maratonista | Two pair

Two pair
R
Jensen/Cougar implied
Before they were Losers, they were two pairs waiting for someone to bridge the gap. Or, Clay and Roque silently try not to kill each other, while Jensen and Cougar silently try not to kill everyone else.

Back before they first started, God, six years ago, it had just been Clay and Roque.

They had been part of a seven-man team in Operation Kushner. The op got blown to Hell, and their team with it.

He and Roque hadn’t really liked each other at all, but when it was just the two of you against the world, the little things you hated about each other tended to get lost among the big things you had in common.

Neither Cougar or Jensen came through the ranks traditionally.

Cougar got himself ripped from sniper school at twenty and thrown into the jungle to kill drug lords.

Most of the time he was on his own. Most of the time, he didn’t even know who was giving the orders.

Jensen was sixteen when they met. A recent graduate from MIT and quickly welcomed into a sidebranch of the NSA before he could get bored – or smart - and turn against them. He’d lasted three weeks before he was dragged into a van at gunpoint.

Last Cougar had heard, the NSA stopped hiring children to do their dirty work, but it was still five months before his and Jensen’s paths crossed.

After that, it just became practical to make sure Jensen had someone around to watch his back. According to his file, Jensen was a member of the US Army. In reality, he still belonged to the NSA. Despite everything Cougar taught him, Jensen never went to Basic, had never stood on parade, and still didn’t understand why guns were so fucking awesome.

The few times anyone has dared separate them, Cougar was forced to not-so-gently nudge them in the right direction. He didn’t have to remind anyone just how dangerous the two of them really were. Jensen just blinked his blue eyes and smiled sweetly, and that tended to cause far more concern than Cougar’s snarling.

Clay and Roque had literally stumbled on them in Honduras.

Cougar had six bullets in him, and it was Jensen’s twentieth birthday.

The kid convinced them to help – even though Clay liked to think they would have anyway, it was really fucking hard to say no to Jensen when he pleaded with you – and they saved Cougar’s life in the middle of the godforsaken jungle.

Jensen waited until Cougar was stable, stole Clay’s radio, Rogue’s rifle and a handful of rations before the two of them slipped away into the forest.

In hindsight, they should probably have introduced themselves.

When they arrived back home, and Clay had managed to calm Roque’s temper, they set about trying to find the elusive pair.

Six months later, and they still drew blanks.

In the end, they stumbled on Cougar first, drinking in a bar in Fayetteville. He clearly didn’t recognize either of them. Clay wasn’t surprised. The guy was hallucinating when they met.

They watched and waited until Jensen took a seat beside him, two beers and a fake ID in his hands.

If a man was going to bleed and die for his country, Clay had no fucking issue with him drinking, legal age be fucked.

Roque insisted they follow the pair.

In a dark street, Cougar took him down with a blow to the throat. Clay had enough time to land a blow to Jensen before his head was spinning and the last words he was ever going to hear was a liturgy of Spanish insults.

“Carlos, parada!”

As second first meetings went, it was fairly fitting for all four of them.

Jake Jensen and Carlos ‘Cougar’ Alvarez.

Where one went, the other followed.

Jensen, Clay didn’t understand.

Cougar… well, any guy who could take down Roque (and him) Clay didn’t need to understand. He just needed.

They were both fucking babies, really: twenty-five and twenty. Clay wanted to give them ten bucks for candy and tell them to always use a condom.

Instead he gave them guns and a laptop that weighed almost as much as Jensen did, then dragged them into the middle of a warzone.

Pooch was a welcome addition.

Jensen and Cougar couldn’t be separated with a fucking crowbar, and they tended to suffer from temporary deafness: when it came to the other’s safety, they knew best, and Clay could go fuck himself.

Cougar was especially bad, and it wasn’t as if he could intimidate Jensen into anything when the sniper was around.

They had each other, and to hell with anyone else.

Which left Clay and Roque to edge towards killing each other.

Pooch drew them out of their little cliques. He made two pairs into a team.

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marvinetta.livejournal.com

Oooooooooooo. Very interesting. I'm still in love with your style.

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So many different suns

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