sixthiterationlogs | (no subject)

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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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.