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snowdarkredTitle: kindly stop standing on your head and sit like a lady
Author:
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snowdarkred Word Count: ~1.3K
Pairings: girl!Jensen/Cougar, Clay/Aisha, implied one-sided Roque/Clay
Rating/Warnings: PG, because apparently I'm just sliding backwards. No real warnings except for swearing?
Author's Note: Movie!verse AU. Part of the alive with the glory of love 'verse. You people have me so well trained. I took a mid-afternoon shower and then realized that I HADN'T POSTED ANY LOSERS FIC TODAY, NOOOOO. I hope you're happy. >:(
Summary: Aisha doesn't know what family is. The Losers, from Franklin Clay to Jocelyn "Jake" Jensen, teach her a bit about it.
kindly stop standing on your head and sit like a lady
When Aisha was six, her father called her to him. He held a rose, tilted, so that all she could see was the perfect bud surrounded by his big hands.
Look at it, he said. See how pretty it is? She nodded, pigtails bouncing. Why don't you hold it. Go on, take it.
She reached out her hand and did so. She felt a sharp prick against her palm and the stab of unfamiliar pain. She drew her hand away; a thorn peirced her skin, and hot blood welled up around it, almost as hot as the tears that started streaming down her face.
All beauty hurts, her father told her as they watched her lifeline turn red. This is the way of the world.
This was the first first lesson he taught her. Later that week, he told her that her mother had gone away and wasn't coming back. She didn't cry.
---
Her father gave her everything. He gave her books and tutors, he gave her dancing lessons and dresses, he gave her knives and combat training. He ate dinner with her every other night, and he let her stay up as long as she liked. She was locked away in a prison of smiles and laughter and perfectly designed freedoms, and she never wanted to leave.
---
Nothing in life ever turns out the way we want it to.
---
The Bolivian government made a huge deal about the American airstrike, but that didn't stop them from seizing all of her father's assets that they could get their hands on. Her inheritance disappeared into the politicians' coffers, and Aisha burned with anger. Anger over her father's murder, anger over the Americans, anger over the hypocrisy of it all. She seethed, and she plotted, and she contacted every source her father had (had), looking for information on the people who killed him.
---
Of course, the government didn't get all of her father's money. He had numerous accounts set up under false names, as well as her heavily, legally, guarded trust fund. She burned through the money faster than she would have liked, giving out bribes for sealed files and confidential records.
---
She heard rumors of a man named Max.
---
Reading over the Losers' files, three stuck out more than the other two: Franklin Clay, Jocelyn Jensen, and Carlos Alvarez.
Franklin Clay was the son of a military man who was the son of a military man who was the son of a military man. He was the leader of the group and a fine, if unconventional, soldier. His file has the most information in it, and the entries still spoke of heavy editing.
Except for his name and citizenship status, Carlos Alvarez's file was blank. No date of birth, no place of birth, nothing. Just page after page of empty forms and the listing of his lastest posting to Clay's unit. It wasn't even updated to show his 'death'.
Jocelyn Jensen's records weren't just blank, they were gone.
---
She chose Clay because he held the most power over the others. William Roque would just shoot her, Linwood Porteous was married with a baby on the way, and from what she'd observed, Jensen and Alvarez were too wrapped up in each other to go for a third party.
Besides, Aisha was a lot of things, but bicurious wasn't one of them.
---
She watched through binoculars as they assembled in the cemetery. Alvarez and Jensen arrived late; he stole the kiss that Jensen was obviously going for with the other girl, and the others laughed. There was obviously some kind of joke in there. For a moment, she wondered if she could have gone for the pair of them instead of Clay. But then, neither of them had as much sway over the others. And while both Jensen and Alvarez were useful, they wouldn't get her Max. And Aisha had tried the whole girl-on-girl thing in the past, and she just wasn't into it.
The unit arranged themselves automatically so that they would have a three-sixty view of the surrounding area. There was always someone watching your back, checking to see who was coming up behind you. That was, until they got drawn into what looked like an argument.
Time to surprise them. Let them know that she was planning on keeping them on their toes.
---
Clay was a moth, and she was a fire, and together they danced and danced. They both knew that one inevitable day he would come too close, and she would burn him up.
---
Pooch had his wife, Cougar had Jensen, Jensen had Cougar, and Roque had Clay. But Clay? Clay didn't have Roque, and that was what would drive them apart.
---
It had taken her a while to realize that the team wasn't, in fact, babying Jensen. They felt protective of her, but they weren't babying her. They listened to her ideas, they never treated her condescendingly, and they trusted her to do her job no matter what.
Aisha didn't understand it. Working for her father, even on his more legal endeavors, she had always had someone looking over her shoulder. Checking her work. Even when she'd gone off to start her own business, she had always known that Daddy could step in at any moment to fix everything. But Jensen didn't have that kind of backup, and she didn't want it. When Aisha had suggested that they send someone in to protect watch Jensen's back, they had all looked at her like she was crazy. Crazier.
Jensen had, of course, exploded: Just because I don't walk around setting people's hotel rooms on fire doesn't mean I'm not as badass as you! I can bring countries to their knees with just a few clicks and typed commands! I can hack CIA satellites. I have hacked CIA satellites! I can kill armed soldiers with my bare hands – and I have! I've done it! I've been doing it! I don't need fucking protection; I'm my own fucking protection.
And besides, she concluded, Cougar's the one who has my back. From a distance. Because he knows that just because I'm the computer geek, it doesn't mean that I can't still kick fucking ass.
It would be so much easier to navigate the team's dynamic if their files hadn't been so tampered with. How the fuck was she supposed to know?
---
Oh, shit. She's got a gun and...it's pointed at my vagina. Clay, it's pointed at my vag!
Would you rather it were pointed at your face?
I know it makes no sense, but yes!
Better?
Not really.
Where's your gun, Jensen?
It's in the van.
What's it doing there?
Not. Much.
Will you two shut up?
Well, what if it was pointed at your favorite reproductive organ!
---
She knew it was a trap. They had known it was a trap. She shouldn't have been surprised that Roque had betrayed them, but she was. She hadn't thought that he would ever be able to tear himself away from Clay.
As she climbed to the top of a shipping container, she didn't think about her father or the wreckage that was left of his villa. She thought of Cougar's sly humor and Jensen's laugh and Pooch's passion and Clay's complete commitment to what he believed was right.
She shouldn't have felt worried about them. She told herself that she was saving them so that she would have the chance to kill them herself. The lie burned, and she took out her anger on the sons of bitches holding guns to her team's heads.
---
Aisha didn't know how to act around other girls. It had just been her and her father and her father's staff when she was growing up, and it had just been her when she went her own way. Women were as foreign to her as the moon. Luckily, Jensen wasn't like other women.
Aisha wasn't familiar with the feeling the team invoked in her, but if she had to guess, she would say that this was what family was supposed to feel like. Of course, she'd endure torture and never say it, because she was a badass chick, and no badass chick besides Jensen got mushy like that.
---
Aisha looked at Clay from across the lawn. He was lounging in a plastic chair and grinning lazily at Pooch and Jolene. I hate him, she said.
Jensen smirked at her from over the lip of a beer bottle. I don't think that word means what you think it means.
---
Clay was the moth, and she was the fire, and together they would dance and dance and dance.
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no subject
Date: 2010-08-06 07:35 pm (UTC)Yay!
Aisha wasn't familiar with the feeling the team invoked in her, but if she had to guess, she would say that this was what family was supposed to feel like. Of course, she'd endure torture and never said it, because she was a badass chick, and no badass chick besides Jensen got mushy like that.
YES YES YES YES YES. Oh yes.
Although:
Besides, Aisha was a lot of things, but bicurious wasn't one of them.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
no subject
Date: 2010-08-06 07:46 pm (UTC)<3
no subject
Date: 2010-08-06 08:29 pm (UTC)In that moment, Jensen (for reasons she can't quite figure out yet, and might never figure out, except that near-death experiences produce an intense need to fight or fuck) is entirely focused on the sweat on Aisha's breasts, and tasty it would be to lick it off.
not that I was also thinking such a thing when watching the movieno subject
Date: 2010-08-06 08:33 pm (UTC)...I may need to write that scene with more depth. And some split second dirty thoughts from Jensen. Because boobs! In front of her! Boobs of a badass chick!
no subject
Date: 2010-08-06 09:05 pm (UTC)Cougar's the one who has my back. From a distance. Because he knows that just because I'm the computer geek, it doesn't mean that I can't still kick fucking ass.
This made my day. *content*
Ta-ra! *tips hat, walks off into the sunset*
no subject
Date: 2010-08-07 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-06 11:09 pm (UTC)This is so awesomely awesome!
Aisha is spot on, and the way you repeated the moth/flame line with that alteration was just lovely.
well done :)
no subject
Date: 2010-08-07 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-07 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-07 03:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-07 04:26 pm (UTC)falling in love withacclimating to the team and especially Clay.Also, Jensen and Aisha totally need a girl's day with shopping and spas and all that shit. Ya know, for recon purposes. *nods*no subject
Date: 2010-08-07 08:50 pm (UTC)I'm actually working on a girl's night out piece for them, because Jensen sees it as her duty to get Aisha into geekdom and Aisha sees it as her duty to get Jensen in a dress. Also, there is hair cutting.