(no subject)

[igotacrossbow]

WHO: Jake Jensen
WHERE: The Alvarez-Jensen-Sawyer residence's back yard
WHEN: April 10
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: excessive singing by a very, very white man
STATUS: ongoing

---

Perhaps he should be suspicious of the nearly idyllic weather that's settled over this godforsaken hellhole, but Jake has always tried his best to live in the moment as much as possible, especially in situations where he can't control the future in any real way, shape, or form. And since it doesn't look like they'll be getting out of here any time soon, he's settled into the idea that he might as well focus on the present and enjoy what good moments they can scratch out of this shitty little life. 

Okay, he can't honestly be too mad about this. It sucks that they're trapped, but he's spent two solid weeks trapped in the jungle with Cougar before, and that was with a broken ankle and a concussion and no glasses, with enemy soldiers hunting them down to try and kill them, so this already has a huge leg up on that nightmare. At least here he has a house, and clean sheets, and a roommate, and a dog, and a general support network of neighbors and friends to rely on and socialize with. He's unreasonably fond of Cougar, it's true, but the guy isn't a great conversationalist, especially not when you're both fighting a raging fever and trying not to get perforated by a hail of bullets. 

He's decided to seize the moment, weather-wise, and get the washing finished. The soap they've managed to conjure up is a fucking far cry from some Tide back home, but it's good enough at getting general grime out of their sheets, and he's spent most of the afternoon churning a tub full of cotton fabric with a wooden dolly that he'd crudely whittled over the winter with a little instruction from some of the town residents who had actually used one before and not just seen them on Wikipedia. 

Once the sheets are as clean as he was going to get them and as wrung out as he can manage, it's time for hanging, which is how Jake ends up in the back yard by the chicken coop and rabbit hutch, Baby tagging along at his heels curiously as he starts to heft sopping wet bundles of white cotton up onto the clothes line, belting out a song at the top of his lungs like he's not in a more or less public space and people can actually hear him. 

"I want a Sunday kind of love" he croons at the dog, who cocks his head curiously to one side as Jake pretends the equally crudely-whittled clothespins in his hands are a microphone. "A love to last past Saturday night~"

Comments

[thecatinahat]

Cougar had been trying to sleep in the house, having been up at dawn to do some fishing and hunting so that he could set the traps. Jake singing at the top of his lungs isn't new, usually it's in his ear and Cougar has a gun trained on someone who's ready to shoot Jake for the offense of running his mouth, but right now, he's waking up to a serenade in his backyard that he's still not entirely sure about.

Sleepy, mussed, and only dressed in a tank top and scrub pants, Cougar manages to find a pair of boots and foregoes the hat, just this once, so he can stand at the back door with his eyes barely open, glaring at Jake and trying not to find this whole situation endearing.

"You are the reason people shoot at us so much," is what he says.

[igotacrossbow]

Cougar has had to listen to Jake's impromptu karaoke for years now, so his sudden appearance on the back porch doesn't dim Jake's enthusiasm in the slightest.

"And I'd like to know it's more than love at first sight," he intones gravely, doing the runs in all the right places, like a record was playing in the background and he was mimicking what was playing and not drawing up dim memories of Clay's more maudlin CDs. "I want a Sunday kind of love, yeah."

He takes a quick break to saunter up to the back door, reaching for the clothes pegs he'd left in a bowl on the steps, but really just wanting an excuse to stop on the step below Cougar's so he can lean in and steal a quick peck. "Good afternoon, handsome," he teases, reaching up to tweak one of the mussed curls shading Cougar's forehead without his hat to push it back. "Nice to see you decided to join the land of the living again."

[thecatinahat]

This is why he's sabotaged the CD player in Pooch's vans, cars, and buses about four times just to stop this, but it had done nothing to silence Jake's struggling hobby as a singer in his spare time, and it's not that he minds it most of the time, but most of the time, he isn't coming out of an unsatisfying nap, so he's scowling a little.

He still leans into the peck, even if he ducks away from the grab at his hair when Jake goes for some of the curls that have been frizzing up in the humidity. "You left," he accuses, because he'd had a warm body at least for a little while, whether it had been the dog or Jake, Cougar had been too out of it to know. Yawning, he reaches for one of his long-sleeve shirts to tug it on. "If you take requests, how about a classic," he asks with a smirk, settling on one of the steps to watch.

"Nostalgic," he says, with a shrug by way of explanation. "Journey."

[igotacrossbow]

The fact that Cougar doesn't appreciate Jake's obviously stellar pipes is really quite hurtful, as he's pointed out countless times before. What happened to fostering the passions of your friends and loved ones?

He pouts when Cougar ducks out of the way and doesn't let him fiddle with his curls, disappointed, but bounces back pretty quickly. The day is too beautiful to be petulant for long, and he woke up with a spring in his step for a change. He might even get someone to cut his hair today. And maybe even his beard! It's been a long time since he's felt his own face, and he kind of misses it. Plus, he can shave some pretty sweet patterns in his facial hair by now, that should be fun.

Brought back to the present by Cougar's request, he frowns abruptly at him. "And change genres mid-stride?" he asks, aghast, like that's not something he's more or less known for. "I think not, my fine Mexican friend. I am all aboard the Soul Train, and there's no getting off now. You gotta ride it 'till the end of the line."

Satisfied with that decree, he smirks to himself and hops back down the stairs to carry on with his chores, launching into a different, more upbeat song, wiggling his ass along to the beat as he reaches back up to keep hanging laundry.

[thecatinahat]

He can't help the smug little smile at being called 'fine', even if he knows very well that he's an attractive man. He follows along, stifling a lingering yawn, and wanders down to join Jake, smacking his ass a little before bending over to start helping with the laundry, seeing as it'll help him to wake up.

"How far is the end of the line?" is what he asks, with a slow raise of his brow, but it's empty teasing. After all, he's more than happy to listen to Jake singing, or he would've done something to make sure he never thought about singing in front of him.

[igotacrossbow]

"As far away as necessary," Jake replies somewhat nonsensically, still grinning from the slap he got. That means Cougar's in a good mood, begrudging as it may be, and that just compounds his own good mood.

He's in such a good mood, actually, that once he's pinned up his half of the sheet and he's pretty sure it won't fall into the dirt below, he reaches out to grab Cougar's hips and tugs him away from the line, crowding up against his back so he can force Cougar to dance along with him. Jake's idea of dancing is more or less swaying sort of in place, but it's the thought that counts, right?

[thecatinahat]

Cougar lets Jake tug him away from the laundry, even if he stands exactly still in place. He dances, yes, but usually when he's had about five more shots of tequila than he's had at this moment, which means that he's suffering this with a smile on his face, tipping his head back to give Jake an amused look. "Not my usual music," he warns.

"I like something a little more latin," he reminds Jake, thinking of good salsa clubs and the way he could make a woman (or man) melt with a few well-executed steps.

[igotacrossbow]

"Yes, I know that," he huffs, hiding his smile by ducking his head down and pressing it to the curve of Cougar's neck and shoulder. "But you placed a moratorium on me singing bachata years ago, and I know where my bread is buttered."

It used to be that if Jake insisted on butchering music Cougar actually liked, he'd refuse to speak to him for a few days. Which, granted, might not seem like a departure from normal, but totally was, if you asked Jake. If you asked him to explain his reasoning, he would go on a rant about facial expressions and being able to totally understand what he was thinking because we're on the same wavelength, which tended to teach people to just not ask.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar's smiling like a cat that got the cream when Jake moves his mouth to a place he very much likes that mouth to be, moving his hips in a slow samba-like rhythm, just enough to get his shoulders swaying, too, like he can hear an imaginary beat in his head, something from a club hundreds of miles away.

"Then don't sing," is his reply, "just hum."

[3ofswords]

He'd been heading across the strip of forest separating his--back yard--from the next row of houses, mildly distracted by the lift of a voice through the trees, when it just so happened to coincide with the house he'd set out for. Not one to pass up free entertainment, and enjoying a change from Casey's bluesy harmonica, Kira crosses his arms and leans against the last tree before the clearing behind the house, watching the man he presumes to be Jake belt his rendition to the dog.

It isn't until the man's voice trails off that Kira announces his presence with a round of applause, still titled sideways against the tree, feet steadied on its roots. "Veronica isn't home right now, is she," he asks, hopping off and approaching the rest of the way into the space.

He isn't sure why he felt he should seek her out: he doesn't exactly have a new theory about their captors or better supplies for scaling the walls. But he'd woken up the past few days with a pinch in his gut, and the idea unfurling like a blossom for the sun: go talk to her. Maybe it was some of that old intuition returning with the sun, maybe she had some new insight he needed to hear.

[igotacrossbow]

You wouldn't guess it by looking at him, but Jake has quite an encyclopedic knowledge of soul classics, dozens of songs by Etta James and Sam Cooke rattling around in his head, sharing space with more obvious choices like Journey and Bon Jovi and Black Sabbath. One of the group homes he lived in growing up was run by a failed musician, and he liked to play Motown and Soul records day in and day out, and sometimes Clay liked to indulge his more maudlin side by listening to bluesy music when he got dumped again. Sometimes he's iffy on the lyrics, or the melody takes a meandering turn, but he's doing pretty well so far.

So well, in fact, that when he wrap up crooning about weekend lovers, he hears applause. Jake, used to being caught out doing ridiculous things, doesn't blush or jump or look guilty for being observed acting like an idiot, just turns and grins over his shoulder.

"Nope," he agrees cheerfully, then returns to the task at hand, wrestling the last sodden mess of sheets over the line and pinning it in place. "She wandered off before I got started." Whether that was because she knows him well enough to know what happens when he starts doing laundry — namely, singing — or because she was bored and wanted to find something to do is up for debate.

He drops the last of the clothespins in his pocket when he finishes, and bends to pick up the washbasin he'd used to carry the sheets out to the yard in. "I can tell her you dropped by, if you want?" he offers, lifting his eyebrows in a way that should hopefully prompt an introduction with names. He's fairly certain he knows basically everyone's names around here, but better safe than sorry, right?

[3ofswords]

"Has she been doing better," he asks, the hand set behind him at the tree finally drops from its steadying position, and he carries closer in to Jake as he speaks. "I don't know, it just feels like--"

she needs a friend, he doesn't get to say. A dark figure comes bounding through the trees, all excited barks and a thick head hitting him in the backs of the knees. Kira trips forward, grabs the edge of the wash-bin as the only available lifeline and still lands in the dirt, the sheets falling over him to muffle his protests as Aurora bounds over him to bark at and inspect the other dog.

He hadn't realized she'd followed him from the house, but he should have known--she doesn't seem to have any preference for Casey over him, and likely only picked up his trails because any dog would prefer the smell of food over ash.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he sighs more than shouts, fighting his way free of the sheets. Tousled hair and narrowed eyes lifting over the soiled folds, he finds Aurora bouncing on her young, clumsy paws and dipping her head, clearly trying to get the new dog to play. "Aurora, stop," he calls, to little response.

[igotacrossbow]

"You'd have to ask Cougar about that," he replies, watching as the young man ambles closer. "He's closer to her than I am..."

Jake lets out a startled yelp when Kira gets bowled over and falls directly into his washing, watching with dismay as this morning's work goes fluttering forlornly to the ground in an undignified wet splop, covering his unfortunate guest and definitely picking up dirt from the ground. The grass hasn't bounced back enough yet to have saved the sheets from the mud that still lingers.

"Goddammit," he sighs, resigned.

Baby, only about nine months old himself, clearly wants to play with the new puppy, but thankfully Cougar's training has managed to stick, and he remains sitting neatly where he'd been left, glancing between the new arrival and Jake, asking for permission before he does anything. Jake, because he's a sucker, immediately gives in and gestures at the dog, which he takes as the permission it is, leaping up and launching himself playfully at his new friend.

Leaving them to it, he turns back to where Kira's still sprawled on the ground and reaches out. "Need a hand?"

[3ofswords]

Blustering a sigh, the cause of his friend's excited dog clearly lost, Kira can only wordlessly take the offered hand by its wrist and let himself be helped upright. He's as muddy as the sheets, and he takes a fortifying breath against the squelch of his body loosing from it.

Most days he appreciates the distraction of her, and the way she fills a hole in Casey's side.

Some days he remembers why he's always preferred cats.

"I'm sorry," he sighs, bending once he's upright to help gather the sheets. He aims a mutinous stair beyond Jake to the dogs, watching Aurora roll into the same mud to be inspected by the snuffling muzzle of her larger friend. Every one and every thing is getting a bath tonight, he decides, wishing their little bungalows came with hoses attached to the outside. "I didn't know she was following along, she's like--a dog-toddler as far as I know. I can wash those for you, I have to do laundry now anyway."

[igotacrossbow]

Waving away Kira's apology, Jake helps him gather up the soiled washing and bundle it all back in the tub. "Don't worry about it," he insists, sounding resigned and mildly annoyed, but not actually that upset. "Baby was little not too long ago, I know what they're like. Plus I'm used to kids, and those things are dirt machines."

He straightens and looks Kira over consideringly, settling his hands on his hips. "I think Cougar's things will fit you," he decides, then gestures at the muddy clothes Kira is currently wearing. "Strip. I'll wash those too, I've already got everything out and ready to go, there's no need to make you haul it all back to your place."

Fresh water will need to be heated, but that's not impossible to do, and the weather is so nice that Jake doesn't really mind having to re-do all the laundry. He'll whine and complain about it the next time laundry day rolls around, perhaps putting on such a performance that Cougar will give in and do the laundry for him, but for now, it's alright.

He whistles sharply when he notices Baby and his new friend veering a little too close to the properly line, such as it is, and thankfully his dog comes bounding back immediately. "Keep an eye on them while I go grab some things?" he asks Kira, not waiting for a response before heading back inside the house.

[3ofswords]

"Dirt machines come in all species and ages," Kira replies, thinking of the grown men he points at the bath just as often as the dog. If there's ash or fur or feathers it'll wind up on Casey; if there's moss or grease to be found Bodhi will take a nap in it. He's given up doing their laundry any more often than his own: if they want their clothes clean, he's not their mother.

The weather's nice but not so much so that he takes more than his flannel off before Jake reappears, slinging it over his shoulder and finding a stick to bond with his neighbor's dog in the tried and true method of tug-of-war. When he returns, Kira's experimentally handed his end to Aurora, and the dogs are trying to carry the stick away in two mouths, from two heights, with two ideas of where to go--and neither of them looking the least put out by the obstacle of the other.

"You really think these will fit me," he asks, his reluctance to drop his jeans in a stranger's yard entirely related to the vague outline of Cougar being far more filled out than he is, if not much taller.

[igotacrossbow]

Watching the two dogs flouncing across the yard in a lop-sided gallop makes Jake laugh brightly, a loud, booming sound that makes Baby pause for a second to see what's going on before he returns his attention to his new friend.

He holds out a pile of Cougar's clothes to Kira — the tee he'd been gifted when he lost his memory and thought he was a teenager again, and a pair of his scrub pants with their drawstring waistband — and lifts his eyebrows at him. "It's either Cougar's clothes or Veronica's, since I know for a fact my stuff won't fit," he replies, glancing down at himself and looking back at Kira pointedly. "C'mon, you can change inside if you don't want to strip in front of an audience, just toss the muddy stuff out when you're done."

[chosenbytheocean]

"Itiiti!"

The young voice shouted across the yard as a small piglet came bounding through Jake’s backyard. Moana was close at the pig’s heels, running as fast as she could as she effortlessly jumped over the obstacles in her way. As she neared Itiiti she scooped him up into her arms, holding a now squealing disgruntled piglet.

Dark eyes looked up at Jake when she realized that she was standing next to his rabbit hutch. "Hello." Moana smiled brightly finding no awkwardness despite the struggling pig in her arms. Eventually began to calm down and snuggle against Moana’s hold as if to say sorry. "Are you Jake? Cougar mentioned you." She’d spoken to him a few times and had a spare bunny that was safely stashed away in her room at the inn.

"I’m Moana." It wasn’t really fair that she knew his name but he didn’t know hers. "I liked your song." What little she heard of it.

[igotacrossbow]

The squealing is what alerts Jake to the fact that he's not alone before anything does, and he immediately drops his hand to Baby's braided collar, wrapping his fingers around it lest his dog get any foolish ideas about bounding off to investigate; he's a hunting dog, and despite how well he's taking to his training, he's still a creature of instinct more than anything else, and the last thing Jake wants is for someone's pet to end up his dog's dinner, especially when a girl's voice comes floating across the yard after the pink streak that he now recognizes is a pig.

He can't help the way his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, but at least he's smiling, and when the girl introduces himself, he nods. "That's right," he agrees, giving Baby a gentle shake before letting him go. Realizing he's not allowed to investigate, his dog huffs dramatically and lies down, settling his head on his paws like the most put-out creature on the planet.

Jake ignores him.

"Thanks, Moana. Should I bother trying to tell you not to believe a word Cougar says about me?"

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana laughed softly, her torso shaking and disrupting the now comfortable piglet in her arms. He didn't like the way the dog huffed and despite being grounded, Itiiti felt saver in Moana's strong arms.

"Well he said all good things. So what should I think?" Her tone was light and easy.

Both times she'd hand long conversations with Cougar he'd mention Jake and in both instances they were compliments. One had been that Jake gets to attached to animals which Moana interrupted as a compliment, whether Cougar meant it that way or not.

[igotacrossbow]

"Oh, well in that case," Jake drawls, smirking. "He didn't tell you nearly enough."

Taking a few steps closer, Jake sticks out his hand to shake, clicking his fingers at Baby when he makes to sit up again. The dog, drama queen that he is, huffs another huge sigh and settles back down.

"So a pig, huh," he continues, eyeing the little pink bundle in her arms, a little surprised. "That's a dangerous pet to have in these parts." So he's still a little sore about the whole rabbit thing, so what. Cougar has a point, he knows he does, but that doesn't make it any easier for him to deal with. Before they wound up here, rabbits were pets only. Hell, Beth had a rabbit. It's one thing to catch wild rabbits, but to raise them just to slaughter them when they got big enough?

For a soldier, Jake has one hell of a soft heart.

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana laughed a little brighter, her dark brown eyes shining in the glinting sunlight. Cougar might have left out that Jake had a sense of humor.

She took his hand but only after shifting the small piglet to one arm. He didn't look like he enjoyed it but he put up with it if it meant that he could continue to be held. "Yes. His name is Pau Itiiti or just Itiiti. Pau was the name of my pig on my island." Pau meant pig in Samoan while Itiiti meant little. So he was little pig.

"He showed up in a box a few days ago."

Moana knew that many would want to eat the little piglet but it'd take a few months for the small pig to grow. "I hope to keep him safe." Even if that meant she needed to catch more fish. "I made a fishing net. So I at least always have a lot of fish."

[igotacrossbow]

She's cute. Jake likes people who think he's funny; Cougar doesn't appreciate his sense of humor nearly enough, so Moana laughing at his dumb jokes rapidly endears her to him.

"Hello, Pau Itiiti," he says, leaning down enough to cluck the little pink pig under its hairy chin, his pronunciation surprisingly perfect, considering what a white-bread Midwestern boy aura he puts off. "He's cute. Baby showed up in a box when I first got here, too, it was pretty freaky."

Baby's ears perk at the sound of his name, but he doesn't move from where he's lying, which gets a grin from Jake. Someone is going to get the good cuts of meat tonight, even if Jake has to sneak them under the table when Cougar's not looking. "Don't ask about his name. It just...happened." Because Jake refused to pick another name for him, unable to make up his mind, and just called him his baby for months until the name stuck and now there's no changing it.

"If I remember correctly, pigs like table scraps, right? Maybe you should speak to Kate at the Inn and she could save bits for you, the stuff that can't be made into soup or compost or whatever."

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana nodded her head, her hair tousling as she energetically agreed with him. "Yes. I've been feeding him scraps that I have. I'm used to not eating a whole lot so I don't mind." She was used to eating fish, pork and fruit. It was weird changing her diet and it caused Moana to eat less as she got used to it. A lot of the food here was heavier than the fruit she was used to back home.

Her eyes looked over at the puppy. They didn't have dogs on her island but she saw Casey's puppy and she knew that they probably had noses as good as pigs. "He's cute. I think baby suits him." She turned to look back up at Jake. "Don't you?" Since the name stuck, it must have suited him well enough.

"Oh. I wonder if Itiiti can find mushrooms." That would be delicious.

[igotacrossbow]

Her comment that she doesn't eat much has Jake frowning slightly at her, deeply-ingrained concerns about Beth's eating habits rising to the fore in regards to a different young girl, followed quickly by more practical worries about adequate nutrition that have nothing to do with potential eating disorders.

He doubt that's much of a concern in this isolated hellscape, really.

"If you need help getting enough food..." he starts, a half-formed offer dying on his tongue when he thinks about how hard Cougar works to make sure his oversized boyfriend is fed. Jake knows how much he eats, and how difficult it is to keep him running adequately. Not to mention Cougar himself, and then they've got Veronica to think about... Jake has to stop attempting to take in strays. "There are lots of people here these days, surely you can barter for more food."

He half-turns to look at his dog, something soft and fond coloring his expression as the dog lifts pale blue eyes just like Jake's to meet his. "Yeah, he's okay. Even if he's spoiled terribly."

The pig in her arms gets a considering look. "Maybe," he concedes. "Pigs are natural truffle hunters, but I'm not sure how you'd go about training him to first find them and then not eat them when he does find them."