing, cowboy,” Jake tells him and Cougar smiles and nods. It’s the least he can do.

=======================

Cougar takes Jake’s truck back to the house, stopping by a taquoria truck on the way. Small meals often they say, and the taste of home goes down easier than the weight gain shake mix the doctor gave him. He sits on the curb by the trailer’s propane tank while he eats, listening to the rapid flow of Spanish around him, relaxing as he gets to speak and think in the same language. A girl comes up, too young and her skirt too short. He’s not sure if she’s a hooker or just lonely, but he sends her on her way and thinks about leaving.

A gringo in a white SUV pulls up beside him and asks if he’s looking for work. Offers a hundred dollars a day and lunch. It’s been a long time since Cougar was in a place like this, sixteen and standing with his papi and hoping to be chosen to paint a house or lay a roof. He’s not that boy anymore; he has a rifle and rank but not much else to show for fifteen years of his life. He shakes his head and a young man comes over and talks for a minute with the man before climbing in his truck. Cougar stands and stretches. He feels old as he walks back to Jake’s truck, makes the short drive back to his house.

He naps for a while, Jake’s pistol under his hand. He’ll have to ask Jake if there’s a gun range nearby, but he’s at least a week out from being fit enough to actually fire a weapon. Using his rifles will have to wait until he’s back on base, but he has no worries that a few hours practice will knock the rust off of his skills.

He goes out again and picks Jake up at work at two, and then Jake drives to a school nearby and they wait with all the mini-vans for a little girl in a red dress to run up. Cougar likes seeing what the sight of his niece does for Jake. The way his face lights up as he opens the door and steps out to sweep her into a big hug before sliding her across the truck’s bench seat. She seems to notice the other passenger then, eyes going wide and her little body tensing up and Jake’s voice is gentle when he says “Hey, you remember Cougar. He’s my friend; he’s not scary at all.”

Jake slides in behind the wheel, makes sure everyone is buckled in, and they head off to a local park. The three of them sit in the shade of a live oak tree while Jake and Sophie work through her homework for the day. Cougar leans back with his elbows on the table and watches the dog-walkers and joggers, homeless guys and nannies with their charges. His eyes are heavy and the breeze feels good. Jake’s voice is soft and steady, encouraging and guiding but not giving her the answers. The girl is quieter than Cougar remembers children being, back when he used to visit his family instead of just sending them his checks.

This must be what normal feels like, Cougar thinks to himself. He tries to imagine just being Carlos, tries to imagine who he would be if he had never fled to the military with the hope it could keep him from being queer.

After homework is done, Sophie runs off to play on the slide. Jake turns around on the bench to join Cougar sitting backwards to watch her. “No offense,” he says with a grin, and Cougar raises an eyebrow at him. “For saying you weren’t scary. Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

Cougar snorts and relaxes into the heat of the concrete table at his back. They’ve got an hour left before Teresa gets off of work, and it feels good just to be close to Jake, to be still. He’s surprised when he feels Jake tense beside him, sees him lean forward and frown and stare. There’s a man by the playground, sitting alone at a bench in between the swings and the sand pit. Not messing with anyone, just watching. “Want to take a walk?” Jake asks and whatever play he’s making here, Cougar is in.

They get up and walk. Sophie is still climbing on the jungle-gym and Cougar hopes she isn’t about to see something that negates Jake’s assurance that Cougar’s a good man.

Jake sits down on the bench beside their target, a guy in business slacks, polo shirt, shined shoes. Cougar takes the other side, just a hair too far inside the man’s personal bubble.

“This look like Macy’s?” Jake asks, a low tone in his voice that Cougar hasn’t heard since the night they met.

“What?” the guy asks, color rising up his neck. He looks at Cougar and Cougar glares back at him.

“No window-shopping,” Jake growls. “My niece plays here. I see you here again and I’m breaking your face, you got it?”

The guy nods and scrambles away and Jake stands up to watch him all the way to the parking lot.

“Well, that was fun,” Jake says like it wasn’t at all.

“Who was he?” Cougar asks.

“Registered sex offender,” Jake answers. He stands up and leads the way back to their table. “I keep an eye out on the websites. He’s a little far from home, but I knew him.” He rolls his neck and Cougar winces at the hideous pops and cracks. “Anyway. Teresa made lasagna last night. We can eat there or get it to go.”

It isn’t the change of topic that Cougar would have chosen, but he’ll take it. “I make them nervous,” he says, even though that’s not exactly what Jake asked. He thinks of Teresa, her smiles just a little too tight, Sophia quiet and shy.

“It’s not you.” Jake shakes his head. “There was trouble. With her ex. I had to go up to New England and get them, make sure he understood that it was over when she said it was over. They’d had a rough couple of months before that. They’re just not used to having a guy that isn’t me around the house again. They’ll be okay.”

Cougar’s lips quirk into a smile. “We‘ll eat there then. She has plates.”

Jake laughs and smacks his arm. “Ouch! Is that how you repay my hospitality?”

They watch Sophie play for a while and then head back to the truck. They eat dinner with the family, and it’s less tense than the last time, so Jake must be right about the cause.

As he’s closing his eyes to sleep that night, Cougar wonders if this is how it always is, life away from the army.

If it wasn’t for Jake sitting awake with the pistol in his hand, Cougar could almost pretend it had always been his life.

=================

“Just until I sleep,” Cougar had told Jake the night before. “You must rest also.”

So he’s a little surprised to wake up to the patter of Jake’s fingers on the keyboard, the light outside blue and hazy with early morning fog.

“What are you doing?” he grumbles. Jake’s face is lit by the computer screens. He doesn’t look like he’s been to bed at all. The 9mm sits on the edge of the desk.

“Want to see something cool?” Jake asks, and Cougar hopes to god it isn’t porn as he stands up and comes over to stand behind Jake’s chair. Not that he has anything against porn, it would just make things awkward between them.

Jake glances back and grins. “Okay so here,” he clicks the mouse and a picture of the guy from the park comes up on the left-most monitor. “This is our friend Ralph. Say hi, Ralph! From the sex offender’s registry, I’ve got name and address. Here is the driver’s license office. I added a back door to their system like a year ago that they haven’t found yet. With that, I can get here, to a background check. Current employer, social security number.”

Cougar thinks he’s following it all. Not how Jake can do this, just that he has.

“Why?” he asks and Jake’s lip curls in something that is not a smile.

“Fucking pervert, coming around the park where I bring my niece? People like that don’t deserve nice things.” He presses some keys and one of the screens goes crazy, forms popping up, filling themselves and disappearing again. “This sweet little program will fill out credit card applications for him. How many, you ask? All of them. Mailing addresses randomized over Ssouth Dallas to make sure they get used. I mean, not that he’ll be approved for all of them, but some of these banks have huge annual fees, they’ll give a card to anyone. Just the applications will tank his credit rating by about a hundred points. Take months of work for him to sort it out, if he ever does.”

Cougar sighs and puts his hands on Jake’s shoulders, feels Jake’s muscles tight under his palms. Not that he can’t understand the sentiment, he just hates to see Jake this stressed and tense. He skims the information on this Ralph. His victim was a twelve year old boy. Cougar is no expert on such things, but he seems little danger to a young girl.

“I’ll keep an eye on this one,” Jake says. “He’s on my fuck-with list to visit again.” He looks back at Cougar, blue eyes red-rimmed by lack of sleep. “Those guys who fucked with you last time. My old unit. Couple others. They are never going to buy a house or get a prime interest rate on a car. Never get a job that needs a security clearance or clean credit.”

“Jake,” Cougar sighs, because he hates the idea of him getting this upset over what happened in that alley. He wonders if tracking them down was what he was doing the time Cougar startled him and Jake pulled a gun on him. “Come lay down. I’ll take watch this time.”

Jake’s head sags between his shoulders, stretching out his back. The strong line of his neck is right there and Cougar scrapes his blunt nails over the base of his scalp, where the blond hairs are so short. He’s never touched another man this way. Intimate and gentle.

“Fuck,” Jake groans and it doesn’t sound sexual at all. Just tired beyond words. He clicks a few keys and shuts down some programs. Cougar helps him to his feet and over to bed. By his calculations Jake’s at least forty hours up, Sunday morning to Tuesday’s dawn; knowing Jake’s erratic sleep, it may be more.

Jake flops down on the bed, still in boxers and t-shirt and Cougar tosses a sheet over his back. He gets the firearm off of the computer desk, flicks on the safety and then he sits on the other bed, knowing Jake doesn’t want to be touched in his sleep. He watches, listens, but Jake’s breathing doesn’t even out, his shoulders don’t relax. All worked up from fighting people that aren’t even in the room.

“Cougs,” he falters. “I can’t…”

“What do you need?” Cougar asks, giving to Jake what Jake has given to him.

“I’m sorry,” Jake says, “I need you to leave. I…it’s not you. They…I was asleep. I thought I was safe. I thought they needed my skills even if they didn’t like me all that much.”

Cougar has never wanted to touch a man so much in his life, but Jake looks like he might break if he did. He’s putting up a brave front, stretched out on his side, one hand resting on his stomach. His eyes are closed too tight though, his shoulders too tense.

“Your unit?” Cougar whispers into the pre-dawn light.

Jake nods. His voice is a whisper. “There was a guy. In my unit. I thought he was into me. Thought he was flirting back. I woke up with them pulling a bag over my head.” Jake’s eyes open and he stares at the far wall. “Beat the shit out of me. They…” he pauses so long that Cougar thinks he’s just going to leave the story there. “They hurt me real bad, Cougs. They really did. I lost two teeth. They kicked me so hard they ruptured one of my testicles. And. They tore me up. Pushed a beer bottle...” Cougar breathes slow and steady. Pulse rate dropping for the kill-shot. There must be records of this, or rumors, no matter if a few years have passed since, but there is no way for him to ask anyone but Jake without exposing himself to the risk of losing everything.

He understands Jake’s fuck-with list a little more because he now has one of his own, he just doesn’t have the names yet.

“It was never gonna change. They would have killed me. Code Red or friendly fire. I fucking crawled halfway to the infirmary before anybody even helped me.” The naked shame in Jake’s voice makes Cougar’s chest tight, his fingers grip the stock of the gun.

“They gave me Other than Honorable and I took it.”

“Jake,” Cougar whispers. “Jake, there was nothing to be gained by staying.”

Jake’s breath hitches and Cougar tucks the gun between the mattress and the wall and goes to him. Takes a slow breath because if Jake comes up fighting, he’s in no shape to defend himself. He puts a hand on Jake’s shoulder and he’s cold, trembling, jaw clenched tight as he struggles against the tears and the memories.

“Don’t…don’t go,” Jake says, words forced through closed teeth. Shamed by his need as much as by his past. He rolls over and crawls closer as Cougar sits down, wraps an arm tight around Cougar’s hips and presses his face in against Cougar’s bare thigh. He doesn’t cry and he doesn’t sleep, not for a long time. Others must know, but Cougar wonders if he’s the first who has heard the story from Jake’s lips.

Cougar closes his eyes and slides his fingers through Jake’s short hair and mourns his friend’s pain, mourns the soldier he could have been. He wishes he could say that they were one bad group but he doesn’t know. He couldn’t imagine Clay and Roque and Pooch turning on him, but he doesn’t know that for sure.

“Mi querido,” he soothes, his voice strange around a tone he never has a use for. “Sleep. I will guard you, I swear. I like you. I will not hurt you.”

“Was tough as any of them, Cougs,” Jake mumbles, “God-damn special forces and everything an’ they fucked me.”

“Hush,” Cougar tells him. “Sleep,” and Jake does.