igotacrossbow | open post

He should have felt better when Cougar dropped the subject like he asked him to, when he withdrew and left Jake to his wallowing, but he doesn't. He feels worse.

Feeling Cougar slip out of bed completely and pad out into the hallway makes him feel even worse, sick in a way nothing has made him feel before, a hard lump in his throat that he can't seem to be rid of making it harder to breathe than should be possible. He lies in bed for what feels like hours, staring blankly at the wall in front of him, unable to sleep and feeling too miserable to fetch his laptop and distract himself with coding. If Cougar comes back to bed, if, he doesn't want to be awake enough to encourage more conversation. Not when he knows what the result will be.

Eventually, he falls into a fitful doze, tense and unhappy and cold without Cougar in bed beside him.

It takes hours for him to finish. Long enough that he texts one of his employees at the range to say he won't be in, in the morning. He cites 'marital strife' because at this hour, with how tired he is, it seems funny. With that done, he brings the tray of sweets upstairs, syrup and sugar coating the stuffed french toast as he sneaks past the twins' bedroom to nudge back in to the bedroom.

He's happy to see Jake asleep, but still frustrated. When he wakes, he won't know what to say. So instead, he sets the food on the bedside table and curls up in the chair in the corner with his knee drawn into his chest. He regulates his breathing until he's barely making a noise, then he waits.

Jake is used to not sleeping very much thanks to well over a decade in the Army. He can survive on three, four hours of sleep just fine. He's also learned to sleep lightly, although that's a habit he's fallen out of now that he's been a civilian for so long, now that he shares a bed with the one person he trusts most in the whole world.

Still, as tense and unhappy as he's been all night, he's not sleeping all that deeply.

Cougar moving around in their room isn't necessarily cause for alarm. He drifts, half listening to the quiet shuffling of his feet on the carpet, the soft squeak of the springs in the chair when he settles down into it, and neither are really enough to rouse him until the smell of breakfast permeates the fog in his brain enough for his eyes to open.

He stares at the Cougar-shaped blob in the chair in silence for almost a full minute before he huffs. "You're such a fucking creep, dude," he mumbles, reaching out to fumble for his glasses so he can see. "What's this?"

"Breakfast," is all he says evenly, still not moving as he takes stock in the situation. He's still wondering what to do, thinking of Julie's words to be patient, but he's not good at patient. He tugs at Jake's too big t-shirt, pulling it off when he sees the syrup stain, thinking that if nothing else, he will make sure Jake knows how much Cougar loves him.

He reaches for a tank top, sliding into it before turning it into a smooth motion, forearms on his knees. "I want to talk about what you want. What you really want, Jake. Not what you think I do."

Uncoordinated the way only an early morning can make him, Jake struggles to sit up in bed, tangled in the sheets and making unhappy little noises under his breath until he manages to prop himself up against the headboard.

"It's..." he shifts to look at the clock and sighs. "Four-fifteen, babe," he protests, but doesn't roll over and go back to sleep or anything. Cougar make him breakfast in bed. He's going to eat it.

"Do we have to talk about this now?"

"I called in, shop won't open today," he says. "Once kids are at school, we can sleep," he says. He hates that they went to bed upset, but now there's a chance to fix it. Cougar shifts from the chair to the edge of the bed, listening to the old creaks as he settles down and gets comfortable. "Eat," he insists. "You're always hungry when you wake up."

Jake's eyebrows lift sharply when Cougar tells him he's not going to work, but he wisely doesn't say anything, choosing to stuff a piece of french toast in his mouth instead.

Cougar's strong suit is not words, he knew that years before they even did so much as kiss. When he apologizes, he apologizes with food, and this apology is fucking delicious.

"I'm always tired when I wake up," he corrects around a mouthful of strawberries and syrup, blinking tiredly down at his plate. "Aren't you gonna eat?"

He shakes his head, not hungry. He doesn't think he'll have an appetite until they've settled this, because he's gone into that zone he occupies when there's a target on the horizon and something needs to be done about it. He sits, cross-legged, and leans forward to wipe a stray bit of syrup from off Jake's cheek, sucking it between his lips as he watches him tenderly.

"I hate when I make you unhappy," he says.

It seems even a handful of hours of sleep had made him feel at least calmer, if not better, because he doesn't shy away from Cougar's hand on his cheek, lets him wipe the syrup off his face and lick it off himself.

"Cougar..." He sighs, closing his eyes briefly, and shakes his head. "It's fine, okay? Come on. It's fine. Stop worrying about it."

"I made you unhappy because I didn't talk, early on," Cougar says, knowing that this is on him. It's his fault that Jake is unhappy and he's let ten years of a relationship and more years of friendship sit there, not knowing what Jake wanted. What else has he been missing? "And now, now I don't know these things about you. Please," he begs. "Please give me a chance to redo it."

"I'm not unhappy," he protests, although he knows this whole situation undermines that statement. Still, he's not unhappy, not really. They have a good life. He has no reason so complain.

He reaches out and picks up one of Cougar's hands, lifting it up so he can kiss his fingers where his gun calluses have always been, and probably will always be. "You don't have to redo anything."

"You spent the whole night unhappy because you think I don't think marriage to you is important," Cougar says. "You let the children take my name. I never stopped to ask if you wanted my name, too. Or if you wanted anything more." He leans forward and presses a kiss to Jake's lips, cupping his face. "You want to get married. You still want to?"

"Legally, they're your children," he points out quietly. On the birth certificate, Carlos Alvarez is listed as the father. It had made sense for them to have Cougar's last name. Legally, they're basically just his niece and nephew, same as Bethy is. He knows they're his kids, but it's not the same thing in the eye of the law. In his will, apart from the pieces he's set aside for his sister and her family, everything goes to the twins. They'll be more than taken care of, should anything happen.

He shrugs, still unwilling to voice what he wants when he's sure Cougar doesn't want the same thing. "It's not a big deal."

"The way you're acting says that to you, it's a very big deal," Cougar points out, stroking his cheek and leaning in a little more, shifting the breakfast tray aside because this is a serious thing and he wants Jake to take it that way. "Why do you think marriage isn't important to me? Because of what I said to the kids?"

"Jake, if something is important to you, you tell me. It makes it important to me."

"Well... Yes." So maybe Cougar didn't use those exact words, but that was the gist of what he said.

Jake swallows down a noise that could have been a protest of some kind, lifting his hands to hold on to Cougar's wrists instead, his grip tight but not constricting. "We have a good life. We have this house, and good jobs, and two perfect children... I'm lucky. I'm lucky you love me. I'm so fucking lucky."

By all rights, Jake shouldn't have any of this. He's not going to go rock the boat now and risk fucking it up.

"I'm not going to walk out the door just because you want to have a discussion about marriage," Cougar replies, trying to keep the mirth from off his face, but it's a difficult thing when he wonders how they're fighting about something that Cougar has no strong opinion of, so much as no real need for it. It doesn't mean he's against it. At least, not the way he'd been against being someone's boyfriend.

"Tell me what you want. Okay? That's the only way I can know. I can read your mind sometimes, but sometimes..." He makes a side to side gesture, like it's a bit difficult.

Jake likes to think that he's not being totally ridiculous about this, even though it sort of feels like he might be. Cougar had been vehemently opposed to being referred to as Jake's boyfriend, which had meant they wound up barely speaking to each other for almost a week before Jake cracked first and decided he'd rather have Cougar in his life whatever way he could instead of forcing the issue and maybe pushing him away.

So he's never forced the issue again, which is what brought them to this point.

"I want... I want to be official. Like, official, official. I want rings, and joint bank accounts, and I know it's stupid, okay, I know it's stupid and meaningless in the grand scheme of things and no, we don't need it because this," he gestures between the two of them, "is real and that's what's important but still. But we nearly broke up because I called you my boyfriend without discussing it with you first, and I just though that this would be like that but worse because you're Catholic and the Church doesn't allow gay marriage, and it's a fucking miracle that I have this," the hand shifts to make a gesture that's supposed to encapsulate the whole house, their whole lives, "as it stands and I was afraid to push my luck."

The more Jake talks, the more Cougar smiles. It's not because he wants to make fun of him or tease him, he's smiling because Jake is asking for something that he can give him and it makes him smile with all that brimming love he holds for the man sitting beside him. Joint bank accounts and rings and papers mean little to Cougar, but lots to Jake. And so it's not something he would ever ask for, himself, but he loves Jake and wants to make him happy. This? This would make him happy.

"I had children with you, Jacob," Cougar patiently reminds him. "I was not running, not for a second, when they were born. I will not run for this."

"If it's important to you, then, yes, we do it."

Jake doesn't see Cougar's smile at first because he's resolutely not making eye contact, staring down at his lap and wishing he still had his breakfast there so he could do something with his hands.

"Well, technically you had children with my sister," he points out, smiling crookedly, nervously, as he glances up to look at Cougar through his lashes. "I wasn't really involved in that."

Letting out a shaky sigh, he lifts his head a little more so he's not peering up at Cougar so much as actually looking at him. "Yeah?"

"If you could be involved, I would have had them with you," Cougar points out, seeing as he would have happily cut everyone else out of the picture if that had been a possibility. He waits until he has Jake's eye contact and smiles wryly, using Jake's knees to leverage himself to his feet.

"Yes," he promises, sinking down to his knee with care and ease. It's 4 in the morning and they're both groggy, but he knows that this is the right decision to keep his relationship strong. And, of course, the kids will love it. "Jacob Jensen. Marry me." Not a question. It's half a demanded order he expects fulfilled.

Watching Cougar get up off the bed has him feeling nervous in a way he hasn't felt in a very long time, butterflies fluttering in his stomach as Cougar lowers himself to the floor beside the bed.

To keep himself from doing something embarrassing like crying, he scoffs. "You're so unromantic, Cougs," he accuses, his fingers twisting in the blankets covering his knees. "But yeah, I guess I could marry you. If you insist."

"Oh, if I insist now?" he echoes, leaning up and pushing Jake back until he's horizontal on the bed so Cougar can climb overtop him. "Me haces trabajar para ello primero, ahora se piensa que podría casarse conmigo." The Spanish is fast and fluent, his own nerves intermingling as he grins, a little excited himself.

"No party," he does say. "No big party, at least."

He laughs as Cougar crawls up over him, looking sexy and determined (and a little sleep-deprived). "Well, that didn't really sound like a question," he protests, but makes no move to prevent him from pushing him back against the pillows. "Y se lo merece. Pensé que diría que no." His Spanish is still halting and a little awkward, but saying it in his bad Spanish makes it less real than saying it in English.

"We don't have enough friends for a big party," he points out, quite reasonably. "Oh shit. The kids are going to lose their minds."

Cougar gives a growl because if Jensen had put him through all this and then said no, he really might have snapped and lost his mind. He slides his fingers over Jake's forearms and pushes his wrists above his head to pin them in place, not letting go. "Yes, they are," he agrees.

"Which is why you're telling them," he says, as sweetly as he can. "Daddy."

They've been civilians for a long time and both of them are a little softer than they used to be, but Jake could still easily break the hold Cougar has on his wrists. Of course, he absolutely doesn't, letting him pin his hands down to the bed and sighing as he wriggles beneath him.

He pouts. "You, sir, are mean to me."

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