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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~"

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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.

"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.

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."

Jake can't even see Cougar's face, but he knows perfectly well what it looks like right now; he's seen Cougar's 'I'm so fucking pleased with myself' look enough times to be able to recreate it in his head perfectly.

"You hum," he counters, letting one hand slide under the rumpled tank top he's wearing to press flat against his belly. "I'd just fuck up the tune or whatever and then you'll get mad at me."

Cougar rolls his eyes and looks down to where Jake's hand is making a home, glancing over his shoulder at him with a pointed look, turning around so that he's face to face with him. "If you start that, it won't end," he points out, taking hold of Jake's waist to move him slowly in a slow samba move or two, not humming, but whistling a tune they might have heard on the radio, anywhere close enough to the border.

"I thought you knew when I was playing at being mad," he notes.

"I'm not starting anything, buddy."

A blatant lie. But if he can't feel up his boyfriend in their own backyard, then when can he feel him up? This isn't the America Jake fought and bled for, okay, in his America, he can grope his hot boyfriend whenever the hell he wants. (It's best not to think about the fact that this might, actually, not even be America. That's something to ponder later. Perhaps never. Never sounds good.)

"'Course I do. That doesn't mean it's fun, okay." He lets Cougar sway him around a little, timing their movements to the beat of Cougar's whistling, his free hand lifting to fiddle with the curls Cougar hates him touching, smoothing them out of his face and touching the few strands of silver that have started to shoot through them at his temples.

"You're going gray, hermoso," he murmurs, grinning.

If that's not starting anything, then Cougar wants to know what they were doing the other night in bed, but apparently 'nothing' is now the word to go to, whistling a little louder as some of his good mood is evaporated when Jake touches his temples. The swaying and whistling stop at once, a dangerous glare in Cougar's eyes as he gives Jake a look that says this might not be dancing and will be an impromptu sparring session if Jake isn't careful with his words.

"I have a team that makes me gray," is his retort, warning in his eyes. "They are all named for you," he insists.

"I think it looks sexy!" Jake protests, and he's not even lying. Cougar looks effortlessly sexy all the time, in his opinion, but the silver peppering his hair just adds to his appeal. Makes him look distinguished.

In fact, he makes a point to tell him that, leaning in to nuzzle his temple where the grey has started to crop up, pressing his lips to his skin. "Makes you look distinguished," he promises, the hands he has splayed across Cougar's body stroking him gently as if that will help calm his mood.

Cougar tips his head to the side with an amused look on his face, enjoying the praise that's being lavished on him. "Distinguished and sexy, hmm?" he echoes, trying to see if he can't get Jake to give him a few more compliments, enjoying the nuzzling and trying to selfishly get as much attention as he could.

"What else do you think about my hair?"

"Fishing for compliments is not distinguished or sexy," he chides, hiding his smile in Cougar's hair, one hand settling low on his back, fingertips dipping just beneath the waist band of his scrubs.

"However, your curls are distressingly charming and you were especially adorable when they were all fluffy and you thought you were nineteen. The cutest jailbait I ever shared a bed with, hands down."

"Maybe, but if they're true..." he tips his head to the side considerately when Jake's fingers start a new downward descent, holding his gaze and giving him an annoyed look. "If I were really nineteen, I would be jailbait," he points out, wondering if Jake would have felt the same for a scrawny pendejo in his bed. "No more curls," he points out, even if his hair is curling, it's past his shoulders now, frizzing up in the climate. Even the hat barely controls them.

"If Beth were here, she could braid."

"Yes, I'm aware of that," Jake replies out patiently. "In fact, I tried to tell you that multiple times, but you were so sure that it wasn't a problem. Well, after you finally decided I wasn't a hooker after all."

The fact that Cougar had been convinced that Jake was a paid prostitute had been both weirdly flattering but mostly just plain weird.

He scoffs. "Please, like you need Beth to braid your hair. Who do you think braids Beth's hair, huh? It's me. I braid her hair. I can braid yours too, if you really want. We might have to beg some hair ties off of one of the girls, though. Maybe Kate has some she'd share with you."

Cougar gives Jake an expectant look, tapping his temple and gesturing to one of the stairs of the house. "Then show me," he says. "You can knot it with some twine," he adds, gesturing to the hutches where he's got some twine leftover, a little bit of barbed wire, as well. "If you're very good, maybe you will give me a fishtail braid?" he challenges, mainly to see if Jake can actually deliver.

"Right now?" Jake can't lie and say he's not disappointed that their half-assed dancing is apparently coming to an end. He gets to put his hands all over Cougar's body every night when they go to bed (and at almost every other time of day, really, since they're not in the Army any longer), but he was enjoying himself.

Still, he gamely follows when Cougar leads the way to the steps. "Babe, your hair isn't long enough for a fishtail," he proclaims, settling himself down on one of the steps and spreading his knees wide in an invitation. Come sit, Cougs. "I'll give you a Dutch braid instead, make it look like you've got a mohawk. You'll look awesome."

Jake may not get the touching, but Cougar does, and he gets more of it in his favourite place. He loves when people touch his hair, thread their fingers into it and scratch and scrub at the scalp. He might have aborted their impromptu hands-on session, but in exchange, he's going to get Jake's hands all over his hair. "You can do anything," he allows, as if he isn't planning to fuck it up at least once, so Jake will have to redo it.

He gracefully drops himself in between Jake's knees, shoving back so he can lean his back and get comfortable. "Maybe I'll let it grow," he warns. "Scraggly and silver and long, to my waist."

Cougar really is like a big cat; standoffish, aloof, fiercely protective of things he deems his, and secretly a hedonist. Jake can appreciate those qualities, though.

He will not appreciate his handiwork being destroyed just because Cougar wants more petting, though.

Squeezing his shoulders between his knees, Jake lets Cougar get comfortable and then cards his fingers through his sleep-mussed hair, combing it back out of his face. Before he gets going, he leans down and presses a quick kiss to the crown of his head, hiding his smile in Cougar's hair, and then sets to work, sectioning the hair he's going to braid and starting to weave it together. "You should totally do that," he agrees absently, fingers moving swiftly and confidently the way they used to over his keyboards. "You'll look like a Mexican Little Mermaid or something, combing your hair with a fork."

Cougar settles back, eyes falling half shut (though if anyone were to mistake him as not alert, they would be very quick to understand how wrong they were), and he even allows Jake his indulgence when it comes to the kiss to the crown of his hair, scraggly and frizzy in the humidity, especially after a nap that he hasn't even had a chance to tame it. "I have a hairbrush, you know," Cougar says, glancing over his shoulder with a Look that implies that if Jake needs to borrow it, he can.

"Got it in boxes, remember?" he finishes in Spanish with a pointed look, sighing contentedly when Jake's fingers start weaving through his hair.

"I know," he replies simply, distracted by the task at hand. "But if you used a hair brush you wouldn't be Little Mermaid, keep up. And stop moving, you're fucking up my braid."

There's something meditative about braiding Cougar's hair, the same feeling he got when he was able to braid Beth's, when he was able to sit at his computer and view a line of code unfurl from his fingers across the screen. Part of his mind can click off and let the rest go to town, leaving him in a calm, quiet state.

This is nice. Maybe he should braid Cougar's hair every day.

"I'm not the little mermaid without an ocean," Cougar feels compelled to keep poking holes in Jake's logic, seeing as it's not very sound, which isn't a surprise because it's Jake and he doesn't think he's ever really gone on much more than pure feeling than fact. Still, he can't complain about the hair braiding, enjoying the way it feels as he settles back into the touch, humming happily.

"How does it look?" he prompts, hoping to hear nothing but confidence in return.

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