one little snap and it all falls, falls, falls down

[thecatinahat]

WHO: Cougar Alvarez
WHERE: Bungalow #22
WHEN: 1AM, July 25
OPEN TO: Jake Jensen, Veronica Sawyer
WARNINGS: Violence, mentions of death
STATUS: Closed

---

It's a miracle Cougar's lasted this long.

He's been sleeping like the dead, when he does sleep. There have been long days of insomnia that keep him awake and then when he does find sleep, it's without dreams. It's a blessing from God in a place that seems scant on blessings. It's taken this long for him to find respite in sleep and when he does, it's thanks to Jensen's presence and the knowledge that someone else has his back.

It starts like it always does. Cougar thrashes in the bed, tossing and turning as he dreams. As always, it's green. The smell of the jungle is around them and he hears birds. The laughter of children echoes in his ears, rapid-fire, happy Spanish being shared and plans for the future. He hears them from all around him, as if in stereo, but just like always, the dream shifts.

The fires start, claiming the trees around them, and then the bullets. One by one, the children fall, consumed by bullets and fire, but they don't stay dead. They come back to haunt him, aglow and afire with hatred and anger in their eyes.

"You," they chorus, staring at him, "it's your fault."

He can never move, in this dream. Stuck, paralyzed, Cougar can't get away as they crumble to dust, one by one. His little angelitos are slowly dying because he put them on a helicopter and told them everything was going to be fine. He lied to them and now they're dead, twenty-five little angels on his soul.

"No," he murmurs. "No, no, no!" It builds faster and faster, until Cougar is thrashing in his bed, the covers tangled with his body as he starts to scream, the fires of hell opening their gates for him in the dream, beckoning him in for what he did. Sweaty, panicked, and as scared as ever, he flails in the bed as hoarse bellows fill the bungalow and he tries for the knife to defend himself against this waking nightmare.

Comments

[thecatinahat]

He's not ready to sync his breaths to Jake, still amped up and sharp. His brain is fixated on the images in that nightmare and he's not sure whether he should be grateful that Afghanistan hadn't bled in this time, because shooting the wrong target hadn't exactly been...well, not the stuff of peaceful dreams. And then, there's Roque. Cougar should just be glad Roque has been avoiding his dreams.

He tenses up when Jake speaks. "Trapped away, no way to get revenge. All those kids we killed..." The guilt is swimming, impossible to ignore.

[igotacrossbow]

Frowning, Jake taps Cougar's rips sharply with his fingertips, a blunt pressure that should reverberate through his chest in an effort to snap him out of this. The last thing he wants to do is reminisce about Bolivia right now.

"Shh," he soothes, his voice gentle the way he gets when he's talking his niece down from a nightmare. "Just go back to sleep." Gently, he presses his hand to Cougar's ribs in time with his breathing, touching him like he's a pair of bellows he's trying to manipulate.

[thecatinahat]

He's high strung and tense, which is why he thinks about swatting Jake's hand away, but the reminder that he's trying is what stays his hand. He breathes in sharply, and then exhales. It's the start of a process that will reduce his heart rate down to next to nothing, his breathing deep and steady.

What he needs is to shut his head off. He needs alcohol or a good knock to the head. "You sleep," he accuses, so he can sneak away and start pacing the canyon walls.

He just needs Jake to sleep so he can dislodge him.

[igotacrossbow]

"You sleep," he counters, using the verbal jousting skills he's honed from arguing with his eight year old niece.

He knows what Cougar is like. If he gives him any opportunity, his sneaky friend will slip out of the house and spend the night skulking around the perimeter of the town, stewing in his own guilt and self-recrimination. He's not going to let him do that.

So he launches into one of his bedtime stories for Beth, in the original German, weaving a complicated fairy tale in a low, soothing voice as he continues to sweep his thumb against the hard edge of Cougar's ribs. He's hoping the fact that Cougar doesn't speak German will make it easier for him to lull him to sleep, that he won't focus too much on the actual story but will instead let Jake's voice soothe him until he relaxes enough to sleep.

[thecatinahat]

It's a language he doesn't understand beyond the niceties of getting around and the general terms you need in the Army. He finds that his breathing is steadying out without him even thinking hard about it, his mind going clear. He breathes out again and catches a few words in there.

Eyes closed, he rests his hand over his tattoo and his heart. "I'm not the princess," he warns, when he hears Jake describe her in the story.

[igotacrossbow]

"Du bist die schönste Prinzessin," he murmurs, interrupting his story to grin in the dark. Luckily, the night hides most of his smiling, and he launches himself back into the story without letting too much time go by, not wanting Cougar to let himself get worked up again.

He does make a point to change the princess from a beautiful blonde with sparkling blue eyes to a brooding beauty with black hair and deep, hooded eyes that are always shaded with a hat, though.

Cougar brought it on himself.

[thecatinahat]

He grunts, because he might not understand that, but it bears the echo of Jake teasing him about something. Still, the language and the steady touch works like a balm on his nerves. His muscles start to relax and his nerves start to soothe.

This time, when the dreams come around, they're calmer. There's still the threat of an enemy within the canyon walls, but one that Cougar can't see. And through it all, he knows Jake is there, standing behind him. Stalking him, almost.

Cougar's body is relaxing even more, especially as it seeks out the warmth beneath him. He shifts, curling up his body into the smallest possible shape it can find and he grabs hold of Jake's shoulders to leverage himself to do so.

[igotacrossbow]

He can feel when Cougar finally falls asleep, the way his body grows heavier, relaxes against him. The relief that washes over him is almost ridiculous in its intensity, and his story falters for a moment as he closes his eyes and lets himself wallow in that, in the trust Cougar has for him to let him hold him like this while he sleeps.

But he started a story and he's going to finish it, dammit, which is why he starts back up again, murmuring quietly into the darkness of Cougar's room, not stopping even when Cougar twists in his arms and pulls himself closer.

As carefully as he can, he shifts his arms around Cougar's body, holding him close with one hand while he strokes his back slowly with the other; long, slow sweeps that will hopefully help him sink into a dreamless sleep.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar's dreams go from busy and frantic to calm and nothing when there's a steadying pressure against his body and a hum of noise in his ear. It reminds him of sharing the room with the other men, because he'd never had the night terrors when he has people around him. He also never has them when he's being secured like this, but it's not a habit that's fair to ask of Jake.

When he wakes, it's still dark, but there's no screaming. Disoriented, he peers around blearily until he can make out the room and what he's lying on top of. Who he's on top of.

[igotacrossbow]

Jake is used to sleeping in close quarters with the rest of his team. He's even had to share his bedroll once or twice. But he and Pooch slept back-to-back; the only person he's ever cuddled while he slept — discounting his niece — has been Cougar. It's easy, familiar in a way, and by the time his bespectacled prince and the brooding princess ride off into the sunset together, he's tired enough not to even think about slipping out of Cougar's bed.

Instead, he just adjusts his hold on Cougar and closes his eyes, letting himself drift off into an easy, warm slumber.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar breathes deeply in and starts to look for a way to escape the hold Jake has on him, but he's not sure why he wants to. He's comfortable and warm and the rise and fall of Jake's breaths are keeping him in a calm place, himself. Still, he can't stay here much longer, not when he's got other problems.

"Jake," he whispers. "Jake, déjame ir," he says, because he needs to take a trip to the washroom (thankful beyond measure it's not an outhouse).

[igotacrossbow]

Jake grumbles, not wanting to let go of the warm body curled up in his arms, but eventually Cougar's whispering filters through and he lets his arms loosen.

"Bwuh?" he mumbles, blinking slowly and trying to focus on the face that hovers above his.

Just the fact that he's able to sleep this deeply should be telling. Jake has never been much of a deep sleeper, having grown up in group homes in the foster system and then tossed into the Army at such a young age. He's never felt comfortable enough to let his guard down. But here, even in a place he's unfamiliar with, even though he doesn't know how to get home, he's able to sleep like the dead as long as he's in Cougar's bed.

Slowly, still grumbling, he opens his arms and lets Cougar slip free.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar presses on Jake's chest to get to his feet, grabbing his shirt in case he runs into Veronica in the hallway. He shuffles along sleepily, because despite the fact that he's got a few hours of sleep in him, he's still running on empty. Once he takes a piss, he debates heading for Jake's empty bed, but he knows that he doesn't want to go back there. No part of him does.

No, he wants to be back in his own bed, where the warmth and security are. He heads back, scrubs-shirt still on, and wiggles his way back into the space of Jake's arms, shoving him over. "Move your big hips."

[igotacrossbow]

Jake dozes fitfully when Cougar goes to take a leak, rolling flat onto his back and spreading out across the bed. It's barely a queen, probably just a full, which would make sense with the age of the house. But goddamn, Jake is tall even for modern day living, and he takes up the vast majority of this old bed.

"My hips are like the only part of me that isn't big," he mumbles, but does scoot over obediently, making space for Cougar in his arms again.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar still shoves at them, knowing that they don't take up much room at all. He breathes out as he keeps space between them this time, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. "I thought, maybe, with you and Veronica here, the dreams would go," he says quietly. "I was wrong."

[igotacrossbow]

Now that Cougar's back, Jake shifts again, rolling around until he can flop onto his stomach and stretch his legs out, his shins bumping against Cougar's as he shoves his arms under the pillow.

"You're not used to sleeping alone," he points out equally quietly. "On base, we're never alone. You come here, suddenly you want your own room?" He scoffs, wiggling a little to get comfortable on the mattress. "Of course you have nightmares. Your body freaked out because you're throwing it into a brand new environment."

[thecatinahat]

"I got here and no one was here. I'm not sharing a bed with a seventeen year old," he says with a sharp look to reprimand Jake, because there are things that are beyond inappropriate and this is one of them. "You know it's not just nightmares," he says quietly.

Nightmares, he could manage.

[igotacrossbow]

"I'm sorry it took so long to get here," he replies, smushing his pillow so that he can be propped up enough to see Cougar in the dim near-dark. Not that he really had control over when or how he got here, but in the end, he did. That's what's important. He didn't leave Cougar behind.

He sighs quietly, shifting until he can press his forearm against Cougar's shoulder, skin to skin. "I know," he breathes, gentle and quiet.

[thecatinahat]

"Took two weeks," he replies. "Been apart longer," he reminds Jake, thinking of long missions when Cougar had been loaned out to other teams for his sniper abilities. Maybe it's different after Bolivia and the port of LA, though. Too many murders and deaths on his conscience. He tips his head to the side, staring at Jake in the near-dark.

"We can't get Max here," he says, frustration bubbling under the words.

[igotacrossbow]

"Yeah, but you weren't alone then." He doesn't like the thought of Cougar being alone. And yes, he knows that Cougar had Veronica, and the others in the town, but that's different.

He's not wearing his glasses, as he's still mostly asleep, but he can still sort of see how Cougar leans his head over to take a look at him and he makes a point to meet his eyes. "We'll get him," he promises, although he knows he can't honestly promise that. "When we get out of here, we'll get him."

[thecatinahat]

He's had the Losers for so many years, but the Losers were going to go their separate ways. They had to, because Max had been in the wind and all they had was a voice and a face. He reaches over and touches the pad of his thumb to Jake's breastbone. "You were going to stay home, I think. With your niece," he murmurs. "Where your heart is."

[igotacrossbow]

Cougar's words are physically painful to him. He wants to protest you're where my heart is, but he can't bring himself to say anything. Instead, he shifts, lifting his hand to cover Cougar's, holding it still against his chest. "You're my brother, man." A woefully inadequate sentiment, but I think I'm in love with you, is a little too close to home right now, and the last thing he wants to do is push Cougar away. Not when they're all they have, here. "I wasn't going to leave you."

He would have asked Cougar to come with him, to stay up North with his sister and his niece, but he couldn't find the words then either.

[thecatinahat]

See, Cougar's family won't take him back. Not after what happened when he was eighteen. When Clay had asked what Pooch and Jensen had wanted to do, Cougar hadn't even been a question. He follows where they go. He helps Pooch with Jolene, he delivers Jake back to his sister. Cougar has no place to go and no home.

This is as much as he's ever had. "You all deserve normal lives," he says firmly. Cougar knows that he's not cut out for that -- never will be.

[igotacrossbow]

Absently stroking his thumb over the back of Cougar's hand, Jake huffs. "And you don't?"

He shifts again so he's more on his side, facing Cougar, the two of them curled up like teenage girls at a sleepover. "I haven't had a normal life since I was a kid, Cougs. You don't get to write a life for me and write yourself out of it, okay, not without consulting me first."

[thecatinahat]

He shakes his head, because no, he doesn't. Comms and munitions, even SIC and commander, they're all jobs that require hard choices sometimes. Being long-range eliminations means Cougar has a kill count longer than most people's annual shopping lists and twenty-five children and Roque on top of it. No, Cougar is never going to be normal. He's going to wake up screaming for the rest of his life and no one deserves that.

"You have a sister, a niece," he points out. "Good skills for a civilian."