Sing Me No Hymns
Title: Sing Me No Hymns
Rating: R
Fandom/Pairing: The Losers (comic book verse, mostly) Jake Jensen/ Carlos "Cougar" Alvarez
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, don't take this too seriously.
Genre: Ficlet written for hc_bingo for prompt "Nervous Breakdown"
A/N: Comic 'verse, with some details gracelessly shoved in from the movie. Could be read as a prequel for You Are Not Alone, but you don't have to read one to grok the other. Set after the events of "The Pass," but before they got together again.
That first night, after the chopper was shot down and the bodies of too many burning children fell out of the sky, after they dragged Cougar away from the smoldering wreckage but before they reached safety, Clay made the call.
"Soon as we make it into Jalalabad, we're splitting up," he said, and nobody needed to be told twice why. If half of what Cougar had said, before he'd gone absolutely fucking silent, was true, then they were already knee deep in drug running spooks. It wasn't the time to be sticking their heads up. Silent running.
Jensen had a thousand questions about the guy Cougar had seen down in the cell, about what had been said before it all went down. His attempts to get them answered went unheeded, though, so he started carrying both sides of the conversation himself, right up until Roque began to threaten him with grievous bodily harm.
"Here's the deal," Clay said, pulling Jensen aside and dragging him out to the corner of the wrecked building where they'd made camp. "It's easier for one man to sneak into the states undetected than two, much less all of us. Pooch has a wife and kids. I'm sending him, but I want to make sure you're…"
"Okay with it?" This was what he'd been expecting, anyway. "Yeah, it's cool." Setting a fire out here was tantamount to suicide, but the moon was out, and it was enough to see the others, scattered throughout the wreckage. Roque had sat down again, using the bag of extra ammunition as a pillow, and Pooch sitting at the outer corner, keeping watch. Who knew if he was even seeing anything.
Cougar sat on the highest point he could find. He'd give their presence away in a second, if anyone came through this way. But fuck it, the people they had to worry about the most probably had choppers and night vision. Long range guns and infrared. It's not like it made any difference.
"Roque says he's hitting the Bahamas. Three months from now is the World Series. Telling everyone to check in via the losing team's chat room the moment it's called. I'm staying here," Clay said, his flickering cigarette lighter finally drawing Jensen's attention back from the wall. "See what I can find so we can take this motherfucker down."
"You want some help?"
"No," Clay shook his head. "Splitting up is the only way. All of us, but."
"What?" Jensen didn't know it, but he was already looking at Cougar. "Fuck, what's he gonna do?"
"Don't know. He won't answer me. Don't even know if he heard me. What're you going to do?"
"No idea. What do you think our chances are in Mexico?"
"You kidding?" Clay glanced at Cougar and back again, noting the plural without saying so. "Bolivia's a better choice."
"Right," Jensen snorted, running his hands over his face. He needed a shave. "Spooks and cartels, we'll be right at home."
---
It took two days to reach Jalalabad, where they were finally got themselves cleaned up, for all the good it did them. The smoke stayed in their clothes until replacements were found, but Cougar kept his hat anyway, snatching it from the pile of stained laundry before Jensen could take it out to the dumpster.
"It's his look," Clay tried to joke, but nobody was buying it, not really.
Even Roque failed to call Cougar on it. Even more surprisingly, he somehow managed to amass enough cash to cover everyone's travel arrangements. It had taken him less than two hours.
Nobody asked where he got it.
---
Two days later, they moved on.
Yeah, right. If you could call it that.
They moved to Bolivia, then.
---
Needs had to be met, so they met them. At first, it had been gambling, mostly. Cockfights and dogfights and fistfights. Cougar watched them intently, never flinched when the blood spilled. Just stared right through it.
Jensen's grasp of the language was good enough to score some work at a factory making dolls, of all things. Girls of America, they were called. Aside from the cartels out in the countryside, the factory was the best thing going.
It wasn't quite up to the levels of excitement that they'd become accustomed to, but having time to think about things, have normal conversations with coworkers, who had normal lives, only made it worse. Made him think about home, his sister and niece.
They couldn't go back, though. Soon, yeah. Just not yet.
And fuck, what did it matter, anyway? At the end of the day, after working for twelve hours and maybe grabbing a bite to eat with the guys, it was himself and Cougar, sitting in their hotel room getting drunk on the cheapest bottles they could stomach.
Most nights, Jensen watched television. Cougar kept his eyes pointed at the screen, but on the good nights, the nightmares waited until he was asleep.
---
The World Series came and went and Clay didn't have shit for them, yet. Told them all to check back after the Super Bowl.
---
On All Saint's Day, the factory was closed, which was just as well, since the humidity was beyond oppressive. Inside the hotel, it was too hot to do anything besides open the windows, lie on the bed and wish for death. But it was going to rain, soon, finally, and that was really the only thing Jensen had any honest interest in.
Which was probably why he hadn't noticed that Cougar had gone missing while Jensen had been staring at the ceiling.
It wasn't that rare a thing, for him to wander off. or for Jensen, when out running errands, to spot him sitting on the roof of some building like a gargoyle. Never had been, only he used to at least wave back, when Jensen walked by.
He's getting better, Jensen thought sternly to himself.
He'd laugh, sometimes, or at least curl up the corners of his mouth and eyes when the women at the next table sang bawdy songs about the shop floor manager. He was talking, too, in monosyllabic fits and starts, and Jensen felt fucking weird to be tracking all this, but it wasn't like he had much of anyone else for company, these days.
Besides. Even with all the crap in his head, Cougar had never been the kind of guy that Jensen needed to worry about, and Jensen didn't have the energy.
Even if it was getting kind of late.
---
The sun was setting when Cougar walked in, hands in his pockets and smelling like the incense the church down the block used. From the look in his eyes, it didn't seem to have done any good.
Jensen held out a bottle, because yeah, it hadn't helped yet, but maybe today would be different. It was a holiday, after all, and it seemed to be going pretty well for everyone else.
Outside, there was music and laughter and shouting, and in here, it was just the flickering light of the screen. Some movie that he wasn't following. Cougar was sitting in the window, straddling the windowsill, the bottle held loosely between his legs. He wasn't even pretending to watch.
Somewhere nearby, probably down in the alley, the neighbors were roasting a pig. Jensen had to laugh at the surge of nausea that washed over him, because there wasn't another option.
Long Pig, some tribe, somewhere, had called human meat. If he could muster up the energy to reach over for his laptop, he could find out, but really? He didn't even want to be thinking about it. Besides, that wasn't the point. They called it that because all that shit about "tastes-like-chicken" was bullshit. People tasted like pork. Presumably, they smelled like it too.
And shit, if he wasn't the stupidest motherfucker-
Jensen pushed himself up, slightly dizzy as he stood, and he wanted to give it a minute, let the blood settle, but he was already at the window. Because Cougar was back there, and whatever this was, nothing but a three story fall beneath him was not the place to be dealing with this.
Cougar's hat was tipped low, and underneath, his eyes were wild, unseeing.
-God, there were kids outside, and they were laughing, but with all the noise, it sounded like-
Cougar's fingers were pressed white on the bottle, and his shoulders were shaking, but he didn't make a sound. Jensen hoped it would stay that way. As long as Cougar didn't start praying or something. He did that sometimes, he'd go through the entire litany twenty five times in a row, and Jensen would try not to hear.
Apparently, though, Cougar was prayed out for the day.
It had to suck for him, Jensen thought, being stuck in a room with a guy that wanted to hear his voice but didn't want to hear what he was thinking.
"C'mon, man. Let's get you away from here," he tugged at Cougar's sleeve, momentarily distracted by the cool breeze that he hadn't been able to feel from his bed. Any minute now, the rain would start. "Hey. Look at me. Carlos."
It worked. Cougar's eyes flashed up towards him, he even turned his head a little, right up until the point where he could see Jensen looking at him. His eyes dropped again, then, but Jensen had his attention. Or maybe it was the rain coming down, soaking through the fabric of his jeans.
"C'mon," he repeated. "What's going on, huh?"
Cougar shook his head, then, after a moment, he swung his leg back into the room and stood up, swaying slightly as he murmured, "Veo a los niños."
Jensen didn't need to ask which children he was seeing, but he had to do something, so stepped to the side, wrapping his hands around the sill. "Yeah, well. They're not in here, okay?"
Down below, the rain was spoiling the barbeque plans, and he watched the neighbors scurrying to move everything inside, except for that damned grill, but at least someone was putting the cover back over it. Maybe it would help.
The wind was pushing the rain inside, spattering Jensen's glasses and reminding him that he still had work to do. He was cold, anyway, standing here, even if Cougar was barely cognizant of the world around him. He slid the window shut. It wasn't like he believed in ghosts in the first place, or that glass could hold them back if they did exist, but at least the smell of burning flesh abated.
The room was still warm and a little damp, but he steered Cougar towards the bed, taking the bottle from his hands and setting it on the table. He still had no idea what he was supposed to say next. He sat down next to him, probably too close than was entirely wise.
"This is real," he started, eventually, trying to make it sound like he was joking in case Cougar didn't want to listen. When he didn't get shoved away, he continued. "They're gone now, and there's nothing we can do for them, and it sucks, but. We tried." He tried to force himself to say how the kids knew it, were watching down from freakin' heaven or something, but he didn't believe it himself. "So look. Just. Keep it together, and in a little while, when we're ready, take it out on the bastards that deserve it, yeah? 'Cause you don't."
He felt like a damned fool, sitting here, spewing all this shit, but it seemed to be working. Cougar tipped his head to the side, looking up at him under his brim, the wheels in his head finally turning again. Like he was finally awake for the first time all day.
Jensen fought the urge to touch Cougar's face, but settled on smiling instead. When Cougar turned away, though, he was pretty sure that it was a move meant to cover an answering one of his own. And he didn't move away, either.
As far as the things Jensen had filed in his mind that he did not think about, this one, he figured, he could be a little careless with. If it turned up somewhere random, sometime, he'd entertain the thought.
Rating: R
Fandom/Pairing: The Losers (comic book verse, mostly) Jake Jensen/ Carlos "Cougar" Alvarez
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, don't take this too seriously.
Genre: Ficlet written for hc_bingo for prompt "Nervous Breakdown"
A/N: Comic 'verse, with some details gracelessly shoved in from the movie. Could be read as a prequel for You Are Not Alone, but you don't have to read one to grok the other. Set after the events of "The Pass," but before they got together again.
That first night, after the chopper was shot down and the bodies of too many burning children fell out of the sky, after they dragged Cougar away from the smoldering wreckage but before they reached safety, Clay made the call.
"Soon as we make it into Jalalabad, we're splitting up," he said, and nobody needed to be told twice why. If half of what Cougar had said, before he'd gone absolutely fucking silent, was true, then they were already knee deep in drug running spooks. It wasn't the time to be sticking their heads up. Silent running.
Jensen had a thousand questions about the guy Cougar had seen down in the cell, about what had been said before it all went down. His attempts to get them answered went unheeded, though, so he started carrying both sides of the conversation himself, right up until Roque began to threaten him with grievous bodily harm.
"Here's the deal," Clay said, pulling Jensen aside and dragging him out to the corner of the wrecked building where they'd made camp. "It's easier for one man to sneak into the states undetected than two, much less all of us. Pooch has a wife and kids. I'm sending him, but I want to make sure you're…"
"Okay with it?" This was what he'd been expecting, anyway. "Yeah, it's cool." Setting a fire out here was tantamount to suicide, but the moon was out, and it was enough to see the others, scattered throughout the wreckage. Roque had sat down again, using the bag of extra ammunition as a pillow, and Pooch sitting at the outer corner, keeping watch. Who knew if he was even seeing anything.
Cougar sat on the highest point he could find. He'd give their presence away in a second, if anyone came through this way. But fuck it, the people they had to worry about the most probably had choppers and night vision. Long range guns and infrared. It's not like it made any difference.
"Roque says he's hitting the Bahamas. Three months from now is the World Series. Telling everyone to check in via the losing team's chat room the moment it's called. I'm staying here," Clay said, his flickering cigarette lighter finally drawing Jensen's attention back from the wall. "See what I can find so we can take this motherfucker down."
"You want some help?"
"No," Clay shook his head. "Splitting up is the only way. All of us, but."
"What?" Jensen didn't know it, but he was already looking at Cougar. "Fuck, what's he gonna do?"
"Don't know. He won't answer me. Don't even know if he heard me. What're you going to do?"
"No idea. What do you think our chances are in Mexico?"
"You kidding?" Clay glanced at Cougar and back again, noting the plural without saying so. "Bolivia's a better choice."
"Right," Jensen snorted, running his hands over his face. He needed a shave. "Spooks and cartels, we'll be right at home."
---
It took two days to reach Jalalabad, where they were finally got themselves cleaned up, for all the good it did them. The smoke stayed in their clothes until replacements were found, but Cougar kept his hat anyway, snatching it from the pile of stained laundry before Jensen could take it out to the dumpster.
"It's his look," Clay tried to joke, but nobody was buying it, not really.
Even Roque failed to call Cougar on it. Even more surprisingly, he somehow managed to amass enough cash to cover everyone's travel arrangements. It had taken him less than two hours.
Nobody asked where he got it.
---
Two days later, they moved on.
Yeah, right. If you could call it that.
They moved to Bolivia, then.
---
Needs had to be met, so they met them. At first, it had been gambling, mostly. Cockfights and dogfights and fistfights. Cougar watched them intently, never flinched when the blood spilled. Just stared right through it.
Jensen's grasp of the language was good enough to score some work at a factory making dolls, of all things. Girls of America, they were called. Aside from the cartels out in the countryside, the factory was the best thing going.
It wasn't quite up to the levels of excitement that they'd become accustomed to, but having time to think about things, have normal conversations with coworkers, who had normal lives, only made it worse. Made him think about home, his sister and niece.
They couldn't go back, though. Soon, yeah. Just not yet.
And fuck, what did it matter, anyway? At the end of the day, after working for twelve hours and maybe grabbing a bite to eat with the guys, it was himself and Cougar, sitting in their hotel room getting drunk on the cheapest bottles they could stomach.
Most nights, Jensen watched television. Cougar kept his eyes pointed at the screen, but on the good nights, the nightmares waited until he was asleep.
---
The World Series came and went and Clay didn't have shit for them, yet. Told them all to check back after the Super Bowl.
---
On All Saint's Day, the factory was closed, which was just as well, since the humidity was beyond oppressive. Inside the hotel, it was too hot to do anything besides open the windows, lie on the bed and wish for death. But it was going to rain, soon, finally, and that was really the only thing Jensen had any honest interest in.
Which was probably why he hadn't noticed that Cougar had gone missing while Jensen had been staring at the ceiling.
It wasn't that rare a thing, for him to wander off. or for Jensen, when out running errands, to spot him sitting on the roof of some building like a gargoyle. Never had been, only he used to at least wave back, when Jensen walked by.
He's getting better, Jensen thought sternly to himself.
He'd laugh, sometimes, or at least curl up the corners of his mouth and eyes when the women at the next table sang bawdy songs about the shop floor manager. He was talking, too, in monosyllabic fits and starts, and Jensen felt fucking weird to be tracking all this, but it wasn't like he had much of anyone else for company, these days.
Besides. Even with all the crap in his head, Cougar had never been the kind of guy that Jensen needed to worry about, and Jensen didn't have the energy.
Even if it was getting kind of late.
---
The sun was setting when Cougar walked in, hands in his pockets and smelling like the incense the church down the block used. From the look in his eyes, it didn't seem to have done any good.
Jensen held out a bottle, because yeah, it hadn't helped yet, but maybe today would be different. It was a holiday, after all, and it seemed to be going pretty well for everyone else.
Outside, there was music and laughter and shouting, and in here, it was just the flickering light of the screen. Some movie that he wasn't following. Cougar was sitting in the window, straddling the windowsill, the bottle held loosely between his legs. He wasn't even pretending to watch.
Somewhere nearby, probably down in the alley, the neighbors were roasting a pig. Jensen had to laugh at the surge of nausea that washed over him, because there wasn't another option.
Long Pig, some tribe, somewhere, had called human meat. If he could muster up the energy to reach over for his laptop, he could find out, but really? He didn't even want to be thinking about it. Besides, that wasn't the point. They called it that because all that shit about "tastes-like-chicken" was bullshit. People tasted like pork. Presumably, they smelled like it too.
And shit, if he wasn't the stupidest motherfucker-
Jensen pushed himself up, slightly dizzy as he stood, and he wanted to give it a minute, let the blood settle, but he was already at the window. Because Cougar was back there, and whatever this was, nothing but a three story fall beneath him was not the place to be dealing with this.
Cougar's hat was tipped low, and underneath, his eyes were wild, unseeing.
-God, there were kids outside, and they were laughing, but with all the noise, it sounded like-
Cougar's fingers were pressed white on the bottle, and his shoulders were shaking, but he didn't make a sound. Jensen hoped it would stay that way. As long as Cougar didn't start praying or something. He did that sometimes, he'd go through the entire litany twenty five times in a row, and Jensen would try not to hear.
Apparently, though, Cougar was prayed out for the day.
It had to suck for him, Jensen thought, being stuck in a room with a guy that wanted to hear his voice but didn't want to hear what he was thinking.
"C'mon, man. Let's get you away from here," he tugged at Cougar's sleeve, momentarily distracted by the cool breeze that he hadn't been able to feel from his bed. Any minute now, the rain would start. "Hey. Look at me. Carlos."
It worked. Cougar's eyes flashed up towards him, he even turned his head a little, right up until the point where he could see Jensen looking at him. His eyes dropped again, then, but Jensen had his attention. Or maybe it was the rain coming down, soaking through the fabric of his jeans.
"C'mon," he repeated. "What's going on, huh?"
Cougar shook his head, then, after a moment, he swung his leg back into the room and stood up, swaying slightly as he murmured, "Veo a los niños."
Jensen didn't need to ask which children he was seeing, but he had to do something, so stepped to the side, wrapping his hands around the sill. "Yeah, well. They're not in here, okay?"
Down below, the rain was spoiling the barbeque plans, and he watched the neighbors scurrying to move everything inside, except for that damned grill, but at least someone was putting the cover back over it. Maybe it would help.
The wind was pushing the rain inside, spattering Jensen's glasses and reminding him that he still had work to do. He was cold, anyway, standing here, even if Cougar was barely cognizant of the world around him. He slid the window shut. It wasn't like he believed in ghosts in the first place, or that glass could hold them back if they did exist, but at least the smell of burning flesh abated.
The room was still warm and a little damp, but he steered Cougar towards the bed, taking the bottle from his hands and setting it on the table. He still had no idea what he was supposed to say next. He sat down next to him, probably too close than was entirely wise.
"This is real," he started, eventually, trying to make it sound like he was joking in case Cougar didn't want to listen. When he didn't get shoved away, he continued. "They're gone now, and there's nothing we can do for them, and it sucks, but. We tried." He tried to force himself to say how the kids knew it, were watching down from freakin' heaven or something, but he didn't believe it himself. "So look. Just. Keep it together, and in a little while, when we're ready, take it out on the bastards that deserve it, yeah? 'Cause you don't."
He felt like a damned fool, sitting here, spewing all this shit, but it seemed to be working. Cougar tipped his head to the side, looking up at him under his brim, the wheels in his head finally turning again. Like he was finally awake for the first time all day.
Jensen fought the urge to touch Cougar's face, but settled on smiling instead. When Cougar turned away, though, he was pretty sure that it was a move meant to cover an answering one of his own. And he didn't move away, either.
As far as the things Jensen had filed in his mind that he did not think about, this one, he figured, he could be a little careless with. If it turned up somewhere random, sometime, he'd entertain the thought.