Losers Fic: Walk a While With Me, 3/?
Jun. 21st, 2012 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyjanellyTitle: 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.
( Chapter 1 )
( Chapter 2 )
===========
Cougar sits for hours with Jake wrapped around him. Tensing and flexing individual muscle groups without moving around. Motionless even when the line of his back begins to cramp.
Jake sleeps like shit, but at least he sleeps. He’ll half-wake, going suddenly tense, and Cougar will whisper him back down into sleeping again. Around nine, Cougar rouses him enough to ask “You need to call work?” because if there’s one thing the military teaches a man it’s to never be AWOL. Jake shakes his head and rolls away from Cougar’s side.
“No,” he mumbles. “Nothin’ until two. Sophie.” Cougar waits but Jake doesn’t fall asleep again. Not with Cougar awake and watching.
“Can I use the truck?” Cougar asks and Jake waves over his shoulder to the computer desk where the keys are.
Cougar stands, walks off the pins and needles down his legs. “I’ll be back,” he says, and then “Don’t shoot me.”
Jake snorts and pulls a pillow over his head.
Cougar pulls on his clothes and goes out to the truck. The Texas sun is cruelly bright, cutting low over the skyline, glaring off of the truck’s hood. He drives around a while and stops for a drive-through breakfast, picks up enough for two. He thinks about parking here and sitting for a while in the lot, but a cop pulls through slow and he figures risking trouble is a poor way to start the day. He ends up circling the block and then sitting in Jake’s driveway for an hour or so, radio tuned to a Tejano station. He drinks his coffee and eats his food and watches a pair of squirrels play tag around the tree in Jake’s back yard.
He’s there until the back door opens and Jake stumbles out in his boxers, rubbing his face and squinting at the world through his glasses. Cougar shuts off the truck and climbs down, hands Jake his breakfast and the paper cup of cold coffee.
Jake stumbles back into the house to the microwave to heat up his gift, stands there half-naked until he’s drank it all. He wanders the house a little after that, looking over their accomplishments, planning the next day’s work.
“So. Last night,” Jake says after he’s caffeinated, the two of them surveying the sad state of the house’s living room. “Sorry about that. Won’t happen again.” He doesn’t meet Cougar’s eyes and Cougar isn’t sure if he should push it or let it slide. Isn’t sure what he should say even if he was brave enough to try to use words to help.
“What are we working on today?” he asks instead and Jake looks around the room.
“I think I’m done with this stink,” Jake announces. “Floor paint, lunch, Sophie. In that order.”
They drive to a big-box home improvement store. Jake’s plan of getting the floor painted in the morning is derailed by all the shiny tools, “Cougar, look, it’s modular!” The sales clerk in power tools gives them a look, Jake so damn bouncy and Cougar hiding half his face under the brim of his hat. Cougar feels like they’re on display. That assumptions are being made. He steps away to look at a socket set and heat rises on his cheeks. He isn’t sure if it’s shame that the man thought they were together, or shame that he was so uncomfortable at the thought that he would turn from Jake.
From power tools they wander through flooring, picking up some samples of ceramic tile that Jake wants to try in the bathrooms, paint for the floors. Cougar watches, to see if Jake noticed the small betrayal, if Jake is quieter or tense, but he can see no sign.
By the time they get back in the truck, Cougar’s stomach is rumbling and he’s hungry for the first time in weeks, his appetite suddenly and viciously awake. “Lunch?” he suggests and Jake nods. They take a turn and Cougar recognizes the area. Near Jake’s work, near the club they first met at. It feels strange to go to such a neighborhood for food. He can understand a place for the gays to meet or to have other gay men cut their hair. He doesn’t really understand why there would be special places for them to eat together.
The restaurant Jake takes him to is like a gay parody of a nineteen fifties diner, all black and white tile, but with the bright blare-and-thump music that Cougar has so often been fucked to in the back of some club. He looks around and sees only one mixed-sex pair sitting at a table; all the rest are men together or women together. The tip jar on the counter says “We shake our buns for you.”
The smell of the grill is making his stomach churn with hunger, but his discomfort with the atmosphere of the place makes him too wary to relax. When it’s his turn to order he asks for a burger and Coke, and is not surprised when Jake adds fried mushrooms and a slice of the cake-of-the-day to it.
“Hey,” Jake says and bumps his foot under the table as they wait for their food. “You okay?”
“Si,” Cougar answers, and when Jake still looks curious and concerned, he adds “I have never been to such a place.”
“A burger joint?”
“A gay burger joint.”
Jake looks thoughtful and their food arrives then, brought by a cheerful waiter in a white apron and paper hat who calls Cougar “Sugar” and winks at them both.
The conversation falters as they eat, Jake pausing to take bites of his burger in the middle of his story about how this place used to be tucked into the tiny storefront there across the street, best burgers in Dallas for a decade running now. For all the odd ambiance, the food is damn good and the burger gone before Cougar realizes, his fries and mushrooms soon after. Jake dumps some more from his own plate and Cougar eats through those too.
“Jake!” a voice cries from over by the door, high-pitched and over-loud and Cougar half-startles from his chair before he realizes the shriek is joy and not murderous intent. His eyes go wide as the person (his mind cannot quite identify it as ‘man’) flounces over to Jake. The creature is ridiculous, all too-tight clothes and flopping wrist, make-up on his face and lips pursed.
“I went to get my hair done and you weren’t there, you monster,” the mayate mock-complains at Jake, thwapping him on the shoulder with a limp hand.
Jake doesn’t seem to notice what a freak he’s talking to. He meets the man’s eyes like he would Cougar’s or the clerk at the hardware store. “Sorry Armando, I’ve got the day off. I’ll be there tomorrow until two if you wanna come by then.”
The man, Armando, sighs dramatically and turns a curious eye over at Cougar, and Cougar doesn’t know if it’s pity or revulsion he’s feeling.
Jake smiles still, “Armando, my friend Cougar. Cougar, Armando.”
Armando’s eyebrows flick up and he haughtily offers his hand to Cougar, like he expects Cougar to kiss his ring or something and no. It’s more than he can take and he stands, chair scraping on the floor as he does. He pushes past the man, who cries out like he was struck instead of jostled. He needs air, sunlight.
Behind him he hears Armando’s sharp “Oh my god, rude much?” pierce the air and Jake’s low “Hey. Don’t,” in warning, but he isn’t sure if Jake’s talking to Cougar or the other.
He hits the sidewalk and it’s quieter out here, a few people going from their cars to the shops, but room to breathe. There is a cement bench, empty, in front of Jake’s truck and he stops there, hands gripping the back of it as he stands there, head bowed as he tries to get himself under control.
“Cougar?” Jake asks from behind him. He can’t be sure without looking, but he doesn’t think Jake is angry with him. Confused, maybe disappointed. He has no idea how long the other man has been there. He nods that he hears, waits to see what Jake will do.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Okay. I can work with that. Let’s get out of here, huh?” He opens up the truck and Cougar climbs into the passenger seat, hiding behind his hat.
Jake is quiet, and that is odd enough that Cougar feels guilty for it. Knows he’s fucked up but not sure how to fix it. He should just go, he thinks. Find a hotel and hole up until he can go back to Bragg without the guys wondering what happened to bring him back early.
Jake drives aimlessly for a while and finally pulls the truck to a stop in the parking lot of a little park.
“You are gay, right?” he asks out of the quiet, and the muscles along Cougar’s jaw jump with tension. The words, to confirm or deny, they catch in his throat and he can’t talk.
“I know some straight guys go to the bars just so old queens will buy them drinks,” Jake says, “But I thought—I mean, you went with that guy. And you asked me to fuck you. You gotta help me out here, Cougs, ‘cause I’m really confused.”
Cougar breathes, slow, careful. Hands loose on his thighs. Fighting his first instinct, to strike out at the source of his pain. To shut Jake the hell up so he’ll stop asking fucked up questions that Cougar has no answers to. To make him stop implying these slurs against Cougar’s manhood.
“Hey,” Jake says, softer now. “Whatever you’re into, and I think I know you well enough to know it’s not kids or the unwilling, whoever you’re looking to have in your bed, I’ve still got your six. We’re still friends. If it’s guys or girls or both or neither. I just gotta know so I don’t bring you somewhere that freaks you out again.”
Cougar sits. He doesn’t know how to say that he wants to not-want. That he wants to be anything other than what Jake is, what Jake’s friends are.
Jake watches him; Cougar can see him frown in his peripheral vision. He waits for Jake to give up, kick him out, out of his truck and his life.
“Fuck,” Jake finally sighs. “Look, I gotta go get Sophie from school.”
“I am no fit company,” Cougar says at last and Jake nods.
“It’s fine. I’ll drop you off at the house,” and as they drive, he sighs, “What the hell, man?” but he sounds more sad than angry.
====================
Cougar goes into the house as Jake pulls away, angry with himself for having so little self-control, angry at Jake for bringing him somewhere that he would have to. He wants to punch holes in the walls, to feel his knuckles tear, the dull impact against his bones. He finds the tools and the spackling compound instead and picks up where he had left off, a steady thump-thump-scrape that calms his mind, puts his hands to work.
He finishes one wall and by then his stomach is cramping as he tries to digest his meal and work both, his body protesting the surge in activity. He cleans up and checks his phone (no messages, but then nobody has this number except for his team). He lies down, stretching out on sheets that smell like Jake. The hum of the air-conditioner and the fullness of his belly lull him to sleep and he doesn’t wake up again until he hears Jake’s key in the front door, his voice calling “Cougs? You here?”
Jake comes into the bedroom with an armload of plastic dishes and paper bags. “Teresa cooked,” he says and hands one to Cougar. He opens it, but isn’t sure what he’s looking at. Piles of lettuce and a glob of sour cream. The smell of cumin and chili, fresh onion. Meat maybe, somewhere in there.
“Taco salad,” Jake grins, like he hadn’t been disappointed when he left, like Cougar is still his friend. “She’s only been in Texas for two months, you gotta give her a break. Just don’t expect anything like Mexican and it’s actually edible. A hell of a lot better than the nachos supreme they serve in London, I can tell you that much.”
They sit and eat. Jake digs in one of the paper bags and brings out a pair of bottles of Sangría Señorial, pops the top off of one with a multi-tool from his pocket and passes it over with a grin. Cougar has to smile back because it’s been years since he had this stuff, dark red and not too sweet, tart and richer than North American style sodas. It brings back good memories, of family gatherings, the children drinking this while the adults get the real stuff.
“Gracias,” he says to Jake, and he means for more than the food and drink. For this, for them, for Jake letting him get away with being an asshole.
“De nada,” Jake answers with a shrug, and they eat, the quiet stretching out between them. Jake takes a sip of his soda, head tipping back, the slender neck of the bottle in his hand, throat working as he swallows.
The sudden surge of want clenches in Cougar’s chest, and his hand tightens on the fork to keep from reaching out, to keep from touching.
“Saw you worked on the living room,” Jake says as they’re finishing up. “Looks good.”
Cougar shrugs his acknowledgment. “Something to do,” he says and Jake nods.
“You wanna go walk once the sun goes down?”
They work on the house a little while longer, and when it’s not so bright out they leave the air-conditioning for the outside world, Jake setting an easy pace, Cougar feeling his body starting to be like his own again.
“Sorry if I was a dick today,” Jake says as they walk.
“It wasn’t you,” Cougar says, and knows that’s mostly true.
Jake makes an “Eh,” sort of noise, like he doesn’t care if he gets the blame. “I was nosy, and you know you can just tell me to butt out, right?”
“Si.”
Which Jake seems to take as permission to go right back to his curiosity, like a dog gnawing a bone.
“Hunky’s freaked you out. I just don’t get why?”
Cougar stops walking, fully prepared to go back to the house to keep from having this conversation twice in one day, but Jake stops him with a light touch on his elbow.
“Hey, wait, no. I’m not asking why. If you could tell me why, you would, right?”
They stand there on the sidewalk of the cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood while Cougar calms himself again.
“I would,” he agrees and Jake bobs his head like the plastic dog that Pooch puts on the dashboard of whatever vehicle he’s driving.
“I’m not saying I’ll never ask again, because I’m a curious kind of guy, but I get it if you’re not ready. And I wanted to say if there’s anything you wanted to ask me, anything I can talk about to help you out, just let me know. No quid pro quo, no truth or dare. Just ask.”
Cougar nods and doesn’t know if he ever will, but it is nice to have the offer, to know that Jake isn’t angry, isn’t expecting more than he can give.
They walk on, looping around the block and heading back to the house. Jake takes first watch as they settle down. In the quiet and the dark, Jake says, “I tried dating. A while ago. This guy named Marco. He was a good guy. Didn’t get why I wouldn’t stay after we fucked though, y’know? I tried to tell him. Not the whole thing, not why but just that I’d been in the army and woke up fighting sometimes.”
Jake sighs soft and low. “He thought it was bullshit. That if I cared about him that I’d never hurt him. That if I didn’t stay, I wasn’t making a commitment, that it was just sex between us.” He laughs like it hurts. “I stayed there and awake for three nights, and then I fell asleep. I broke his nose, coming up, and he called me a monster. Said he never wanted to see me again.”
Cougar isn’t sure what to say to that, what Jake needs to hear.
“I was as honest as I know how to be, and he heard what he wanted to.” Jake’s head turns towards Cougar, but he can’t see his face in the dark. “I’m not making the same mistake, am I?”
“You are my friend,” Cougar says, “It helps that you are here.”
Jake lets out a slow breath and a quiet “Okay,” and they go to sleep. When Cougar wakes in the middle of the night, Jake is sound asleep in his own bed, the 9mm on the sheets beside him. Cougar closes his eyes again and sleeps. All is well.
==================
On Wednesday, Jake goes to run an errand and comes back with a treadmill in the back of his truck. It looks used, but gym-grade and they set it up on the freshly painted floor of the living room. Even though the doctor said to wait until the second week to start building stamina again, Cougar starts walking, sometimes jogging, as much as he can stand.
On Thursday, they drive up to a little hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant, tucked into a pothole-cratered plaza between a Washateria and nail salon. Cougar doesn’t have high hopes looking at the place, but the food is amazing, just the right blend of spicy and sweet and he is fascinated when Jake chats to the waitress in her own language, lips shaped to form the foreign words.
On Friday, Jake goes to work and Cougar lays down in Jake’s bed and takes himself in his hand, slow and lazy, not even sure if he’s fit enough yet. He thinks of Jake, sweaty and dusted with plaster. Jake, dressed like a yuppie in his khaki pants and button-down shirt. Jake in fatigues, Jake in dress greens, Jake naked and pressing against him. Jake’s fingers in his hair. He comes, gasping and panting. He falls asleep naked and is barely awake in time to get dressed before Jake comes to get him before picking Sophie up at school.
Saturday night, Jake says “Hey Cougs, I’m taking the girls to church tomorrow, you wanna come?”
He doesn’t know how Jake could do such a thing, could be what he is and want to be close to God at the same time, so he shakes his head. He does three miles on the treadmill while they’re out. Afterward, Jake takes them all out for ice cream.
That becomes their pattern, Jake’s shifts at the salon, Cougar working on the house or just working out. Jake takes them to a pastel-colored gym on Tuesday, where they know Jake and Carlos Alvarez is apparently already a member. Jake just shrugs like he has no idea how that happened, and Cougar doesn’t know if he paid for it behind his back or if he hacked the system and stole him a membership. They spot each other using the free-weights and Cougar is sore as hell the next day, but it feels good, feels real.
Thursday morning they go to a gun range, rent handguns and a pair of lanes and shoot until it’s time to pick up Sophie. Jake brings rollerblades for her, and he and Cougar jog around the park with the little girl on a tow-line, yelling for them to go faster.
Thursday night, Jake says “Hey, you wanna check out one of those MMA places? See if we can get you some good hand-to-hand?”
Cougar isn’t sure he’s ready to fight, but the worst that can happen is that he’ll lose, and he’s not so attached to his ego that he won’t take that risk.
Jake is quiet on the ride. Quiet for Jake, at least. “These guys,” he says at last, “I’ve got no reason to think anything bad of any of them.”
Cougar tips his head, listening.
“But I don’t know them either, and they don’t know me.”
Cougar takes that to mean that Jake hides who he is, what he is, from these people. That he doesn’t have reason to trust them. He takes it to mean that Jake won’t be standing so close or grinning so wide, that his eyes won’t be so bright when he looks at Cougar. It makes him sad that Jake, who is so strong in his self, so at peace, has to hide again, if only for a few hours.
They pull up outside a warehouse in an industrial part of town, tin-sided and car-sized air-handlers running outside to pump cool air into the building. Jake grabs a duffel bag out of the back and visibly squares himself and they go in together.
Inside is about what Cougar expected. Hanging heavy bags and free weights, a ring in the center of the room and practice mats off to the back. It smells of sweat and testosterone, rubber and leather and faintly of mold. Seems clean though, the lights bright enough and the bare cement floors swept clear.
It looks like they’ve come in mid-practice. About twenty men are gathered around the ring in fight gear and gloves. In the middle are two fighters and a ref. From the opposite corners two coaches shout advice and motivation. When one match ends the ref points out two guys of the gathered crowd and they’ll switch into the ring and the fight will start again.
Jake moves with confidence nearer to the ring, but he’s light on his feet, thrumming with hidden tension. Cougar can’t help but pick up on it, instinctively angles himself so they’re covering more of the room, a closed-off unit of two.
One of the corner coaches notices them coming in, a long-haired guy about Cougar’s height but a denser build. He gives them a curt nod of acknowledgment and goes back to yelling “Your left! Keep your left up! God-damn it!”
They watch a few matches. Cougar glances at Jake to see how he’s taking it and sees him intent on the ring, the competition, eyes bright and hungry.
The coach pulls one of the waiting fighters up to man his corner and climbs down to walk over and introduce himself as Eliot, the owner. His handshake is firm but not too tight, his demeanor calm, controlled.
“You guys here to fight?” he asks.
Jake sucks in his lower lip and holds it in his teeth, looks to Cougar to decide for them both.
And fuck it. He’s probably going to get his ass handed to him, but he can see how much Jake wants this, to let loose and compete.
“Si,” he answers, “What do we do?”
There’s paperwork to fill out and Cougar needs to buy gloves and a mouth-guard. Jake changes glasses for contacts in the locker room and they head to ringside. Jake bounces on the toes of his feet, makes some practice-swings in the air and then he’s being given a hand into the ring. Eliot stays on the floor by Cougar, in the center of one side of the ring.
Jake’s first opponent isn’t much of a challenge. A big kid, beefy but inexperienced. Telegraphs his swings and falls for Jake’s feints, leaves himself open to a series of jabs to the head and over-commits to a return punch that Jake turns into a throw and lays him out on the mat, elbow caught in an arm-bar and the kid taps out. Jake helps him up from the mat and turns to slide out of the ring but the ref stops him.
“First night, winner stays,” the ref says a nd calls in another fighter. Jake glances over at Cougar, but the energy of the gym still feels excited but not ugly. An evaluation then, not a hazing. Cougar shrugs and Jake turns back to the ref, taps gloves with the next guy and they circle around. This one is more experienced, slower to commit, more sophisticated in his combos. He catches Jake a good kick to the ribs but Jake turns with it, catching his foot and twisting him to the ground. The guy strikes out with the other and Jake backs off, dancing on the balls of his feet and looking for an opening.
They trade blows and Jake’s eyes meet Cougar’s again as they fall apart. Not afraid, just checking. Trusting Cougar to make sure everything is still cool there on the ground.
“He’s looking better,” Eliot comments to Cougar. “It’s good to see.”
“Que?” Cougar asks, because better than what?
“He came a few times a couple years back,” says Eliot, like Cougar should know this. “Hair’s grown out and the goatee is new but I recognize his moves. He was jumpy as all hell, tons of talent but no focus. Couldn’t fight his match for watchin’ the perimeter.”
Cougar nods, can see it, Jake fresh from the army and all these macho guys looking like his enemies.
“I made sure he got put against the cleanest fighters we had, but not much else I could do. He came a few times and then we never saw him again.”
In the ring, Jake rolls up his opponent and gets the pin. They stand together and he shakes Jake’s hand.
The next guy is thick, long-armed and short-legged and the second the bell rings he wades in through Jake’s blows and wraps him up, bearing him down to the mat with a thud. Jake blocks it from becoming a ground-and-pound by locking his long legs around the guy’s waist, arching back to keep him off but he’s not quick enough to stop himself from being flipped over, his legs held and back bowed. Jake taps out and his opponent lets go immediately, helping Jake up off of the mat. They say something too quiet for Cougar to hear and then Jake is sliding out of the ring, grin wide and open, hair spiky with sweat and his skin shining with it.
Cougar smirks and tosses a towel at his face.
“Did you see that guy?” Jake asks with a grin.
“You’re on deck,” Eliot tells Cougar and the three of them watch the next match together and then it’s Cougar’s turn in the ring.
His opponent is a lean, little Caucasian guy, fast as hell and quick to retreat. Cougar closes tight with him against the ropes, rabbit-punches to the stomach and a knee to the ribs. He gets hold of the guy’s wrist and in the middle of the move realizes that it’s going to dislocate the man’s elbow if he follows through so he lets go mid-maneuver. So much of what he knows is less than useful in a friendly fight. They break apart and Cougar is breathing heavy, feeling how out of condition he is, how badly he needed the extra days of cardio that he’s skipped in favor of this.
It’s luck that he blocks a kick and his opponent stumbles on the recovery, that Cougar spins him and darts in. He gets his arm around the man’s throat from behind, brings him to the ground and holds on as he wriggles like an eel to get free.
He taps out before he’s choked out and Cougar is the one seeing black spots in his vision. The ref is calling Cougar a new opponent but Cougar slides out of the ring and Jake is there, propping him up, tapping his cheek. He gets a few lungfuls of air and the spots recede. Eliot passes him a bottle of water and he gulps it down, dumps some on his face.
“I’m good,” he says and stands on his own and Jake backs off. They watch the fights, Jake going in twice more.
When the matches are all done and they get ready to leave, Eliot stops them to say to Jake, “Hey, there’s a pro, semi-pro night on Mondays, invite only. We’d like to have you.” He turns to Cougar, “You too once you get back to one hundred percent.” They don’t have to ask how he can tell Cougar has the potential, or how Eliot knows he’s recovering.
Jake shrugs, “Maybe,” and Cougar shakes his head.
“Won’t be around that long.”
Eliot nods. “Y’all come by Monday anyway, if you want. Any of the open-fight days are good too.”
“So,” Jake says in the truck on the way back. Glances over at Cougar and back to the road. “You and Eliot. You guys talked while I was getting my ass kicked.”
Cougar snorts because there was a lot more kicking than being kicked going on up there.
Jake looks over again and waggles his eyebrows. “Seriously? Is my gaydar that defective?” And of course Jake would misunderstand. He grins but it seems strained. “Hey, I know we’ve got this whole platonic house-mates thing going on, but I’m no cock-block. You wanna get your dick wet, you’ve got my support. We need to take separate rides in next time? I can borrow Teresa’s car…”
Cougar has to suck his cheeks in and bite down to keep from laughing out loud, which would be the wrong thing to do because Jake may be hilariously crude about it, but his tone is a forced sort of light.
“I don’t want Eliot,” he says and it’s the truth.
Jake shrugs and they pull into the driveway. “Look, if it’s a matter of not fucking where you sleep…” Cougar stops him by resting a hand on the nape of his neck. He doesn’t know whether to be sad that Jake’s working so hard to foist him off on another man or insulted that Jake would think him such a poor friend as to out himself and Jake by proxy to people that Jake obviously wants that hidden from.
“Jake. I don’t want Eliot.”
Jake swallows hard and looks down. He’s still in his contacts and he looks vulnerable without his glasses, his lashes soft on his cheeks. Cougar wonders what they would feel like on his lips. He lets go of Jake and pulls away before he caves to the temptation. He’s leaving soon, and if he’s so eager to get fucked he can do it without messing up one of the few real friendships of his life.
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.
( Chapter 1 )
( Chapter 2 )
===========
Cougar sits for hours with Jake wrapped around him. Tensing and flexing individual muscle groups without moving around. Motionless even when the line of his back begins to cramp.
Jake sleeps like shit, but at least he sleeps. He’ll half-wake, going suddenly tense, and Cougar will whisper him back down into sleeping again. Around nine, Cougar rouses him enough to ask “You need to call work?” because if there’s one thing the military teaches a man it’s to never be AWOL. Jake shakes his head and rolls away from Cougar’s side.
“No,” he mumbles. “Nothin’ until two. Sophie.” Cougar waits but Jake doesn’t fall asleep again. Not with Cougar awake and watching.
“Can I use the truck?” Cougar asks and Jake waves over his shoulder to the computer desk where the keys are.
Cougar stands, walks off the pins and needles down his legs. “I’ll be back,” he says, and then “Don’t shoot me.”
Jake snorts and pulls a pillow over his head.
Cougar pulls on his clothes and goes out to the truck. The Texas sun is cruelly bright, cutting low over the skyline, glaring off of the truck’s hood. He drives around a while and stops for a drive-through breakfast, picks up enough for two. He thinks about parking here and sitting for a while in the lot, but a cop pulls through slow and he figures risking trouble is a poor way to start the day. He ends up circling the block and then sitting in Jake’s driveway for an hour or so, radio tuned to a Tejano station. He drinks his coffee and eats his food and watches a pair of squirrels play tag around the tree in Jake’s back yard.
He’s there until the back door opens and Jake stumbles out in his boxers, rubbing his face and squinting at the world through his glasses. Cougar shuts off the truck and climbs down, hands Jake his breakfast and the paper cup of cold coffee.
Jake stumbles back into the house to the microwave to heat up his gift, stands there half-naked until he’s drank it all. He wanders the house a little after that, looking over their accomplishments, planning the next day’s work.
“So. Last night,” Jake says after he’s caffeinated, the two of them surveying the sad state of the house’s living room. “Sorry about that. Won’t happen again.” He doesn’t meet Cougar’s eyes and Cougar isn’t sure if he should push it or let it slide. Isn’t sure what he should say even if he was brave enough to try to use words to help.
“What are we working on today?” he asks instead and Jake looks around the room.
“I think I’m done with this stink,” Jake announces. “Floor paint, lunch, Sophie. In that order.”
They drive to a big-box home improvement store. Jake’s plan of getting the floor painted in the morning is derailed by all the shiny tools, “Cougar, look, it’s modular!” The sales clerk in power tools gives them a look, Jake so damn bouncy and Cougar hiding half his face under the brim of his hat. Cougar feels like they’re on display. That assumptions are being made. He steps away to look at a socket set and heat rises on his cheeks. He isn’t sure if it’s shame that the man thought they were together, or shame that he was so uncomfortable at the thought that he would turn from Jake.
From power tools they wander through flooring, picking up some samples of ceramic tile that Jake wants to try in the bathrooms, paint for the floors. Cougar watches, to see if Jake noticed the small betrayal, if Jake is quieter or tense, but he can see no sign.
By the time they get back in the truck, Cougar’s stomach is rumbling and he’s hungry for the first time in weeks, his appetite suddenly and viciously awake. “Lunch?” he suggests and Jake nods. They take a turn and Cougar recognizes the area. Near Jake’s work, near the club they first met at. It feels strange to go to such a neighborhood for food. He can understand a place for the gays to meet or to have other gay men cut their hair. He doesn’t really understand why there would be special places for them to eat together.
The restaurant Jake takes him to is like a gay parody of a nineteen fifties diner, all black and white tile, but with the bright blare-and-thump music that Cougar has so often been fucked to in the back of some club. He looks around and sees only one mixed-sex pair sitting at a table; all the rest are men together or women together. The tip jar on the counter says “We shake our buns for you.”
The smell of the grill is making his stomach churn with hunger, but his discomfort with the atmosphere of the place makes him too wary to relax. When it’s his turn to order he asks for a burger and Coke, and is not surprised when Jake adds fried mushrooms and a slice of the cake-of-the-day to it.
“Hey,” Jake says and bumps his foot under the table as they wait for their food. “You okay?”
“Si,” Cougar answers, and when Jake still looks curious and concerned, he adds “I have never been to such a place.”
“A burger joint?”
“A gay burger joint.”
Jake looks thoughtful and their food arrives then, brought by a cheerful waiter in a white apron and paper hat who calls Cougar “Sugar” and winks at them both.
The conversation falters as they eat, Jake pausing to take bites of his burger in the middle of his story about how this place used to be tucked into the tiny storefront there across the street, best burgers in Dallas for a decade running now. For all the odd ambiance, the food is damn good and the burger gone before Cougar realizes, his fries and mushrooms soon after. Jake dumps some more from his own plate and Cougar eats through those too.
“Jake!” a voice cries from over by the door, high-pitched and over-loud and Cougar half-startles from his chair before he realizes the shriek is joy and not murderous intent. His eyes go wide as the person (his mind cannot quite identify it as ‘man’) flounces over to Jake. The creature is ridiculous, all too-tight clothes and flopping wrist, make-up on his face and lips pursed.
“I went to get my hair done and you weren’t there, you monster,” the mayate mock-complains at Jake, thwapping him on the shoulder with a limp hand.
Jake doesn’t seem to notice what a freak he’s talking to. He meets the man’s eyes like he would Cougar’s or the clerk at the hardware store. “Sorry Armando, I’ve got the day off. I’ll be there tomorrow until two if you wanna come by then.”
The man, Armando, sighs dramatically and turns a curious eye over at Cougar, and Cougar doesn’t know if it’s pity or revulsion he’s feeling.
Jake smiles still, “Armando, my friend Cougar. Cougar, Armando.”
Armando’s eyebrows flick up and he haughtily offers his hand to Cougar, like he expects Cougar to kiss his ring or something and no. It’s more than he can take and he stands, chair scraping on the floor as he does. He pushes past the man, who cries out like he was struck instead of jostled. He needs air, sunlight.
Behind him he hears Armando’s sharp “Oh my god, rude much?” pierce the air and Jake’s low “Hey. Don’t,” in warning, but he isn’t sure if Jake’s talking to Cougar or the other.
He hits the sidewalk and it’s quieter out here, a few people going from their cars to the shops, but room to breathe. There is a cement bench, empty, in front of Jake’s truck and he stops there, hands gripping the back of it as he stands there, head bowed as he tries to get himself under control.
“Cougar?” Jake asks from behind him. He can’t be sure without looking, but he doesn’t think Jake is angry with him. Confused, maybe disappointed. He has no idea how long the other man has been there. He nods that he hears, waits to see what Jake will do.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Okay. I can work with that. Let’s get out of here, huh?” He opens up the truck and Cougar climbs into the passenger seat, hiding behind his hat.
Jake is quiet, and that is odd enough that Cougar feels guilty for it. Knows he’s fucked up but not sure how to fix it. He should just go, he thinks. Find a hotel and hole up until he can go back to Bragg without the guys wondering what happened to bring him back early.
Jake drives aimlessly for a while and finally pulls the truck to a stop in the parking lot of a little park.
“You are gay, right?” he asks out of the quiet, and the muscles along Cougar’s jaw jump with tension. The words, to confirm or deny, they catch in his throat and he can’t talk.
“I know some straight guys go to the bars just so old queens will buy them drinks,” Jake says, “But I thought—I mean, you went with that guy. And you asked me to fuck you. You gotta help me out here, Cougs, ‘cause I’m really confused.”
Cougar breathes, slow, careful. Hands loose on his thighs. Fighting his first instinct, to strike out at the source of his pain. To shut Jake the hell up so he’ll stop asking fucked up questions that Cougar has no answers to. To make him stop implying these slurs against Cougar’s manhood.
“Hey,” Jake says, softer now. “Whatever you’re into, and I think I know you well enough to know it’s not kids or the unwilling, whoever you’re looking to have in your bed, I’ve still got your six. We’re still friends. If it’s guys or girls or both or neither. I just gotta know so I don’t bring you somewhere that freaks you out again.”
Cougar sits. He doesn’t know how to say that he wants to not-want. That he wants to be anything other than what Jake is, what Jake’s friends are.
Jake watches him; Cougar can see him frown in his peripheral vision. He waits for Jake to give up, kick him out, out of his truck and his life.
“Fuck,” Jake finally sighs. “Look, I gotta go get Sophie from school.”
“I am no fit company,” Cougar says at last and Jake nods.
“It’s fine. I’ll drop you off at the house,” and as they drive, he sighs, “What the hell, man?” but he sounds more sad than angry.
====================
Cougar goes into the house as Jake pulls away, angry with himself for having so little self-control, angry at Jake for bringing him somewhere that he would have to. He wants to punch holes in the walls, to feel his knuckles tear, the dull impact against his bones. He finds the tools and the spackling compound instead and picks up where he had left off, a steady thump-thump-scrape that calms his mind, puts his hands to work.
He finishes one wall and by then his stomach is cramping as he tries to digest his meal and work both, his body protesting the surge in activity. He cleans up and checks his phone (no messages, but then nobody has this number except for his team). He lies down, stretching out on sheets that smell like Jake. The hum of the air-conditioner and the fullness of his belly lull him to sleep and he doesn’t wake up again until he hears Jake’s key in the front door, his voice calling “Cougs? You here?”
Jake comes into the bedroom with an armload of plastic dishes and paper bags. “Teresa cooked,” he says and hands one to Cougar. He opens it, but isn’t sure what he’s looking at. Piles of lettuce and a glob of sour cream. The smell of cumin and chili, fresh onion. Meat maybe, somewhere in there.
“Taco salad,” Jake grins, like he hadn’t been disappointed when he left, like Cougar is still his friend. “She’s only been in Texas for two months, you gotta give her a break. Just don’t expect anything like Mexican and it’s actually edible. A hell of a lot better than the nachos supreme they serve in London, I can tell you that much.”
They sit and eat. Jake digs in one of the paper bags and brings out a pair of bottles of Sangría Señorial, pops the top off of one with a multi-tool from his pocket and passes it over with a grin. Cougar has to smile back because it’s been years since he had this stuff, dark red and not too sweet, tart and richer than North American style sodas. It brings back good memories, of family gatherings, the children drinking this while the adults get the real stuff.
“Gracias,” he says to Jake, and he means for more than the food and drink. For this, for them, for Jake letting him get away with being an asshole.
“De nada,” Jake answers with a shrug, and they eat, the quiet stretching out between them. Jake takes a sip of his soda, head tipping back, the slender neck of the bottle in his hand, throat working as he swallows.
The sudden surge of want clenches in Cougar’s chest, and his hand tightens on the fork to keep from reaching out, to keep from touching.
“Saw you worked on the living room,” Jake says as they’re finishing up. “Looks good.”
Cougar shrugs his acknowledgment. “Something to do,” he says and Jake nods.
“You wanna go walk once the sun goes down?”
They work on the house a little while longer, and when it’s not so bright out they leave the air-conditioning for the outside world, Jake setting an easy pace, Cougar feeling his body starting to be like his own again.
“Sorry if I was a dick today,” Jake says as they walk.
“It wasn’t you,” Cougar says, and knows that’s mostly true.
Jake makes an “Eh,” sort of noise, like he doesn’t care if he gets the blame. “I was nosy, and you know you can just tell me to butt out, right?”
“Si.”
Which Jake seems to take as permission to go right back to his curiosity, like a dog gnawing a bone.
“Hunky’s freaked you out. I just don’t get why?”
Cougar stops walking, fully prepared to go back to the house to keep from having this conversation twice in one day, but Jake stops him with a light touch on his elbow.
“Hey, wait, no. I’m not asking why. If you could tell me why, you would, right?”
They stand there on the sidewalk of the cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood while Cougar calms himself again.
“I would,” he agrees and Jake bobs his head like the plastic dog that Pooch puts on the dashboard of whatever vehicle he’s driving.
“I’m not saying I’ll never ask again, because I’m a curious kind of guy, but I get it if you’re not ready. And I wanted to say if there’s anything you wanted to ask me, anything I can talk about to help you out, just let me know. No quid pro quo, no truth or dare. Just ask.”
Cougar nods and doesn’t know if he ever will, but it is nice to have the offer, to know that Jake isn’t angry, isn’t expecting more than he can give.
They walk on, looping around the block and heading back to the house. Jake takes first watch as they settle down. In the quiet and the dark, Jake says, “I tried dating. A while ago. This guy named Marco. He was a good guy. Didn’t get why I wouldn’t stay after we fucked though, y’know? I tried to tell him. Not the whole thing, not why but just that I’d been in the army and woke up fighting sometimes.”
Jake sighs soft and low. “He thought it was bullshit. That if I cared about him that I’d never hurt him. That if I didn’t stay, I wasn’t making a commitment, that it was just sex between us.” He laughs like it hurts. “I stayed there and awake for three nights, and then I fell asleep. I broke his nose, coming up, and he called me a monster. Said he never wanted to see me again.”
Cougar isn’t sure what to say to that, what Jake needs to hear.
“I was as honest as I know how to be, and he heard what he wanted to.” Jake’s head turns towards Cougar, but he can’t see his face in the dark. “I’m not making the same mistake, am I?”
“You are my friend,” Cougar says, “It helps that you are here.”
Jake lets out a slow breath and a quiet “Okay,” and they go to sleep. When Cougar wakes in the middle of the night, Jake is sound asleep in his own bed, the 9mm on the sheets beside him. Cougar closes his eyes again and sleeps. All is well.
==================
On Wednesday, Jake goes to run an errand and comes back with a treadmill in the back of his truck. It looks used, but gym-grade and they set it up on the freshly painted floor of the living room. Even though the doctor said to wait until the second week to start building stamina again, Cougar starts walking, sometimes jogging, as much as he can stand.
On Thursday, they drive up to a little hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant, tucked into a pothole-cratered plaza between a Washateria and nail salon. Cougar doesn’t have high hopes looking at the place, but the food is amazing, just the right blend of spicy and sweet and he is fascinated when Jake chats to the waitress in her own language, lips shaped to form the foreign words.
On Friday, Jake goes to work and Cougar lays down in Jake’s bed and takes himself in his hand, slow and lazy, not even sure if he’s fit enough yet. He thinks of Jake, sweaty and dusted with plaster. Jake, dressed like a yuppie in his khaki pants and button-down shirt. Jake in fatigues, Jake in dress greens, Jake naked and pressing against him. Jake’s fingers in his hair. He comes, gasping and panting. He falls asleep naked and is barely awake in time to get dressed before Jake comes to get him before picking Sophie up at school.
Saturday night, Jake says “Hey Cougs, I’m taking the girls to church tomorrow, you wanna come?”
He doesn’t know how Jake could do such a thing, could be what he is and want to be close to God at the same time, so he shakes his head. He does three miles on the treadmill while they’re out. Afterward, Jake takes them all out for ice cream.
That becomes their pattern, Jake’s shifts at the salon, Cougar working on the house or just working out. Jake takes them to a pastel-colored gym on Tuesday, where they know Jake and Carlos Alvarez is apparently already a member. Jake just shrugs like he has no idea how that happened, and Cougar doesn’t know if he paid for it behind his back or if he hacked the system and stole him a membership. They spot each other using the free-weights and Cougar is sore as hell the next day, but it feels good, feels real.
Thursday morning they go to a gun range, rent handguns and a pair of lanes and shoot until it’s time to pick up Sophie. Jake brings rollerblades for her, and he and Cougar jog around the park with the little girl on a tow-line, yelling for them to go faster.
Thursday night, Jake says “Hey, you wanna check out one of those MMA places? See if we can get you some good hand-to-hand?”
Cougar isn’t sure he’s ready to fight, but the worst that can happen is that he’ll lose, and he’s not so attached to his ego that he won’t take that risk.
Jake is quiet on the ride. Quiet for Jake, at least. “These guys,” he says at last, “I’ve got no reason to think anything bad of any of them.”
Cougar tips his head, listening.
“But I don’t know them either, and they don’t know me.”
Cougar takes that to mean that Jake hides who he is, what he is, from these people. That he doesn’t have reason to trust them. He takes it to mean that Jake won’t be standing so close or grinning so wide, that his eyes won’t be so bright when he looks at Cougar. It makes him sad that Jake, who is so strong in his self, so at peace, has to hide again, if only for a few hours.
They pull up outside a warehouse in an industrial part of town, tin-sided and car-sized air-handlers running outside to pump cool air into the building. Jake grabs a duffel bag out of the back and visibly squares himself and they go in together.
Inside is about what Cougar expected. Hanging heavy bags and free weights, a ring in the center of the room and practice mats off to the back. It smells of sweat and testosterone, rubber and leather and faintly of mold. Seems clean though, the lights bright enough and the bare cement floors swept clear.
It looks like they’ve come in mid-practice. About twenty men are gathered around the ring in fight gear and gloves. In the middle are two fighters and a ref. From the opposite corners two coaches shout advice and motivation. When one match ends the ref points out two guys of the gathered crowd and they’ll switch into the ring and the fight will start again.
Jake moves with confidence nearer to the ring, but he’s light on his feet, thrumming with hidden tension. Cougar can’t help but pick up on it, instinctively angles himself so they’re covering more of the room, a closed-off unit of two.
One of the corner coaches notices them coming in, a long-haired guy about Cougar’s height but a denser build. He gives them a curt nod of acknowledgment and goes back to yelling “Your left! Keep your left up! God-damn it!”
They watch a few matches. Cougar glances at Jake to see how he’s taking it and sees him intent on the ring, the competition, eyes bright and hungry.
The coach pulls one of the waiting fighters up to man his corner and climbs down to walk over and introduce himself as Eliot, the owner. His handshake is firm but not too tight, his demeanor calm, controlled.
“You guys here to fight?” he asks.
Jake sucks in his lower lip and holds it in his teeth, looks to Cougar to decide for them both.
And fuck it. He’s probably going to get his ass handed to him, but he can see how much Jake wants this, to let loose and compete.
“Si,” he answers, “What do we do?”
There’s paperwork to fill out and Cougar needs to buy gloves and a mouth-guard. Jake changes glasses for contacts in the locker room and they head to ringside. Jake bounces on the toes of his feet, makes some practice-swings in the air and then he’s being given a hand into the ring. Eliot stays on the floor by Cougar, in the center of one side of the ring.
Jake’s first opponent isn’t much of a challenge. A big kid, beefy but inexperienced. Telegraphs his swings and falls for Jake’s feints, leaves himself open to a series of jabs to the head and over-commits to a return punch that Jake turns into a throw and lays him out on the mat, elbow caught in an arm-bar and the kid taps out. Jake helps him up from the mat and turns to slide out of the ring but the ref stops him.
“First night, winner stays,” the ref says a nd calls in another fighter. Jake glances over at Cougar, but the energy of the gym still feels excited but not ugly. An evaluation then, not a hazing. Cougar shrugs and Jake turns back to the ref, taps gloves with the next guy and they circle around. This one is more experienced, slower to commit, more sophisticated in his combos. He catches Jake a good kick to the ribs but Jake turns with it, catching his foot and twisting him to the ground. The guy strikes out with the other and Jake backs off, dancing on the balls of his feet and looking for an opening.
They trade blows and Jake’s eyes meet Cougar’s again as they fall apart. Not afraid, just checking. Trusting Cougar to make sure everything is still cool there on the ground.
“He’s looking better,” Eliot comments to Cougar. “It’s good to see.”
“Que?” Cougar asks, because better than what?
“He came a few times a couple years back,” says Eliot, like Cougar should know this. “Hair’s grown out and the goatee is new but I recognize his moves. He was jumpy as all hell, tons of talent but no focus. Couldn’t fight his match for watchin’ the perimeter.”
Cougar nods, can see it, Jake fresh from the army and all these macho guys looking like his enemies.
“I made sure he got put against the cleanest fighters we had, but not much else I could do. He came a few times and then we never saw him again.”
In the ring, Jake rolls up his opponent and gets the pin. They stand together and he shakes Jake’s hand.
The next guy is thick, long-armed and short-legged and the second the bell rings he wades in through Jake’s blows and wraps him up, bearing him down to the mat with a thud. Jake blocks it from becoming a ground-and-pound by locking his long legs around the guy’s waist, arching back to keep him off but he’s not quick enough to stop himself from being flipped over, his legs held and back bowed. Jake taps out and his opponent lets go immediately, helping Jake up off of the mat. They say something too quiet for Cougar to hear and then Jake is sliding out of the ring, grin wide and open, hair spiky with sweat and his skin shining with it.
Cougar smirks and tosses a towel at his face.
“Did you see that guy?” Jake asks with a grin.
“You’re on deck,” Eliot tells Cougar and the three of them watch the next match together and then it’s Cougar’s turn in the ring.
His opponent is a lean, little Caucasian guy, fast as hell and quick to retreat. Cougar closes tight with him against the ropes, rabbit-punches to the stomach and a knee to the ribs. He gets hold of the guy’s wrist and in the middle of the move realizes that it’s going to dislocate the man’s elbow if he follows through so he lets go mid-maneuver. So much of what he knows is less than useful in a friendly fight. They break apart and Cougar is breathing heavy, feeling how out of condition he is, how badly he needed the extra days of cardio that he’s skipped in favor of this.
It’s luck that he blocks a kick and his opponent stumbles on the recovery, that Cougar spins him and darts in. He gets his arm around the man’s throat from behind, brings him to the ground and holds on as he wriggles like an eel to get free.
He taps out before he’s choked out and Cougar is the one seeing black spots in his vision. The ref is calling Cougar a new opponent but Cougar slides out of the ring and Jake is there, propping him up, tapping his cheek. He gets a few lungfuls of air and the spots recede. Eliot passes him a bottle of water and he gulps it down, dumps some on his face.
“I’m good,” he says and stands on his own and Jake backs off. They watch the fights, Jake going in twice more.
When the matches are all done and they get ready to leave, Eliot stops them to say to Jake, “Hey, there’s a pro, semi-pro night on Mondays, invite only. We’d like to have you.” He turns to Cougar, “You too once you get back to one hundred percent.” They don’t have to ask how he can tell Cougar has the potential, or how Eliot knows he’s recovering.
Jake shrugs, “Maybe,” and Cougar shakes his head.
“Won’t be around that long.”
Eliot nods. “Y’all come by Monday anyway, if you want. Any of the open-fight days are good too.”
“So,” Jake says in the truck on the way back. Glances over at Cougar and back to the road. “You and Eliot. You guys talked while I was getting my ass kicked.”
Cougar snorts because there was a lot more kicking than being kicked going on up there.
Jake looks over again and waggles his eyebrows. “Seriously? Is my gaydar that defective?” And of course Jake would misunderstand. He grins but it seems strained. “Hey, I know we’ve got this whole platonic house-mates thing going on, but I’m no cock-block. You wanna get your dick wet, you’ve got my support. We need to take separate rides in next time? I can borrow Teresa’s car…”
Cougar has to suck his cheeks in and bite down to keep from laughing out loud, which would be the wrong thing to do because Jake may be hilariously crude about it, but his tone is a forced sort of light.
“I don’t want Eliot,” he says and it’s the truth.
Jake shrugs and they pull into the driveway. “Look, if it’s a matter of not fucking where you sleep…” Cougar stops him by resting a hand on the nape of his neck. He doesn’t know whether to be sad that Jake’s working so hard to foist him off on another man or insulted that Jake would think him such a poor friend as to out himself and Jake by proxy to people that Jake obviously wants that hidden from.
“Jake. I don’t want Eliot.”
Jake swallows hard and looks down. He’s still in his contacts and he looks vulnerable without his glasses, his lashes soft on his cheeks. Cougar wonders what they would feel like on his lips. He lets go of Jake and pulls away before he caves to the temptation. He’s leaving soon, and if he’s so eager to get fucked he can do it without messing up one of the few real friendships of his life.
( Chapter 4 )
no subject
Date: 2012-06-22 05:51 am (UTC)And Eliot! *g* Yay for random Eliot--who also gets Jake and his damage. And poor Cougar, whose damage is that he is punishing himself for his desires when he fulfills them. That will be an interesting conversation when Cougar finally gets to the point they talk about it--IF they do.
Loving this, just loving it! More, soon, I hope!
(P.S.--Do you ever post on AO3? I might have an invite if you need one. Mostly because they have a handy dandy "download for epub" function on stories. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-06-22 01:57 pm (UTC)I'm glad I got Cougar's voice. It's a tricky thing to do with a character that says less than 30 words in canon. :) He came out a lot more tired than I'd planned, and isolated. And institutionalized. But it all fits in together and while it's a little heavier than I was planning, it worked for me as the writer.
The intersection of culture and sexuality is a very tricky one to write. I think at the time Carlos hit high school, he had built up so much self-hatred for what he was. It was actually better for him that he went into the military. The alternative is a hooker!AU in the making. :) (steadfastly not thinking about a Clay/Carlos hooker!fic. Crap, I'm thinking).
Heh. I couldn't resist random Eliot. I was sort of casting for my mental picture of the character and he popped up and wouldn't leave. He's no shrink, but he sees when a fighter's fucked up. My original concept of Jake was that he was already fighting MMA recreationally, but later decided to let that be something that Cougar gives back to him.
Cougar's definitely got some work to do before he's fit for a relationship, and getting the man to talk convincingly is a trick, and getting Jake to accept him like that without being a doormat tricky also.
I have an AO3 account, with the one lonely 5-times-Eliot fic over there. My plan was to post fics there when they were done (and to go back and re-post all my completed fics), but I've been lazy. And a tiny bit discouraged by the kudos to comments ratio so far.
I'm hoping to get another chapter out tomorrow and the last on Monday. Assuming my child ever sleeps (I thought a 3 year old was supposed to need more sleep than this).
no subject
Date: 2012-06-22 03:07 pm (UTC)Eliot: His character fits what you've done here, because he is a very observant guy, and he's got the military and mercenary background to understand these guys. In Leverage canon he's got a lot of the same psychological damage as Cougar does in your story; he was just healthier in the beginning so he copes better--and comes to life better afterward.
Hookerfic! *g* Here, let me feed that plot armadillo.
I like your take on why Cougar went into the military, at least in part, and yeah, it oould be good for him. Have you read the comic books? In those, it's explained that, while naturally quiet, Cougar was not silent until after Afghanistan and the helicopter crash that killed the kids. Cougar was the only one nearby when it crashed near his position after being shot down. And, he was the one who killed Fadhil. (My beef with the movie, though I get why they gave that to Clay.) In the movie, I know Oscar had them take lines away from Cougar a few times.
Last but not least, AO3: I think I am inured to the kudos/comments ratio at this point. I was happy to see the kudos just because there was *nothing* for people to react with if they didn't leave comments--and the random kudo is better than nothing. It's actually gotten me to try to leave more comments. Then again, I am a dinosaur from the days of email listserves and LOCs to authors. It took me a LONG time to get used to the SO public nature of feedback when fandom shifted to LJ. The AO3 setup reminds me of LOCs and having to have readers actually send an email to comment to you.
I mostly just love their download function for fics that I can put on my nook. (And for someone like me, who's not actively writing in any fandom, but has had stories on two or three websites that went defunct, it's been a great place to park my work.)
I have an event to work tonight, but I will look forward to more story when I get home from that! What a treat. ;-)
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Date: 2012-06-22 05:42 pm (UTC)I'm on the lookout for the comics at Half-price books, but haven't found them yet. I've read a little in fanfic that explains how hard Afghanistan was for him, but I didn't know he killed Fadhil. Every time I write Cougar, I go back over his dialog time and again, going "Can I do that with less words?" He usually ends up with about half of what the first draft had.
I came up originally on the LotR yahoo groups, and ff.net. On the yahoo groups, everybody would see everybody's feedback, so it was like ultra-public. There was almost a prestige attached to giving good detailed feedback. I actually felt a little lonely on LJ until I got my first "I like your writing, but (blah) seems terribly out of character for this person to have done" and I was all "BE MY FRIEND, GOOD CRITTER!"
I dunno why everyone picks only Jake to whump. I like to spread it around. :) And Oscar, he's so expressive. It's so easy to imagine Cougar's man-pain.
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Date: 2012-06-22 06:44 pm (UTC)The Bolivia set-up from the movie is actually very different from the books, starting with oh, wait, they weren't in Bolivia. But it worked for the movie. It's been a while since I read them, so I'd have to look up the details, but Fadhil was a bit of a different character, not in charge at all. It was traumatic for Cougar to kill him, and then he had the whole helicopter crash thing and not being able to rescue any of the kids because of the heat of the fire... Clay explains it all to Aisha at one point in the second book, I think, Cougar's damage and history.
Your yahoo group experience, except for how public it was, sounds much more like the listerve/LOC letter system I still prefer. ;-)
I think right before LOTR movies fandom was going through a shift to more "social" writing, where people posted whatever they'd just thrown together because writing had become part of being active in fandom. Then if you even hinted that you saw a flaw, there was an explosion of "OMG you said something NOT NICE! WHY U HATING ON MY Epxression of LURV? It's JUST A HOBBY!" Made me VERY leery about offering any kind of critique to anyone, whether via email or comment or even if I was asked to beta. Instead, I defaulted to mostly just not commenting--not to mention that when a story is posted publicly, the consensus seems to be that the time for offering criticism has passed. (But it pains me to see a good story with what I think may be a plothole, so I'll sneak something in sometimes, like when I asked about Cougar's family's reaction to his running away in your last fic. It's neat to know that you don't mind. ;-)
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Date: 2012-06-26 01:53 am (UTC)Also, I found this pic from the comic: http://browse.deviantart.com/?order=9&q=jensen+cougar&offset=120#/d2q3hg2
Seriously? That alone would make the cover price worth it. :)
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Date: 2012-06-26 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-22 02:12 pm (UTC)http://archiveofourown.org/series/14993
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Date: 2012-06-22 02:53 pm (UTC)