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snowdarkredAuthor:
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snowdarkred Word Count: ~1.2K
Pairings: always-a-girl!Jensen/Cougar, some implied onesided Roque/Clay
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, implied nastiness dealing with being a woman in the military, attempted nastiness, and swearing.
Author's Note: Movie!verse. The companion story to don't look in the mirror, darling, you don't know who you'll see. Cougar's POV. There's some overlap between the stories, but you don't have to read one to read the other. This one also goes over movie events a bit.
Summary: Jocelyn "Jake" Jensen can take care of herself. But the point is that as long as Cougar is around, she shouldn't have to.
press three to dial again, press four to kill them all
The first tech on their team had been a horrible tech but an okay soldier. But it didn't matter how well you could shoot a gun when you couldn't hack into the enemy's security system. Clay sent him home after two ops in a row where only Pooch's gun skills and Roque's general craziness had been the things that saved them.
The second tech was the opposite. He was good at getting the computers to do what he wanted, but he didn't know shit about being a soldier. He died quickly.
As much as Cougar didn't like it, he was hoping for a Three Bears solution. Let the next one be just right.
---
She introduced herself as Jake, though her file said Jocelyn. Her hair was cut short enough that it would have been nearly impossible to grab in a fight. She slouched when she thought no one was looking. She sang along to the radio, no matter what country they were in or what language the songs were in. She never knew the words. She didn't shave her legs. She wore glasses and bizarre shirts, and she didn't seem to actually care that she was in the military. She treated Clay more like a peer or an older brother than a ranking officer.
She didn't make sense.
---
She was a perfect fit.
Fuck.
---
She didn't like having people at her back. He noticed that right off. He saw Roque notice it too, and in a rare flash of kindness, the other man didn't say anything about it. Cougar wasn't really sure why. It wasn't like Roque hadn't made his opinions about women known before.
Maybe it was because Clay was so obviously not interested in Jensen in any kind of romantic way like he had been with the others. Cougar didn't really want to think about it.
For some reason, Roque being somewhat civil was creepier than seeing him pointedly fondling his knives.
---
When he saw that man grab her, put his hands on her, he sprang, just like the cat he was named after. He used the only weapon he had at his disposal – his teeth – and ripped, with all the strength and leverage he could manage. He spat, letting the ear fall from his mouth. He tasted blood.
Then they pulled him back and he had to watch as another man tried to tear her shirt off.
He'd never seen this expression on her face before, that raw open fear. Her eyes widened and then went blank with a disturbing coldness. He was more used to seeing that look in Roque's eyes than hers. Maybe that was why Roque left her alone; he saw a kindred spirit.
She took the man down, and then the man after him, and it was almost too beautiful to watch, seeing her kill them one by one. Pooch got his hands on a knife, and the rest of them got free and started taking down thugs of their own, but most of the work was already done.
When it was over, Jensen looked at them with fierce eyes and blood on her hands and smeared over her white tank top.
Cougar had never seen anything more enticing. He wondered what that made him.
---
Estás a salvo. Ahora estás a salvo. Estoy aquí.
You're safe. You're safe now. I'm here.
---
Jensen spent the next two weeks looking over her shoulder. It made him want to go back and kill the bastards all over again.
---
She talked in her sleep. He'd already known that, since he wound up bunking with her most of the time. But there was a difference between blurting out don't take the red pill and don't touch my pirate hat at random intervals, and screaming don't touch me don't touch me get off get off please don't hurt me stop stop stop every night.
He woke her up each time, careful to only touch her foot or her hand. Don't crowd her, don't startle her, don't frighten her. Don't let her see how fucking angry you get when you hear her plead for something she's already lost.
He did a surprisingly poor job at hiding it.
---
She starting crawling into bed with him after the second week, and for some reason, it worked. She stopped having nightmares every time she closed her eyes. She still dreamed, still relived what seemed to be memories every other night, but they didn't seem to wear her down as much. She was bouncing back.
She didn't leave his bed. He liked her there; he could keep an eye on her easier if she was pressed against him than if she was four feet away on the other side of the room.
---
Surprisingly, it was Roque who pulled him aside. He wasn't sure what was up with the relationship between Roque and Jensen; he never had been. They were comfortable with each other. Roque didn't cut her any slack because she was a woman, but he also didn't give her any shit because of it, which for Roque was practically the equivalent of making her a fucking friendship bracelet.
Roque waved a knife at him and told him that if he hurt her, he was going to cut off Cougar's head. It was his favorite threat.
Cougar looked Roque calmly in the eye and told him that Jensen could take care of herself.
---
Cougar may or may not have started cockblocking – well, more like vaginablocking – Jensen on purpose. It was fun to see her squirm and glare at him.
---
Bolivia made the nightmares come back. It was almost more than Cougar could handle, his own night terrors tearing through his mind to a chorus of Jensen's cries. He curled against her at night and tried to lose himself in curve of her shoulder. He couldn't stop the dreams, and he felt like a failure.
---
Cougar hated a lot of things in the world, but feeling Jensen's blood on his hands was probably the thing he hated the most. One of the things. Right up there with dead kids.
It didn't matter that Aisha hadn't been aiming to kill; she shouldn't have shot Jensen in the first place. He could have killed her just for that. It was almost too bad that she had redeemed herself with a damn rocket launcher right after.
---
Roque – Cougar couldn't understand Roque. He had betrayed them. He had betrayed Jensen, and that was unthinkable. And for what? For money? To get back at Clay for falling for another crazy woman? It made no sense. Cougar didn't usually like things that made no sense. He tended to shoot them.
He was really glad he hadn't shot Jensen when she'd first joined the team.
---
The sun woke him up. He was laying next to Jensen, one hand curving possessively around the smooth dip of her waist, the other hand resting equally possessively on his rifle. Light shone through the blinds; he had slept in far later than he usually did. Jensen stirred beside him, and he grinned at her sleepy, half-slurred protest.
Gently, he placed his hat over her head, blocking out the sun. He drifted back to sleep with her grumbled mutterings humming in his ear.
