Chapter Text
When Corporal Jake Jensen first joined the team, the Losers almost sent him to the hospital within the first fifteen minutes. It wasn’t that the new kid couldn’t handle himself, he was the best at what he did. No one could hack as well as he could, and no hacker had the strength and endurance that the Losers demanded.
No.. Jake Jensen had no filter.
Within the first five minutes of meeting the rest of the team, he had already hit on Cougar. But… who were they kidding, everyone flirted with Cougar. By ten minutes, Clay had to pull out his flask to keep his pounding headache at bay, and Roque lasted a record of thirteen minutes before threatening bodily harm with one of the flashy knives he used to scare off the other units.
Nothing fazed the newbie.
He accepted Cougar’s silence as neutral and filed the information away for later advances. When he saw Clay pinch the bridge of his nose, his chatter seemed to increase. And, when Roque started to twitch, Pouch threw himself in front of their newest member to stop any permanent bloodshed.
By the first week together, the noise became tolerable.
By the first month, the team couldn’t survive without it.
—
No one really noticed how much they depended on Jensen’s loud mouth until it was missing. The first time it happened, the team was in the middle of a recon op trying to gather information about a drug cartel that had recently been messing with US affairs. It was supposed to be a routine in-and-out mission. But, things were never that simple with the Losers.
Cougar was positioned on the opposite side of the compound where they had tracked the cartel. His rifle was loaded and he had his sights on Clay and Roque stirring up hell on the western side to draw attention and fire away from where Jensen was trying to hack into the files located four small buildings to their east. Of course, Cougar was providing cover fire when shit hit the fan.
“Fuck!” they heard Jensen yell across the comms. A few muffled curses followed, but the boys couldn’t make out what was happening.
“Jensen, what the hell is going on?” Clay demanded from his hiding spot behind a flimsy pile of crates.
Silence.
“Jensen.” Clay yelled.
“Jake! Mi amigo, que-“ Cougar started when the building Jake was in exploded into a fiery inferno.
Cougar didn’t stop to listen to the angry orders flowing through the comms. He grabbed his gear and ran, jumping across buildings and shooting at anything that moved.
“Jake!” He yelled.
Jensen hadn’t been on the team long but he fit in so perfectly. Even Roque was starting to warm up to him. They couldn’t lose him this fast.
Debris was still falling when Cougar reached the remnants of the building he saw Jensen run into minutes before. His eye’s searched each pile of rubble, looking for any sign of movement. Any sign that Jake was still alive.
He kept yelling into the comms, sending up silent prayers that his friend was safe.
Cougar slowly came back to reality when he heard that Clay and Roque had finished up on their side. It was the nice way of saying that they went into a killing frenzy when the explosion hit.
A few seconds later, the two men ran up to stand by his side.
“Is he-“ Clay started.
Roque’s face twisted up in guilt. “How? He was in the building.”
Cougar stayed silent. He whispered another prayer under his breath and began digging through the rubble. He vaguely heard Clay fill Pooch in on the situation and the response of Pooch commandeering a larger vehicle to transport a body. No… not a body, an injured teammate.
The silence was suffocating. Unnatural. But no one had the strength to fill it with anything other than the sound of moving rocks and beams, scared pieces of the building that had been standing minutes ago.
The four searched until the sun started to set and then Clay broke the unnerving stillness.
“We can’t stay here.” He sighed. “There is a second rendezvous spot a couple miles from here. If we make it and set up camp, then Jensen will have an easier time finding us. We could have medical set up and ready while still getting the hell out of dodge.”
'If he’s still alive.' Clay could never say something like that, but the subtext was clear and ran straight through everyone’s head.
The others stopped what they were doing and stared at their commanding officer for what felt like hours.
Everyone was surprised to hear Pooch speak. “No.” He whispered. “I’ll go, set everything up. You guys keep searching. If Jensen made it, we can’t just leave him out here.”
There were a few acknowledging nods and Pooch was off, running with his and Roque’s pack to the safe house.
The rest of the team looked back into the twisted pile that used to be a stable building.
“Let’s find our boy.” Roque said, nodding to the others.