Title: Some Unsettling May Have Occurred During Shipping
Author: Brigantine
Fandom: The Losers/Firefly
Pairing: Cougar/Jensen
Rating: PG-13
Length: 4100
Content notes: AU crossover. One mention of offscreen consent issues, sort of?
Summary: An important package is mis-delivered to the crew of the Jolene.
A/N: I don't even know, you guys. I woke up with this stuck in my brain on Saturday morning, thought I'd write up something short and quick to get it out of my system, and... here we are. Odd, and not short. Also, I don't know how Firefly's stasis pods work, in that I don't know whether or not wounds would heal while a person's asleep. I'm going with No for this fic.



They're on Persephone loading cargo for a new client when two large men rumble out of the dockside crowds on a delivery trike, pulling a cargo trailer. They stop at the foot of the loading ramp and the driver asks Pooch, "Hey, this is the Jolene, ain't it?"

Pooch squints in the afternoon sun, glancing from the disreputable-looking driver to his equally scruffy passenger. "Who wants to know?" He wrinkles his nose at the miasma of old sweat and burning trike oil. The driver and his passenger are a two-for-one tangle of dust, sweat, and unwashed hair. The driver’s got a tattoo in Chinese characters on his neck that reads, ‘Barking dog.’ Pooch wonders if the guy’s aware of what it actually says, as opposed to what he likely asked for.

"I got a package for Captain Clay Frankman of the Jolene. You Captain Frankman?"

"No. That the package?" Pooch has got a bad feeling twitching in his belly, a familiar sort of anxious cramping that reminds him of blind canyons during the war.

"Yup. I need someone to sign off on this thing. "

The passenger raps on the driver’s shoulder. “Yeah. This thing.” They grin at each other. It’s not a nice expression.

The thing in question is a large, metal box with multi-colored buttons and small, blinking lights across the front edge of the lid. Pooch has seen exactly one such contraption in his life, and it was not under pleasant circumstances. He pleads ignorance, hoping for further information. "What the hell is that?"

The trike driver shrugs, "It’s a present for the captain, from my boss." The passenger sniggers as he digs about in a grimy vest pocket. He pulls out a single sheet of paper and hands it to Pooch. It’s thin and cheap, smudged by damp ink and dirty fingerprints. "Delivered special courtesy of Woo Feng,” the driver declares. “Captain Frankman’s requisition has been filled. He needs to sign at the bottom."

Pooch nods absently, skimming over the paperwork which cites, in small Chinese characters and vague language that Pooch suspects means something completely other than what it implies, Captain Clay Frankman's request for an unspecified consignment acquired and held by Woo Feng, to be surrendered when ‘Nine Dragons’ next makes landfall, rendering all debts paid in full.

Clay and Roque are manhandling crates inside the hold behind him, and Pooch excuses himself. He sidles up next to Clay, turning his back to the men on the trike. Clay notes his expression, and keeps his voice low, and his attitude casual. “What’s wrong?”

Pooch nods slightly toward the men waiting with the box. "Special delivery from Woo Feng to one Captain Clay Frankman. Who the hell is Woo Feng?"

Clay glances over, nods amiably toward the waiting driver of the trike and mutters to Pooch, “Woo’s a business man, not much concerned about the particulars of a deal. Major Clay Frankman was a sadistic hun dan during the war, and I assume he still is, now that he’s a ship’s captain. Shames me sharing that much of his name. ”

“Yeah? Driver thinks he’s you.”

“Does he, now. “

Pooch points to the name of Clay Frankman’s ship, the ‘Nine Dragons.’ “What’s that sound like in Mandarin?”

“Jiu Long,” Clay translates. A wicked smile tugs at one corner of his mouth. “However, if your delivery boy is a thick-headed downclass thug who doesn’t read Chinese well, and the guy supervising the loading isn’t clear with his English…”

“You might get Jolene,” Pooch finishes. His belly’s feeling better already.

Roque shifts a crate close to Pooch and Clay. He growls, “Gorram blinky box reminds me of that settler woman we couldn’t get loose from Ladislav Kurzaj. Mailed to him on his fuckin’ birthday.”

It’s been a long-standing sore spot with Clay, Roque and Pooch that they weren’t able to get that woman out of Kurzaj’s compound. They had neither the men, nor the firepower for it at the time. Pooch hopes this time things might turn out differently.

Clay rumbles, “Happy birthday to me, then. Come on.” He tramps down the loading ramp after Pooch, smirking at the driver. "Pretty package." He reaches for the paperwork in Pooch's hand, giving the delivery guy a wink and a grin. "That's not gonna explode once we're spaceborne, is it?"

Both men on the bike chuckle. "No, sir,” the driver assures him. “It's been sittin’ in our warehouse for nigh on three weeks, hasn't made a peep nor a howl the whole time. Just them little bitty lights blinking."

Clay laughs along, "Well, load it up. Whatever it is, maybe we can use it, or trade it, and if not we can dump it off somewhere." The men on the trike laugh as Clay scrawls an illegible signature on the line with the big red X next to it, and leads the way back into the shadow of the ship's hold. The delivery driver and his merry passenger, the box on the trailer, and Pooch follow behind. Roque has disappeared. Pooch guesses he’s already gone up to the bridge to warn Jensen that they’ll be leaving fast burn and why, as soon as they can secure their cargo. All of it.


Once they’ve shed Persephone’s atmosphere and leveled off Pooch leaves the engine room to rejoin Roque and Clay in the cargo hold.

Roque prowls around the suspect box, crowbar in hand, looking for a seam he can jam the crowbar into and get some leverage, while Clay squints at the little computer screen embedded in the top.

Pooch observes, "Isn’t this thing supposed to have a big handle that you push up to open the top? The last one had a big handle."

Roque snorts and kicks at the box, gaining no response from it at all. The little lights in its top continue to blink steadily.

Clay glances at him. "Roque, put the crowbar away. Brute force is not always the answer."

"No? We got some claymores over--"

“Roque,” Pooch reminds, “there’s probably a person in there.”

Roque shrugs, giving him a sideways grin.

"We need Jensen," Clay says.

"You rang, sir?" Jensen steps off the last of the long metal stairway leading up to the bridge. He’s munching on an apple. The kid has got a hollow leg, Pooch is near certain. Jensen spies the big grey box. "That the people package? Do we know for a fact?"

"We need to open this thing fucking delicately to find out," Roque gripes.

Jensen lopes forward, his short blonde hair sticking up like the fluff on a gosling, the way it always does, and his blue eyes alight with curiosity behind the round lenses of his specs. "Oooh, look at all the pretty buttons! Hello, pretty buttons.”

"Jensen," Clay says. "Focus."

Jensen sets the remains of his apple down on a crate and rubs his hands together. Clay steps aside so that he can read the little computer screen. "Wow," Jensen's eyebrows flicker. "That is singularly unhelpful."

"What? What does it say?"

"’Measurements remain inside normal parameters.’" Jensen looks at Clay and shrugs. "Whatever normal for these conditions might be. Context would be useful.” He grimaces at the box. “Do they really ship people in these things, ‘cause that is severely kuang zhe de."

"Can. You. Open. It," Roque repeats impatiently, hefting the crowbar.

"Oh yeah, sure." Jensen reaches out one forefinger to press a seemingly random series of blinking little buttons.

Clay, Roque and Pooch each take a step back as the top of the box lifts with a soft belch of cold mist, and slides halfway off backwards. Jensen peers into the chill mist and blinks, "Huh."

Clay hefts the top of the box and sets it aside, and they all four stand staring down through the swirls of icy fog. "Well, hell," Roque says. “Pooch called it.”

Pooch reaches into the cold and lifts away a single, folded sheet of paper, resting on the sleeping man's bare left hip. He unfolds it and reads, as the others stare dumbfounded in spite of their own suspicions, "Please find within one Carlos Alvarez, former sniper, as requested. We hope you will enjoy your guest." Pooch stares across the box at Clay, speechless.

"That is just plain creepy," Roque mutters.

Pooch and the others peer into the cold, misty depths. Inside lies one naked man, curled up amidst smooth, heavy padding contoured to his shape. His skin is a pale olive, and his hair is long and black.

Clay runs a hand over his face, rubbing at three days of dark beard stubble. “Okay, how the hell do we wake him up? He's in some kind of stasis, right? There's got to be a protocol for getting somebody out of stasis without damaging them."

“How long’s he been stuck in there?” Jenson wonders.

“Three weeks at least,” Clay tells him, “depending on when he was put in and how long it took to transport him to Woo Feng’s warehouse.”

“Ouch.”

"What if we just poke him? You know, gentle-like?"

Clay stares at Pooch as though he’s gone bibbledy.

“You got a better idea?”

“I’ll do it,” Roque volunteers, but Clay puts a hand on his shoulder. “What?”

“You’re too scary,” Jensen says. “Let Pooch do it.”

Pooch objects, “Are you saying I’m not scary? I’m not wei xian enough? I can be wei xian!”

“Pooch…” Clay says.

“Fine,” Pooch huffs. “Let’s do this.” He reaches into the box, but then stops short, looking startled. “Never mind. Problem solved.”

The man in the shipping box shifts, grunting softly. His dark eyes change from unfocused to confused as he peers up at the four men leaning over him, then in a heartbeat his expression shifts from bewildered to baleful, and he lunges out of the box, tumbles onto the hard floor of the cargo hold, staggers to his feet and scurries backward, looking wildly about the large space.

Pooch recognizes a man searching for a weapon and an exit when he sees one. He can hear Clay behind him, “Hey, hey, take it easy."

Clay puts his hands out, palms up, trying to show that he means no harm, but the man, Alvarez, is having none of it. He heads for high ground, skittering light-footed across the tops of the secured cargo, snatching up a heavy steel socket wrench nearly the length of his arm along the way. He dives down behind the crawler, aiming for the hatch at the end of the hold, but Jensen gets there first and smacks the control button to shut it tight.

Alvarez spits out something in a language Pooch can’t understand, but a tone he recognizes as a curse, and wheels, trying to keep Jensen, Pooch, Clay and Roque all within sight while edging toward the stairs up to the catwalk.

Pooch notices that his face is bruised, one mark below his left eye, and another, darker and with a red, raw gash over it just to the right side of his forehead, at the hairline. "Clay, our man here appears a bit traumatized."

Clay agrees grimly, "Look at his knuckles. Hey, Alvarez, that's your name, right, we're not gonna hurt you. Nobody on this boat wants to hurt you! Listen, it looks like you could use some..."

Alvarez staggers and clutches at the edge of a crate. He shifts the wrench in his hand, gives an angry grunt and forces himself to stand up straight, still eyeing the stairs hopefully. His knees buckle beneath him and he swears again as he pitches forward, crumbling unconscious into the waiting arms of Jake Jensen.

"...medical attention," Clay finishes lamely.

“What we have here," Roque observes, "is a man with mighty impressive reflexes and a rigorous sense of purpose.”

Clay stands over Jensen as he runs his hands quickly over Alvarez's torso, doing a superficial check for bruised ribs. He helps Jensen lift Alvarez, draping him ass-up over Jensen's broad left shoulder. “Assuming he doesn’t kill you as soon as he wakes up again, and he’s not some murderin’ ching soh you can tell him we’ve been looking for another hand.”

“Understood, Papa Bear.” Jensen heads toward the hatchway Alvarez had tried to escape through, toward the passenger dorms and the infirmary. He croons, "Come on, cranky kitty, let’s get you cleaned up."

Pooch hollers after him, "His name is Carlos, dammit! He is not a kitty!"

Clay calls, "You'll be in the infirmary if we need you?"

"Nope," Jensen calls back, "passenger bunk."

"He needs--"

"I am not havin' him wake up on a med-gurney, Cap. That would not be a pretty scene."

"Grab a first aid kit, then," Clay concedes. “Is the ship at least on auto?”

Jensen gives a backward wave, "You or Pooch can helm if there’s a hiccup, don't call us, we'll call you. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to nap we go..."

Pooch turns to Roque, "He’s like a big puppy. Ain’t ever gonna be housebroke."



Jake chooses the cabin with two single beds in it. It's spartan and a little close, since they rarely carry passengers, but he's pretty sure the sheets are clean. He tosses the small first aid kit onto the bed on the left, then carefully rolls Alvarez off of his shoulder onto the bed on the right, trying not to let the man’s head jerk around too much. He finds towels in a small cupboard set near the tiny sink in one corner, and wriggles the largest one under Alvarez. The smaller one he sets aside.

Carlos Alvarez isn't as tall as Jake, and he's slender, but Jake wouldn't call him fragile. The man's got good shoulders, his build lean and strong, and he was a solid weight when Jake was carrying him. As Jake settles down to gently wash Alvarez's swollen, abraded knuckles he surmises that there must have been a fine fracas going before someone managed blunt force trauma to Alvarez's head. He wonders how many thugs it took to bring him down, and how many went home bleeding.

It was a quick, dirty job, that's clear. Whoever retrieved him was happy to damage him as long as it didn't ruin him for whatever use the other Clay might have had for him… and there’s a nasty line of thought that Jake prefers not to follow. Alvarez probably didn't even wake up between the blow to the head and getting stripped and dumped unwashed into the storage unit. Jake checks the gash in Alvarez's forehead to see if it needs stitches, decides it could use two, or three if he's dainty, which he plans to be.

After the stitches Jake washes the worst of the blood and dust off Alvarez's skin. Over the years Clay's crew have tended one another buck naked often enough that Jake isn't shy. He hopes Alvarez isn’t, ‘cause that ship has well and truly sailed. He checks for more injuries and washes Alvarez all the way down to and including his toes.

Jake discovers a small, black tattoo on the back of Alvarez's left shoulder that matches one on the shoulder of a man he shared two nights with in a settler town called Libertad. Hector had gentle hands, and an uncommon accent that rolled its r's and made the rest of the alphabet sound like warm wind and a setting sun. He'd been an Independent during the war. He told Jake he’d drifted for a while after, until he'd finally given up on dealing with his demons on his own, and had settled in Libertad. Jake stares at Alvarez's quiet face, at the bruise deepening to purple beneath his left eye. He says, “I have questions for you, young man.”

He dries Alvarez's skin with the small towel, shimmies the big one from beneath him and tosses them into a corner to be dealt with later. Maneuvering Alvarez under the blankets is tricky, but today Jake is patient.

Jake tugs the blankets up to Alvarez's chin, and turns off the light over his bed. He leaves the fold-and-flush toilet out so that Alvarez will know where it is if he wakes. On the tiny side table that juts out from the wall he leaves a glass of water, one of his precious candy bars - the kind with peanuts and real chocolate – and one of his best knives, safely sheathed, but well within Alvarez's reach. Then he strips down to his t-shirt and boxers, leaves his glasses on the little table next to the second bed, and crawls under the covers. He leaves the light on above his bed, so that if Alvarez wakes he can see Jake clearly. Jake doesn't think he'll sleep himself, as he's got too much adrenaline in his system, but like the rest of the crew he's become used to grabbing sleep in odd places and at odd times, and eventually he drops off into a light doze.

He's wakened by soft scuffling sounds from across the room. He's facing the wall when he wakes, so he turns carefully. Without his glasses everything is a blur, but he can see the shape of Alvarez scrunched into the dim corner directly across from him. Jake reaches slowly for his glasses.

The candy bar and the knife appear untouched, but most of the water is gone. The bed's pillow has fallen to the floor, and the blankets are badly askew. On the furthest corner of the mattress Alvarez huddles, knees drawn up tight, shivering badly and watching Jake with wary eyes.

Jake removes his glasses again, and replaces them on the side table. He scoots to the far edge of the bed, his back to the wall, and he lifts the covers invitingly. "My name is Jake Jensen. You’re safe here, I swear.”

Jake and Alvarez watch one another for a few tense moments, until Alvarez carefully unfolds, and with remarkable grace for a man who's recently been beaten senseless and put in stasis for three weeks he climbs out of his bed and into the warm space next to Jake. Jake extends one arm so that it lies beneath Alvarez's neck, and cautiously drapes the other across his chest. His right arm will end up numb, he knows, but this is worth it. Alvarez hugs the covers around himself, and their cocoon is complete. Jake can smell a faint lingering scent of cigarettes and liquor in Alvarez's hair.

"Hey," he says quietly to the top of Alvarez's head, "They jump you in a bar?"

Alvarez nods.

"Listen, if you've got friends who are looking for you, tell Clay. We can—hey, hey!”

Alvarez thrashes from Jake’s arms, falls onto the floor and leaps up, making a grab for the knife. Jake babbles, “No no no not that Clay, other Clay, wrong Clay! You got mis-delivered to a safe place. D’you under—ow!"

The knife in Alvarez’s hand is made for fighting, sturdy and sharp, and he has dug the point of it into the soft skin under Jake’s jaw. “They made a mistake,” Jake explains quickly, hoping his voice is calm, because he can feel the steel in his skin when he talks, and his heart is pounding from sheer terror. “My captain’s name is Franklin Clay. Pooch and Cap accepted delivery so we could rescue you.”

“Why did you give me this knife?” Alvarez angles it so that the light from over Jake’s bed flashes along the blade. “I could gut you like a deer with a knife like this.”

“Exactly,” Jake agrees, and he waits helplessly, relaxing only fractionally when he sees that Alvarez gets it. Jake waits for him to make up his mind and hopes that he doesn’t end up stabbed in the neck when Alvarez buckles again, which Jake expects is imminent.

“Please be careful of those stitches I put in your head,” Jake scolds him. “That’s some of my nicest work.”

Alvarez raises one hand to press gingerly at the gauze over his head wound. He gives Jake a chastened look, and sets the knife on the little table next to Jake’s bed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Jake realizes his hands are shaking, and he takes a deep breath. “You’ve had a bad, um, month. Look, just get back in here before you fall over. I don’t want to have to pick you up off the floor. You’re heavier than you look.”

Alvarez tilts his head, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. That he’s naked and swaying where he stands doesn’t detract much from the aura of danger, not when the small cut beneath Jake’s chin still stings.

“You sly?”

Jake blushes, hedging, “You’re worried about that now?”

One dark eyebrow rises a millimetre. “So yes?”

“I am an equal opportunity cuddler,” Jake asserts loftily.

The eyebrow rises higher. Jake bows before its power. “Yes, fine, I don’t care which jiggly bits anybody’s got, I just like people, okay? Now are you gonna lecture me that I’m doomed to the fires of hell, or get in here? You’re letting all the warm out.”

Alvarez’s mouth quirks into a small, attractive smile. “I doubt that,” he argues amiably, and crawls back into the space next to Jake, settling against him with a quiet, relieved sigh and letting him fuss with the covers over them. Jake estimates he was about six seconds to crashing again.

"I noticed the regimental mark on your shoulder,” he says. “The Captain's a Browncoat. You don’t need to worry.”

“Good to know.” Alvarez inhales slowly and lets out a long, shuddering breath.

“Um, this guy they were delivering you to, the captain should probably get the details on that, if it’s likely to be a bump in our road ahead.”

“It’s an old score, from the war. I was a sniper.”

“Yep, that much was in the paperwork.”

Alvarez snorts softly. “Frankman was an officer in the Alliance. Our forces met on the field of battle several times. I was quite good at my job.”

“Caused the man severe aggravation, did you?”

“Apparently.”

Jake ventures, “Listen, we could use another hand, if you wanted to stay. I don’t suppose you’re a medical doctor on top of being a reliable kill shot?”

“Not a doctor, no, but I was a medic before I took up the rifle. Was this also in the paperwork?”

Jake suppresses a yip of glee. “Nope. Merely my persistent optimism, made manifest.”

“Pardon?”

“Stay,” Jakes repeats. He knows it’s not playing fair to talk a man into a decision when he’s just woke up and played out with weariness, but against substantial odds Alvarez has fetched up useful and dangerous and beautiful on their doorstep, and Jake does not want to disappoint his favorite ladies, Luck and Opportunity by failing to take full advantage of their favors.

“Stay with us, and you’ll be ours,” he reasons. “Clay and the guys think I'm half out of my brain most of the time, but if some wang ba dan were to knock me over the head and shanghai me, they would come after me in a true spirit of mayhem. Roque'd bring his biggest knives. The knifage involved would be sincerely terrifying, I’m telling you. If you crew with us, Carlos my friend, and someone ever tries to take you away again, we will come and find you, and we will bring our biggest gorram knives."

Alvarez doesn't reply right away, leaving Jake to worry that he’s over-spoke, or that Alvarez has already got a life he wants to get back to – neither is an unreasonable supposition – or that he plain isn’t interested, regardless. Jake risks holding him a little bit tighter, just because he’s feeling fretful, and to his relief Alvarez doesn’t fight it.

When Alvarez finally speaks up, it’s so quietly that Jake nearly doesn’t hear him. "Cougar,” he murmurs, and then, a little louder, “When I had people to fight for, to fight beside me, in the war, they called me Cougar. You can call me that.”

Jake does a brief victory dance in his head before he calms himself and says, "Welcome aboard Jolene, Carlos ‘Cougar’ Alvarez. We can’t promise you a comfortable retirement, or really any retirement at all, but we will surely have ourselves one hell of a time." Cougar laughs softly and relaxes against him completely, finally. Jake smiles into Cougar’s dark hair and follows him into sleep.


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