sixthiterationlogs | 002; here's a fellow in blue jeans dancing with an older queen

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002; here's a fellow in blue jeans dancing with an older queen

WHO: Jake Jensen
WHERE: Edge of the woods/Jake's back yard
WHEN: August 8th, mid-afternoon
OPEN TO: OTA!
WARNINGS: Slightly off-key singing, but that's it
STATUS: Open

Waking up to find a small, yipping box on their front porch had definitely been outside the ordinary, but Jake had fallen head-over-heels in love with the little, wiggling puppy he found inside. He's always been a sucker for dogs. The first day had been spent mostly lying on the floor, playing with the little pup and letting it chew on his hands (he knows he shouldn't allow it to do that, but it's so cute), but then he had to braid it some kind of harness/leash get-up so he wouldn't run away. He may not have a name yet, but Jake would be absolutely devastated if he lost his smol dog son.

The sheet he'd wound up tearing into strips and braiding into a leash for the dog was a pale blue color, and Jake has to admire how it sets off the pale blue of the dog's eyes. His dog is so handsome! He'd taken him on a long walk around the village earlier in the morning to show him off, but then, unfortunately, duty calls. He'd promised Cougar earlier he'd start a wood pile, so despite the distraction of the puppy, he heads out to the forest to start hauling wood back to the house.

Using a rusty axe head that he'd managed to sharpen on a stone and fit with a new handle as the old one had all but rotted away, Jake manages to make it to the end of their little "yard" before the puppy's whining brought him back.

Which is how he finds himself with a dog leash in one hand and an axe in the other, singing to himself as he walks into the forest.

He's worked through most of Sam Cooke's greatest hits by the time he returns to the house, the dog leash tied around his waist so he can still hold the axe in one hand, the other being occupied with carrying the tree limbs he'd managed to hack down. There's a tree stump near the edge of what he considers the yard that will be perfect for splitting wood, and a scraggly looking bush he can tie the puppy to so he won't run away. It's as good a set up as he's going to ever get, so he sets himself to the task at hand, getting into a rhythm pretty quickly with the chopping.

He gets so into the swing of things that he actually starts swinging; his hips, that is. Dancing whilst chopping wood is a delicate maneuver, but he manages it, bopping along to his rendition of soul classics.

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He knows from experience that Jake can often make poor decisions when left to his own devices. It's mainly because he's a young man with poor impulse control, half the time, and Cougar feels responsible for taking care of him. He likes it, too. There's no one else he'd let patch up Jake or watch his six. Out of all the Losers, Jake's the best friend. Still, he doesn't know if he trusts him to make this decision.

Nothing should change, even with everything out in the open.

"And yes, you are distracting," he huffs out, gesturing to him a touch wildly. "You know when you do physical activity, you are el más atractivo."

Cougar's complaining makes Jake look so quietly pleased, he resembles those Shiba Inu dogs in memes. Much happy. So pride.

"Is that so?" he asks, resisting the urge to put the dog down so he can set his hands on his hips and flex. He doesn't actually know that he's más atractivo when he does physical activity, because he's been in a group of men who are of similar ages and builds as him basically since he started putting on muscle. He's just normal. Tall, but otherwise normal.

And yet he's distracting Cougar. He can't believe it!

He's all but grinning now, so pleased with himself, when a thought strikes him and the smile dims somewhat, but just because he's thinking. "...Can I kiss you?"

Cougar stares at Jake, the pained look on his face a glimmer of what he's going through internally. "I told you," is his heavily accented reminder, "that I will not be good for you. And if we do that, it will only be a reminder of what we shouldn't do,' he says, feeling like dull knives are assaulting him in many ways.

He reaches down to get his boots back on firmly, tongue working his lower lip as he thinks about what that might be like (as if he hasn't already thought of this, many nights). He gestures for the dog, offering to take him.

"You don't know that," Jake insists, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. "I think you'd be great for me. Who else should I trust to have my best interests at heart, huh? Jo? Peggy? Hell, Thorfinn?" He's fairly certain Cougar will go all growly caveman at him when he suggests alternate relationships, and that's fine by him, really.

A determined look forming on his face, Jake sets the dog down (much to its disappointment) and instead steps around it, reaching out to wrap his fingers gently around Cougar's elbow.

"Carlos," he murmurs, unconsciously licking his lips too, sounding a lot braver than he feels. "I would really like to kiss you."

He lets out a sharp sound of disagreement at the names, even though he knows he's not allowed to be jealous when he's standing there saying that it shouldn't be him. He breathes in sharply when he hears his true name, his gaze sliding to Jake's lips as he tries to keep up his stubbornness to avoid this going badly.

"Jacob," he begs, "you know I'll only drag you down with nightmares and issues."

The trouble is that he's not pulling away. He doesn't want to pull away.

Cougar's staring at his mouth now, which makes sense given the tone of their conversation, and Jake is suddenly conscious of his shaggy beard. Scratching a hand over his cheeks, he shrugs and gives Cougar a lopsided smile.

"That's going to happen anyway," he points out, a little too flippantly given the subject matter. "Because I'm not leaving you, and I know you sure as hell aren't gonna leave me, so..."

He inches closer some more, his thumb brushing against the thin skin inside Cougar's elbow.

"We might as well enjoy the ride, right?"

Cougar breathes in deeply into his nose and stares at Jake and how close they are, allowing his gaze to slip down again to his bare skin and his lips when he looks back up. "Jake," he gets out, barely more than a breath as he wars with his common sense and thoughts.

"You really want this? Not just because you can have it?"

He's heard Cougar whisper quite often, really, but he's never heard this breathy tone from him, the kind of nervous wonder that he tends to associate with starry-eyed girls in bars who don't understand what being a soldier really entails, too dazzled by their muscles and their scars and Hollywood movies that glamorize combat.

"Cougs, I've been basically in love with you for most of a decade," he points out, and then immediately goes beet red. It's one thing to admit 'hey, I think you're cute, let's make out,' and another to drop the l-bomb without warning.

That's not what he'd been expecting to hear. Honestly, Cougar had been thinking that he might be something of a conquest to Jake. Someone he wanted to bed in order to say that he'd done it. The only problem is that it makes Cougar even more desperate to somehow prevent Jake from falling into this rabbit hole of loving a broken man.

"I don't think you should kiss me," he dredges up the words even if they're painful to get out. "What good would I be for you?" he asks, unable to see an answer.

Growing more and more frustrated with Cougar's obnoxious propensity to act the martyr, Jake opens his mouth with something close to a growl to tell him what an idiot he's being, but then realizes he knows a much easier way to deal with this problem.

Reaching out, he grabs a handful of Cougar's hair and yanks him closer, his other hand slipping around behind him to press to the small of his back so he can't twist away when Jake leans in and deliberately seals their lips together.

Cougar opens his mouth to protest that Jake is too close and he needs to rethink what he's doing when suddenly there's a painful tug and tangle of a hand in his hair, protest muffled when Jake yanks him in tightly for a kiss that he's been trying (badly) to talk his way out of, unable to help the way his body melts forward before he realizes what's happening.

It's as good as he'd worried about, good enough to make him worry that he's going to want this all the time, and he digs a hand into Jake's bare shoulder to get back, listening to the dog yipping, butting his head against Jake's ankle.

Breathless, he glowers at Jake like he's going to hit him (even if he mostly wants to kiss him again). "What was that?"

Jake is starting to get pissed. This is not at all how he imagined their first kiss would go, and he's not happy with that at all.

"Listen, asshole," he snaps, letting go of Cougar's hair and his waist, taking a shuffling step back so he doesn't step on the dog's tail. "I know I'm not exactly a catch or whatever, and maybe I'm a shitty kisser, but you don't get to stand there and tell me you want me but you don't actually want me, and oh, you also don't want me seeing other people."

He crosses his arms defensively across his chest, fighting against the instinctual urge to curl up and protect his soft bits, shame curling in his belly at the rejection of what he had assumed was a sure thing.

"You aren't the only one with fucking issues, okay. I have nightmares too. I put those kids on that chopper same as you, but I'm not using it as an excuse to push away the only people who give a shit about me, Jesus."

He half turns away, lifting a hand to scrub over his head, before pushing out a great big huff of breath through his nose like an angry bull. "Do something with the dog," he says finally, completing his turn and starting back to the stump, the back of his neck and his ears burning with the furious, ashamed blush he can't fight back. "I'm going to get more wood."

His gaze follows Jake and he knows that this is his opportunity to make a clean break. If he walks away, it will damage their friendship, but they will walk out the other side just fine (eventually). He could, but Cougar can't help wonder what he would miss out, on though. Curling the dog into his arms, he lets his mind wander.

He thinks of how they already sleep side by side, how it would be different if during those nights, he slipped his hands under Jake's shirt, if he pressed kisses to Jake's warm skin beneath him. But, past that, what starts to work at his mind is the realization that not much will change at all.

Cougar still talks to Jake above all else, he still knows all his secrets, and is there to support him. Shame tumbles in his stomach as he thinks of Jake's words. Cougar knows he has more sins, but if Jake thinks he's just as broken, then why is he being so stubborn?

He hefts the dog up in his arms and approaches Jake at the stump, not minding the axe. He reaches up and brushes his thumb down his hot neck, to get his attention. "You're a great kisser," he shares, because he is. Cougar is already able to imagine those kisses, at all times. "And you are a catch."

He tries to look teasing, his eyes glinting instead of being dark.

"You are the only one who cares about me?" he echoes.

This stupid fucking piece of shit axe won't get loose from the stump, and Jake finds himself struggling with it like a complete fucking moron. He feels so stupid. Cougar might say he likes guys too, but it's one thing to idly admire the play of muscles beneath someone's skin, and something else entirely to want Jake. He shouldn't have been surprised that Cougar dug his heels in the way he did. Who is he kidding? He's good enough to look at, but not much else. He knows that. He's always known that.

"Don't touch me," he snaps, shrugging to dislodge Cougar's hand on the back of his neck. He doesn't want contact right now, he wants to be alone.

Finally, the axe comes free and he hefts it up to rest it against his shoulder, turning just enough that he can sort of see Cougar standing there with the dog in his arms, but not enough that he can't just leave at any second.

"No, Cougs," he says quietly, looking at the dog instead of at Cougar's face. "Everyone likes you. They always have." Sighing, he turns away again and starts off towards the edge of the forest, his shoulders hunched defensively, fingers white-knuckled around the handle of the axe. "I'll be back in, like, an hour."

He knows that this is his fault, knows that Jake is upset because of him, but he doesn't think that forcing him to stay will do anything but make things worse. So instead, he quietly nods and sets his hat on his head before sitting cross-legged with the dog in order to continue the training, intending to stay there and not move.

"We will be here," he promises, hand on the dog's flank as he keeps him in place so he doesn't chase after Jake, despite the way he whines a little. "Tonight, we talk," he warns.

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002; here's a fellow in blue jeans dancing with an older queen

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