Title: Midnight in the Shadow of Johnny’s Golden Cock
Author: Brigantine
Fandom: The Losers
Characters: Aisha, Jensen/Cougar
Rating: R
Length: 2088
Summary: Post-Max, Aisha has a lot to think about. Jensen and Cougar are too busy to be thinking about anything at the moment. Maybe later.


Macau, two a.m. Aisha plucks at the sweat-damp front of one of Clay’s t-shirts. The a/c in this building probably hasn’t worked at full capacity since 1983, and the apartment carries a persistent combined odor of cabbage, steamed rice, and liquor. The dance music from the club below the apartment is muted, but Aisha can feel the percussion thrumming up through the floor into the soles of her feet. She makes her way easily through the living room and into the kitchen by the light of a seven feet tall neon rooster advertising the bar across the street.

Movement inside the bedroom just off the kitchen catches Aisha’s eye. She stops with her fingers on the handle of the refrigerator door, and turns to see. She heard Cougar come back maybe ten minutes ago, give or take, leaving Clay and Pooch to do the talking with their contact downstairs. Apparently he didn’t expect her to be roaming the place afterward, looking for fresh ice for her tepid Coke.

The yellow, red and pink light from the neon rooster casts a sunset-colored wash through the open window of the bedroom. Cougar and Jensen sprawl across their messy sheets, their heads toward the window. Jensen lies naked beneath Cougar, who drapes lengthwise over him, still in his street clothes, except for his hat and his boots. He nuzzles under Jensen's jaw, biting, and Jensen offers up his throat, making a soft, pleased sound and arching up against him, one hand clutching a fistful of the back of Cougar's white t-shirt, the other at the back pockets of Cougar's jeans. A lock of Cougar’s dark hair has come loose from his pony tail and drifts over Jensen's cheek, trailing a slender, curved shadow across both of their faces. Jensen spreads his long legs wide, making plenty of room for Cougar's narrow hips. Cougar ruts deliberately against him, kissing Jensen's mouth, his neck, stopping for a moment to watch the blissed-out expression on Jensen's face as Jensen gasps and digs his heels into the rumpled bed, thrusting his hips up, looking for more friction. Cougar smiles down at him and chuckles, a dark, rich sound that makes Aisha close her eyes for a second.

Aisha moves away quietly, drifting into the living room. She settles in the overstuffed old chair by the window overlooking the street, busy even at this hour. She's known for a while about Cougar and Jensen, but until now she's never given it any particular thought. She supposes she should go back to the room she shares with Clay, but this chair is comfortable, and there's a lukewarm breeze coming in from the open window.

If Aisha leans back a bit, she can see the giant glowing rooster perched on the roof of the bar. It stands above a series of bright, two-foot-high red Chinese characters that she doesn’t know how to read. She feels the last three months catching up with her. She’s not sure what the hell she’s still doing here.

There are days when she still fantasizes about slipping a long, sharp object between Clay’s ribs and watching the light fade out of his eyes, but more and more she finds that thought just makes her feel lonely, and strangely tired.

To Clay her father was just another drug runner, a man who used children to mule his cocaine north, made money from the backs of the innocent. But to Aisha he was Papá, always. Papá made sure she understood how to handle a weapon, how to handle men much larger than herself, to walk tall and fierce amidst the violence of his world, and most of all how to make her own way. Aisha has lived her entire life amongst shades of grey, except for that one certainty, that Papá loved her. Clay would understand if Aisha decided she needed to kill him.

In-between the cry of a street vendor selling noodles from a cart and a Lexus driving past with the latest Hong Kong boy band bleating out of its open windows Aisha picks up Jensen's eager babbling, "C'mon Cougs c'mon god yesyesyesyesyesye--" cut off short, she imagines, with kisses.

The Losers can go anywhere they like now, and though Roque threatened to kill her multiple times, Aisha can't help feeling a little bit sorry for the man, that after all he and Clay had been through together he could not follow one step further and trust Clay to get him here. He claimed he was just impatient to get his life back, but… Aisha hasn’t dared ask any of the team about it, but she can’t help wondering whether Roque might have been in love with Clay, but could never admit it. Was she the one who finally set Roque off by claiming Clay as her own, when Roque couldn't?

A small group of men, half-drunk, laughing and teasing one another stagger along the sidewalk below, tourists probably, willingly fleeced in the casino down the street. From the bedroom Aisha can hear Cougar’s voice, but can’t make out the words. Jensen grinds out a rough, wordless moan. Shouldn’t be long now, Aisha thinks.

After L.A. and Max, Clay negotiated a deal with the U.S. government, letting them take credit for a fictional long-range operation that netted Max's made-up terrorist network, and the second-gen bombs, and got the Losers cleared of any blame for the deaths of the two US Army pilots and the two dozen little kids killed... Aisha winces. She could look the other way as long as none of the little mules her father used got hurt, but now… That particular shade of grey solidifies into black. It hurts Aisha, like something solid and sharp-edged lodged just behind her ribcage. Ai. Papá.

The Losers are humping the uphill trail to getting themselves back in the good graces of the Army and the C.I.A. Aisha’s not sure Clay will ever trust a handler he hasn’t met and looked in eye, and she sympathizes, but it’s a problem.

Jensen lets out a series of sharp cries, and curses plaintively. Aisha thinks she can just about tell when Cougar goes over, but it’s hard to be sure.

All of which leaves Aisha where? A Bolivian woman with an American education and a generous bank account, but no home to go to after the man she sleeps with at night called in an air strike on her father’s house. Christ. She’s a tagalong, persona non grata with a half dozen government and contra-government agencies she’s pissed off over the years, trailing along with this little bunch of earnest yahoos, because she’s got nowhere else to go, and nothing better to do than to help them out.

Maybe she doesn’t need anything better to do.

Roque's loss has left a jagged hole in the team. She wonders whether she might be able to fill that ragged space that Roque has left behind. Would the Losers allow it? Could she allow it of herself, after everything? This is a bigger idea, a better one maybe, than a persistent daydream of revenge.

She hears soft footsteps, glances over to see Jensen wander into the kitchen. His hair sticks up every which direction even more than usual, and he wears nothing but his glasses, the round lenses sweeping little flares of reflected yellow, pink and red around his head. Aisha watches the light pick out the muscles in his back, the taper of his waist, the sweet curve of his ass.

Aisha wonders why it is that she should prefer Clay in her bed, older, cautious, not young and eager to please, the way Jensen is. Perhaps it's precisely because he's older, has been battered by experience, and has become wise… and is still capable of kindness, still, at the end of the day a good man, that she seeks out Clay... that she would regret killing him to avenge her father. Clay's death won't bring her father back, after all.

“Jensen.”

Jensen lets out a little squawk, and grabs for a dish towel.

Aisha snickers at him in the dark. "Stand down, it's me."

"Of course it is," Jensen squeaks. “I knew that.” He tries to appear casual, standing in the kitchen holding a dish towel over his crotch. He looks ridiculous and adorable. He clears his throat. "Um, hi. Is there something...?"

Cougar saunters out of their bedroom, all smooth jaguar grace even freshly post-coital in his boxer shorts, with his hair messy and loose across his bare shoulders. He hands Jensen a pair of pink shorts, gives an amused snort, then pads back into the bedroom. Jensen makes a face after him and wriggles into his underwear. He scratches at the back of his head as he walks into the living room. "Have you been here the, um, the whole, y'know..." Jensen gestures vaguely with one hand.

"How long?" Aisha asks him.

Jensen blinks at her. His lips are red and swollen with the memory of recent kisses. "How long who what when where and why?"

"You and Cougar. If it’s none of my business you can tell me so. I won’t be offended.”

Jensen bites at his lower lip, shifting on the balls of his feet like a nervous kid brother. “Not so long,” he says. "I had a crush on Cougar pretty much from Day One, but I never thought… you know…”

“Not a chance in hell?”

“Yeah.” Jensen perches on the edge of the old coffee table. It creaks beneath his weight. “He kissed me in the middle of a fire fight in Afghanistan. We were taking cover – hiding, yes - behind a busted LAV, outgunned, outmanned, itchy sand in our shorts, and I was convinced it was Grim Reaper time, and Cougar grabbed me by the flak vest and kissed me. I never saw it coming.” He gives Aisha a wry little smile. “For a communications guru, I am occasionally a little slow to connect.”

Cougar materializes next to Jensen like a djinn out of the darkness, and Aisha starts, the muscles in her legs spasming as if for flight. “Ow, Jesus, Cougar, you practicing your ninja skills or something?” She breathes through the adrenaline rush, forcing herself to relax.

The pale pajama bottoms Cougar’s wearing are worn so thin that Aisha can see he’s ditched the boxer shorts. He has managed to fill two glasses with Coke and ice and make it from the kitchen into the living room without Aisha noticing. Cougar quirks a tiny smile and offers one of the glasses to her. Condensation has formed on the sides, and she uses both hands to accept it.

“Thanks.”

Cougar nods, sips at his drink, then offers the rest of it to Jensen. Jensen makes a happy noise and gulps half of it down, then complains at Cougar, “You’re wearing pants. How come you didn’t bring me any pants?”

“I like you with no pants,” Cougar says. His dark eyes spark with mischief.

Jensen coughs uncomfortably and clutches the soda toward his lap. “That is not a convenient thing to tell me at this moment, buddy.”

Cougar twitches one shoulder. “Sorry.” To Aisha, he doesn’t look repentant in the least.

Jensen stands up, holding the glass in front of his crotch. “I’ll be in our room, pantsless,” he declares, shuffling off toward the kitchen, “waiting to discuss with you in private just how shamefully you treat me. There will likely be pouting.”

Aisha isn’t sure whether that’s meant to be a warning or an enticement.

“Sexy, sexy pouting,” Jensen adds. “Don’t dawdle.”

All right, then. Aisha smiles.

When Jensen disappears into the bedroom, Cougar turns solemnly to Aisha. “He grows fond of you. People think because he is silly that he likes everyone. He doesn’t.” Cougar nods, “Good night, hermana. Sleep well.”

“Good night,” Aisha answers, and she watches Cougar go, slipping silently between the shadows and the slow strobes of light cast by the seven feet tall neon rooster perched on the roof of the bar across the street. She sips thoughtfully at her drink. It’s cool, and it tastes sweet, with a hint of bitterness. It’s good.


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