sixthiterationlogs | (no subject)

WHO: Cougar Alvarez
WHERE: Bungalow #22
WHEN: July 2nd - Day After Arrival
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: n/a
STATUS: Closed

It takes Cougar two tries down the well before he gives up. The sirens and the windstorm force him to move on and make nice in the inn, but when things clear up and the sun rises on another day, Cougar slings his pack over his shoulder and heads out to explore the rest of the strange settlement they seem to be in the middle of.

It's quiet.

Normally, Cougar likes the quiet. He's a taciturn man himself, preferring signals and gestures over words, but this is an eerie kind of quiet that he doesn't like. The homes are empty and that means something drove everyone out, but for Cougar's life, he can't figure out where they went. He tries to go to the edge of the cliffs, but he can't climb the sheer face. Returning back to the village, he finds a dark green bungalow near a forked path and knows that if he wants to get a better view, he needs to be in a sniper's nest.

More than that, he's going to need to set up base. Throwing his bag to the roof, he grabs for the porch and starts to lever himself up, using the windows and the shingles of the roof to scuttle his way along until he's managed to free-run himself up to the apex of the roof. He tugs his bag along with him (stuffed with a few berries he'd found on his exploration) and settles down at the top. High above everything, he feels at home even in this strange place.

He sits, cross-legged, and chews on some of the berries as he stares at the streets that wind below him. He'd prefer to be much, much higher, but this will do for now as he stakes his claim on this house as a base and keeps an eye on all the vantage points around.

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His face darkens at those words because they hit too close to home. He had trusted Roque with his life so many times, only to have Roque arrange to have them shot, execution style. Even though Cougar had taken him out, there isn't much regret, but there is guilt. More guilt than he knows what to do with, which is why he wakes up screaming more often than not.

"Don't trust anyone," he says evenly. "Not completely. Learn that lesson," is all he says, "and you'll be safer."

"That's sad," Veronica says, watching the subtle flicker of emotion behind his eyes and wondering what the hell put it there. She doesn't ask, although maybe she should; apparently they've both got sore subjects.

"How can you truly care about people and be a fully-realized human being without trusting people?" she asks instead. "I'm not talking about being a sucker, but shit. I don't think I'm ready for that level of perpetual cynicism."

Maybe it's different for a civilian, but Cougar thinks that he trusts exactly two people right now. Aisha is an easy to understand reason for mistrust, and Clay too often follows other parts than his head. Really, the only two people that Cougar trusts unequivocally are Pooch and Jensen, neither of whom are here. He knows that it's sad, knows that it's made him closed off, but he's paid the hard way and is still working off the grief of trust in the middle of the night through screaming night terrors.

He shrugs, because it's the best he can do. "Means no one gets a knife in my back," he says. "Alive is better than trusting and dead."

"I wouldn't put a knife in your back," Veronica says, quieter than a moment before, and then slants her gaze away with bite to her bottom lip. There's no reason to not just come out and tell her whole sob story, except that it will probably just support everything Cougar's trying to tell her.

"My boyfriend tried to kill me," she says, looking back to him with a shrug, her eyes betraying the smoothness of the gesture. "Twice. It wasn't exactly fun, but I'm not wanting to live my life in a bubble, either. If I do that, he's still got control over me, right? And fuck him. He doesn't get to dictate how I live."

"I don't know you," Cougar reminds her. He doesn't say it to be cruel, but it's the truth. People come in and lie. People know you and lie. All Cougar knows it that until someone is fighting by your side, you can never know where their real loyalties are. Even then, it changes when their priorities change.

It doesn't mean he's going to freeze her out, though. "I'm sorry about your boyfriend," he offers calmly. "If he comes here, voy a cortarle el cuello," he says, because violence against women doesn't deserve mercy.

"He's dead," Veronica says, and the sudden urge for a cigarette is so strong that she actually pats one of her pockets before she remembers their benevolent puppet masters hadn't included that in their gift pack.

"I wouldn't put a knife in your back," she says again, more firmly this time and holding Cougar's gaze. Maybe it shouldn't matter, but it does. She's nothing like J.D. She could never do anything like that on purpose.

Cougar shrugs when she tells him that he's dead, because it just means that he doesn't get to drive a knife into anyone's throat for their crimes -- at least, not today. He gives her a curious look when she insists that she's trustworthy, wondering why it's so hard for him to believe.

Maybe it's being with the same group for so long and maybe it's being betrayed by Aisha and Roque in such quick succession. "Can't trust anyone," he says with a shrug that's half-sad. "Everyone has their own agenda. You won't put a knife in my back, not unless something changes and you need to."

"Everyone has buttons."