Understand?
Aug. 23rd, 2010 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maratonistaTitle: Understand?
Pairing: Cougar/Jensen
Rating: R
Summary: Hello, my name is Jake Jensen. Welcome to my fucked up mind.
Disclaimer: Not mine, borrowed!
Warnings: Violence, disterbing imagery. Non-con. Jensen's very warped mind. This one is pretty dark.
Notes: Part of the Belonging Series. Not chronological. Jensen PoV.
Hello, my name is Jake Jensen. Welcome to my fucked up mind.
Jensen hadn’t been lying when he said he could maybe understand Lee.
He did. Probably more than anyone else in the world.
He was not noble like Cougar. He was not strong, and he was not able to deal and move on.
Jensen got where he got through sheer underdog tactics. When cornered, he’d lie, cheat and go for the throat. He did what he needed to do to survive.
He did anything.
And then he locked it away in an encrypted file and tried to lose it in the void.
Lee knew exactly what he was doing.
To be fair, Jensen did as well.
Jensen wasn’t as blond, helpless, innocent or naïve as people thought he was.
And that worked for him.
Jensen had been drugged before.
During those forty-one days, when they’d thought it fun to see how high they could make him fly, and then when he’d been too much trouble to risk leaving him sober.
And in Mexico. When Cougar had come along like a knight in fucking armour.
Jensen knew exactly what that guy planned on doing to him. He just hadn’t cared.
He hadn’t cared about much until Cougar.
It wasn’t that Jensen didn’t want to talk to Cougar. Sometimes that was all he wanted to do.
Only it took everything he had to lock things away, and once they were gone, it was like scrubbing a hard drive clean. You really had to go deep to dig up the dirt.
Cougar, unlike anyone else in Jensen’s life, knew how to take what he was given and be grateful.
So when Jensen said ‘they fucked me’, Cougar filled the rest in himself.
He won’t be telling Cougar about this, though.
It was one thing to know there was nothing he could have done – that he was there in the same fucking boat. It was something else to know he let it happen again.
And fuck, this wasn’t the first time. Not by a long shot.
Jensen was nothing if not a survivor, and he had years and years of practice when it came to organizing his mind.
Lee hadn’t even caught his breath, and Jensen had the incident locked away in the back of his mind, buried under terabyts of useless junk he’d picked up over the years.
Loving Cougar came as naturally to him as breathing.
Right at the start, Jensen hadn’t been attracted to him because he was hot, or mysterious, or dangerous.
He’s been attracted to Cougar because Cougar was a fucking asshole.
He took anything and everything that Jensen was willing to give, then dug around his insides for whatever was left.
It was fucking exhausting. Exhilarating.
Unhealthy.
Sex was rough. Living together was rougher. And the more Cougar took, the more Jensen wanted to give.
Then Cougar fell in love with him.
Lee was good.
He’d obviously aced Interrogation 101.
Skipped the class on patience, though.
Jensen’s pain threshold was up there with King Kong: right at the top of the Empire State Building.
And Lee was obviously used to more begging.
Jensen had never been with anyone who loved him before.
It was unnerving.
Before, and he’d have said Cougar didn’t have a gentle bone in his body.
Only Jensen had the pictures of him and Jillian to prove otherwise.
Jillian was his moral compass. She was everything Jensen had never been. She wanted him and Cougar to get married. She said they’d be happy together.
A seven year old was smarter than he was. No surprise there.
“You know, this is pointless.” Lee paused, his hands dropping to his sides, and the jump leads with them.
On the surface, Jensen saw the anger. Below that, he saw the fear.
“Sorry man.” Jensen spat out blood and tried to smile. “But seriously, there ain’t nothing you can throw at me that someone bigger, meaner or uglier hasn’t thrown before. Whatever you want from me, you’re wasting your time.”
He was talking out of his ass, of course.
There was a whole lot of pain he was intimately familiar with.
There was a whole lot more he’d done everything to avoid.
Lee didn’t need to know that. He just saw Jensen. Saw understanding, instead of fear.
He’d been fucked up good, the poor bastard. And Jensen, without even trying, had been the one to break him.
Understanding could destroy a man.
Cougar loved him. Would kill for him. Die for him.
But if Jensen had his way, Cougar would never understand him.
It was hard as fuck to comfort someone when strung up like a chicken awaiting decapitation.
The blood was all in his head, and it made him dizzy as fuck. It took a few minutes before he was able to open his eyes without puking, let alone handle the distraught wreck that was Lee.
Jensen patted his shoulder and said the words no one had ever said to him.
Clay and the others saw a monster in need of exterminating.
Jensen saw a man doing what he needed to survive.
What that made him was anyone’s guess.
Knowing Cougar was there, only feet away in his own corner of Hell… it had given Jensen a strength he’d not known he could possess.
If he’d been alone, he’d have survived, like always. But knowing Cougar was there made him proactive, not just reactive.
Instead of waiting for the torment to be over, preparing himself for the reboot, he launched counter attack after counter attack. Aggressive and direct, then sly; through the backdoor. He fought like he hacked: unpredictable.
In the end it hadn't mattered.
He couldn’t kill Lee any more than he could kill himself.
Lee tormented people who looked like his rapist.
Jensen just enjoyed the fuck out of steamrollering anyone who crossed his path.
Birds of a feather and whatnot.
So he kissed Lee instead.
Not the magic kiss mommy gave to make it all better, but Jensen was willing to bet his life on the fact that it was the first gentle touch Lee had known in a long, long time.
No doubt the time would come when Cougar saw through the veneer Jensen wore.
He could feel it edging closer and closer, and his insides felt brittle, like shards of glass scrapping against each other.
Lee went his own way. In a day or so, he’d probably forget all the reasons he had let Jensen walk, and go find himself another toy to play with.
Hopefully he’d be someone else’s problem by then, or Jensen would have a hell of a job explaining that one to Clay.
“Sorry boss. Couldn’t kill him. Kinda like the dude, actually.”
Yeah. Just no.
Clay didn’t buy it for a second.
Nor did Roque.
Pooch trusted him enough to play along.
And Cougar. Fuck.
As far as Cougar was concerned, there wasn’t a dishonest bone in Jensen’s body.
He wanted gentle. He wanted to reassure himself that Jensen was alive and whole and his.
Jensen wanted it to hurt.
He’d lied to Cougar. Let another man fuck him. That was supposed to hurt, wasn’t it?
“You want this?” He asked, grinning bloody when he pulled away from their kiss. Cougar blinked at him, barely a step away from freaking out. “Then you’re gonna have to work for it.”
He pushed Cougar away, then batted aside his hat.
By the time they were done, Lee’s fingerprints were lost beneath Cougar’s.
Hello, my name is Jake Jensen. Do you understand me yet?
No?
Good.
Pairing: Cougar/Jensen
Rating: R
Summary: Hello, my name is Jake Jensen. Welcome to my fucked up mind.
Disclaimer: Not mine, borrowed!
Warnings: Violence, disterbing imagery. Non-con. Jensen's very warped mind. This one is pretty dark.
Notes: Part of the Belonging Series. Not chronological. Jensen PoV.
Hello, my name is Jake Jensen. Welcome to my fucked up mind.
Jensen hadn’t been lying when he said he could maybe understand Lee.
He did. Probably more than anyone else in the world.
He was not noble like Cougar. He was not strong, and he was not able to deal and move on.
Jensen got where he got through sheer underdog tactics. When cornered, he’d lie, cheat and go for the throat. He did what he needed to do to survive.
He did anything.
And then he locked it away in an encrypted file and tried to lose it in the void.
Lee knew exactly what he was doing.
To be fair, Jensen did as well.
Jensen wasn’t as blond, helpless, innocent or naïve as people thought he was.
And that worked for him.
Jensen had been drugged before.
During those forty-one days, when they’d thought it fun to see how high they could make him fly, and then when he’d been too much trouble to risk leaving him sober.
And in Mexico. When Cougar had come along like a knight in fucking armour.
Jensen knew exactly what that guy planned on doing to him. He just hadn’t cared.
He hadn’t cared about much until Cougar.
It wasn’t that Jensen didn’t want to talk to Cougar. Sometimes that was all he wanted to do.
Only it took everything he had to lock things away, and once they were gone, it was like scrubbing a hard drive clean. You really had to go deep to dig up the dirt.
Cougar, unlike anyone else in Jensen’s life, knew how to take what he was given and be grateful.
So when Jensen said ‘they fucked me’, Cougar filled the rest in himself.
He won’t be telling Cougar about this, though.
It was one thing to know there was nothing he could have done – that he was there in the same fucking boat. It was something else to know he let it happen again.
And fuck, this wasn’t the first time. Not by a long shot.
Jensen was nothing if not a survivor, and he had years and years of practice when it came to organizing his mind.
Lee hadn’t even caught his breath, and Jensen had the incident locked away in the back of his mind, buried under terabyts of useless junk he’d picked up over the years.
Loving Cougar came as naturally to him as breathing.
Right at the start, Jensen hadn’t been attracted to him because he was hot, or mysterious, or dangerous.
He’s been attracted to Cougar because Cougar was a fucking asshole.
He took anything and everything that Jensen was willing to give, then dug around his insides for whatever was left.
It was fucking exhausting. Exhilarating.
Unhealthy.
Sex was rough. Living together was rougher. And the more Cougar took, the more Jensen wanted to give.
Then Cougar fell in love with him.
Lee was good.
He’d obviously aced Interrogation 101.
Skipped the class on patience, though.
Jensen’s pain threshold was up there with King Kong: right at the top of the Empire State Building.
And Lee was obviously used to more begging.
Jensen had never been with anyone who loved him before.
It was unnerving.
Before, and he’d have said Cougar didn’t have a gentle bone in his body.
Only Jensen had the pictures of him and Jillian to prove otherwise.
Jillian was his moral compass. She was everything Jensen had never been. She wanted him and Cougar to get married. She said they’d be happy together.
A seven year old was smarter than he was. No surprise there.
“You know, this is pointless.” Lee paused, his hands dropping to his sides, and the jump leads with them.
On the surface, Jensen saw the anger. Below that, he saw the fear.
“Sorry man.” Jensen spat out blood and tried to smile. “But seriously, there ain’t nothing you can throw at me that someone bigger, meaner or uglier hasn’t thrown before. Whatever you want from me, you’re wasting your time.”
He was talking out of his ass, of course.
There was a whole lot of pain he was intimately familiar with.
There was a whole lot more he’d done everything to avoid.
Lee didn’t need to know that. He just saw Jensen. Saw understanding, instead of fear.
He’d been fucked up good, the poor bastard. And Jensen, without even trying, had been the one to break him.
Understanding could destroy a man.
Cougar loved him. Would kill for him. Die for him.
But if Jensen had his way, Cougar would never understand him.
It was hard as fuck to comfort someone when strung up like a chicken awaiting decapitation.
The blood was all in his head, and it made him dizzy as fuck. It took a few minutes before he was able to open his eyes without puking, let alone handle the distraught wreck that was Lee.
Jensen patted his shoulder and said the words no one had ever said to him.
Clay and the others saw a monster in need of exterminating.
Jensen saw a man doing what he needed to survive.
What that made him was anyone’s guess.
Knowing Cougar was there, only feet away in his own corner of Hell… it had given Jensen a strength he’d not known he could possess.
If he’d been alone, he’d have survived, like always. But knowing Cougar was there made him proactive, not just reactive.
Instead of waiting for the torment to be over, preparing himself for the reboot, he launched counter attack after counter attack. Aggressive and direct, then sly; through the backdoor. He fought like he hacked: unpredictable.
In the end it hadn't mattered.
He couldn’t kill Lee any more than he could kill himself.
Lee tormented people who looked like his rapist.
Jensen just enjoyed the fuck out of steamrollering anyone who crossed his path.
Birds of a feather and whatnot.
So he kissed Lee instead.
Not the magic kiss mommy gave to make it all better, but Jensen was willing to bet his life on the fact that it was the first gentle touch Lee had known in a long, long time.
No doubt the time would come when Cougar saw through the veneer Jensen wore.
He could feel it edging closer and closer, and his insides felt brittle, like shards of glass scrapping against each other.
Lee went his own way. In a day or so, he’d probably forget all the reasons he had let Jensen walk, and go find himself another toy to play with.
Hopefully he’d be someone else’s problem by then, or Jensen would have a hell of a job explaining that one to Clay.
“Sorry boss. Couldn’t kill him. Kinda like the dude, actually.”
Yeah. Just no.
Clay didn’t buy it for a second.
Nor did Roque.
Pooch trusted him enough to play along.
And Cougar. Fuck.
As far as Cougar was concerned, there wasn’t a dishonest bone in Jensen’s body.
He wanted gentle. He wanted to reassure himself that Jensen was alive and whole and his.
Jensen wanted it to hurt.
He’d lied to Cougar. Let another man fuck him. That was supposed to hurt, wasn’t it?
“You want this?” He asked, grinning bloody when he pulled away from their kiss. Cougar blinked at him, barely a step away from freaking out. “Then you’re gonna have to work for it.”
He pushed Cougar away, then batted aside his hat.
By the time they were done, Lee’s fingerprints were lost beneath Cougar’s.
Hello, my name is Jake Jensen. Do you understand me yet?
No?
Good.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-24 11:25 pm (UTC)And Cougar. Oh Cougar. Protective Cougar is just delightful. I have a huge kink for protective Cougar, but I'm always afraid that letting him go to town with it would undermine Jensen's own character (and I think that's Jensen's biggest issue as well! D'oh!) So huge kudos for tackling that so well. I really am excited to see where you go with it.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-24 11:35 pm (UTC)They are creeping me out too because now they have taken a turn for the dark (yes now, not in the part already published) because (and this is not spoilerish, it was already wrote down in the part I've already published) Jensen doesn't know better and he's coming off as not knowing how to or that it would change anything.
Roque is ... pretty complicated because there are some and some of those sentiments but they're muddled together with his own issues and problems.
Also that's my problem too with protective Cougar and you will see that it will become a problem in the next part of the fic too, because Jensen is stubborn and my Jensen relates well to your "Badass Bookworm" Jensen so you can see why protective Cougar is going to be a problem.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-24 11:44 pm (UTC)Jensen's issues are heartbreaking really. It's a common theme with him, I think. He's has never experienced anything to say that he deserves more. To hell with his stubbornness, I say we wrap him in a blanket, duct tape him to the couch and force feed him cookies. Oh, and make him watch cartoons.
I really am quite sympathetic towards Roque, though your characterization makes that pretty hard at the moment! I think there are some pretty huge psychological issues at the root of his actions, and they are as fascinating as they are sad. In some respects, it would probably be even worse if hedid have feelings for Jensen. Hello tragic irony.
I also think Cougar's life would be so much simpler if people would shut the fuck up, sit the fuck down, and let him loom protectively over their shoulder. He can but dream, right?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-24 11:51 pm (UTC)Yeah, I agree with you on both counts. We need to make him watch happy cartoons not that 'Watership down' or whatever it was called kind of cartoons (it was one who terrorized me as a child. With lots of bunnies and a sequence when they went mad because of what men had done to them and got red eyes and killed each other and the screen turned red... ICK) or anime (who are really, really fucked up and should be handled cautiously). Chocolate cookies, happy cartoons and lots of hugs, that's what he needs.
Yeah I know I'm not making it easy to understand or route for him, for the moment, but it's Jensen POV and he's so messed up that he cannot really dig into Roque issues (nor is really interested to do as much) even if he have a vague outline of what they are (J: hello genius, there! Me: shut the fuck up).
Yeah, Cougar's life would be all peachy and simple if people would do what you did. We probably should let him loom protectively over Jensen shoulder once we tie him down and leave cookie-feeding duties to him. Sadly Jensen needs to prove
himselfthe world that he's badass and can take care of himself *snorts*