A/N: The sun has been shining in WA the past few days! Halle-freakin-lujah! Of course many of you know by now that when that happens, fics like this happen... Nonsense is about to ensue...
"Sweeeeeet Caroliiiiiiine, good times never seem so gooooood!"
This is what assaulted Cougar's ears when he stepped into the barracks; as in assaulted to the point that his ears were actually ringing with how loud the song was being belted out. Gritting his teeth, the sniper pushed open the door to the room he shared with Jensen and froze.
The hacker, obviously not expecting company, also froze. He looked up at Cougar, glanced around at the whirlwind of creation, not destruction, that littered the room, looked down at what he had done to himself and the incriminating pack of Crayola markers on the bed, plus the bright orange one he currently held in his hand, and could only shrug with a caught-with-my-hand-in-the-cookie-jar grin.
"Uh…I blame this on the meds?" he spat out at Cougar's what the fuck? look.
Having been confined mostly to the barracks following a rough mission where he had essentially become a human punching bag, Jensen was apparently bored. Bad things tended to happen when Jensen was bored, especially if he had access to his computer. Knowing this, it was ordered that all electronics were to be removed from the tech's close proximity, and instead his teammates had tried their best to find other ways with which he could amuse himself. If they didn't, he would find his entertainment in such a fashion that would involve him annoying the fuck out of whoever was near him, and nobody wanted that because they really didn't need to add a gunshot wound to the already injured soldier.
So they got him markers and brainteaser books.
Cougar was now seriously rethinking the intelligence of this "distract Jensen" plan that involved getting him markers and brainteaser books.
…And tape. Who the hell gave Jensen tape? …When he was through here, Cougar was going to go on a little hunt for a certain transport specialist…
The books had apparently been the first casualty to the horror that was a genius gone bored. The covers had all been ripped off, their thicker material making them perfect to use as walls in what amounted to a mini-skyscraper that now towered atop Cougar's bed. Jake had taped it all together so that the white insides were facing out and then proceeded to draw little doors, windows with people either naked or screaming inside them,…or jumping out of them…and monsters crawling around on the outside of the building. On the top of the disaster scene Jensen had taped tissue paper which he had colored in oranges, reds, and yellows; and it was waving and dancing with the help of a handheld fan tucked neatly down in the building's center.
"That's, uh, the building's on…fire…" the hacker lamely explained.
Cougar ignored him and turned to the pages of the books that were spread all over the floor and atop the furniture. Some of them were actually completed in their designated fashion, neat handwriting filling in the blanks of the solved puzzles before Jensen had apparently gotten tired of playing nice with his new toys. Other pages had silly, childlike doodles all over them; some had printed pictures that were supposed to be parts of the puzzles but which Jake had merely colored in with bizarre choices, like turning a perfectly normal-looking train engine into something Dr. Suess would cringe at; and most of the pages had been transformed into a clusterfuck of origami planes, cars, birds, giraffes (wtf? again), and cutouts of brightly colored people.
"I was gonna clean…that…up…" Jake's voice trailed away as the sniper turned his attention onto the most recent abuse of the markers.
Jensen was sitting on his bed in nothing but his ninja-squirrel boxers and he was covered in little drawings. It took a moment for Cougar to realize that the tech hadn't been just randomly doodling on himself, either; no, what Jensen had done was transform each and every one of his already colorful bruises into blindingly bright atrocities that somewhat resembled things like… a koala bear, a man on a horse, a smiley with an eyepatch, a shark…possibly attacking a…oh god, did Jensen draw a shark attacking Roque up the side of his rib cage? Yes. Yes he did.
Jensen self-consciously snatched up his shirt and held it in front of his torso, laughing nervously. "I'll make you a deal? You don't tell Roque that I Crayola tattooed Jaws eating his leg off on my body, and I'll turn that bruise on your arm into a Playboy Bunny, whatever color you want."
Cougar snarled at him.
"Okay, um, no, I was just kidding," he laughed again. "It's not a bunny, it's...uh...um...oh! It's a Graboid! You know, like from 'Tremors'? See? It's coming up out of the ground ready to eat-"
The sniper stormed over, snatched the markers off the bed and the one from Jensen's hand, and shoved them into his pocket. "Clean," he ordered.
"Right. Cleaning. Yes Sergeant." Jake scrambled off his bed and stooped down to shovel up some of the papers. He stopped suddenly and hissed, clutching an arm to his side. "Sorry, moved too fast," he mumbled breathlessly, then sat down slowly in the middle of the mess and gingerly began to wad up his explosion of creativity.
The sniper watched him for a few minutes... Was that guilt creeping up inside him as he observed the pained, almost sad expression on Jensen's face? Fuck.
"Blue," Cougar sighed.
Jensen replied automatically with, "A delicious crab!" He blinked at Cougar's lost look and chewed on his lip for a second. "Are we not playing word association?"
Cougar rolled his eyes and pulled the blue marker out of his pocket. "The bunny. Make it blue."
The beaming smile that flashed quickly across Jake's face was unmistakable in its exuberance, and Cougar swallowed as the kid clambered to his feet a little too excitedly. He got the feeling that he had just volunteered to be Jensen's new play toy, and wasn't entirely certain what he'd come out looking like at the end of the "let's entertain the bored, depressed, injured genius" session. The sniper had obtained quite a few of his own bruises in the rescue mission, after all…
"Wait!" Cougar insisted just before ink touched skin. "Pants."
Jake looked down at himself and then smacked himself in the forehead with the hand holding the marker, leaving a small line of blue above his eyebrow. "Oh, pffft, of course." He looked over at the bed, then glanced down at the floor, then proceeded to turn in tiny circles as he tried desperately to locate his pants amongst the shower of paper doodads. Cougar rolled his eyes again and reached down to unearth the missing, but oh-so-important article of clothing, and chucked them at the hacker. With a grin, Jake hastily began to put them on but got tripped up on one of the legs. He fell over with a thud followed by a quiet, "Ow."
Cougar shook his head and smiled amicably as he gently hauled the tech back to his feet. "Idiota," he muttered.
"Yeah, sometimes," Jake smiled back as he more slowly and carefully finished putting his pants back on. "Okay. Blue bunny. I'm ready."
Two minutes later, the sniper sported a surprisingly damn-good-looking replica of the Playboy Bunny on his arm.
Twenty minutes later had Jensen sitting more comfortably on the bed to accommodate his injuries and Cougar perched on a chair in front of him. The tech had performed an impressive little trick of connect-the-dots with the bruises across Cougar's back, and aside from the limited color choices he had to work with, had managed to pull off a fairly detailed image of an eagle…wearing a top hat…and clutching a basket full of kittens in one of its talons… Cougar made Jensen take his pain meds after that.
Fifteen minutes later Jake was focused on Cougar's chest as he put the finishing touches on a turtle in a black cape holding a light saber. He smiled as he dubbed it Sith Michelangelo, and then proceeded to sing absently to himself as he colored it in, "Teenage Mutant Darkside Turtle, Vader in a half shell, Force power!" Nearly as soon as he was finished, the meds finally took effect and sent him crashing into Neverland.
Thirty minutes later the sniper had gotten the room back in its spic and span military-standard condition (…almost…that burning building was pretty damn cool; he moved it into a discreet corner), and tossed a blanket over the hacker's prone form.
…And then he noticed the blue line sitting so very neatly above Jensen's eyebrow…
Five minutes later all the tech's facial hair had magically turned blue and his mustache had grown out those little cartoon villain swirls up around his cheeks. A red monocle had been drawn on one eye, and extra-long green eyelashes were added in for effect. Purple doll lips were sketched on appropriately (…or, so very inappropriately), and tiny yellow and orange butterflies were added to Jake's ears just so that he wouldn't be without some jewelry.
About two seconds later Cougar had enough incriminating photographic evidence to blackmail the hacker for pretty much all eternity.
And about five seconds after that he strolled out of his room to grab something to drink.
…And forgot that he had a Playboy Bunny and an eagle in a top hat carrying a basket of kittens and a Star Wars Ninja Turtle all colored in epileptic fashion on his body. He cursed as Clay, Roque, and Pooch now had enough incriminating photographic evidenceto blackmail him with for all eternity.
Fuck chain of command orders. Next time Jensen got injured, Cougar was going to personally make sure the hacker got his damn computer.
The End!