Title: So There Was An Angry Moose . . .

Author: peaceful_sands

Fandom: The Losers

Rating: PG-13

Characters: Pooch, Jensen, Cougar, Clay and an angry Moose

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Note: Apparently, according to those who have already read this – it needs a 'spew' warning for humor. It's a little cracky, I guess. I left a note asking for prompts on my journals and alex_kade asked for this : Losers. J & C (gen). An encounter with an angry moose

Author's Note (2) : Spanish translations courtesy of Google Translate and Babelfish.

So There Was An Angry Moose . . .

"So I don't think I quite understood the story from Jensen on the phone . . . There was a moose?" Clay sounded confused rather than surprised. Cougar and Pooch looked down at the table shiftily as if neither one of them wanted to explain anything in case they were the one who had to take responsibility for what happened.

"I'll make coffee," said Pooch suddenly, pushing his chair back from the table and standing up.

"No, I will!" Cougar interrupted, hand out to push Pooch back into his seat.

"Sit down! Both of you!" Clay snapped, the gut feeling that he wasn't going to like whatever came next growing exponentially. Like two scolded school boys they slammed back into their seats with heads hanging and Clay sighed, knowing that it wasn't going to be good. "Spit it out," he growled wearily.

"Well . . . it was like this . . ."

Pooch knew that he really shouldn't let Jake try to match Cougar's tequila intake shot for shot, but seriously what harm could it do? After all, he wasn't the one sharing a room with Jensen, or even a bathroom for that matter.

And yeah, since Max and Wade and Roque and the whole shebang, they were seriously due the chance to kick back, relax and let their hair down, so to speak. So it was that he was merely an observer to the epic Tequila Battle of their latest town.

In all honesty, he'd lost count a while ago, but they definitely had . . . a few . . . quite a few. After all, he'd had 'a few' himself, just to keep them company in the early rounds. Any time now, Jake was sure to start dancing and that was always good for a laugh.

So Tequila was good, in Cougar's opinion, a good solid drink, one where you knew what you were getting and it was a shame that Pooch always backed out so early on when Cougar challenged anyone to a battle. Jensen used to be a lightweight, but not so much anymore. Practise makes perfect wasn't that the saying. With time and practise and enough Tequila, Jensen would be as accomplished as he was . . . or maybe . . . Cougar scrunched up his nose and tried to figure it out as the thought occurred that for all the practise Jensen got, he got some too, so did that mean he was getting better all the time and Jensen had to practise more to catch up.

"You –" he pointed very exaggeratedly at Pooch, "You need to help Jensen practise drinking Tequila because I-" he pointed deliberately at his own chest, "I am an awesome Tequila drinker."

"Uh-huh, course you are, Cougs," Pooch nodded.

At first Cougar thought Pooch was agreeing with him, but then he noticed the tilt of the head, the suspiciously arched eyebrow. "I am awesome," he slurred.

"You are," agreed Jensen, "Awesomest ever!" He nodded vehemently and almost face planted on the table. "Ma buddiesssss, you guys are so aweshome. Unbelievabubbly aweshome!" He sighed, "Where would I be without you guys? Not as good at drinkin' – it's you guys – you helped me – you taugh' me how to shjrink properly."

Pooch was going to chalk this one up to a Cougar win, after all, he didn't look quite so likely to slide off his chair and under the table. "Okay, you two. Time to hit the road." He got both teammates on their feet and began to usher them to the door before either of them had chance to work out they were leaving and start objecting.

By the time they made it outside, the two of them were holding each other up, both of them convinced that the other was going to fall over. Pooch just stayed a step or two behind them and herded them along the street, trying to keep them on the sidewalk and out of the gutter.

So what happened next . . . totally and unequivocally not Pooch's fault. It couldn't have been, he was at the back, behind the others . . . No way he could be held responsible for what they did a few feet in front of him . . . right?

"Cougar," Clay frowned. "Tequila Battles? I thought we'd already established that wasn't going to happen anymore after the last time when I had to bail you and Roque out of the drunk tank!"

"I . . . I forgot," Cougar said sheepishly.

"You forgot?"

Cougar swallowed nervously. "I had a few tequilas and forgot what happened last time. There were no women this time . . . and no explosives . . . and no motorcycles . . ." He ticked the different occasions off on his fingers, pausing on number four as he tried to work out what it had been. "No bananas . . . no – no . . ." He looked at Pooch desperately, before whispering, "I got nothing!"

"Tennis rackets, man. The other time was the tennis rackets," Pooch prompted.

He nodded frantically and said, "No tennis rackets . . . Just Jensen."

"Just Jensen and a moose apparently, which I am no nearer to understanding, so let's move the story along, gentlemen."

Cougar and Jensen staggered to the edge of the sidewalk, almost stepping off and onto the road before Pooch managed to herd them back to the center again, at which point they began to lurch in the opposite direction.

He wasn't even aware of the advertising sign placed in front of Jensen until Jensen fell straight over it, dragging Cougar down to the floor with him. "Shit!" Pooch reached for the back of Cougar's t-shirt and the nearer of his arms in an attempt to pull him back upright. Jensen scrambled over the sign, crawling forward a few feet, before turning back and coming up to his feet with his fists up ready to fight.

"Jensen! Jensen! Stand down, soldier!" Pooch snapped, hoping the order would permeate the liquor fogging his reactions.

"Stand down? Stand down?" Jensen slurred back. "You want me to stand down now? I was attackack . . . acttackled by – by – by an enemy . . . an enemy that lurked in the path of innocent passersby."

Pooch rolled his eyes in exasperation as Jensen weaved back and forth with his fists up in a very poor attempt at looking like a prize fighter. Making sure Cougar was propped safely against the wall, he moved forward to Jensen. "Jay, really? You don't wanna fight . . . not now. We'll come back tomorrow if need be, when you can stand up on your own two feet."

"I'm standing, I'm standing!" Jensen protested with another waver in his stance. He took a step closer to the sign that Pooch was trying to put back upright. "Is that . . . is that a moose?" Jensen peered blearily down at the sign, stepping closer again and ignoring Pooch's protests to stay back.

"A mouse? Where?" Cougar demanded, suddenly on the alert again. Pushing himself away from the wall, he stalked across the sidewalk towards Pooch. Pooch cringed at the sight. "Soy un puma, miau. Rondo. Salto. Hago furtivamente después de mi presa . . ." (I am a cougar, meow. I prowl. I pounce. I sneak after my prey.)

Pooch barely concealed his laughter as Cougar slunk across the sidewalk in a fair impression of the cougar for which he was named. "Kill me now," he groaned in amusement, snapping the evidence with his cell phone.

Jensen meanwhile had perked up, attention drawn away from the sign to his prowling teammate. He frowned thoughtfully, "Cougs? What the Hell are you doing?"

"Stalking my prey. . ." came the answer.

Jensen rolled his eyes, turning and standing still and straight for a moment as if he were the one entirely in control of his faculties. "What? Not a mouse! Seriously?" For a moment, he seemed almost speechless before he added, "Es un alce, no un ratón, idiota. ¿Es tu sordo?" (It's a moose, not a mouse, dumbass. Are you deaf?)

Cougar stalked closer still to the finally standing sign and bent down closer to examine it from all sides before saying, "Es muy pequeño para un alce. ¿Estás seguro de que es lo que es?" (It's very small for a moose. Are you sure that's what it is?) He took a step backward and appeared to be eyeing up the sign for moose-like tendencies. He seemed to come to a sudden conclusion and reached across to slap Jensen. "You're wrong and – and right. 'S not a mouse. Tha's right."

He nodded confidently, then paused to regain his balance, almost setting his hand on the top of the sign before having second thoughts and snatching it back. "Can't be too careful," he said to Pooch, who just watched in disbelief. "Jensen. Jensen! 'S not a moose. A moose is this big." He held his hand out to the side of his shoulder, paused, seemed to give it more thought then moved his hand upward and repeated, "This big or . . ." He gave a drunken flick of the wrist and added, "Yeah, this high."

Cougar took a few more staggered steps in Jensen's direction and Jensen stood up to watch him. "Cougs – I think – I think you've had too much to shjrink!"

"No' me, 's you seein' a moose. 'S no' a moose, Jay. A moose, i' has a big . . . two big . . .things on its head," Cougar gave up his search for the word, resorting instead to sticking his hands up, one either side of his head, fingers splayed wide to represent antlers.

"Antlers," Pooch said drily, waiting for the conversation to dry up so that he could get the two of them moving again.

"Angltlers," Cougar nodded. "'s right, Pooch knows things." He leaned in closer to Jensen and muttered, "Angtlers," again. He grabbed the front of Jensen's t-shirt and pulled him towards the sign, waving his free hand expansively across the vacant space above the sign to indicate the lack of antlers. "Not there, Jay, see? They've gone!"

"Man, that's really stupid!" Jensen proclaimed. "That's not a moose, that's a sign! You're really drunk, d'ya know that?" Jensen reached out, snagging his hand in the front of Cougar's t-shirt, mirroring Cougar's earlier move and pulling him closer and then jabbing at the sign, "Tha's the moose! Look, it says, Magflicent – Magnlipitent . . . shit that word's big . . . Mag – ni – flicent Moose's Muss-kle? Muscle! Oh, like muscles!" Jensen poked at Cougar's bicep to illustrate his point. "Where was I? Yeah, Magflipitent Moose's Muscle Mansion. That's a dumbass name for this place!" Jensen said, putting out a hand to lean on the sign.

The sign rocked, Jensen lurched closer and the sign fell. Jensen followed it down to the ground again. "Fucking bastard Moose did that on purpose!" he pronounced from the floor.

"What the hell's goin' on out here?" a deep voice drawled as a large figure loomed in the doorway to Magnificent Moose's Muscle Mansion.

"Fuck! It's a moose!" Cougar backpedalled away from the large figure with a moose on his wife-beater.

The man growled menacingly and Pooch started to step forward to intervene, only to be beaten by Jensen who had crawled over the sign and was now pulling himself up the front of the growling Moose. Upright at last and now face to face with Moose, who had nothing on Jensen in height but was almost twice as wide. "Man, you're built like a brick shithouse!" Jensen announced when he met Moose's eyes. He poked at one of the man's biceps and said, "That's like obscene . . . do you do drugs? 'Cause I gotta tell you, man, 's not a good idea. Steroids and then your body goes like all woooah!" Jensen took a half step backward and waved his arms at the man as if to signify a body growing in multiple directions.

Pooch snatched at Jensen's arm, trying to pull him away from the increasingly angry looking Moose. "Why you little . . ."

"Huh, I'm not little," Jensen protested, bringing his fists up and resuming his earlier fighting stance. He swung wildly at Moose who caught the fist and ended up being the only thing to keep Jensen on his feet. "Oh, it's like that, you wanna play that kind of game?" Jensen accused, now poking him in the chest with a finger. "Just 'cause we don't all take abanolic steloids doesn't mean I can't fight you, big guy! Moose . . . Mmmoose? . . . Mooooose? What kinda name's that anyway? Was your momma tripping when she called you that?"

"Jensen!" Pooch pulled him away, putting himself between Jensen and Moose. "Stop being an asshole!"

"Pooch! 'Ve you met my new friend, Moose. I'm worried about him . . . I don't wan' him to die bu' I think he takes afranolic stenoids."

"Jensen, you're talking shit," Pooch stated simply. "It's time to go home before Clay comes looking for us."

"Clay . . . Clay's not gonna be happy," Jensen nodded sagely, then leaned over Pooch's shoulder to address Moose. "Clay's our CO . . . he's not gonna be happy with him," he tried to gesture in Cougar's direction. "He got me drunk, 's all his fault." Jensen nodded vigorously, then staggered under the renewed disorientation. "Ooops. Clay told him . . . he did, he told him no more Tequila Battles . . . no more before Roque died and definitely no more now . . . Roque could hold his tequila. Their Tequila Battles were awesome, but he's gone now."

Pooch sighed, "Jay, come on, let's get you home and sleeping this off, huh?"

"Whaddabout Cougs?" Jensen asked pitifully. "Can't leave him here. Someone migh' think he's a hobo!"

"We'll take him with us, buddy. Come on, let's get him home, huh? Can't have Cougs falling asleep in the street, can we?"

Jensen stuck his hand out toward Moose and said, "Moose, you're a big man wi' awesome tats, man. I particularly like . . ." He grabbed hold of the man's hand, pulling the two of them closer together. He turned Moose's arm over and walked his fingers upwards before prodding at the tattoo of a busty blonde on his arm, "This one." He nodded very definitely.

Pooch tried again to get Jensen away from Moose, "Jay, man, please come on." He looked up at Moose, who now had his arms folded in front of him forebodingly. "I'm really sorry, man. He doesn't mean any harm, he's just . . ."

"A soldier . . ." Moose let the word hang.

"Yeah," Pooch hoped he was reading slight approval in the expression on Moose's face.

"You're good men. Welcome in my gym any time – no charge. Well anytime these two are sober. No drinking on the premises or before."

Jensen beamed, "I knew I liked you, Moose. Give me a high five!"

Moose raised an eyebrow and watched as Jensen lost his balance, took a couple of steps backwards and then before either Moose or Pooch could catch him, he tripped back over the sign and sprawled onto the floor. He lay still and quiet for the first time since his first encounter with the sign.

"Jensen!" Pooch dived down towards him trying to check him over. "Jensen!"

Moose was at his side, sure hands checking limbs for breaks. As he reached Jensen's ankle, there was a howl of pain. "Ow! Ow! Ow ow ow! Stop it! Stop! Are you trying to hurt me?" Jensen demanded indignantly.

Pooch kept him still, trying to pin the opposite leg to the one that had brought about the pained howl as Moose checked the injured one. "Jensen, he's helping, keep still and stop trying to kick us."

"You're hurting me," Jensen pouted.

"How bad?" Pooch asked, still trying to control Jensen's flailing arms as he tried to push the two of them away.

"Not sure. Don't want to take the boot off just in case. You guys were walking right? Give me a couple of minutes to get my keys and I'll run you down to the hospital, get it checked out properly."

"Ummm . . . thanks for the offer man, but really I should just get them home. I can check Jensen out and we'll make a decision then whether he needs the hospital."

Clay rubbed a hand over his face and said, "So you're telling me there was no angry moose now?"

"No, Moose was definitely pissed there for a while, but then he changed and he figured we were okay and instead of being angry, he's said we can use his gym for free and sorry about Jensen drunk-dialing you, we didn't realize he still had his cell when we put him to bed!"

"And Jensen's ankle?" Clay prompted.

"Rest – Ice – Compression – Elevation. It's a sprain at most. He'll be fine."

"So no serious injuries . . . no expensive damages to other people's property . . .no lasting repercussions or criminal charges . . . A quiet night then."

Pooch nodded.

"So Tequila Battles, Cougar? I thought we'd already agreed there weren't going to be anymore."

Cougar's head hung, his eyes resting on the Advil that Clay was withholding. "No more," he agreed.

"Nope, you haven't suffered enough yet for the lesson to have been learned, so I'll be keeping these," Clay said, pocketing the pack of Advil carelessly. "Pooch, who won?"

"Close call, Boss, but I'd have to say Jensen this time, after all, he's the one who got us the free pass to the gym!"

"Damn!" He reached for his wallet and took out a twenty passing it over to Pooch. "Never thought he'd be the one to win a Tequila Battle." He stood up and walked towards Jensen's room. "I'm going to check him over and then the two of you are going to get some sleep and this is not going to happen again. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Boss!" came the twin replies from behind him.