Spooks and Ghosts

Vignette #1 - August

Summary: Jensen wonders about the Losers' techs before him.

Author's Note: I don't own any of the characters. The plot is from my own weird mind. This story is basically a collection of the Losers/Covert Affairs cross-over stories that I'm writing (found in the Losers and Covert Affairs archives, respectively). The vignettes are little stand alones and the chapters are part of a broader story I'm trying. Please enjoy!

"What were they like?" Jensen asked one humid August morning at the breakfast "table" the Losers were gathered around in their shitty little safehouse in Middle-of-Nowhere America.

"I know I'm going to regret this, but who?" Clay asked his tech as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, the beginnings of a headache forming at way-too-early in the morning before taking a sip of his coffee.

"The guys before me. The other techs that you've had. Who were they? What were they like?"

Clay sighed, nodded to Cougar in thanks as the sniper silently passed him two aspirin, gulped them down with more coffee, and turned back to his team's designated little brother. "They were techs. They weren't good at ducking, or following orders, or were too scared of Roque to be good in the field."

"Except for Auggie. Remember him? Used to have staring matches with Roque. First person I ever met, other than you Clay, who wasn't afraid of him," Pooch said before going back to his soggy cereal. They really needed to get better on-the-run breakfast foods.

Cougar smiled while Clay chuckled, the memory of their last decent field tech before Jensen making the former colonel's headache seem to lessen. Jensen and Aisha looked to their three comrades, silently pleading for them to give more explanation regarding this former Loser. That is, until Jensen blurted out: "What happened to him?"

"He got head-hunted by the Company." Clay took another long sip of his coffee.

"So that's it? He's a spook now?"

"Not exactly," Pooch answered, the faces of the three oldest Losers growing sad.

"What does he do then?" Aisha asked as she swiped a stale piece of toast from her boyfriend/lover/sparring partner, earning a glare as he greedily protected the rest of his breakfast.

Clay sighed again, took another sip of coffee, than told them about the young officer that had come to his team eight years prior.

"Yes, he was a spook. Was being the operative word, Jensen," the blonde closed his mouth to let his CO continue. "About 18 months ago, he did a rotation with another unit in Tikrit. They came across what they thought was a dead dog, it blew up, and now Auggie's a desk jockey."

"Why-?" Aisha almost didn't want to know why this young soldier the others seemed so fond of now rode a desk.

Pooch picked up the ending of the story, "Auggie lost his sight. The way he puts it, he saw the dead dog, it blew up, and he became a Ray Charles."

The kitchen grew quiet as everyone thought about those they knew that had not been so lucky.

Meanwhile, in Langley, Virginia, a young man with a charming smile and unseeing eyes that seemed to sparkle when he turned his decidedly enchanting (or infuriating) charms on listened to the news with the rest of the Domestic Protection Division as reports regarding a failed heist involving military-trained suspects who were still at large. Smiling, he took a sip of the coffee his newest favorite recruit had just handed him and thought to himself "Good job, Losers. I hope you got your intel."