sixthiterationlogs | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

WHO: Cougar Alvarez
WHERE: By the fountain
WHEN: November 15th
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Brooding | Adult Content in Jake Log
STATUS: Closed

If anyone is coming up out of the fountain, they're in for a rude surprise.

Days go, like it had been as simple as breathing, all of a sudden Carlos Alvarez vanished and years of awful memories came crashing back into his head. Afghanistan, Bolivia, Los Angeles, and all the deaths and bad calls in between. The worst of it is that Cougar can acutely remember how happy he had been for a few weeks, even if he's sure that Jake is pissed off with him and that Raven and Veronica both have plenty of blackmail material on him.

Now he's heaving heavy rocks into the fountain because he can't even shoot anything, which makes him feel useless. Not only is he useless, but he's back to being unhappy and the last thing he wants to think about is how hard it will be to sleep tonight, after three weeks of peaceful rests and sleeping in with no nightmares to chase him, because the worst thing that had happened in that boys' life had been losing his family for who he'd chosen to be.

As it stands, all he wants to do is throw more into the fountain, the heavier of the rocks straining his muscles, but making him feel it. When he throws the next, though, it doesn't hit the water, but instead goes crashing off the side, tumbling down the side of the fountain and in the direction of the path, having done no damage at all. Seeing a pair of feet on the path just by where the heavy rock had ended up rolling, Cougar nudges his hat up with a thumb and gives a nod to acknowledge them, a shrug, and then a single word.

"Sorry." He lets his gaze slide down. "I didn't hurt you?"

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

"If you had, I'd just make you patch me up," Helen said, giving him a little smile. She had experienced far worse than a rock against her toe and while it smarted a bit, it was not anything she couldn't move on from. More concerning was his countenance, the slope of his shoulders - it was clear that Cougar was upset about something. What, however, would remain to be seen.

"Why exactly are you launching projectiles at the fountain anyway? Has it done anything particularly aggrieving of late or are you experimenting?"

Bruce had experimented with it by jumping in. Helen had chosen a method that involved less in the way of inundation and resembled Cougar's current actions.

"No gun," is what he says, aggrieved and more than a little cross as he perches on the edge of the fountain, feeling some of the fight go out of him as he collapses down on the stones and takes off his hat. He's been wearing it ever since it showed up, but the version of himself without a memory didn't understand the preciousness of the commodity. "It felt good to do," he says with a faintly dark smile.

"And besides, good alert system if anyone is coming out," he adds.

"No, buddy," Jake replies quietly, knowing that Cougar is in a shitty mood at not knowing what to do about it.

The worst part, he thinks, is that he'd started to get used to Carlos, the almost carefree boy who'd been wearing his best friend's skin. The easy way he'd curl into him at night, the quick smiles, the open trust in his face that wasn't shadowed by the brim of a low-slung hat. He still missed Cougar, of course, but Carlos wasn't exactly a hardship to be around.

Which made him feel horribly guilty before, and even worse now that Cougar's back and Jake finds himself a little bit disappointed.

"I was wondering where you got to, and Vee said she saw you heading out this way."

Seeing Jake makes a flood of guilt rush on, which is almost more than he knows what to do with. For weeks and weeks, he could barely understand English and he certainly didn't feel very comfortable with it, but he'd had someone there for him - supportive and kind and very, very attractive. True, part of his brain couldn't understand how he could have managed someone like that, but he'd resolved himself to enjoying it. Now, with his memories back, he's even more grateful for Jake, but he feels awful because Jake's stuck with the version of him that's bogged down by nightmares and screaming terrors.

"Would've preferred to go shoot something," he admits, because it's the truth of things. "Come here," he beckons with his fingers, perching on the edge of the fountain, his jeans slightly damp from the splashing water.

"Yeah, I bet." He knows what the Spanish word for shoot is, at least, and he's known Cougar for long enough to know exactly how he handles stress: he goes to the shooting range and destroys targets for a few hours until he feels calmer.

Without a range and without his guns, he's at loose ends. Jake can commiserate.

Come here is also a phrase he can parse, so he does just that, stepping closer without hesitation before reaching a hand out to cup Cougar's shoulder. "Are you okay?"

There's something else that he does when he's stressed, but it hadn't felt right to do when he's not entirely sure what Jake is feeling after Cougar had lost his memory of everything, but also of Jake for so long. He cups his cheek and leans up to kiss him slowly, but with determination and all the skills that his nineteen-year-old self didn't possess (not that he hadn't been intent on learning). "Come," he invites hoarsely, when he backs away, gesturing to the pile of rocks he's brought. "Throw rocks with me."

Jake can't help the needy little noise that escapes when Cougar leans up to kiss him, or the way his arms immediately lift to curl around him to hold him close.

"I missed you," he whispers brokenly, his guilt just increasing but feeling like he needs to say it aloud. Cougar has known every little bad thing about him for years, what's a little more going to do?

The laugh that pushes up his throat when Cougar invites him to toss rocks into the fountain is just as surprised as it is loud, and he pulls back enough to wipe at his eyes for a second with the tips of his fingers before he nods. "Yeah, okay." It's so dumb, throwing rocks into the well, but what the hell, why not. What else are they going to do?

"I missed you too, cariño," he assures, even though he doesn't know that he had been missing someone, having been there the whole time. He leans up for a peck, grinning and smirking as he bends down to pick up a rock, handing it over to him. "It's only bad because now, I remember what it's like to do all the awful things I did."

"And I also know, now, how little I have been giving to you." He hefts his weight into the throw, the rock plunging into the water and sending it splashing back at him. "How much I am sorry for that."

Jake wants to protest that Cougar only did what he had to do, but he knows that that's cold comfort to him, and he might as well save his breath. He doesn't feel like rehashing an argument they've had a million times before, not when things haven't yet settled back into their normal routine yet.

"You don't have to be sorry about anything," he protests instead, stepping up to the fountain and chucking the stone as hard as he can into the water. The splorp is satisfying, but the water splashing up over their hands is very cold. He's not so sure how he feels about this. But then can always go home and warm up later, so that's not the end of the world. "I'm just glad you're still here."

The people quietly disappearing in the night hasn't escaped his notice, okay.

"What if I had stayed like that?" Cougar asks, leaning against Jake so that he can soak up the warmth from standing right beside him, hip to hip. "Carlos, thinking that I was nineteen and you were my...sugar daddy," he finds the right word, smirking even though the topic is much more serious than that. "Would you have still wanted me? Even if I was young and brash and an idiot?"

"It would be like I was gone. All the things we experienced together... gone," he points out quietly.

"I know," he says quietly, because he does know. Having Carlos wake up in his bed and not know anything about him was devastating. He grew used to it over the weeks that passed, of course, but he could never shake the feeling that he was in mourning, somehow, grieving the loss of his best friend.

It also made him so angry. Carlos was sweet, and a little naive, and chattered away in Spanish even though Jake couldn't understand him. He's jealous that there were people who knew that side of Cougar before Jake did, that they understood a part of his team mate he never would. Or never would have, had he not somehow developed amnesia for no fucking reason.

"But I still had you. Even though you weren't...you. You were still here. It would have been...enough." Jake has been abandoned enough in his life to know that you take what you can get, and don't ask for more.

"I was a different me," he admits, heaving one of the heavier rocks into the fountain to watch the give-way of the water as it splashed over the sides, sighing as he looks at Jake. "I was the me who had one boyfriend and that boyfriend got him kicked out of the family," he admits. "And I was open and trusting because he didn't know anything else."

And then he'd joined the army and learned what kind of scum was out there in the world. "I'm here, now," he promises, handing a twenty-pound stone to Jake. "And you can tell me what you thought of your sudden jailbait boyfriend."

"You were a good kid," he tries, knowing it to be true even though he didn't actually know Carlos as a teenager, just that weird shade of him that had been sleeping in his bed for the past few weeks. "Which is why you're now a good man." Despite all Cougar's faults, despite the things they've done in their lives, he believes that. He has to believe that.

He takes the stone and hefts it in his hands, contemplative for a moment before a grin slowly splits the dark beard he's grown. "You were sweet," he says as he dumps the stone in the water, laughing as it splashes water up and over their feet. "And really naive. You thought I was cool." He laughs again, shaking his head. "Me! Cool. I didn't know what to do."

Cougar gives Jake a fond smile as he snorts and shakes his head. "Don't worry, I don't know why I ever thought you were cool," he deadpans, because he absolutely knows exactly why he'd thought that. He slides his finger slowly down Jake's chest, arching a brow. "You are tall and hot and buff. You were sweet and all your emotions were on your face."

"And I was falling in love with you, too," he says with a shrug of his shoulders. "Come. Come home, we will go see Baby, we will talk."

"That's more like it," he mutters mostly to himself as Cougar teases him, grinning in return, helpless against that little smile that curls Cougar's lips.

He drops his arm around Cougar's shoulders when he drags his finger down his chest, riding out his shrug and not stepping out of his personal space.

"Okay," he agrees, but stalls for a moment so he can duck his head down and steal another kiss, not caring if they're in the middle of the town square and people are watching. They're all friends, here, and besides. He knows for a fact that Cougar — that is, Carlos — had happily gone around telling people they slept together. Little snitch.

Cougar grins at Jake, feeling much freer and more like his younger self than he has in years, and yet, this is how he feels right now, like some part of Carlos is still lingering in him, tipping his chin up in order to kiss him hard, giving Jake an amused look. "I think I told Raven and Veronica that I'm sleeping with you. And maybe some others."

"And that you might be a hooker?"

"Yeah, I heard."

He would be mortified, but... Well. Why should he? Cougar's hot, everyone with eyes can see that, and they've been attached at the hip since they arrived here. Everyone in the village knows that they come as a unit, CougarandJake, so the leap from that to lovers isn't that unusual. And it's not like they're in the Army any more, with DADT still hanging over their heads.

He shakes his head, still grinning. "I think I undercharge, you know? I'm not competitive within my industry."

"Yes, very bad with business. What was I supposed to think? I thought I was drunk and had gone to a club, I thought maybe my friends hired a hooker who could give me some experience after my bad breakup," he says, wandering back to the house, not saying that he's worried what Veronica is actually thinking about things, because she hadn't seemed too ready to accept when he'd said it.

"I guess now, I don't have to shoot anyone who might come on to you," he points out. "Because now everyone knows you're mine."

Jake is also worried about Vee, but he's also not going to say anything about it just in case he jinxes it. He's spent the entirety of his life up this this point in the closet for fear of what the people around him would say, and it would suck to be proven right in his own house.

"I don't think you had much to worry about, dude," he replies, automatically syncing up their steps as they head towards their little bungalow. "It's not like anyone else is interested in me."

Not that he'd notice if they were, anyway.

It was a few days since she'd discovered the body of the skunk. She had been avoiding this place long enough. Riza wanted to be there when people arrived if she could. It was one of the small ways she felt she could contribute. She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but she was a little surprised when a rock came out of seemingly nowhere and skittered across the path.

Riza stopped its path with her boot and looked up with some concern on her face. She felt like that look was justified given who was throwing the rock. She didn't know Cougar well, but he didn't strike her as the type to throw stones like that. Riza shook her head at his question, "I'm fine. I take it you weren't aiming at me anyway." It was said with some jest, though her dry tone might have hid the fact.

She looked from him to the fountain and then back to the rock, kneeling down to pick it up. She tossed it in her hand a few times, "I think we have enough people come through the fountain thinking they're about to be attacked or murdered. So what gives?" She threw the rock back to him to hopefully catch.

"I don't know," he says with a shrug of his shoulders. "There are not many attached people here, you are hot and funny, and with no girlfriend, maybe they thought you were available," he says, finding that he is talking more, maybe as a result of being younger and without his memory. The one thing he's really not looking forward to is the sleeping, but that's hours off.

"Maybe I just got to you first." Which is handy, because a jealous Cougar means many injured parties.

"Mm, okay." Jake still isn't used to accepting compliments about his looks, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't like that Cougar, at least, found him attractive. He doubts that anyone else in the village considers him a catch, as most of the women he speaks to seem to find him sweet and charming like he's a puppy or something, but if that's what Cougar thinks, he'll let him think it.

"You've had me for years, buddy. No worries."

"Satisfying, to see it go..." he mimics the water with his hands, a dark look on his face as he thinks about when he'd do this at home with bottles or watermelon or smaller fruits to challenge himself and to try and get over some of the darker moments of his life. Here, he has no gun. He can't go practice at the range, and he can't do anything but live with the memories and know how this place played with him for three weeks.

He catches the rock easily enough, tipping his hat up and giving her an apologetic look. "My throwing is not as accurate as my shooting."

Cougar wanders forward a little bit and leans against the door, tipping his hat a little lower so it covers his eyes, just a little. Finally, he has that back, at least, and as he tips it up just a bit, he shares a look with Jake from under it that's definitely not meant to be shared with the broader population.

"Did I do anything very stupid?" he remembers it all, of course, but he wants to know if Jake thinks that he'd been rash and young and idiotic.

"You mean besides tell everyone you thought I was a prostitute?"

He trudges up the stairs to their house and leans his palm against the door, pinning Cougar up against it before reaching up to steal the hat off his head. "No, not really." Smirking, he kisses him again, pushing him back against the door.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 5