snowdarkred

Title: don't look in the mirror, darling, you don't know who you'll see
Author:

snowdarkred
Word Count: ~1K
Pairings: girl!Jensen/Cougar
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, implied nastiness dealing with being a woman in the military, attempted nastiness, and swearing.
Author's Note: Pre-movie!verse. This also wasn't what I set down to write, but girl!Jensen is just too tempting. She's a little more fucked up than I anticipated, but I think that makes sense. Also, Cougar is love. :D I heart his crazy sniper ass.

Summary: Jocelyn "Jake" Jensen is a badass chick. She's just a little messed up in the head, but that's nothing that isn't expected. It's okay, though, 'cause Cougar's got her back.

don't look in the mirror, darling, you don't know who you'll see

Jocelyn “Jake” Jensen joined the military because she didn't have anything else to do. The government had shut down all of her online scams, she didn't have any job history, and she barely had a GED. Oh, and her sister had a kid on the way and no health insurance. It was the best and worst decision of her life.

---

The thing is, all that shit you hear about how women are treated in the military? It's true.

Fucking male chauvinistic assholes.

---

They gave her to the Losers because they had nothing else to do with her. She talked too much, and she knew more than her superior officers, and she didn't know when not to let those two cross. She embarrassed them in front of the men, and no matter how many 'lessons' they tried to pound into her, she never slowed down, never stopped, never stayed in what they saw as her place. She was too skilled to simply get rid of, and she was too stubborn to quit.

No body was as stubborn as a Jensen woman. They were born with ice in their veins.

---

Clay was the first CO that she had who didn't look at her and see woman.

Instead, he saw useful and competent. He saw that she could shoulder her own pack, and bit of everyone else's as well. She could handle a gun (mom put one in her hands early, just to piss dad off), she could out-hack anyone the Losers had worked with before (an old computer, shoved in the corner of a room with peeling paint and cracks in the walls), and she was fluent in bullshit (talk him down talk him down talk him down).

She carved a space for herself with her badassery and her skills, and she was happy. Her work was challenging, she had comrades who would watch her back, and she didn't have to worry about someone sneaking into her tent at night, eager to get something that she wasn't offering.

And they put up with her talking.

It was better than anything she'd ever had before, even when it was just her and her sister and the baby. That thought made her feel a little guilty, like she was replacing her family, but really, these guys were more of a family than anything she'd had in a long time.

It probably said something about her that hanging out with four men and killing people was the happiest she'd ever been, but she didn't really care.

---

The first time she pulled out a picture of her niece, Pooch had thought that she was hers. That Jensen had a kid.

I bet you're a good mother, he'd said, without a trace of irony.

Jensen had stared at him for a full five minutes, trying to wrap her head around the idea that someone seriously thought that she'd be good with that much responsibility. Then she'd laughed and laughed and laughed, remembering playing house with her sister and dropping the baby dolls everywhere, because she couldn't be bothered to remember to keep her grip tight.

Pooch had just looked at her in confusion, right up until Jensen explained that she had a sister and a niece and no plans on ever having kids. She could be responsible for saving the day and hacking computers and maybe committing international crimes, but she couldn't handle the thought of someone completely helpless depending on her. The thought made her skin crawl with memories.

---

Sometimes, she had nightmares. Pooch and Clay were too polite to mention it, and Roque didn't give enough of a damn to bother. But Cougar.

Cougar was the one who woke her up when the dreams came and dragged her under. But she didn't mind him seeing that weakness; after all, she was the one who woke him up from his.

---

Don't Ask, Don't Tell didn't really apply to the Losers, because half of the time, they didn't exist. So, really, there was no reason to keep her attraction to women a secret. She checked women out in bars, flirted with them like crazy, and even scored a few times, all under the watchful eyes of her team.

The sort-of secret was that she was attracted to men as well. She didn't want things to be awkward.

---

The first time they were captured and one of the bad guys tried to get his hand down her pants, Cougar tore the man's ear off with his teeth.

Yeah, it was kind of gross. But the Losers' arms were all bound behind them, and they hadn't had enough time for one of them to get out of the ropes yet, and Cougar. Cougar wouldn't let anything happen to her. He had her back.

Of course, that was before another one of the thugs grabbed her from behind and tried to rip her shirt off. She lost it, and when she came back to herself, there was blood on her hands and her wrists were scraped completely raw, and the asshole was deaddeaddead. She'd killed him. The team was free as well, and she wasn't sure when that had happened. She wasn't really sure how any of that had happened.

A hand touched her shoulder, and she jumped, skittish. Cougar. It was just Cougar.

Estás a salvo. Ahora estás a salvo. Estoy aquí, he said. She relaxed. Even though she didn't really know what he was saying, she still relaxed. Because it was Cougar.

---

Jensen worried for a few days that Clay was going to report her little episode, and then she would be reassigned or kicked out or, God forbid, sent to therapy.

Nothing happened. She breathed easier, right up until the nightmares hit.

---

Cougar woke her up every day for the next two weeks. Even in her sleep, she's loud. One day, after a particularly unsettling one (plain room with paint peeling off the walls and a computer in the corner and cold eyes looking at her with too much interest) she gave up.

She caught Cougar's eye and slowly stood, giving him plenty of time to guess her intentions. She walked across the crappy hotel room they were sharing, walked right up to his bed, and sat down. She laid back, letting her legs fall open and her eyes close. The bed smelled like gun oil and metal and sweat. It smelled like Cougar.

Skin on skin. Her arm against his. Her shoulder against his. His hand against her ribs. This was home.

She slept, and Cougar kept the nightmares away.

---

press three to dial again, press four to kill them all

Master Post for girl!Jensen 'verse