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

[igotacrossbow]

"Here?" he asks, his eyes opening and eyebrows lifting high. "In your bedroom? In the dark? With nobody else around?"

He has two options, here. Either he can get defensive and fight back, or he can close his eyes pointedly and try to sleep. Instead, he sighs quietly and lifts a hand to wipe at his face, scrubbing at the scruffy beard that's cropped up along his chin now that he doesn't have a razor.

"My life has been a complete shit show since I was nine years old, Cougs," he says finally, his voice practically flat as he obeys Cougar's orders and doesn't use his given name. He's not going to go into his sob story childhood, though, Cougar knows all he needs to about that and Jake really doesn't feel like opening old wounds just to win a stupid argument. "Don't try and tell me I'm oblivious, okay, I know. There's a difference between being a realist and being a pessimist."

Well, apparently he went for option one after all.

He'd been planning on leaving it at that, but the words just bubble out of him like a fountain now that he's opened his mouth, and he finds himself continuing. "And now we're stuck here in this godforsaken fucking town, and I don't know why. I don't know where we even are, I don't know how to get out, I have no fucking clue what to do to help us in any real way because all of my skills are dependent on technology that apparently hasn't even been invented yet, I have no way to contact my family to make sure they're okay or let them know I'm not dead again..."

He'd sent his sister a heavily encoded email when they were in Bolivia, to let her know he was still alive. He knew he shouldn't have, that he was just asking for trouble, but he had to tell her he was okay. It had made their exile easier to bear, to know that his family knew he wasn't a traitor and a murderer. But here...

"I am painfully aware of the realities of our situation, okay. Is it so wrong that I'm trying to find a silver lining so I don't lose my fucking mind trapped here without even a cell phone or a goddamn radio? If I let myself wallow in the name of being a realist, there'd be nobody to look after you, or Veronica, or half the other scared kids in this town who don't know what the hell they're doing either. I'm not an idiot. I'm just trying to stay sane."

Gritting his teeth to stop any more words from spilling out, he pointedly rolls over so his back is turned to Cougar, and hugs the edge of the bed himself. He would just get up and storm back to his own room, but his glasses are on the other side of the bed, on Cougar's bedside table, and stumbling around and banging his shins into the corner of things would really undercut his righteous fury.

[thecatinahat]

He hates when Jake is like this because it's Cougar's fault. And because it's Cougar's fault, his guilt is swarming again, layering in with what he's already feeling and making him hate that he's the one who's made Jake feel like this. He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling when Jake quiets. Eventually, Cougar keeps rolling until he can slide a palm over the spot between Jake's shoulderblades, just resting there as he thinks of the words he ought to give.

He's so bad with words. He's bad with speaking. It's why he's been needing Jake, because Cougar's language is silence. The thing is, Jake deserves a normal life. Cougar's a murderer in the name of the army, but it weighs on his soul and he doesn't know that he can ever repent enough.

Maybe this is where he's supposed to start. Maybe this is part of his penance. Making sure someone he loves doesn't feel like this. "Sorry," is his hoarse, sincere apology. "You deserve silver lining. Happiness." He contracts his fingers before he removes them from Jake's warm skin and rolls back to his side again. "Didn't know you wanted me in those plans. Was going to leave you to your family," he confesses, "once you got home. Go with Clay and Aisha." Find and kill Max for the children,w without putting Pooch or Jensen in another port of LA situation that could get them shot.

He still sees Pooch going down, the bullet wounds bleeding. He still sees the explosion that took Roque.

Jensen can't hurt like that. Can't die.

Then Cougar really would go to hell forever and ever, and he wouldn't even have to die to do it.

[igotacrossbow]

His shoulders hunch when he feels Cougar's hand creep between his shoulder blades, defensive and angry but wanting the contact enough that he doesn't shrug him off.

"I don't deserve jack shit," he mutters. He certainly doesn't deserve a normal life. When he goes home to Julie and Beth, he feels like he's living some kind of weird movie, like their little slice of suburbia is some strange performance piece and he's part of the traveling cast that cycles in and out every few months to shake things up.

He's so fucked up from living in the Army for so long that he wouldn't know how to live a normal life if he tried.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar reaches out and settles for yanking at the hem of Jake's boxers, tugging him back towards his space so he can hug him like it's an assault. His embraces aren't so readily given, but he's the one who's pushed Jake into this spiral and it's up to him to get him out of it. "You're the most normal besides Pooch," he grunts, which isn't to say he's normal, just that it's a sliding scale. "You could have loved your niece, your sister. Settled down," he points out, even as something dislodges that feels like jealousy (or envy) to say it. He releases Jake after a long minute, rolling back to lie flat and stare at the ceiling.

"And we can find you something here, that you like doing."

[igotacrossbow]

Cougar's fingers raking over the sensitive skin just below his ass as he grabs his boxers has him jumping slightly, startled by the sudden contact. So startled, that he lets himself be hauled back against the sniper's body, yanked into a just as surprising hug. Cougar rarely initiates any physical contact between the two of them, just tolerates Jake hanging off him with more grace than anyone else would.

"You know, you're really not making me feel better about being stuck here," he jokes quietly, allowing himself to return Cougar's hug.

He sighs. "Yeah, like KP. That's all I'm capable of out here. Can't grow anything, can't cook for shit, don't know how to build... But I can wash dishes."

[thecatinahat]

Cougar goes a little tense when Jake says what he does. He knows that Jake deserves that kind of life and that kind of happiness, but he's selfish because that means he has to give him up. And yet, he would if it meant Jake got to be happy without him. "You're important to me," is his gruff insistence, seeing as that's something keeping him sane.

"You're here," he says. "Calming down the night terrors."

Don't leave is what he wants to say, but he wants Jake to be happy. And if he has to give him up, then he will.

[igotacrossbow]

Cougar's words have him rolling onto his side properly, tucking an arm beneath his head so he can look at him, even though he can't see jack shit in this terrible lighting. Living somewhere without light pollution is the weirdest fucking thing. "I know, buddy," he breathes, reaching out to rap his knuckles against Cougar's breastbone. "Me too."

He huffs out a mirthless laugh. "Fat lot of good I'm doing," he mutters, a little bitter about how badly he's doing. Cougar is in a bad mood, still, and now they're both unhappy.

[thecatinahat]

"You made friends with a difficult man," Cougar says, not in the dark at all about how he can be very hard to get along with, sometimes. For the most part, Jake succeeds where everyone else fails and maybe that's why Cougar's let him in so far. Because he can do what others can't.

He sighs, heavily, "You don't have to stay while I'm being a bastard."

[igotacrossbow]

"I'm not exactly easy to get along with either," he points out. Yes, he's friendly and gregarious, but he doesn't know when to stop, and he's well aware how annoying he is.

Tapping Cougar on the chest again, he settles down and closes his eyes. "No," he says, making it clear he's planning on sticking around for the rest of the night. "If I leave you're just going to have another nightmare because you're feeling guilty on top of everything else. Also, I'm basically blind right now, and I'm too fucking tired to move."

[thecatinahat]

He's right. He's usually right about everything when it comes to Cougar, so he shouldn't be surprised. He relents a little, turning to his side so he can face Jake, even though he's blind. Cougar still isn't sure what he's done to deserve someone like this, and he knows that he's failed him too many times lately.

"When did you become my keeper?" he murmurs, but it's fondness in his voice.

[igotacrossbow]

"I've always been your keeper," he replies with a smile, curling up a little more so that his knees press into Cougar's legs. "Just like you've always been mine."

[thecatinahat]

Cougar knows that it's the truth. That they've survived years because of their own habit of looking out for each other, them and Pooch. He might still disagree with some of the things they've talked about, but they're not getting solved tonight and Jake is so very warm.

He's just going to take advantage and let that lull him to sleep. It doesn't have to become a habit. Just this -- just now.