Losers fic: Field of Stone 2/3
Jun. 6th, 2012 12:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyjanellyTitle: Field of Stone 2/3
Author: LadyJanelly
Fandom: The Losers
Charcters/Pairing: Jensen/Cougar, Clay, Roque, Pooch
Word Count: ~23,500
Rated: Adult
Summary: AU world, where mutants are enslaved, and The Losers just got assigned a new sniper
Influences: X-men, Push, Star Trek TOS, Dark Angel
Warnings: brief suicidal thoughts, Mentions of past non-con, attempted non-con, dub-con, violence, Stockholm syndrome, involuntary drug addiction, withdrawal, rimming, child peril, no major character death,
Notes: Enormous thanks to Peaceful_sands and trishabooms for the cheerleading and support, and to Peaceful_sands for her beta skills. All remaining errors are mine, probably added at the last minute. Fic is completed, to be posted in 3 parts as final edits are done.
Title from this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1onW7xe4SE (The Johnny Cash cover makes it seem a little more appropriate for these tough boys)
Cougar pays as much attention to the briefing as any of the others and more than Jensen, Clay is glad to see. Sharp eyes memorize the satellite photos, evaluate angles and elevations. “We’ll give you a twenty minute head-start to move around the south side of the camp over to position here,” Clay says, indicating a rise in the rocks overlooking the objective camp, two hundred yards from the razor wire and chain link fence. The landscape was all once farmland, given over to scraggly brush and pitiful trees. “There will probably be a guard up in there somewhere. You’ve got clearance to do whatever you need to to clear your way. You should have line of sight here, through to here. Hold off until we’re spotted before you start shooting and then cover us. Once we’re inside, churn as much chaos into the situation as you can.”
The sniper nods and Clay is sure he understood. He studies the map, the five buildings and a radio tower that make up the combat zone.
“Roque, Jensen and I are going to evade the perimeter guard if we can, eliminate them if we can’t, come in through the North and out South towards you. We may need you to punch us a back door on the way out if we’re runnin’ hot. Pooch picks us up here and we all go home.”
Jensen is fucking with his hand-held computer-thing, but Clay knows better than to call him on it, knows the kid would be able to quote back the entire briefing word for word.
“The objective, the main objective, is to get Jensen in there before they can figure out they’re hosed and blow the main computer. There should be files on their organization. Names, plans, the location of other training camps. This is valuable information. Jensen sweet-talks their system, grabs the data. If we’re already shooting by that time, we take as many of them down as we conveniently can on our way out of Dodge.”
It should have been that easy. It should have been clean in and out.
Instead, Clay is looking South across the camp through his night vision goggles and there’s a fucking building in the middle of the clear center yard that his sniper was supposed to shoot down. Fuck, probably painted up the roof to look like dirt and weeds. He hates it when the bad guys get creative. Hates it when intel is this fucked up.
“Cougar?” he asks into the throat mic.
“Moving,” the mutant answers. “Secondary location,” even though Clay hasn’t given him one. “I can cover the South-east angle.”
Radio-tower then, Clay thinks. Inside the perimeter. And that’s a shitty, shitty spot for a sniper. Once the shooting starts, he’ll be too exposed, just the struts and cross-bars to guard him and even a lucky shot from a pistol could end him.
“Sixty seconds,” Cougar tells them. He has to already be inside then. Already at risk, clearly willing to do his part.
“You watch yourself,” Clay orders. “When we get parallel to you, I want you on the ground and running.”
“Yes, sir,” Cougar replies and they can do this.
Clay gives the signal and Roque cuts the fence, holds back the chain link while Jensen shimmies through, assault rifle in hand, covering them as Clay pushes through and then Roque. Somehow they’re lucky enough that they don’t hit resistance until they’re in the building that was supposed to be the headquarters but looks to be a garage instead. A mechanic runs up on them with an oversize wrench in his hand and Roque plants a knife in his chest. Clean. Quiet.
“New building,” Clay orders and they move that direction, covering each other as they go around corners. They move around the south-east side and Clay looks up. Night-vision is great, but he can’t see the sniper. Hopes to God he’s where he said he would be and the three of them aren’t walking into a dead end.
They move towards the door to the new building, and there’s a crack from his left and up and a body falls out of a shadow behind them. “Go!” shouts Clay and Roque hits the door, weapon firing.
“Clear!” calls Roque and Jensen rolls around him.
“Got it,” Jensen says into the radio. Must have found the room they want. Clay ducks inside the door. Listens to the intermittent firing of the sniper rifle.
“Roque, I’m gonna need you,” Clay says.
“Go,” comes Jensen’s voice. “I’ll watch my back. Two minutes, tops.”
Clay listens for the lull in firing, for Cougar to run out of targets or bullets. For the enemy to realize that the guys with assault rifles are nowhere near the danger to them that the sniper is. They’ll regroup. At least four, maybe more of them and they’ll rush him at once and shoot him out of his perch.
Right on time, he sees movement under the scant cover between buildings. “Here they come,” he says and moves to intercept, to shoot them down before they can get up under the tower. He hears Roque firing three-round bursts, Cougar’s single precision shots. Takes down two himself.
And then it’s over. He looks up at the tower and sees Cougar braced in a cross-point forty feet up, leg locked around one of the bars, arms free. He’s got the rifle, that damn hat that Jensen gave him, the ever-present collar, and not a damn stitch of clothing on him anywhere. No night-vision, no flack-vest, no god-damn boots.
A door bangs open on one of the buildings and three sights turn that way but nobody fires. Just a kid, maybe sixteen, wide-eyed and bare-handed. Staring in shock at the bodies and then he starts to scream and the wind twists, spinning a circle on the ground at his feet.
“Mutant!” Clay yells and fires, but the wind is a miniature tornado now, the roar of it muting out his voice. He shoots again, knows the others are too, but it doesn’t matter. The tornado pushes towards the tower and the metal whines as the force of the wind hits it. The whole structure sways and Cougar has to grab on to keep from being thrown out. The sniper rifle clacks its way down, bouncing off the structure and then lost in the wind.
And then Jensen is out with them, running up between Clay and Roque, rifle slung across his back. “Grenade!” he shouts and pitches one like god-damn major league baseball, right into the thing. There’s a boom and then a sudden deafening stillness.
A low groan in the air turns to a shriek of metal giving way. The tower starts to lean and Clay’s stomach goes sideways because he has a man up there that he can’t help in any way. He looks up to see Cougar untangling himself from the bars he’d been clinging to a second ago. Then he kicks off of the tower, jumping hard to clear the base of it. One second there’s a naked man and the next it’s a lithe cat, arching for landing, feet out and spine bowed up.
Cat or not, a forty-foot fall is no fucking joke and Cougar hits hard, smacking the ground with a ‘whump’ that makes Clay flinch and he stays crouched where he landed like he’s doing inventory to figure how much that hurt. Head down, ears flat against his head. Jensen steps forward like he’s gonna go pet the nice kitty and Clay and Roque both grab him before he can get his face bitten off.
The tower crumples to the ground in a crash of metal and cloud of dust and then everything is quiet. Roque covers the buildings, but if anybody is still alive there, they’ve decided not to come out and visit.
“Cougar, you with us?” Clay asks.
The cat shudders and flicks the tufted black tip of its tail. Nods its head once, like it takes intense concentration to make so human a gesture, and then it limps towards the south fence, leading them out of this cluster-fuck and towards Pooch’s extraction point. Away from the boy’s shattered body and the bits of the rifle Jensen and Cougar had worked so hard to acquire.
“Holy shit,” Jensen murmurs as he follows him out.
“Let’s move it, Losers,” Clay barks and they pick it up to a brisk jog.
======================
Cougar takes point through the scrub-land, four-footed and so perfect for the environment that even with night vision, Jensen still loses sight of him a time or two. He hurries to keep up, Clay at his heels and Roque covering their backs.
The cowboy hat he won for Cougar dangles from the lanyard around the big cat’s neck, and he wants to take it off of him before he gets tangled, trips and chokes on it, but he doesn’t dare. The time he tried, he’d gotten a seriously scary show of teeth and a growling hiss that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
He knows it’s easier for Cougar this way. That it would be hell walking barefoot and buck-naked through this mess, but if he would, then Jensen could see that he’s alright, that he’s not walking on broken bones or hiding a concussion.
The blocky silhouette of the Humvee rises ahead of them and Jensen picks up the pace a little more. The interior glows green in his goggles, all the little lights amplified. Doors open, Pooch ready for a hot exit. The cat hits a low lope, dashing the last few yards and then out of the brush and into the transport. Pooch swears and flails and Jensen would laugh except that Pooch is pulling his side-arm.
“Wait,” he says, knowing Pooch can hear him over the comms. “Just Cougar, man.”
“Jesus Christ,” Pooch swears, hand on his chest.
Jensen ditches most of his gear into the far seat and looks for Cougar. The cat has climbed over the seats, back behind them and in amongst the cases of equipment, in the highest spot he can find and still be behind stuff. All Jensen can see of him is the flicking tip of his tail and the light reflected off of his eyes. He pulls off the goggles and can see even less.
“Some light back here?” he calls and Pooch flicks the switch and the overhead comes on, weak and yellow in its protective cage on the ceiling, the world suddenly flat after the green contours of night vision. Roque swears and takes his goggles off, Clay tells him he’s getting old and slow.
“Cougs,” Jensen calls, soft and gentle. “I need you to come out of there and shift for me, man. I need to get a look at you, make sure you’re not fucked up.”
The cat hisses at him and Jensen frowns. A hurt kitty is a pissy kitty.
Reluctantly, he takes out the controller. “Shhh,” he soothes when the cat hisses again. “Not gonna hurt you.” He presses the reward button. It doesn’t look like it did anything, so he pushes it again.
“That better?” he asks. He’s not sure what they’re using in it, but anything that triggers the pleasure centers must distract from pain at least. He climbs over the seat and moves some gear around to make room for his ass. He sets aside some of the cases that the cat was hiding behind and gets a better look. And god, he’s spent the past week being very careful not to pay too much attention to how beautiful Cougar is, and his cat-form is just as magnificent, if not more so. He’s not any creature that exists in nature, Jensen knew that from the file. Longer through the body than an African lion, broader head. Facial markings almost like a cheetah, stark tears that never dry. Dark tufts stand up at the points of his ears and the sides of his jaw, the tip of his tail. Short tan fur elsewhere, except for the faint shadows of stripes over his shoulders. There’s something primordial about him, like he’s the ancestor of all cats.
Slow, slow, Jensen reaches out. His hand shakes, adrenaline crash in the aftermath of the fight, or just because those teeth are so damn big, he’s not sure. The cat meets him halfway, leaning to sniff his fingers and then nuzzle into them. Jensen can feel the purr more than hear it, and he thinks he should maybe not have hit that button twice. “You are so very high,” he murmurs and he cannot stop himself from scritching behind those soft ears when Cougar turns his head into it. He slips the hat string off of the cat’s throat and sets it safely aside.
“This is good and all,” he says, “Not-biting my hand off is good, because I need both of those, but I need you to do me a favor and shift back to Carlos. I need to make sure you’re okay and I’m not exactly a vet, you know?”
The cat huffs at him, turns away and shivers, skin twitching as he shifts, fur receding and body changing. It’s slower than it had been falling off of the tower, and Jensen’s stomach tries to rebel at the sight.
Then Cougar is there on the pile of boxes, and Jensen really should have planned this a little better because he’s naked and high and pliant and a bump in the road rolls him off of the boxes and into Jensen’s lap. “Fuck,” he swears and there’s nowhere he can touch that isn’t warm skin. Cougar looks up at him, dazed brown eyes more open and trusting than Jensen knows he would ever be if he wasn’t drugged up.
“Can I get a blanket back here?” he yells and Clay and Roque both look back at the near panic in his voice.
“He need emergency evac?” Clay asks and Jensen shakes his head.
“Not sure yet, don’t think so.” Roque passes him the blanket from the first aid and Jensen tucks it over all the nudity. Cripes, that image is gonna linger.
“Cougar, you gotta tell me if you’re hurt somewhere,” he says. Cougar shakes his head, a slow grin spreading across his lips.
“No hurt.”
Fuck, that’s not useful. “Come on, man, were you hurt before I dosed you? Before the reward?” He finds a penlight in his vest and checks Cougar’s eyes for a concussion. He knows basic field medicine, but he’s no fucking medic, has always been careful to never be the medic.
“Sore,” Cougar admits, “Not injured.”
Jensen can’t find anything obviously wrong, no swelling, pupils equal and responsive, no place that Cougar seems hurt when he touches it. Not that it’s easy to check with Cougar still on his lap, but still.
“I think we’re clear,” Jensen announces and settles back, Cougar’s weight on top of him, warm where the flack-vest isn’t separating them. The dark eyes close, lashes long and soft against Cougar’s cheeks. Jensen should sleep; it’s another four hours until they get to the safe house, but he finds himself just holding Cougar, feeling him breathe, making sure his assessment was right and he’s not bleeding internally.
Pooch turns off the back light and the night falls quiet.
=========================
The empty milk jug bangs against the back of his legs with every step, sand and gravel crunch under his sneakers. Heat rises up from the ground, baked hot all day by the sun. Behind them, one of the women stumbles in the dark. Nobody talks, not after walking half of the night. Not this close to the border.
The coyote makes a soft whistle ahead of them, and they stop, those with family huddle close to each other, those without crouch alone in the dark.
“It is too late to cross tonight,” the coyote whispers when he gets back to them. “I will hide you, in small groups until nightfall, and then take you over a few at a time.”
Nobody is happy to hear that, but they’ve come too far to turn around. The coyote scatters the groups, a few here at a patch of scrub, another couple behind a rock. Small patches that will be shade come daytime.
“Rest,” he tells them as he leaves Papi and Carlos under a twisted mesquite. They sit and wait. Sip from Papi’s gallon of water as the sun comes up hot and dry overhead. Carlos has given up on praying, but Papi’s lips move in another Hail Mary.
The sun goes down and nobody comes. “We must wait,” Papi says when Carlos becomes restless. They wait, and the sky becomes light again.
“Carlos,” Papi says when the sun is up. “The gato is stronger than the boy.” And so Carlos lets himself slide back, lets the gato come up and stretch.
The sun goes down again and Papi stands up. “We must cross alone,” he says, and even being caught is better than dying in the desert. Carlos can lead him, can follow the path of two-day-old footprints to where the coyote split them up. He follows the coyote’s scent to another of the hiding places, and from there north, through narrow gullies and over rough ground. They cross water, and Papi refills the jugs there.
Once, a helicopter thrums overhead. Papi huddles in the scant shadow of a scrub and Carlos crouches low in the open, hoping his stripes hide him, hoping they are looking for people and not little gatos shaking with fear.
When the lights have faded they move again. North, always north, until there is a little town, and Carlos changes back, walks on two legs again. They buy food there, and hear that they have made it to Texas.
========================
Cougar sleeps to the hum of the motor, the rocking and rattling of the worn road beneath them. He sleeps to the sweet buzz of reward in his system, making everything soft around the edges, soothing his aches and distracting him from his worries. He falls asleep, knowing he’s lying on top of Jensen but it doesn’t seem to matter much.
He wakes up in the sudden stillness of the engine being turned off, to a body pressed against him, the feeling of being naked and tangled and he fights before he can stop himself, jack-knifing his body and thrashing against his bonds. His head hits something solid and Jensen swears. “Fuck! Cougs! Cougar! You’re okay. Jesus, I think you broke my nose.”
The back door swings open and the gato in him is snarling before Cougar can crush it down. Clay just stares at Cougar, then turns and looks over at Jensen holding his bloody face.
“Jensen, stop fucking around and get in the safe-house. Cougar, come on in when you’re ready.”
Cougar nods, coughs out a “Yessir,” and he won’t wait long. Better to take his punishment (and he’s more than earned it, Dios, Jensen is bleeding) as soon as he can. The Losers have been good to him. More than fair, and he wonders if Clay will use the collar or take a more hands-on approach.
Clay digs a change of clothes out of one of the cases and leaves it on top of the box, telling Cougar with a glance at his blanket that those are for him.
Jensen shuffles around and climbs out of the truck, one last look over his shoulder that Cougar can’t decipher, hands covering his nose and eyes watering.
“Let me see that,” Clay says, and then Jensen is howling “God damn it, that hurts! Warn a guy next time, mother fuck!”
Alone, Cougar takes the time to breathe, to stuff the gato back until it’s not trying to eat anyone. Fighting will not help this. He’s learned that lesson over and over and over. Stiff and sore, he pulls on the clothes. Pooch’s things, they smell like his sweat and engine oil and the base’s laundry soap.
Barefoot, he crosses the short distance to where the team has gone, the side door of an old barn. Slips in quiet. They must have heard the door; heads turn his way and then they ignore him again. The barn is mostly empty, an ancient tractor with its tires rotted to the ground along one side, stacks of broken hay bales on the other, a ladder up to a loft near the center.
Jensen’s already got a laptop open, some sort of headset on. His nose has been taped and the beginnings of a pair of spectacular bruises are starting to shadow under his eyes. He’s smiling though, “Hey Kara, how’s my best sister? Yeah? That’s awesome. Huh, no, just allergies. You wouldn’t believe the pollen here.”
Cougar sits down against the wall, waiting for him to finish his call before he bothers Clay, before raised voices might interrupt Jensen’s family time. He rarely screams during his punishments, but Clay may shout. He tries not to eavesdrop, but the joy in Jensen’s voice is impossible to ignore, as he chats with his sister, her day, her job, renovations they’re doing on her house.
“Lay-Lay there?” Jensen asks, and then laughs. “Sorry, you’re Elaina now? Jeeze, a kid turns eight and suddenly she’s too good for her uncle Jake.” They talk for just as long as Jensen had with his sister, about soccer games and science fairs and Cougar thinks of his own sisters, Ofelia’s children that have never even met him, and wonders what his life would have been without the gato.
Finally Jensen says his goodbyes and breaks the connection. “I’m gonna…go see if it’s inhabitable up in the loft,” he announces to the room. He looks Cougar’s way but his expression is just as unreadable as it had been in the Humvee.
Better with him further away, Cougar thinks. One less witness to his pain and humiliation. He stalks over to where Clay and Roque are sitting, Clay pecking at a laptop with two fingers and Roque cleaning knives.
Clay looks a little puzzled as Cougar makes himself bend, one knee touching the ground, hands fisted at his sides. “Something I can help you with?” he asks and Cougar never thought he was a cruel man, to make Cougar say the words.
“Get it over with,” he growls. Fighting, still, knowing it’s a mistake to antagonize the man before his punishment and unable to stop himself. Not his place to decide when or how but he’s gonna be sick with the waiting if Clay doesn’t release him from the horrible anticipation. Pushing, maybe making it worse, but making it sooner too so the trade-off is one he can live with.
The steady scrape-scrape of Roque’s knife on the whetstone stills and Cougar can imagine his eyebrow creeping up.
“What is it I’m supposed to be doing?” Clay asks, half annoyed and half perplexed.
“Punishment,” Cougar answers and soon, it’ll be soon and then it’ll be over and he can curl up and lick his wounds.
Clay huffs out a laugh, but it sounds more sad than amused and Cougar breaks form to look up at him. Clay shakes his head, runs a hand over his stubble. He gestures up to the loft where Jensen disappeared. “For what, for that?”
Cougar swallows and nods. Maybe Clay wants to be sure he understands what he’s done wrong. “Si. For striking a soldier. For injuring a teammate.”
“No,” Clay says, firm and sure and Cougar isn’t sure exactly what else he’s done wrong.
“And for losing assigned equipment.”
Clay sighs and leans forward, elbows on his knees as he looks Cougar in the eye.
“No, I mean no punishment. We had a shit mission with shit intel, and we pulled it off without a single casualty, all because of you. If the worst I have to report is that Corporal Jensen got hit by a rifle butt turning a corner and some gear got misplaced, believe me, I’m happy to write that report.”
“You think any of us has no problems with sleep?” Roque asks, “I wake up with Jensen that close to my face and he’d have a hell of a lot worse than a bloody nose.”
“Go find a place to crash,” Clay tells him, “You’ve got third watch.”
=========================
Jensen finds a pile of hay in the loft and throws his bedroll out on it. It smells like dust and rats but he’s had worse, and he needs a night of distance, a chance to get his head on straight. To acknowledge that what he feels about the situation is maybe not at all what Cougar feels. That maybe they aren’t friends, that Cougar may just be avoiding conflict and doing his job.
Looking back, Jensen can admit he was out of line. That cuddling the sniper while he was high and injured was not the best plan he’s ever made.
What he’s not sure of, is what the hell to do about it, how to make amends, how to regain Cougar’s trust (if he even had it in the first place). It’s not like he can give him a lot of room. They’re gonna be up in each other’s space all the time, there’s just no help for it. He wishes he’d been able to tell Kara about this, to get his sister’s opinion, but she needs reminders about what they are, what they could be if they follow their mother’s footsteps, even less than he does, and he can’t bring it up.
He should sleep, but between the pain in his face and the circles his brain is turning, he’s still awake when Clay pops his head up and tells him it’s his watch. “Cougar after you,” Clay says, and smirks, “You think you can wake him up without losing an eye?”
“Ha ha,” Jensen mutters. “I am never hearing the end of this, am I?” But Clay’s already climbing down.
He takes his watch, awake and listening, making a few patrols around the outside of the barn when he gets too tired to be alert. He wakes Cougar up from four feet away, hissing his name until he wakes up. “Your watch,” he says, and Cougar just nods and gets up. Jensen climbs the ladder back to his bedroll, and this time he’s tired enough to sleep.
He dreams of dark eyes and a soft mouth under his lips, of sharp hipbones in his hands and strong, calloused hands stroking him.
He wakes to the soft whispers of someone walking across the scattered hay, opens his eyes to a view of Cougar’s bare feet just out of arm’s reach. A shiver dances down his spine, a tingle of fear and arousal making him twitch in a way he’s not sure he likes.
“Cougs?” he asks in the near-dark. And Cougar just — folds. Goes to his knees with his hands in his lap. Jensen can see the muscles along his jaw jumping with the strain, nostrils flared and eyes turned careful to the floor.
“You would not need the restraints,” Cougar says like they’re already in the middle of a conversation. “If you wanted to fuck,” he adds, annoyed like Jensen’s the one who isn’t keeping up and he should. And god, Jensen’s hard already, from the dream, and Cougar right there and so beautiful. He’s trying to be a decent guy about this but if there was any glimmer of attraction in Cougar’s face it would be impossible for him to say no. Part of him is almost glad that there’s no sign that Cougar wants this, wants him.
"If I thought this was just about post-combat horniness, I'd totally suggest you fuck me instead," he says, and it may not be the best thing he could have blurted out, but it’s honest and still a no. The last thing he expects is for Cougar to look at him, to have a spark of warmth in his eyes, curiosity, shock, the glimmer of desire.
The flare of want lasts less than a second and then Cougar grits his teeth. “I cannot. It—the reward. I am not able.”
“Holy shit,” Jensen breathes, because he can’t even imagine. “Not ever? For how long?”
“Damn you!” Cougar spits. “Fuck me or punish me or send me away.”
Jensen’s heart pounds. Fear. Something else. “Cougs, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Why would you want that?”
“I broke your nose,” Cougar growls, “I lost the rifle. You are…the first to be kind. I will not have you angry at me.”
“I’m not angry at you,” Jensen says, soft, soothing. “I’m not pissed. It was an accident, none of that was your fault. You think I’d rather it was you smashed to bits on that tower?”
It occurs to Jensen that the easy thing, the quickest, would be to do what Cougar’s asking for in his own fucked up way. To punish him. A few quick pushes of a button and they could be back to what they were. Except Jensen would always know what he’d done. That he’d hurt a good man because it was easier than talking.
Cougar’s shoulders hunch in tighter and Jensen wishes he was better with words, better at knowing what to say. “Hey,” he murmurs and rests his hand on Cougar’s shoulder, fully expecting to have it shaken off. Cougar relaxes under his touch instead, leans in an infinitesimal amount towards Jensen. Touch-starved, lonely and probably realizing he nearly died today.
Petting is probably the best word for what Jensen does then. He pets Cougar’s hair back from his face, strokes his hands down between his shoulder-blades. “Here,” he says and scoots back to make room on his blanket. He’s not sure why it works, but Cougar shuffles over and sits, and after a few minutes of Jensen’s slow touches, he lies down. Stiff, yes, and awkward, but they stretch out together and eventually they sleep.
===========================
He is twelve, just another little Mexican child in an elementary school half-full of them. Dark eyes and dark wavy hair, painfully thin and shy with his smiles. A quiet boy, never drawing attention to himself, never making trouble. Mediocre grades, average at sports.
He is a careful boy. He keeps the gato tight inside his chest, even when a bully shoves him, even when the girls laugh at him, even when the teacher sighs in exasperation at him “Carlos, we’ve been over this, are you paying attention?” He tries, he does, but there is so much else going on, so many scents and sounds, other teachers in other rooms, dancing motes of chalk dust so pretty in the air. And the gato. Always the gato, wanting to come out, wanting to play, to catch the loose thread on Teacher’s sleeve, to hide under the desks, to leave this place and run and climb and never come back.
It is the last day before Easter vacation and the restlessness of the other children crawls under his skin, and he looks out of the window instead of at the chalk board. He’s watching as he sees the black vans pull up, men with guns and a tall guy in a collar, hands bound and weaving drunkenly.
One of the runners from the principal’s office brings Teacher a note and she straightens. “Class? It looks like we have a surprise assembly today!” Her smile is fake and her scent full of fear.
Carlos shakes as the children all line up. He leaves his book bag at his desk and puts himself in the last half of the line and when the class moves down the hallway and out of the building, heading for the gym, he turns and runs. Behind him Teacher shouts his name, but he doesn’t go back, can’t go back. He strips off his clothes and lets the gato free, claws grabbing as he climbs a tree and out onto a branch and drops down outside of the school’s fence.
He runs then, hiding when he can but desperate to get home, to his Papi, so they can run again, to a new town, a new school.
He hears the voice on the megaphone before he sees home, “Carlos Alvarez,” the man calls, “You must turn yourself in. We have your father.”
He leaps from the hood of a car, to the top of a wall and up onto the roof of a house, terrified of being taken but not able to leave his father. He looks down on the scene, the black vans at his house now, the men with guns. His father on his knees on their little patch of yard, hands behind his head.
The man with the megaphone turns towards him, spots him there against the sky. “It will all be okay,” he says, “If you turn yourself in, everything will be okay. Your father won’t be beaten. He won’t be arrested. He won’t go to jail, he won’t be deported. Come down now, Carlos.”
And there is nothing else he can do. He slides to the edge of the roof and drops down, tail flicking as he forces himself to take each step. His fur bristles and he wants to fight, to bite and claw. A little closer, he just has to get a little closer.
There’s a soft pop to the left and a sting against his shoulder, another on the right bites above his hip. He bites at empty air and his head is becoming heavy, too heavy to hold up, his paws too heavy to lift and he’s falling, falling forever .
===========
Clay has put a commendation on Cougar’s record for his performance on their first mission together, and as a reward they add a second familial visit for the year. Three days after they land, a pair of officers from requisitions come for him. They take the controller from Jensen, and Cougar tries not to meet the young tech’s worried gaze as he’s led away in shackles. He tries to look unafraid even though his stomach twists at being taken from them, from his team. He can recognize this trust he has in them as dangerous, a weakness that could break him, he just has no way to stop himself
The guards sedate him only mildly. The logistics of the visit are complicated enough that they want to be sure he remembers it, that wanting another visit has power over him.
The room they lead him to is plain. White walls, three chairs, one table. A mirrored window along one side, door on the other. A ring in the floor that they fasten his chains to. He sits. Waits. It seems like a long time until at last the door opens and his parents are rushing to him, his mother taking his face in her cool hands and kissing his cheek, his Papi hugging tight around his shoulders, both of them overcome with joy and relief and sorrow to see him like this.
It hurts, his mother’s tears, his father’s apologies, always blaming himself for Carlos’ capture.
They tell him the family news. Both of his nephews are in junior high now; his niece has had her quinceañera. All the things he has missed, and that hurts too.
It is only an hour that they stay, but after, he is glad of the quiet of the room as he puts his face in his hands and cries, not caring who may watch through the one-way glass.
=========================
Clay takes Cougar’s visit with his parents as an opportunity to talk to Jensen about his progress on the collar without a chance of the mutant overhearing them.
“Here’s what I’ve got,” Jensen starts, and Clay braces himself for a torrent of jargon.
“Controller talks to collar, collar delivers the dose and then tells the controller that it has. The controller talks to the wireless on any military base or mobile command and updates the files on what Cougar has been given, when, how much, where, everything.”
Clay nods. “Following you so far. So this thing is reporting to command the details of how we’re micro-managing the asset.”
“Right. The controller does most of the communication because it’s easier to change out batteries. The collar is mostly passive, listening. There’s a tracker in there, but I haven’t seen it active, even when we were out of the country. I’m guessing the brass assumes everything is fine as long as the controller is getting regular ping-backs from the collar.”
“What of all that can we get around, should the need arise?”
Jensen rakes a hand through his spiky hair. “I can use a scrambler so when the controller gives the collar a command, the collar can’t ‘hear’ it. And then I can spoof back a reply as if the collar has done what it was told to. It’s not a perfect system, but it keeps our business our business.”
“You have some change in mutant-handling protocol in mind?”
Jensen pauses and looks down at his hands and Clay has rarely seen him quieted like that. “I think having him fucked up on drugs isn’t good for him or us,” he says at last. “I think the appreciation we’d gain from letting him kick if he wants to would gain us his respect. I think he’d be more valuable to us in the field.”
Clay mulls it over, wonders again if Jensen isn’t getting too close to the sniper. “I’ll talk to Roque,” he promises, although his gut is saying the tech is right, that Cougar’s performance, his ability, could only be enhanced if his head is clear all the time.
“Go walk the requisition guys back with Cougar,” he orders Jensen, “I don’t like what happens when he’s out of Loser sight.”
Later, when he talks to Roque about the situation, the SiC agrees with Jensen’s evaluation.
It’s four months later though, before they get the down-time to try it. In the meantime they go on missions and solidify Cougar’s place in the team, Clay fending off requests to borrow him while Roque runs them through drills and Pooch puts together a kit of what Cougar actually needs for the missions as opposed to what the rest of them carry — what helps him out and what just weighs them down.
When the time comes, two weeks before their next scheduled action and another week if the whole team gets some convenient food poisoning, he’s almost reluctant to go through with it, to risk shaking up the near-perfection that they’ve become.
=======================
Cougar groans, feels like his body is tearing itself apart from the inside out. Like shifting into the gato while bound from shoulders to ankles, muscles burning and his voice hoarse from screaming. The sick agony of it goes on and on, like punishment from the collar without end, without rest.
He writhes on the cool tiles of the showers and Jensen lays a wet towel on his forehead. And Dios, if he had known, when Jensen had told him Clay had approved getting him clear of the addiction but it was Cougar’s choice to do it or not, if he had known how much it would hurt, how many days he would be throwing up and sweating and cramping, he would have said no, he would have killed himself rather than go through this.
He feels the gato inside of him, struggling against the pain, wanting to come out, to find the source, to tear apart whatever is hurting them.
“Cougs,” Jensen murmurs, wiping his lank hair back from his face. He pulls Cougar halfway into his lap. “Hold on, man.” The last time the gato slipped free it had taken Jensen pushing the button for punishment to stop him from attacking the tech. That the man will still even come into the room with him amazes Cougar when he’s calm enough to think about it. He grits his teeth and stuffs the gato back inside of him.
“Please,” he begs, beyond pride. “Please Jake, Dios, it hurts, please.”
“I’m sorry,” Jake says back to him, lips pressed thin and face tight. “It’ll get better. I promise you, it’ll get better.”
Author: LadyJanelly
Fandom: The Losers
Charcters/Pairing: Jensen/Cougar, Clay, Roque, Pooch
Word Count: ~23,500
Rated: Adult
Summary: AU world, where mutants are enslaved, and The Losers just got assigned a new sniper
Influences: X-men, Push, Star Trek TOS, Dark Angel
Warnings: brief suicidal thoughts, Mentions of past non-con, attempted non-con, dub-con, violence, Stockholm syndrome, involuntary drug addiction, withdrawal, rimming, child peril, no major character death,
Notes: Enormous thanks to Peaceful_sands and trishabooms for the cheerleading and support, and to Peaceful_sands for her beta skills. All remaining errors are mine, probably added at the last minute. Fic is completed, to be posted in 3 parts as final edits are done.
Title from this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1onW7xe4SE (The Johnny Cash cover makes it seem a little more appropriate for these tough boys)
Cougar pays as much attention to the briefing as any of the others and more than Jensen, Clay is glad to see. Sharp eyes memorize the satellite photos, evaluate angles and elevations. “We’ll give you a twenty minute head-start to move around the south side of the camp over to position here,” Clay says, indicating a rise in the rocks overlooking the objective camp, two hundred yards from the razor wire and chain link fence. The landscape was all once farmland, given over to scraggly brush and pitiful trees. “There will probably be a guard up in there somewhere. You’ve got clearance to do whatever you need to to clear your way. You should have line of sight here, through to here. Hold off until we’re spotted before you start shooting and then cover us. Once we’re inside, churn as much chaos into the situation as you can.”
The sniper nods and Clay is sure he understood. He studies the map, the five buildings and a radio tower that make up the combat zone.
“Roque, Jensen and I are going to evade the perimeter guard if we can, eliminate them if we can’t, come in through the North and out South towards you. We may need you to punch us a back door on the way out if we’re runnin’ hot. Pooch picks us up here and we all go home.”
Jensen is fucking with his hand-held computer-thing, but Clay knows better than to call him on it, knows the kid would be able to quote back the entire briefing word for word.
“The objective, the main objective, is to get Jensen in there before they can figure out they’re hosed and blow the main computer. There should be files on their organization. Names, plans, the location of other training camps. This is valuable information. Jensen sweet-talks their system, grabs the data. If we’re already shooting by that time, we take as many of them down as we conveniently can on our way out of Dodge.”
It should have been that easy. It should have been clean in and out.
Instead, Clay is looking South across the camp through his night vision goggles and there’s a fucking building in the middle of the clear center yard that his sniper was supposed to shoot down. Fuck, probably painted up the roof to look like dirt and weeds. He hates it when the bad guys get creative. Hates it when intel is this fucked up.
“Cougar?” he asks into the throat mic.
“Moving,” the mutant answers. “Secondary location,” even though Clay hasn’t given him one. “I can cover the South-east angle.”
Radio-tower then, Clay thinks. Inside the perimeter. And that’s a shitty, shitty spot for a sniper. Once the shooting starts, he’ll be too exposed, just the struts and cross-bars to guard him and even a lucky shot from a pistol could end him.
“Sixty seconds,” Cougar tells them. He has to already be inside then. Already at risk, clearly willing to do his part.
“You watch yourself,” Clay orders. “When we get parallel to you, I want you on the ground and running.”
“Yes, sir,” Cougar replies and they can do this.
Clay gives the signal and Roque cuts the fence, holds back the chain link while Jensen shimmies through, assault rifle in hand, covering them as Clay pushes through and then Roque. Somehow they’re lucky enough that they don’t hit resistance until they’re in the building that was supposed to be the headquarters but looks to be a garage instead. A mechanic runs up on them with an oversize wrench in his hand and Roque plants a knife in his chest. Clean. Quiet.
“New building,” Clay orders and they move that direction, covering each other as they go around corners. They move around the south-east side and Clay looks up. Night-vision is great, but he can’t see the sniper. Hopes to God he’s where he said he would be and the three of them aren’t walking into a dead end.
They move towards the door to the new building, and there’s a crack from his left and up and a body falls out of a shadow behind them. “Go!” shouts Clay and Roque hits the door, weapon firing.
“Clear!” calls Roque and Jensen rolls around him.
“Got it,” Jensen says into the radio. Must have found the room they want. Clay ducks inside the door. Listens to the intermittent firing of the sniper rifle.
“Roque, I’m gonna need you,” Clay says.
“Go,” comes Jensen’s voice. “I’ll watch my back. Two minutes, tops.”
Clay listens for the lull in firing, for Cougar to run out of targets or bullets. For the enemy to realize that the guys with assault rifles are nowhere near the danger to them that the sniper is. They’ll regroup. At least four, maybe more of them and they’ll rush him at once and shoot him out of his perch.
Right on time, he sees movement under the scant cover between buildings. “Here they come,” he says and moves to intercept, to shoot them down before they can get up under the tower. He hears Roque firing three-round bursts, Cougar’s single precision shots. Takes down two himself.
And then it’s over. He looks up at the tower and sees Cougar braced in a cross-point forty feet up, leg locked around one of the bars, arms free. He’s got the rifle, that damn hat that Jensen gave him, the ever-present collar, and not a damn stitch of clothing on him anywhere. No night-vision, no flack-vest, no god-damn boots.
A door bangs open on one of the buildings and three sights turn that way but nobody fires. Just a kid, maybe sixteen, wide-eyed and bare-handed. Staring in shock at the bodies and then he starts to scream and the wind twists, spinning a circle on the ground at his feet.
“Mutant!” Clay yells and fires, but the wind is a miniature tornado now, the roar of it muting out his voice. He shoots again, knows the others are too, but it doesn’t matter. The tornado pushes towards the tower and the metal whines as the force of the wind hits it. The whole structure sways and Cougar has to grab on to keep from being thrown out. The sniper rifle clacks its way down, bouncing off the structure and then lost in the wind.
And then Jensen is out with them, running up between Clay and Roque, rifle slung across his back. “Grenade!” he shouts and pitches one like god-damn major league baseball, right into the thing. There’s a boom and then a sudden deafening stillness.
A low groan in the air turns to a shriek of metal giving way. The tower starts to lean and Clay’s stomach goes sideways because he has a man up there that he can’t help in any way. He looks up to see Cougar untangling himself from the bars he’d been clinging to a second ago. Then he kicks off of the tower, jumping hard to clear the base of it. One second there’s a naked man and the next it’s a lithe cat, arching for landing, feet out and spine bowed up.
Cat or not, a forty-foot fall is no fucking joke and Cougar hits hard, smacking the ground with a ‘whump’ that makes Clay flinch and he stays crouched where he landed like he’s doing inventory to figure how much that hurt. Head down, ears flat against his head. Jensen steps forward like he’s gonna go pet the nice kitty and Clay and Roque both grab him before he can get his face bitten off.
The tower crumples to the ground in a crash of metal and cloud of dust and then everything is quiet. Roque covers the buildings, but if anybody is still alive there, they’ve decided not to come out and visit.
“Cougar, you with us?” Clay asks.
The cat shudders and flicks the tufted black tip of its tail. Nods its head once, like it takes intense concentration to make so human a gesture, and then it limps towards the south fence, leading them out of this cluster-fuck and towards Pooch’s extraction point. Away from the boy’s shattered body and the bits of the rifle Jensen and Cougar had worked so hard to acquire.
“Holy shit,” Jensen murmurs as he follows him out.
“Let’s move it, Losers,” Clay barks and they pick it up to a brisk jog.
======================
Cougar takes point through the scrub-land, four-footed and so perfect for the environment that even with night vision, Jensen still loses sight of him a time or two. He hurries to keep up, Clay at his heels and Roque covering their backs.
The cowboy hat he won for Cougar dangles from the lanyard around the big cat’s neck, and he wants to take it off of him before he gets tangled, trips and chokes on it, but he doesn’t dare. The time he tried, he’d gotten a seriously scary show of teeth and a growling hiss that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
He knows it’s easier for Cougar this way. That it would be hell walking barefoot and buck-naked through this mess, but if he would, then Jensen could see that he’s alright, that he’s not walking on broken bones or hiding a concussion.
The blocky silhouette of the Humvee rises ahead of them and Jensen picks up the pace a little more. The interior glows green in his goggles, all the little lights amplified. Doors open, Pooch ready for a hot exit. The cat hits a low lope, dashing the last few yards and then out of the brush and into the transport. Pooch swears and flails and Jensen would laugh except that Pooch is pulling his side-arm.
“Wait,” he says, knowing Pooch can hear him over the comms. “Just Cougar, man.”
“Jesus Christ,” Pooch swears, hand on his chest.
Jensen ditches most of his gear into the far seat and looks for Cougar. The cat has climbed over the seats, back behind them and in amongst the cases of equipment, in the highest spot he can find and still be behind stuff. All Jensen can see of him is the flicking tip of his tail and the light reflected off of his eyes. He pulls off the goggles and can see even less.
“Some light back here?” he calls and Pooch flicks the switch and the overhead comes on, weak and yellow in its protective cage on the ceiling, the world suddenly flat after the green contours of night vision. Roque swears and takes his goggles off, Clay tells him he’s getting old and slow.
“Cougs,” Jensen calls, soft and gentle. “I need you to come out of there and shift for me, man. I need to get a look at you, make sure you’re not fucked up.”
The cat hisses at him and Jensen frowns. A hurt kitty is a pissy kitty.
Reluctantly, he takes out the controller. “Shhh,” he soothes when the cat hisses again. “Not gonna hurt you.” He presses the reward button. It doesn’t look like it did anything, so he pushes it again.
“That better?” he asks. He’s not sure what they’re using in it, but anything that triggers the pleasure centers must distract from pain at least. He climbs over the seat and moves some gear around to make room for his ass. He sets aside some of the cases that the cat was hiding behind and gets a better look. And god, he’s spent the past week being very careful not to pay too much attention to how beautiful Cougar is, and his cat-form is just as magnificent, if not more so. He’s not any creature that exists in nature, Jensen knew that from the file. Longer through the body than an African lion, broader head. Facial markings almost like a cheetah, stark tears that never dry. Dark tufts stand up at the points of his ears and the sides of his jaw, the tip of his tail. Short tan fur elsewhere, except for the faint shadows of stripes over his shoulders. There’s something primordial about him, like he’s the ancestor of all cats.
Slow, slow, Jensen reaches out. His hand shakes, adrenaline crash in the aftermath of the fight, or just because those teeth are so damn big, he’s not sure. The cat meets him halfway, leaning to sniff his fingers and then nuzzle into them. Jensen can feel the purr more than hear it, and he thinks he should maybe not have hit that button twice. “You are so very high,” he murmurs and he cannot stop himself from scritching behind those soft ears when Cougar turns his head into it. He slips the hat string off of the cat’s throat and sets it safely aside.
“This is good and all,” he says, “Not-biting my hand off is good, because I need both of those, but I need you to do me a favor and shift back to Carlos. I need to make sure you’re okay and I’m not exactly a vet, you know?”
The cat huffs at him, turns away and shivers, skin twitching as he shifts, fur receding and body changing. It’s slower than it had been falling off of the tower, and Jensen’s stomach tries to rebel at the sight.
Then Cougar is there on the pile of boxes, and Jensen really should have planned this a little better because he’s naked and high and pliant and a bump in the road rolls him off of the boxes and into Jensen’s lap. “Fuck,” he swears and there’s nowhere he can touch that isn’t warm skin. Cougar looks up at him, dazed brown eyes more open and trusting than Jensen knows he would ever be if he wasn’t drugged up.
“Can I get a blanket back here?” he yells and Clay and Roque both look back at the near panic in his voice.
“He need emergency evac?” Clay asks and Jensen shakes his head.
“Not sure yet, don’t think so.” Roque passes him the blanket from the first aid and Jensen tucks it over all the nudity. Cripes, that image is gonna linger.
“Cougar, you gotta tell me if you’re hurt somewhere,” he says. Cougar shakes his head, a slow grin spreading across his lips.
“No hurt.”
Fuck, that’s not useful. “Come on, man, were you hurt before I dosed you? Before the reward?” He finds a penlight in his vest and checks Cougar’s eyes for a concussion. He knows basic field medicine, but he’s no fucking medic, has always been careful to never be the medic.
“Sore,” Cougar admits, “Not injured.”
Jensen can’t find anything obviously wrong, no swelling, pupils equal and responsive, no place that Cougar seems hurt when he touches it. Not that it’s easy to check with Cougar still on his lap, but still.
“I think we’re clear,” Jensen announces and settles back, Cougar’s weight on top of him, warm where the flack-vest isn’t separating them. The dark eyes close, lashes long and soft against Cougar’s cheeks. Jensen should sleep; it’s another four hours until they get to the safe house, but he finds himself just holding Cougar, feeling him breathe, making sure his assessment was right and he’s not bleeding internally.
Pooch turns off the back light and the night falls quiet.
=========================
The empty milk jug bangs against the back of his legs with every step, sand and gravel crunch under his sneakers. Heat rises up from the ground, baked hot all day by the sun. Behind them, one of the women stumbles in the dark. Nobody talks, not after walking half of the night. Not this close to the border.
The coyote makes a soft whistle ahead of them, and they stop, those with family huddle close to each other, those without crouch alone in the dark.
“It is too late to cross tonight,” the coyote whispers when he gets back to them. “I will hide you, in small groups until nightfall, and then take you over a few at a time.”
Nobody is happy to hear that, but they’ve come too far to turn around. The coyote scatters the groups, a few here at a patch of scrub, another couple behind a rock. Small patches that will be shade come daytime.
“Rest,” he tells them as he leaves Papi and Carlos under a twisted mesquite. They sit and wait. Sip from Papi’s gallon of water as the sun comes up hot and dry overhead. Carlos has given up on praying, but Papi’s lips move in another Hail Mary.
The sun goes down and nobody comes. “We must wait,” Papi says when Carlos becomes restless. They wait, and the sky becomes light again.
“Carlos,” Papi says when the sun is up. “The gato is stronger than the boy.” And so Carlos lets himself slide back, lets the gato come up and stretch.
The sun goes down again and Papi stands up. “We must cross alone,” he says, and even being caught is better than dying in the desert. Carlos can lead him, can follow the path of two-day-old footprints to where the coyote split them up. He follows the coyote’s scent to another of the hiding places, and from there north, through narrow gullies and over rough ground. They cross water, and Papi refills the jugs there.
Once, a helicopter thrums overhead. Papi huddles in the scant shadow of a scrub and Carlos crouches low in the open, hoping his stripes hide him, hoping they are looking for people and not little gatos shaking with fear.
When the lights have faded they move again. North, always north, until there is a little town, and Carlos changes back, walks on two legs again. They buy food there, and hear that they have made it to Texas.
========================
Cougar sleeps to the hum of the motor, the rocking and rattling of the worn road beneath them. He sleeps to the sweet buzz of reward in his system, making everything soft around the edges, soothing his aches and distracting him from his worries. He falls asleep, knowing he’s lying on top of Jensen but it doesn’t seem to matter much.
He wakes up in the sudden stillness of the engine being turned off, to a body pressed against him, the feeling of being naked and tangled and he fights before he can stop himself, jack-knifing his body and thrashing against his bonds. His head hits something solid and Jensen swears. “Fuck! Cougs! Cougar! You’re okay. Jesus, I think you broke my nose.”
The back door swings open and the gato in him is snarling before Cougar can crush it down. Clay just stares at Cougar, then turns and looks over at Jensen holding his bloody face.
“Jensen, stop fucking around and get in the safe-house. Cougar, come on in when you’re ready.”
Cougar nods, coughs out a “Yessir,” and he won’t wait long. Better to take his punishment (and he’s more than earned it, Dios, Jensen is bleeding) as soon as he can. The Losers have been good to him. More than fair, and he wonders if Clay will use the collar or take a more hands-on approach.
Clay digs a change of clothes out of one of the cases and leaves it on top of the box, telling Cougar with a glance at his blanket that those are for him.
Jensen shuffles around and climbs out of the truck, one last look over his shoulder that Cougar can’t decipher, hands covering his nose and eyes watering.
“Let me see that,” Clay says, and then Jensen is howling “God damn it, that hurts! Warn a guy next time, mother fuck!”
Alone, Cougar takes the time to breathe, to stuff the gato back until it’s not trying to eat anyone. Fighting will not help this. He’s learned that lesson over and over and over. Stiff and sore, he pulls on the clothes. Pooch’s things, they smell like his sweat and engine oil and the base’s laundry soap.
Barefoot, he crosses the short distance to where the team has gone, the side door of an old barn. Slips in quiet. They must have heard the door; heads turn his way and then they ignore him again. The barn is mostly empty, an ancient tractor with its tires rotted to the ground along one side, stacks of broken hay bales on the other, a ladder up to a loft near the center.
Jensen’s already got a laptop open, some sort of headset on. His nose has been taped and the beginnings of a pair of spectacular bruises are starting to shadow under his eyes. He’s smiling though, “Hey Kara, how’s my best sister? Yeah? That’s awesome. Huh, no, just allergies. You wouldn’t believe the pollen here.”
Cougar sits down against the wall, waiting for him to finish his call before he bothers Clay, before raised voices might interrupt Jensen’s family time. He rarely screams during his punishments, but Clay may shout. He tries not to eavesdrop, but the joy in Jensen’s voice is impossible to ignore, as he chats with his sister, her day, her job, renovations they’re doing on her house.
“Lay-Lay there?” Jensen asks, and then laughs. “Sorry, you’re Elaina now? Jeeze, a kid turns eight and suddenly she’s too good for her uncle Jake.” They talk for just as long as Jensen had with his sister, about soccer games and science fairs and Cougar thinks of his own sisters, Ofelia’s children that have never even met him, and wonders what his life would have been without the gato.
Finally Jensen says his goodbyes and breaks the connection. “I’m gonna…go see if it’s inhabitable up in the loft,” he announces to the room. He looks Cougar’s way but his expression is just as unreadable as it had been in the Humvee.
Better with him further away, Cougar thinks. One less witness to his pain and humiliation. He stalks over to where Clay and Roque are sitting, Clay pecking at a laptop with two fingers and Roque cleaning knives.
Clay looks a little puzzled as Cougar makes himself bend, one knee touching the ground, hands fisted at his sides. “Something I can help you with?” he asks and Cougar never thought he was a cruel man, to make Cougar say the words.
“Get it over with,” he growls. Fighting, still, knowing it’s a mistake to antagonize the man before his punishment and unable to stop himself. Not his place to decide when or how but he’s gonna be sick with the waiting if Clay doesn’t release him from the horrible anticipation. Pushing, maybe making it worse, but making it sooner too so the trade-off is one he can live with.
The steady scrape-scrape of Roque’s knife on the whetstone stills and Cougar can imagine his eyebrow creeping up.
“What is it I’m supposed to be doing?” Clay asks, half annoyed and half perplexed.
“Punishment,” Cougar answers and soon, it’ll be soon and then it’ll be over and he can curl up and lick his wounds.
Clay huffs out a laugh, but it sounds more sad than amused and Cougar breaks form to look up at him. Clay shakes his head, runs a hand over his stubble. He gestures up to the loft where Jensen disappeared. “For what, for that?”
Cougar swallows and nods. Maybe Clay wants to be sure he understands what he’s done wrong. “Si. For striking a soldier. For injuring a teammate.”
“No,” Clay says, firm and sure and Cougar isn’t sure exactly what else he’s done wrong.
“And for losing assigned equipment.”
Clay sighs and leans forward, elbows on his knees as he looks Cougar in the eye.
“No, I mean no punishment. We had a shit mission with shit intel, and we pulled it off without a single casualty, all because of you. If the worst I have to report is that Corporal Jensen got hit by a rifle butt turning a corner and some gear got misplaced, believe me, I’m happy to write that report.”
“You think any of us has no problems with sleep?” Roque asks, “I wake up with Jensen that close to my face and he’d have a hell of a lot worse than a bloody nose.”
“Go find a place to crash,” Clay tells him, “You’ve got third watch.”
=========================
Jensen finds a pile of hay in the loft and throws his bedroll out on it. It smells like dust and rats but he’s had worse, and he needs a night of distance, a chance to get his head on straight. To acknowledge that what he feels about the situation is maybe not at all what Cougar feels. That maybe they aren’t friends, that Cougar may just be avoiding conflict and doing his job.
Looking back, Jensen can admit he was out of line. That cuddling the sniper while he was high and injured was not the best plan he’s ever made.
What he’s not sure of, is what the hell to do about it, how to make amends, how to regain Cougar’s trust (if he even had it in the first place). It’s not like he can give him a lot of room. They’re gonna be up in each other’s space all the time, there’s just no help for it. He wishes he’d been able to tell Kara about this, to get his sister’s opinion, but she needs reminders about what they are, what they could be if they follow their mother’s footsteps, even less than he does, and he can’t bring it up.
He should sleep, but between the pain in his face and the circles his brain is turning, he’s still awake when Clay pops his head up and tells him it’s his watch. “Cougar after you,” Clay says, and smirks, “You think you can wake him up without losing an eye?”
“Ha ha,” Jensen mutters. “I am never hearing the end of this, am I?” But Clay’s already climbing down.
He takes his watch, awake and listening, making a few patrols around the outside of the barn when he gets too tired to be alert. He wakes Cougar up from four feet away, hissing his name until he wakes up. “Your watch,” he says, and Cougar just nods and gets up. Jensen climbs the ladder back to his bedroll, and this time he’s tired enough to sleep.
He dreams of dark eyes and a soft mouth under his lips, of sharp hipbones in his hands and strong, calloused hands stroking him.
He wakes to the soft whispers of someone walking across the scattered hay, opens his eyes to a view of Cougar’s bare feet just out of arm’s reach. A shiver dances down his spine, a tingle of fear and arousal making him twitch in a way he’s not sure he likes.
“Cougs?” he asks in the near-dark. And Cougar just — folds. Goes to his knees with his hands in his lap. Jensen can see the muscles along his jaw jumping with the strain, nostrils flared and eyes turned careful to the floor.
“You would not need the restraints,” Cougar says like they’re already in the middle of a conversation. “If you wanted to fuck,” he adds, annoyed like Jensen’s the one who isn’t keeping up and he should. And god, Jensen’s hard already, from the dream, and Cougar right there and so beautiful. He’s trying to be a decent guy about this but if there was any glimmer of attraction in Cougar’s face it would be impossible for him to say no. Part of him is almost glad that there’s no sign that Cougar wants this, wants him.
"If I thought this was just about post-combat horniness, I'd totally suggest you fuck me instead," he says, and it may not be the best thing he could have blurted out, but it’s honest and still a no. The last thing he expects is for Cougar to look at him, to have a spark of warmth in his eyes, curiosity, shock, the glimmer of desire.
The flare of want lasts less than a second and then Cougar grits his teeth. “I cannot. It—the reward. I am not able.”
“Holy shit,” Jensen breathes, because he can’t even imagine. “Not ever? For how long?”
“Damn you!” Cougar spits. “Fuck me or punish me or send me away.”
Jensen’s heart pounds. Fear. Something else. “Cougs, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Why would you want that?”
“I broke your nose,” Cougar growls, “I lost the rifle. You are…the first to be kind. I will not have you angry at me.”
“I’m not angry at you,” Jensen says, soft, soothing. “I’m not pissed. It was an accident, none of that was your fault. You think I’d rather it was you smashed to bits on that tower?”
It occurs to Jensen that the easy thing, the quickest, would be to do what Cougar’s asking for in his own fucked up way. To punish him. A few quick pushes of a button and they could be back to what they were. Except Jensen would always know what he’d done. That he’d hurt a good man because it was easier than talking.
Cougar’s shoulders hunch in tighter and Jensen wishes he was better with words, better at knowing what to say. “Hey,” he murmurs and rests his hand on Cougar’s shoulder, fully expecting to have it shaken off. Cougar relaxes under his touch instead, leans in an infinitesimal amount towards Jensen. Touch-starved, lonely and probably realizing he nearly died today.
Petting is probably the best word for what Jensen does then. He pets Cougar’s hair back from his face, strokes his hands down between his shoulder-blades. “Here,” he says and scoots back to make room on his blanket. He’s not sure why it works, but Cougar shuffles over and sits, and after a few minutes of Jensen’s slow touches, he lies down. Stiff, yes, and awkward, but they stretch out together and eventually they sleep.
===========================
He is twelve, just another little Mexican child in an elementary school half-full of them. Dark eyes and dark wavy hair, painfully thin and shy with his smiles. A quiet boy, never drawing attention to himself, never making trouble. Mediocre grades, average at sports.
He is a careful boy. He keeps the gato tight inside his chest, even when a bully shoves him, even when the girls laugh at him, even when the teacher sighs in exasperation at him “Carlos, we’ve been over this, are you paying attention?” He tries, he does, but there is so much else going on, so many scents and sounds, other teachers in other rooms, dancing motes of chalk dust so pretty in the air. And the gato. Always the gato, wanting to come out, wanting to play, to catch the loose thread on Teacher’s sleeve, to hide under the desks, to leave this place and run and climb and never come back.
It is the last day before Easter vacation and the restlessness of the other children crawls under his skin, and he looks out of the window instead of at the chalk board. He’s watching as he sees the black vans pull up, men with guns and a tall guy in a collar, hands bound and weaving drunkenly.
One of the runners from the principal’s office brings Teacher a note and she straightens. “Class? It looks like we have a surprise assembly today!” Her smile is fake and her scent full of fear.
Carlos shakes as the children all line up. He leaves his book bag at his desk and puts himself in the last half of the line and when the class moves down the hallway and out of the building, heading for the gym, he turns and runs. Behind him Teacher shouts his name, but he doesn’t go back, can’t go back. He strips off his clothes and lets the gato free, claws grabbing as he climbs a tree and out onto a branch and drops down outside of the school’s fence.
He runs then, hiding when he can but desperate to get home, to his Papi, so they can run again, to a new town, a new school.
He hears the voice on the megaphone before he sees home, “Carlos Alvarez,” the man calls, “You must turn yourself in. We have your father.”
He leaps from the hood of a car, to the top of a wall and up onto the roof of a house, terrified of being taken but not able to leave his father. He looks down on the scene, the black vans at his house now, the men with guns. His father on his knees on their little patch of yard, hands behind his head.
The man with the megaphone turns towards him, spots him there against the sky. “It will all be okay,” he says, “If you turn yourself in, everything will be okay. Your father won’t be beaten. He won’t be arrested. He won’t go to jail, he won’t be deported. Come down now, Carlos.”
And there is nothing else he can do. He slides to the edge of the roof and drops down, tail flicking as he forces himself to take each step. His fur bristles and he wants to fight, to bite and claw. A little closer, he just has to get a little closer.
There’s a soft pop to the left and a sting against his shoulder, another on the right bites above his hip. He bites at empty air and his head is becoming heavy, too heavy to hold up, his paws too heavy to lift and he’s falling, falling forever .
===========
Clay has put a commendation on Cougar’s record for his performance on their first mission together, and as a reward they add a second familial visit for the year. Three days after they land, a pair of officers from requisitions come for him. They take the controller from Jensen, and Cougar tries not to meet the young tech’s worried gaze as he’s led away in shackles. He tries to look unafraid even though his stomach twists at being taken from them, from his team. He can recognize this trust he has in them as dangerous, a weakness that could break him, he just has no way to stop himself
The guards sedate him only mildly. The logistics of the visit are complicated enough that they want to be sure he remembers it, that wanting another visit has power over him.
The room they lead him to is plain. White walls, three chairs, one table. A mirrored window along one side, door on the other. A ring in the floor that they fasten his chains to. He sits. Waits. It seems like a long time until at last the door opens and his parents are rushing to him, his mother taking his face in her cool hands and kissing his cheek, his Papi hugging tight around his shoulders, both of them overcome with joy and relief and sorrow to see him like this.
It hurts, his mother’s tears, his father’s apologies, always blaming himself for Carlos’ capture.
They tell him the family news. Both of his nephews are in junior high now; his niece has had her quinceañera. All the things he has missed, and that hurts too.
It is only an hour that they stay, but after, he is glad of the quiet of the room as he puts his face in his hands and cries, not caring who may watch through the one-way glass.
=========================
Clay takes Cougar’s visit with his parents as an opportunity to talk to Jensen about his progress on the collar without a chance of the mutant overhearing them.
“Here’s what I’ve got,” Jensen starts, and Clay braces himself for a torrent of jargon.
“Controller talks to collar, collar delivers the dose and then tells the controller that it has. The controller talks to the wireless on any military base or mobile command and updates the files on what Cougar has been given, when, how much, where, everything.”
Clay nods. “Following you so far. So this thing is reporting to command the details of how we’re micro-managing the asset.”
“Right. The controller does most of the communication because it’s easier to change out batteries. The collar is mostly passive, listening. There’s a tracker in there, but I haven’t seen it active, even when we were out of the country. I’m guessing the brass assumes everything is fine as long as the controller is getting regular ping-backs from the collar.”
“What of all that can we get around, should the need arise?”
Jensen rakes a hand through his spiky hair. “I can use a scrambler so when the controller gives the collar a command, the collar can’t ‘hear’ it. And then I can spoof back a reply as if the collar has done what it was told to. It’s not a perfect system, but it keeps our business our business.”
“You have some change in mutant-handling protocol in mind?”
Jensen pauses and looks down at his hands and Clay has rarely seen him quieted like that. “I think having him fucked up on drugs isn’t good for him or us,” he says at last. “I think the appreciation we’d gain from letting him kick if he wants to would gain us his respect. I think he’d be more valuable to us in the field.”
Clay mulls it over, wonders again if Jensen isn’t getting too close to the sniper. “I’ll talk to Roque,” he promises, although his gut is saying the tech is right, that Cougar’s performance, his ability, could only be enhanced if his head is clear all the time.
“Go walk the requisition guys back with Cougar,” he orders Jensen, “I don’t like what happens when he’s out of Loser sight.”
Later, when he talks to Roque about the situation, the SiC agrees with Jensen’s evaluation.
It’s four months later though, before they get the down-time to try it. In the meantime they go on missions and solidify Cougar’s place in the team, Clay fending off requests to borrow him while Roque runs them through drills and Pooch puts together a kit of what Cougar actually needs for the missions as opposed to what the rest of them carry — what helps him out and what just weighs them down.
When the time comes, two weeks before their next scheduled action and another week if the whole team gets some convenient food poisoning, he’s almost reluctant to go through with it, to risk shaking up the near-perfection that they’ve become.
=======================
Cougar groans, feels like his body is tearing itself apart from the inside out. Like shifting into the gato while bound from shoulders to ankles, muscles burning and his voice hoarse from screaming. The sick agony of it goes on and on, like punishment from the collar without end, without rest.
He writhes on the cool tiles of the showers and Jensen lays a wet towel on his forehead. And Dios, if he had known, when Jensen had told him Clay had approved getting him clear of the addiction but it was Cougar’s choice to do it or not, if he had known how much it would hurt, how many days he would be throwing up and sweating and cramping, he would have said no, he would have killed himself rather than go through this.
He feels the gato inside of him, struggling against the pain, wanting to come out, to find the source, to tear apart whatever is hurting them.
“Cougs,” Jensen murmurs, wiping his lank hair back from his face. He pulls Cougar halfway into his lap. “Hold on, man.” The last time the gato slipped free it had taken Jensen pushing the button for punishment to stop him from attacking the tech. That the man will still even come into the room with him amazes Cougar when he’s calm enough to think about it. He grits his teeth and stuffs the gato back inside of him.
“Please,” he begs, beyond pride. “Please Jake, Dios, it hurts, please.”
“I’m sorry,” Jake says back to him, lips pressed thin and face tight. “It’ll get better. I promise you, it’ll get better.”
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Date: 2012-06-06 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-07 03:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-06 07:22 pm (UTC)CC
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Date: 2012-06-07 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-07 06:52 am (UTC)More loverly Cougar!whump. *g* You're doing a wonderful job creating his world, weaving his backstory in as you go. His poor family, being used as hostages for his good behavior. Love the setup for the first time the team actually sees his inner Cougar--and that it's a prehistoric kitty, not just a puma or a jaguar. (Cave lion?)
I'm so looking forward ot more of this story, but bummed that it will be over. There are just never enough Cougar!whump stories, ever. ;-)
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Date: 2012-06-07 03:21 pm (UTC)Heh. I was at the point where I had to describe the gato, and my brain went "Why would it be a normal breed?" I think it's the most potent image of "Cat" that a six-year-old boy could have, all grown up. Jensen is a crazy man, climbing back with that thing. :)
1 more chapter of this one left. I'm in the home-stretch of the next fic though (over 30,000 words at last count) and that one is definite Cougar!whump too. An AU where Jake left the Army before he and Cougar would have met.
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Date: 2012-06-08 01:15 am (UTC)