maratonista (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
maratonista) wrote2010-07-14 12:07 am
maratonista) wrote2010-07-14 12:07 am
Entry tags:
Fic: Not even close
Title:Not even close
Pairing: Cougar/Jensen
Rating: R
Summary:They slept side by side, huddled together like two children who knew the night was filled with monsters, and only had each other for protection.
Disclaimer: Not mine, borrowed!
Warnings: Violence, strong language & disturbing imagery.
Notes: Follows His, Now I lay me down to sleep, Useful and Better dead
Cougar woke briefly before they were moved. He was on his back in a truck, bundled up under emergency blankets and tucked so close to Jensen Cougar could feel his heartbeat against his skin.
He didn’t smell like Jensen; didn’t look like or sound like Jensen, and bugs crawled from his filthy skin to Cougar’s.
From the corner of his eye, Cougar could see Clay and Pooch preparing to burn the site they’d been held in to the ground.
Cougar could see his hut amongst the other temporary buildings, and he could see the circle where his captors had no doubt eaten and drunk and been fucking merry. Between the two was a pit, six feet deep and less than a foot wide. It was dug into the ground, the opening made strong by planks of wood.
Cougar could just about make out the blood that stained it, and the gouges left by human fingernails.
He lost consciousness before he could match them with Jensen’s hands.
They could have been anywhere. The no name motel was like any number of others they had been put up in during transition periods.
Two queen beds, table and chairs, and a mini-fridge.
This one also had enough medical supplies to open up a bootleg clinic.
Jensen and Cougar had the one bed. The others hotbunked in the other.
Jensen remained still and silent beside Cougar. Asleep or unconscious, he didn’t know.
Fuck, he could have been in a coma and Cougar wouldn’t have known one way or another.
Pooch took the seat next to the bed. He looked like he’d aged twenty years since Cougar had seen him last.
“He woke up on the trip. Wanted to know why we’d not brought him any coffee.” He laughed, but it sounded more like a sob.
That sounded like something Jensen would say after forty days of torture.
Kid did like his fucking coffee.
The unit fell into specific roles over the days that followed.
Pooch took charge of their medication, his fingers the most practiced with a needle and thread and his manner the one least likely to provoke a reaction from his shell-shocked patients.
Roque made it his job to make them both eat. Soup mainly. Cougar couldn’t keep down anything more substantial.
Jensen threw up everything – the soup, the water, the pills Pooch had him popping. When he was awake his fever spiked one-oh-four and it was like sharing a bed with a fucking furnace. They switched him to IV lines and prayed that would stabalize him.
Clay handled everything else.
He didn’t dream that first week. He just slept; in and out of consciousness with irregular patterns of fitful rest.
Jensen slept like the dead.
Cougar woke up one afternoon to find Clay slumped over in one of the chairs and Jensen wide eyed and mute next to him in the bed.
He looked like a fucking galago. Stupidly big blue eyes and pale, sickly skin stretched over sharp cheekbones and a hollow jaw.
He flinched when Cougar touched his arm.
“Wade’s dropped under the radar.” Clay informed him one morning. Cougar was out of bed for the first time, dressed and hiding behind his hat – Pooch had found it before they burned the shithole to the ground.
Roque was trying to manhandle Jensen as gently as he could to the bathroom. Jensen was wearing Clay’s shirt, and Cougar could count his ribs through the thin fabric.
Apparently the lice and vermin in Jensen’s hair and beard had been so bad they’d had to shave both off. Jensen looked like a Cherry again – seventeen if he were a day. Cougar knew he wasn’t the only one worried about him.
“We’ll find him.” Clay promised. “I fucking swear it.”
Jensen started talking again, louder and more irrelevant than ever before.
Cougar went back to watching him, reading the words that weren’t spoken.
Cougar had seen enough shrinks to know what to say and what to do when asked.
Jensen was smarter than the whole fucking department combined.
They both got their papers stamped.
Ready for deployment.
They got their POW bands in the mail a month after landing stateside.
Clay refused to go active until they were literally dropkicked onto a C-130 with 113 D-Boys and 80kg of kit each.
Neither Jensen or Cougar fucking weighed 80kg any more.
Jensen had a panic attack at 30,000 ft. It was a quiet, silent thing, just him huddled against Roque, hands over his ears and his eyes scrunched shut.
The D-Boys who weren’t doped up on sleeping pills had the sense to leave them alone.
Pooch tried to talk him down, gentle and coaxing.
Cougar slapped him.
His way worked better.
“So I have this thing.” Jensen said, dropping down to sit beside Cougar on the work bench he had taken over for his weapons. “With my head. It’s not a bad thing, not a dangerous thing, just, you know…a thing.”
Jensen wasn’t as compact as he’d been before. Still taller than Cougar, but suddenly narrower – brittle bones and wiry muscle. Cougar watched him try and fail to keep down his food.
“Okay.” Cougar was ready to listen.
“S’why I talk so much. I gotta have something external to focus on or my brain will like…fucking implode or something. I’d go nuts. I’m really fucking scared of going nuts, Cougs, and sometimes I think maybe I already have.”
Cougar still had no idea what they did to Jensen. For all that he talked and talked and never fucking shut up, Jensen rarely actually said anything.
Jensen threw himself into his hacking and Cougar got even better at killing than he was before.
Clay watched them both like he knew something they don’t.
They didn’t fuck. Didn’t even kiss.
If either of them wanted to, neither of them could work up the guts.
Cougar broke someone’s wrist when they brushed against him in the street.
Jensen dropped off the face of the Earth when Pooch grabbed his arm to keep him from walking into a table. Twenty minutes of Pooch panicking and Clay pacing and absolutely nothing at all behind Jensen’s eyes.
They slept side by side, huddled together like two children who knew the night was filled with monsters, and only had each other for protection.
Cougar broke first. Just a little fracture.
He made a kill in the field, blood covering his hands, and was back in that fucking hellhole, staring at the body on the ground and wishing it was Jensen.
Clay caught him like he’d been expecting it from the start.
Roque broke him the rest of the way.
Cougar nearly killed him for it.
Jensen babbled on a mile a minute about absolutely fucking nothing while they huddled around a campfire, freezing their balls off. His voice grated, too fast and too hyper to be natural, and it just underlined how not okay Jensen was.
Roque grabbed him, threw him down, and pinned him to the ground.
Cougar was up in a heartbeat; he kicked Roque so hard he probably broke a few of his ribs.
The sound around them was fucking chaos, and the startled, terrified look in Jensen’s eyes made the fissures widen before they crumbled completely.
He didn’t fight Cougar when he was pulled up like a ragdoll and dragged into Cougar’s arms. It was the first time they’d hugged – not hugged, but hugged - in front of the others, and Cougar would kill the person who called them on it.
They weren’t okay.
Not even close.
Pairing: Cougar/Jensen
Rating: R
Summary:They slept side by side, huddled together like two children who knew the night was filled with monsters, and only had each other for protection.
Disclaimer: Not mine, borrowed!
Warnings: Violence, strong language & disturbing imagery.
Notes: Follows His, Now I lay me down to sleep, Useful and Better dead
Cougar woke briefly before they were moved. He was on his back in a truck, bundled up under emergency blankets and tucked so close to Jensen Cougar could feel his heartbeat against his skin.
He didn’t smell like Jensen; didn’t look like or sound like Jensen, and bugs crawled from his filthy skin to Cougar’s.
From the corner of his eye, Cougar could see Clay and Pooch preparing to burn the site they’d been held in to the ground.
Cougar could see his hut amongst the other temporary buildings, and he could see the circle where his captors had no doubt eaten and drunk and been fucking merry. Between the two was a pit, six feet deep and less than a foot wide. It was dug into the ground, the opening made strong by planks of wood.
Cougar could just about make out the blood that stained it, and the gouges left by human fingernails.
He lost consciousness before he could match them with Jensen’s hands.
They could have been anywhere. The no name motel was like any number of others they had been put up in during transition periods.
Two queen beds, table and chairs, and a mini-fridge.
This one also had enough medical supplies to open up a bootleg clinic.
Jensen and Cougar had the one bed. The others hotbunked in the other.
Jensen remained still and silent beside Cougar. Asleep or unconscious, he didn’t know.
Fuck, he could have been in a coma and Cougar wouldn’t have known one way or another.
Pooch took the seat next to the bed. He looked like he’d aged twenty years since Cougar had seen him last.
“He woke up on the trip. Wanted to know why we’d not brought him any coffee.” He laughed, but it sounded more like a sob.
That sounded like something Jensen would say after forty days of torture.
Kid did like his fucking coffee.
The unit fell into specific roles over the days that followed.
Pooch took charge of their medication, his fingers the most practiced with a needle and thread and his manner the one least likely to provoke a reaction from his shell-shocked patients.
Roque made it his job to make them both eat. Soup mainly. Cougar couldn’t keep down anything more substantial.
Jensen threw up everything – the soup, the water, the pills Pooch had him popping. When he was awake his fever spiked one-oh-four and it was like sharing a bed with a fucking furnace. They switched him to IV lines and prayed that would stabalize him.
Clay handled everything else.
He didn’t dream that first week. He just slept; in and out of consciousness with irregular patterns of fitful rest.
Jensen slept like the dead.
Cougar woke up one afternoon to find Clay slumped over in one of the chairs and Jensen wide eyed and mute next to him in the bed.
He looked like a fucking galago. Stupidly big blue eyes and pale, sickly skin stretched over sharp cheekbones and a hollow jaw.
He flinched when Cougar touched his arm.
“Wade’s dropped under the radar.” Clay informed him one morning. Cougar was out of bed for the first time, dressed and hiding behind his hat – Pooch had found it before they burned the shithole to the ground.
Roque was trying to manhandle Jensen as gently as he could to the bathroom. Jensen was wearing Clay’s shirt, and Cougar could count his ribs through the thin fabric.
Apparently the lice and vermin in Jensen’s hair and beard had been so bad they’d had to shave both off. Jensen looked like a Cherry again – seventeen if he were a day. Cougar knew he wasn’t the only one worried about him.
“We’ll find him.” Clay promised. “I fucking swear it.”
Jensen started talking again, louder and more irrelevant than ever before.
Cougar went back to watching him, reading the words that weren’t spoken.
Cougar had seen enough shrinks to know what to say and what to do when asked.
Jensen was smarter than the whole fucking department combined.
They both got their papers stamped.
Ready for deployment.
They got their POW bands in the mail a month after landing stateside.
Clay refused to go active until they were literally dropkicked onto a C-130 with 113 D-Boys and 80kg of kit each.
Neither Jensen or Cougar fucking weighed 80kg any more.
Jensen had a panic attack at 30,000 ft. It was a quiet, silent thing, just him huddled against Roque, hands over his ears and his eyes scrunched shut.
The D-Boys who weren’t doped up on sleeping pills had the sense to leave them alone.
Pooch tried to talk him down, gentle and coaxing.
Cougar slapped him.
His way worked better.
“So I have this thing.” Jensen said, dropping down to sit beside Cougar on the work bench he had taken over for his weapons. “With my head. It’s not a bad thing, not a dangerous thing, just, you know…a thing.”
Jensen wasn’t as compact as he’d been before. Still taller than Cougar, but suddenly narrower – brittle bones and wiry muscle. Cougar watched him try and fail to keep down his food.
“Okay.” Cougar was ready to listen.
“S’why I talk so much. I gotta have something external to focus on or my brain will like…fucking implode or something. I’d go nuts. I’m really fucking scared of going nuts, Cougs, and sometimes I think maybe I already have.”
Cougar still had no idea what they did to Jensen. For all that he talked and talked and never fucking shut up, Jensen rarely actually said anything.
Jensen threw himself into his hacking and Cougar got even better at killing than he was before.
Clay watched them both like he knew something they don’t.
They didn’t fuck. Didn’t even kiss.
If either of them wanted to, neither of them could work up the guts.
Cougar broke someone’s wrist when they brushed against him in the street.
Jensen dropped off the face of the Earth when Pooch grabbed his arm to keep him from walking into a table. Twenty minutes of Pooch panicking and Clay pacing and absolutely nothing at all behind Jensen’s eyes.
They slept side by side, huddled together like two children who knew the night was filled with monsters, and only had each other for protection.
Cougar broke first. Just a little fracture.
He made a kill in the field, blood covering his hands, and was back in that fucking hellhole, staring at the body on the ground and wishing it was Jensen.
Clay caught him like he’d been expecting it from the start.
Roque broke him the rest of the way.
Cougar nearly killed him for it.
Jensen babbled on a mile a minute about absolutely fucking nothing while they huddled around a campfire, freezing their balls off. His voice grated, too fast and too hyper to be natural, and it just underlined how not okay Jensen was.
Roque grabbed him, threw him down, and pinned him to the ground.
Cougar was up in a heartbeat; he kicked Roque so hard he probably broke a few of his ribs.
The sound around them was fucking chaos, and the startled, terrified look in Jensen’s eyes made the fissures widen before they crumbled completely.
He didn’t fight Cougar when he was pulled up like a ragdoll and dragged into Cougar’s arms. It was the first time they’d hugged – not hugged, but hugged - in front of the others, and Cougar would kill the person who called them on it.
They weren’t okay.
Not even close.
no subject
no subject
Yes, there will be more. They have a long way to go yet.
no subject
But it's just so well written and the sheer trauma just soaks through so well and it's utterly astounding.
I'm really amazed by this series, and I can't wait to see how you help them along so that, yeah, all right, they'll never be okay, but they'll be able to cope.
no subject
They have a long way to go, and I highly doubt (knowing my proclivity for being so mean!) that it will be bump free, but hopefully they will get there.
Again, thank you so much for reading,
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
And, I think its worse not knowing what happened to Jensen, if makes it that much more horrible. Also, I know Cougar shouldn't be able to *fix* Jensen but it doesn't stop me from wanting him to :(
I love this series.
no subject
incoherent feedback is incoherent
Re: incoherent feedback is incoherent
no subject
god i can't wait for more.
no subject
you've made me want to work on my own Cougs/Jensen. I BLAME YOUUUUUU. *not that menacing fist shake*
no subject
*weeps*
more please?
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject