Title: Separation Anxiety
Rating:
NC-17 (violence, non-graphic non-con, swearing)
Pairing
: Jensen/Cougar
Summary:
The boys get caught. The boys get separated. That's never good.
Author's notes
: Slash. Quite dark. You've been warned. Jensen whump! Celebrate the DVD release with some dark torture fic! Yay!
Author
: Robinyj
Disclaimer
: I don't own (lucky for Jensen, poor guy), I just play with them. No profit.


The Losers were good. Hell, despite their namesake, they were the best at what they did. Unfortunately, what they did was dangerous and depended on a lot of variables, namely intel gathered by other people, and that led to problems. Problems like the one they were facing now where they had been sent to extract a US citizen taken hostage by a group of Armenian drug runners. It wasn't the mission they had a problem with per say, it was showing up to find their target had already been killed and there were twice as many guards, and way better security systems on the compound than they had been told there would be.

That was the real crutch of their problem and how Clay, Cougar and Jensen currently found themselves bruised, captured and being frog-marched deeper into the compound, presumably to see whoever was in charge of this shit show.

"Seriously guys, none of you speak English?" Jensen was ranting to the guards as Clay and Cougar took in the details of the compound. "We're just looking for our hotel. I mean, if that's where we're going, then thanks, but I really don't think the ropes are necessary. We can just follow you, I promise we won't get lost. I got an A+ in following in kindergarten. I unfortunately got an F in nap time, however."

Pooch and Roque were MIA. Clay was supposed to assume any man unaccounted for was dead, but until he was shown otherwise, he was going off the assumption the two were alive and laying low to bring in back up or stage a rescue themselves later.

It didn't escape Clay's notice that the guard in charge of Jensen was a lot more hands on than the others, holding the hacker tightly with both arms while Clay and Cougar walked restrained but on their own power. Clay was wary about this fact; Cougar was trying to glare the man to death. Clay allowed it, because if any man could do it, it was Cougar.

They were shoved through a door at the end of a long hall and found themselves in the headquarters of Arek Rendali. The underworld kingpin did not work luxuriously but practically – boxes of AK-47's lined one wall, undoubtedly waiting for a buyer, another half opened crate looked to be filled with blood diamonds and three men sat at a table at the far back weighing and bagging cocaine.

"Jack of all trades," Jensen muttered as they took in the wide range of illegal activities going on in the one room.

"Americans!" A voice announced happily and they all looked up to see a well tanned man in a business suit walk down the steps with his arms open wide in a dangerous greeting. "How excellent. My last American guest did not stay long unfortunately."

"We actually have to get going ourselves but I love what you've done with the place. It's very cliché and super-badass," Jensen commented and had his head pulled back roughly by his hair as a reward. "Ow, hey, easy. This look takes forever."

Arek's attention shifted to Clay, the man clearly in charge despite Jensen's rambling.

"So," Arek asked casually. "How many will now be coming to rescue you?"

Clay and Cougar stared straight ahead, hard, with their jaws clenched tight.

"Your choice of silence saddens me."

"Same for me," Jensen chimed in, leaning back into the guard's grip to lessen the tension on his neck. "I'm not telling you anything.'

Arek raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"Nothing useful anyway, unless you really REALLY needed to know the secret identities of every Marvel superhero. I'm all of them," Jensen added. Clay sighed. Cougar shook his head.

"Well, it sounds like we're all going to be having a lot of fun. Take them downstairs, we'll see how long their silence lasts." Arek's hands clapped together with excitement, then his head cocked to the side when Jensen's guard suddenly began talking in Armenian and all three Losers tensed up even more, even though they had no idea what the fuck they were saying. The conversation was short and involved the guard, Masis, tightening his grip on Jensen's arm while Arek adopted a smile of amused cruelty.

Nodding his head, Arek slipped back into English.

"Of course, Masis, you're right. You have not had your bonus yet this year. The boy is all yours."

Clay and Cougar felt guns on them immediately – a warning to fight their instincts and not try any bullshit. Clay could see Cougar was close to breaking his own teeth, his jaw was clenched so tightly. Jensen was mostly indignant.

"Boy! I'll have you know I have killed men for less, sir, and then robbed their bank accounts and posted embarrassing photoshopped images of them on the internet where they're wearing make-up and dresses and high heels and … ack!" Jensen only shut up because his hair was pulled again. And even then not for long. "Again with the hair, unnecessary."

Masis smiled cruelly and slowly pulled tighter, making Jensen flinch as he leaned closer.

"We are going to have fun you and I."

Jensen's stare hardened to match as the joking was set aside for the soldier. "Fine, make me your own personal punching bag. I'm still not going to tell you shit."

The huge man's smile widened, changed, and for the first time Jensen noticed the look in his eyes, not anger or violence but lust.

"I don't need you to talk," Masis whispered delightedly. "I have other plans for that mouth of yours."

Jensen paled to a shade away from death and for the first time in his life was completely silent as he finally realized why he was being pulled in a different direction than his teammates. And then as another first, because it was that kind of fucked up mission, Jensen resorted to violence before talking and brought his knee up to meet the bastard's groin. Masis, unfortunately, was huge and expecting it. He easily blocked the attack, spun the hacker around and punched him in the gut, making him much easier to move.

Behind them Clay had surged forward, instinctively trying to protect his team, but a shove to the chest and the sound of a safety clicking off was enough to jolt him back to the reality that there was nothing he could do at the moment.

Cougar had not yet reached that conclusion. The sniper kicked and growled furiously at the bodies attached to the arms trying to hold him back, snapping, headbutting, kicking - doing anything he had to do to cross the distance to Jensen. It was the closest Clay had ever seen a man's eyes actually burn with rage.

"Cougar, stand down!" he shouted, knowing he needed all of them healthy and clear headed if they were going to get out of here.

But Cougar couldn't hear him over his own short-lived swearing in Spanish, after which he was struck with a rifle butt across the temple.

Even as he dropped to the ground unconscious, he looked enraged.

"Cougs?" Jensen gasped out from across the room, his own fear briefly forgotten as Cougar was struck down. Clay looked up and their eyes locked just before the kid was pulled out of sight. There was a promise made in that moment and then Jensen was dragged through a doorway that Clay was pretty sure led straight to Hell.

But the promise had been made nonetheless. Jensen would stay alive, and they would come find him.

Clay tried not to think about what shape he would be in by then.


Cougar woke up with a pounding headache he would never mention aloud, and a single need. Find Jensen.

He and Clay were in a cell underground, sitting on a dusty floor, shackled to the wall.

Cougar pulled at the restraints until Clay was sure he was going to break his fucking wrists. He probably would have if Clay hadn't ordered him to stop because they needed to save their strength for when they found a real opening, so that then they could get out of there and then they could find Jensen.

Sitting down, Cougar stared ahead silently while they waited. The sniper had never hated silence so much in his life.


Jensen's hands were still tied when he was thrown head-first into a small room at the end of a long corridor. He hit his head against the wall and lost his glasses which made him have to squint to see where he was. It looked like Masis's personal quarters – there was a bed, dresser, sink, a shaving kit, laundry basket and … shackles built into the wall.

Jensen gulped. He would not be Masis's first. The huge man smiled as he stood in the doorway and hung his gun on the wall, then cocked his head as though waiting for something.

"You are not going to beg?"

Jensen shook his head and smiled, "You first."

"You will."

Then a boot slammed into Jensen's temple, twice.


When Jensen blinked back into consciousness he found himself kneeling with his back against the wall, hands shackled spread eagle to each side, not giving him an inch of movement. He couldn't even stand without dislocating his shoulder blades.

He shivered when he felt a breeze and looked down to see his shirt was gone.

When a massive shadow fell across the room, it was oh so hard not to beg.

Instead he watched as Masis knelt in from of him, whistling as he laid down a staple gun and unwound a roll of razor wire.

"You're all sorts of fucked up, you know that?" Jensen asked bitterly, hating the hitch in his voice.

He would not beg.

Cougar would not beg.

Jensen felt his body straighten with the thought.

Masis just shrugged, not denying the accusation as he picked up the staple gun and brought it up towards Jensen's face.

"Hey, hey! I didn't say there was anything wrong with being fucked up! Some of my best friends are thoroughly messed! Myself included! I've got tons of issues!" Jensen's natural deflective tendencies were not begging, he told himself as he leaned his head as far to the side as possible and jumped as he heard a huge staple depress … into the wall.

Turning his head he saw the big man had stapled one end of the razor wire into the wall directly beside him.

"What the …" Jensen never got to finish his sentence as the rest of the wire was looped over his neck, just below his Adam's apple and then stapled in place on the other side of his head.

"Jesus Christ," Jensen whispered, gulping slowly as he realized the bastard had just put him in a razor collar. Every time he inhaled the cold metal would touch his skin.

"I don't think I have to explain to you that it would be in your best interests not to move and do exactly as I say," Masis said in a mocking tone.

Jensen was trying not to hyperventilate.

"Fuck you," he growled, angry at himself as it had not been witty or original at all. He would have to work on his torture material.

Then again, from the excited look in Masis's eyes, he probably had a lot of practice in his future.


Clay and Cougar were being beaten, plain and simple. They weren't even bothering with the questions. It was just five thugs who were angry, violent and bored. They laughed every time one of them choked on the blood running down their throats and cheered each other when they got the loudest scream. That was always from Clay.

The Colonel had his pride, but he valued his men's survival more than his self-respect so he tensed before every blow, rolled to avoid as much damage to his body as possible and screamed more than necessary to make them think he was hurt worse than he was.

Cougar on the other hand was as fucking silent as ever and waiting to burst. They kicked and punched, one guy slashed him down the arm and Clay could hear when another broke the sniper's nose, but Cougar remained silent and glared and every now and then he would break out one of his energy reserves and out of nowhere kick one of the motherfuckers so hard in the nuts they would almost black out.

It wasn't an escape attempt, it was a 'fuck you', plain and simple. Clay took less of a beating due to Cougar's refusal to scream, but Clay knew he wasn't doing it for him. Cougar needed the pain to distract himself from the fact that Jensen wasn't there sharing it with them.


Jensen couldn't talk. He had things to say and desperately tried to get them out but Masis had decided he had heard enough of the hacker's voice, and like he said, he had other plans for his mouth.

Two thin cubes of wood had been forced unceremoniously into his mouth between his teeth on either side, all the way to the back of his jaw, forcing it open painfully wide. Now he really was hyperventilating as he couldn't move, couldn't talk and couldn't even close his jaw. Every single freedom had been stripped from him.

As a final insult, just to heighten the experience for him, Masis stuck a piece of duct tape over his eyes and laughed when the razor wire kept Jensen from even trying to pull away.

"Perfect."

Jensen was plunged into darkness, forced into a maddening world of only smell and sound. He felt his mind buckle in that abyss as he heard a zipper being pulled down.

If Jensen threw up he would probably die. The spasms would undoubtedly slit his throat against the wire he was pressed up against. He didn't know how he hadn't puked by now but he told his stomach contents to stay the fuck down as he intended on living and killing this motherfucker so fucking slowly he could watch every season of Lost before the bastard was dead.

It might not matter though as Masis seemed to be trying to suffocate him. Jensen gasped and wheezed for breath as his mouth and throat were assaulted, only able to inhale through his nose, and every particle of air made him feel sick.

He tried to think of Cougar. Considered trying to trick his mind into thinking he was with Cougar, that this was some extreme, hardcore kink they had decided to try out, but in the end he couldn't. Though Cougar was far from gentle on occasion, he was not this, not in any way shape or form and Jensen refused to tarnish his memory, his relationship with Cougar in that way, even if it was only in his mind.

He gagged again, tried like hell to bite down and teach this bastard a lesson. The blocks wouldn't dislodge. Fuck.

His head smacked against the wall behind him and he felt the body pressed too close to him start to shudder and moan.

He tasted salt.

"Swallow."

That was something he would not do. Finally, something within his power. No way in hell.

Masis plugged his nose.

Jensen would have screamed but now he was suffocating.

He swallowed and broke inside.


Cougar wouldn't talk to Clay. The Colonel didn't take it personally, he hardly talked to anyone, generally content to let Jensen speak to him or for him on most occasions. But when the sniper wouldn't even answer to tell him how badly he was hurt or if he could go mobile when they got an opening, that was when Clay started to really worry.

He worried that when Jensen got dragged down that hallway that a part of Cougar went with him.


Jensen couldn't believe he still hadn't puked because he had never been so disgusted in his life. Not with another human being and not with himself.

He was coughing however, when Masis zipped up and stepped back. It was so violent he cut himself on the razor collar and felt blood trickle down his chest. Hissing he leaned as far against the wall as possible, knowing the skin would fray open easier once it was broken.

"Be careful boy, I want you in one piece when I get back," Masis ordered.

Jensen turned his head with interest – he was leaving?

He flinched when a hand touched his hair and almost cut himself again.

"Unfortunately duty calls and we cannot play longer right now," the hand in his hair tightened its grip painfully. "But when I get back we will have many hours to get to know each other."

Jensen wouldn't miss him but was strangely terrified of being left alone in this state. Blind, mute and basically paralyzed. It would just be him and his thoughts. But just him and his thoughts was a million times better than him and his thoughts and Masis.

"Hmmm," the deep voice bellowed, pondering, making Jensen tense as he heard footsteps travel through the room. "I will be gone quite awhile. I will need everyone to know that you are mine and mine alone."

A prick of cold metal pressed down on his chest.

As the blade pressed down over and over his screams were garbled by the blocks in his mouth.

Only Jensen knew that he was shouting Cougar's name.


They hadn't taken Clay's watch. It was a piece of shit, military plastic replacement watch so they might have seen it and not cared. Either way, because he had it he knew it was twelve hours exactly after they had been captured until he heard gunfire in the distance. And twelve and a half hours until the door to the cell was broken down, with a dead guard landing in the doorway and Roque and Pooch grinning like bastards as they stepped inside.

Until they finished counting anyway.

"Where's Jensen?" Pooch asked. Silence was his answer.

Cougar stood up immediately, hands held out demanding to be let free, fire and something indescribable burning behind his eyes. Once the cuffs were off he grabbed the dead guard's gun and marched out into the hallway, never looking back and never breaking stride for bullets or the voices of his teammates calling him back.

"Cougar!" Clay called, wanting to get a situation report before he stalked off into the compound, but the sniper never stopped.

"Guess he's got the kid's scent, come on," Roque encouraged them, handing Clay a gun of his own as they all jogged after Cougar.

It was thirteen hours before they finally kicked down the right door.

It was the worst door any of them had ever opened.

Cougar went in first and froze so abruptly in the doorway that the others were sure they were going to find Jensen's dead body on the floor when they followed him in.

But the hacker was against the far wall, very much alive, kneeling on the floor blindfolded, shackled, mouth forced open, and blood dripping down his neck and chest. Some of the blood came from where the wire had dug into the sensitive flesh of his neck, but most of it came from the deep gashes carved into the hacker's chest, spelling out MASIS in huge block letters.

"Jesus Christ," Clay muttered involuntarily.

The sound drew Jensen's attention. His head tilted the slightest bit forward and a garbled moan passed through his lips.

Then suddenly Cougar was there, across the room, bare hands tearing the razor wire out of the wall, then he knelt down, pulling the blocks out of Jensen's mouth and tearing the duct tape from his eyes. He needed to see his eyes. They were red and wet but they were Jensen's.

"Cougs …" Jensen's jaw was barely working but he was desperate to form words.

"Shhh," Cougar told him, running a hand down his cheek. Cougar didn't need words, he never had – he could see the mix of relief and horror in Jensen's eyes. The younger man didn't have to say anything. And then he said the one thing that didn't need to be said.

"C…cougar … I'm sorry."

Each word had been forced out painfully through Jensen's lips and each Loser felt like they had been punched in the gut.

"No," Cougar said firmly, but somehow with a touch of soft affection as his own eyes teared up. He took the hacker's face in both his hands to make him truly see what he was saying. "Don't. Never. You are mine. Nothing will change that."

Clay, Pooch and Roque were making a point of covering the hallway to give the two some semblance of privacy, but when Jensen nodded and Cougar turned his attention to the cuffs around Jensen's bruised wrists, Pooch was there instantly with the same keys that had freed Clay and Cougar. He also found Jensen's glasses on the floor and handed them to Cougar to put on the hacker's face.

"Jensen, can you walk?" Clay asked from the doorway.

Jensen was hissing as his arms moved for the first time in thirteen hours. He had been kneeling on the concrete for just as long.

"I can try."

Trying was not doing. Cougar helped pull him into a standing position but both legs immediately cramped and he crumpled with a yell.

"Oh god! Um …" Jensen was considering his options. He wasn't injured, his legs just wouldn't fucking work after being in one terrible position for so long. "I can hobble."

"Good enough. Pooch, help him, Cougar, take the front. Here," Clay handed him a sidearm. "Can you shoot?"

"Hopefully the bad guys," Jensen answered weakly, taking the gun in his right hand as he swung his left over Pooch's shoulder. Cougar looked like he wanted to take him, but the sniper had been worked over pretty well and it would slow them down. He met Jensen's eyes, nodded, and then reluctantly took point in the hallway.

The second he was out of sight Jensen's stomach decided it had held back long enough.

He puked for over a minute.

On Masis's bed.

Good.

"I hope I didn't already kill this guy on the way in because I can guarantee you it was too quick," Roque grumbled as they waited.

"You and me both," Clay agreed, then checked his shitty watch. "We can't wait. Pooch, move him, we gotta get going."

Pooch grimaced but pulled Jensen up and out the door, making a point to ignore the hacker's gasps until they were somewhere secure. The compound was huge, and they shot and ducked their way through like bats out of hell. By the time they neared the gates Jensen was actually starting to get his feet underneath him again. The adrenaline helped and when Pooch turned to take a two hand shot at a guy on a wall, Jensen was able to stand and fire back on his own in the opposite direction.

It was dark now and there were shapes moving all over the compound, some attacking, some retreating. Pooch took out another guy near the fence and turned around. Jensen was fucking gone.

Not down, not ducking, not hiding – just gone.

"What the … Colonel!" Pooch shouted at the top of his lungs, needing to get the guys back before they all surged ahead for the next attack. Three heads turned to see him shrug apologetically, "Jensen's gone!"

"What the fuck do you mean gone? He could barely walk!" Roque pointed out angrily as they all scanned the distance. "Where did you leave him?"

"Right here! I turned around and …" Pooch turned to demonstrate and his eyes widened when he turned back. "Annnd Cougar's gone too."

"This is ridiculous," Clay muttered. "Whoever finds them first, shoot them in the leg and explain to them what a warzone is and then we all get out of here."

It took less than five minutes to find them. Cougar was helping Jensen hobble around a corner and they literally ran into the others.

They both looked oddly finished and settled, like the job was done even though there were still a dozen fucking guys shooting at them.

That look was explained when they heard an agonized moan coming from around the corner.

Masis was on the ground, writhing, a bullet hole and huge blood stain soaking the crotch of his pants.

"He's still alive," Clay pointed out, recognizing they might want to finish it completely.

"Not for long," Cougar said, not turning as he helped Jensen walk.

Jensen smiled for the first time in fourteen hours.

"Besides, if he does live, he'll wish he was dead."

"Let's go home," Clay ordered.

Cougar gripped Jensen tight and they did just that.

The end.

Darkest and most succinct fic I've ever written. Hope you enjoyed. It was deliciously fun to write!