Reunion

Written in response to cottoncandy_bingo prompt: blind date. Probably a little bit OOC, but it's been a little while since I read the comics and yeah. Spanish is only as good as Google translate. Characters not mine, please enjoy! Comments are awesome.

Jake Jensen sits impatiently at the bar, tapping his fingers on the counter to the rhythm of 'Won't Get Fooled Again' as it plays on in his head. He downs the last of his cheap beer and scans the sparsely populated bar for what has to be the hundredth time since he arrived - which, a glance at his watch tells him, was nearly an hour ago.

"Whoever this is loses major points for being way past fashionably late," he mumbles to himself, eyes flicking back to the television above the bar, playing a World Cup game on mute.

The bartender shoots him a sympathetic smile and swaps out his empty bottle with a fresh one, and Jensen takes a long swig of it. He plucks at the sleeves of the black and grey striped button-down his niece had picked out (even though he much prefers the t-shirt he has on under it, grey with a bone on it, accompanied by text that reads 'I found this humerus,' which his sister had made a less than impressed face at).

"Pooch," he sighs to himself, when yet another look around the room yields nothing in the way of results. Next time the other man tries to set him up on a blind date, he'll think twice before agreeing because this is ridiculous. Not that he actually agreed to this one - Pooch had called him out of the blue after four months of radio silence, and before Jensen could ask him anything (how's Jolene, how are Jasmine and Ashley, what's wrong?), he'd gone barreling into a quick explanation of 'Hey, I have this friend you should meet. They'll be in town next week. You'll like them,' and from there he'd been given a place and time and that had been the end of it.

Only, he supposes he technically did agree to it because he's here.

He hadn't wanted to come. Ever since the incident with Max on his oil-rig country, ever since losing Clay and Aisha and Cougar to those maniacs and spending months on the island with Pooch waiting for things to calm down, ever since he'd made it home to his family - ever since then he's taken to keeping to himself. But his sister and his niece had twisted his arm to get him to go on this date. And so... here he is. Sitting alone at a bar, stood up for something he didn't even want to do in the first place.

Awesome.

His life is awesome.

"This seat taken?" A rough voice, thick with a Spanish accent, asks. Someone hovers just to his left, a scarred hand on the back of the barstool.

And, well, admittedly, it takes him a second because he knows that voice but it's been nearly a year since he heard it last and he'd only just recently resigned himself to the fact that he was never going to hear it again.

His eyes blow wide and he spills his beer all over his black jeans in his haste to spin around, but sure enough, it's him. He's there.

"Cougar."

He's not wearing his hat (duh, it exploded just like Cougar supposedly had), and his hair is shorter now. There are scars up his arms that disappear under his black t-shirt and a couple on his face (maybe shrapnel, maybe some burns, probably some of both) but he's Cougar and Jensen doesn't know how he did it, but he survived.

"Te he echado," he says, a small smile playing on his face.

Jake launches himself up out of the chair and crushes the other man in the tightest hug he's ever given anyone, ever. He holds on until Cougar hugs him back and then some. Pulls away just enough to be able to look at him, something else he never thought he'd get to again, with the exception of a handful of photos that his sister had kept for him.

"Cougar," he says again because he can't make anything else come out of his mouth.

Cougar laughs at him, evidently amused by his speechless state of shock, something that none of the Losers could ever accomplish easily (no matter how much they'd wanted to), and his eyes sparkle in a way they haven't since they took on that haunted look after the clusterfuck at the Khyber Pass. He kisses Jensen, picks up just like they'd left off. His hands give him away though, one desperately clutching at his hip, the other on his neck, pulling him in closer. Both are shaking.

The bar disappears and Jake just loses himself in all of this familiarity, he smells the same (like metal and gunpowder and warm spices), tastes the same, too. He'd never dared to think he'd get to have this again, have Cougar again. Letting himself think that probably would've destroyed him completely in the time since he'd left Cougar behind on New Jerusalem. The explosion had been... huge. And no one should have survived it. But Cougar did and he's here and suddenly Jensen wants to get out of the bar as fast as possible. Get Cougar somewhere where he can keep doing this - looking, touching, tasting, smelling, listening. All of it.

He'll ask all the questions, get all the explanations, later.

"I missed you, too," he finally manages, when he pulls away to catch his breath. His own hands are curled tightly into the material of Cougar's t-shirt, but he doesn't remember putting them there.

There's a smile, a bigger one now, and Cougar shifts his hands to pry Jensen's loose and catch them in his own. "Ven conmigo."

Jensen grins, he'll go anywhere Cougar wants him to go. He frees one hand and tosses a few bills on the counter to pay for his drinks, makes a mental note to give Pooch (and his sister and his niece, if they were involved) all sorts of shit for holding out on him on this, and follows Cougar out the door.

"Siempre," Jensen says. Always.