I get a little bit Genghis Khan

[vacabdication]

[ There have been continents and decades passed between when Ajay and Pagan knew each other. Happily, Ajay’s time in Kyrat to date has made Pagan very aware of at least one thing they still share; a flair for the dramatic. Such a flair is probably at least partly to blame for why it’s been night on impossible for Pagan to get a message to Ajay about meeting without Ajay dramatically disposing of the messenger. There’s the radio, of course, but Pagan doesn’t quite trust that nobody is listening in, and it wouldn’t do to have any of those delightful little monkeys decide to try and off Ajay for fraternizing with the enemy. So he lays the groundwork, plants the idea – ends one of his rambling calls with I’ll have to have you to dinner, sometime, and leaves it at that.

Then it’s terribly easy to have Ajay scooped up after those awful little tourists send him out on a jaunt on one of their experimental substances – god, a look at the two of them and it’s easy to remember why, accent aside, he is far more likely to present himself as of Hong Kong than of England – and brought back to the palace. Of course, he’s high as a bloody kite, and Pagan is rather proud of the delicacies he’s acquired for their little soiree a deux, so he has Ajay sequestered in a private room to recover. There is a fully stocked ensuite attached, which Pagan prays Ajay will use, and his clothes are filthy so Pagan has them ferreted away to be washed (and in some cases, mended) and a selection more suited to dinner with a King left for Ajay to choose from – a classic black tuxedo, a rather dashing and elaborately embroidered kurta set, several beautiful suits in an array of colours, even a selection of wonderful blazers and (please no) designer jeans, should that prove more within Ajay’s comfort zone. And, most importantly, a gilt invitation to dinner on thick, creamy-coloured card waiting for him on the bedside table when he wakes.

It might be sensible to have Ajay’s weapons removed, too. For maintenance, he could say. It would be a terrible, tragic loss if Ajay Ghale, son of Mohan and great hope of the Golden Path, were to suffer a sticky trigger while facing down a tiger, after all. But Pagan Min is not a sensible man, and so he chooses to give preference to the semi he gets thinking about an immaculately dressed Ajay vaulting the table to hold a pistol to Pagan’s temple rather than common sense.

After all, for Pagan Min to host a dull dinner would be unthinkable. ]

Comments

[vacabdication]

I could never ask you to make such an assertion on so little evidence. Further study is clearly required.

[ Pagan may be rigorously honest, but that doesn't meant he can't ease the way with a little humor. He still seals the pronouncement with a kiss, though, something soft and lingering. ]

Hungry?

[ Because if not, he is 100% going to try and skip to that research he mentioned. ]

[vaaris]

[ unfortunately for pagan, that comment earns him a snort right into that kiss. doubly unfortunate? is that he's decided to take up with a guy in his twenties, because they're very rarely the sort to turn down a meal. ]

Yeah, hang on. [ wriggling just free enough of pagan's hold on him so that he can sit up and grab for the tray, settling it on the bed between them and careful not to jostle anything. but when he does? he notices that's not all that was brought in on the cart -- there's a thick, leather-bound book tucked onto a lower shelf, and it's such a weird thing to go with breakfast that he can't help himself. you know what they say about curiosity and cats. ]

Do you usually get people to bring you reading material with your eggs, or -- [ but what he was about to say gets lost when he flips the book open, replaced by a soft little oh. it's clear now that it's a photo album, and that first page is all ishwari. in the kitchens like she belongs there, chopping vegetables with the rest of the staff bustling around her. trying to reach a hand up to block someone from taking her picture, her face lit up with laughter. caught unawares in profile, leaning out over one of the balconies with the mountains as her backdrop. sitting in front of the mirror and braiding her hair, the smile in her eyes a warm secret for the person behind her. a chubby-cheeked baby that must be him in her arms, and the love on her face as she looks down at him is such an open thing that it wedges a sharp lump in ajay's throat. ]

[vacabdication]

[ It's a journey, watching the emotion unfold on Ajay's face. For a moment Pagan thinks he should have warned him, that the wound might be too raw for something like this to come as a surprise, but... really, it looks as if it might hurt in the good kind of way. The way it hurts when the missing someone would be unbearable, but for the warmth of the love all tangled up in it. ]

Not too much, I hope. I should warn you that once you get about a third of the way in, there are pictures that might make you quite angry with me. Things I haven't said, and probably should have.

[ Because that's where Ishwari starts showing, the swell of her pregnant belly obvious under her clothes. And after that, of course, there is Lakshmana. In her mother's embrace, held proudly by her father, and in her brother's arms, the two of them surrounded by a barricade of cushions, because they didn't have the heart to deny his requests to hold her. ]

[vaaris]

[ he flicks a little glance at pagan, because it's hard to imagine anything in here that would make him angry, but. the pictures are irresistible, and he can't pull his eyes away for long.

the next page has pagan, dark-haired and younger than ajay is now, and the happiness on his face is something so unguarded that it almost hurts to look at. the joy of a man who thinks nothing will ever take it away from him, with no defenses built towards what's to come. ]

You're so young. [ one thing to read age as a number in mohan's journals, another to see the photo proof of it here in front of him. kids, really, both of them. and if his voice is thick, he thinks pagan won't call him on it, even as he tucks himself back up against him. ] You both were.

[vacabdication]

[ Warning delivered, it's the easiest thing in the world to curl his arm around Ajay as he tucks in close, holding him and looking at the pictures he talks about. God, he really was young. And devilishly handsome. And so, so unprepared. ]

Mm. Younger than you are now. I would have been... twenty-two there, I think. Your mother, twenty. We were practically children.

[ So idealistic. Well, Ishwari was, in that way of incredible young women who think they'll change the world. And she'd made Pagan want to be that too, want to change it with her. ]

[vaaris]

She looks happy.

[ he's seen her happy before. he knows he has, but not quite like this. like she's lit up from the inside with it, like it clings to her even in the pictures where she isn't smiling. like this one, where she has her hands on her hips, eyes flashing -- but it's still there, that glow.

there's another picture of what must be him learning to walk, little face screwed up in concentration, one chubby hand clutching at two of pagan's fingers. and pagan is looking down at him like ajay invented walking instead, so much stupid pride on his face that ajay can't stop his mouth from tugging up into a smile.

there's a new face on the next page -- a girl younger than pagan, late teens, maybe? holding toddler-ajay at arms length like he's some particularly gross species of bug, her face screwed up into a scowl that's clearly directed at whoever's holding the camera. ] Who's she?

[vacabdication]

[ Oh, that one of Ajay trying to walk is one of Pagan's favourites. The theory at the time had been to let children learn on their own - he knows, because he'd gone to the trouble of sourcing books about it. But he'd never been able to resist when Ajay crawled to him and held out his plump little hands in a plea for help.

Then, of course, there's the next page, and he barks a laugh. ]

You don't recognize her? It pains me to say that she's barely aged.

[ Of course, she does look a little different without the undercut, the stripe of pink, the deadly army at her beck and call. ]

That's your Auntie Yuma.

[vaaris]

Yuma Lau?

[ he hasn't had any run-ins with her personally, but the golden path tell stories. she's the terror of the north, a nightmare who feeds men to demons in her prison carved in the mountains, but here? she looks more like a surly teenager than the stuff of fearful legends. even more so in the next picture, where she's flipping off the camera and rolling her eyes. ]

I kind of thought she was something the Golden Path made up to scare their kids into behaving.

[vacabdication]

Ha! It never worked on you. You loved her. Probably because she did things like throwing you in the air higher than your mother or I were comfortable with, or cheering when you learned to swear.

[ This story does not need the additional detail that Ajay learned to swear from Pagan. It's lovely as it is. ]

She and your mother were never destined to be best friends, but they got along. I think Yuma slightly resented being treated like an unruly younger sister when it was Yuma's machinations that brought us to Kyrat, but they always managed to bond over teasing me.

[vaaris]

We were like a weird little family, huh?

[ and maybe that should make the present uncomfortable, the way he's tucked up against pagan in bed, but. it doesn't. instead, maybe it just makes him understand all that conviction in pagan's voice when he said i would never hurt you, or the way it feels like he already has a hollowed-out home in pagan's heart that's been waiting for him.

a picture of baby-ajay sitting in a mud puddle, beaming up at the camera and covered nearly head to toe in muck. a picture of him holding out what looks like a frog to pagan, and the little scrunch in the other man's brow that says he's putting on his bravest face to accept this for the treasure it is. a picture of the three of them, pagan's head on ishwari's lap, ajay sprawled across his chest and sleeping. ]

Is that what you think's going to bother me? Seeing us like this?

[vacabdication]

No. No, I hoped this would explain why I cared about you so much before you ever got off that bus. The part I'm worried about -

[ It takes a fair few pages to skip ahead. They took a lot of pictures. But he's able to find what he's looking for almost by muscle memory, and flips the book open to a picture he's always treasured; Ajay, his face scrunched up in laughter as he holds a bottle for a baby goat, and Ishwari, looking at him with the kind of love that could shatter the world in her eyes - and a hand cradling her large, round, heavily pregnant belly. ]

Right here. I assume if your mother never spoke to you about me, she couldn't tell you about your sister. We named her Lakshmana.

[vaaris]

[ sister. the word twists into him like a knife slipped between his ribs, and he isn't even aware of the sharp breath he sucks in through his nose, the way every muscle goes instantly rigid.

there hadn't been a lot of times, in those last few days, that his mom was lucid. between the drugs and the progression of her illness, she'd spent most of those hours in a sort of twilight awareness, leaving ajay with little else to do but hold her hand and try not to listen to the droning beep of the monitors. but there had been a night where she was aware enough to plead with him -- ajay, she'd said, looking at him with tears in her eyes and clutching his hand like it was her lifeline. i want to go home. take me home. take me to lakshmana. ]

It isn't a place. [ that sharp thing in his throat has grown until he can scarcely breathe past it, and his voice is gravel around it. ] Lakshmana.

[vacabdication]

May as well be, I'm afraid. All that remains of our daughter is the shrine that holds her ashes.

[ He feels like he should comfort Ajay, after the news. After the way Ajay stiffens. He hardly has it in him, though- all he can manage is leaning a little more heavily against Ajay. ]

I've always been a bit of a shit, but I wasn't always broken. Now you know.

[vaaris]

[ there is a part of him that wants to let the whole thing drop there. he has enough of the secret unburied to do what was asked of him, and isn't that enough? but he can't stop himself, now that they've come this far -- call it a fucking character flaw. ]

What happened to her? [ almost like the words are dragged out of him, almost like they hurt to say. ]

[vacabdication]

[ And here it is. The moment he's been worried about. And thought it makes him feel sick to think of it, there's a part of him that thinks the best possible outcome for Ajay is that he won't believe it. That it'll tick him right back over to thinking Pagan was just fucking with him, and he can leave unburdened by the terrible truth with the thought of falling for a dreadful man's horrible trick in its place. ]

There's no gentle way to say this, and I'm sorry for that.

Mohan killed her.

[vaaris]

[ there is a part of him that wants to deny it. to shove pagan away from him, to lash out (because he's the only one here to hurt), to cling to this idea that he can be the good son of a good man. but no, maybe there was a part of him that had known. not the full scope of it, of course not, but that it was something this ugly -- that it had to be, for his mother to have fled kyrat with him all those years ago and never have mentioned it until she was dying.

still. he makes a low noise behind gritted teeth, tucking in slightly on himself for a moment. fuck. ]

[vacabdication]

[ It seems a terrible tradeoff, that the price of not having Ajay instantly disbelieve him is that wounded sound, Ajay curling in on himself. Hadn't Pagan told him just the night before that he would never harm him? Hadn't he meant it? The knowledge that he's failed already lodges itself in his heart like a poison barb, despite knowing this would have to happen eventually. ]

May I hold you?

[ Quiet. It seems almost as if Ajay would prefer to be alone with this for now, but... it's been a very long time since Pagan thought about what had happened and had someone there with him. ]

[vaaris]

[ he almost says no. it’s a reflex, an old animal instinct to hide a wound from predators, but. if there’s anything here that wants to hurt him, it isn’t pagan.

so he drags in a shaky inhale, nodding and shifting his weight until he’s leaning into pagan instead of away. the photo album is still in his lap — he can’t handle flipping the page and seeing pictures of her face (his sister), but he also can’t bear to close away that picture of he and his mom. laughing, smiling, like everything would be okay forever. ]

[vacabdication]

[ It's more of a relief than he's comfortable voicing. But Ajay leans in toward him, and Pagan curls his arms around him, and breathes. Presses his face against Ajay's hair and breathes. Perhaps it's perverse, given that their nakedness and the events of the night before, but there's a part of him that starts to heal with that. When it had happened he'd wanted to lock himself away with Ishwari and Ajay somewhere nobody could ever get to them, to fool himself that nothing could ever take away another person he loved. It just hadn't been possible - they had to protect Ajay, to make sure he didn't see what had happened, to try and shelter him from the fact that the world had just ended. And after that everything had happened so fast, and Pagan had never had the chance to wrap the boy he'd started to think of as his in his arms and know that while he couldn't make it better, he could be there.

So yes, maybe it's wrong. But it's a very long time since Pagan felt right, and this does. ]

[vaaris]

[ it takes him a long few moments to uncurl, even with pagan’s arms around him; a slow thaw, until finally he breathes out a shuddering breath and turns to tuck his face into the juncture of the older man’s throat and shoulder. then his arms come up and loop themselves around pagan’s middle, clinging, and it’s… better.

so much better than being alone with it. there’s a part of him that feels like he doesn’t deserve this — like just mohan’s blood in his veins stains him with the same sin. but no, if anyone deserves to see him that way, it’s pagan. and if he doesn’t? ajay is willing enough to grasp at that absolution. ]</small

[vacabdication]

[ Ajay unfurls, slowly but surely, and it's good. It's good. Pagan breathes him in, strokes his hair, and it's a few long moments before he can speak. ]

I have home movies, when you're ready. Of you and your mother, of us. Of you with Lakshmana. I don't want your lasting memory of her to be... this. Pain. You adored one another. Home video cameras weren't terribly common, back then, but I was ever a show-off.

[vaaris]

[ he nods a little, because right now that feels like all he can manage. weird that something he can’t remember should hit him this hard — but it’s grief for his mother, grief for pagan, grief for a little girl he never really even got the chance to know. maybe even grief for the life they might have had, the family they could have been. and it just hurts, like a knife twisted into his chest.

and, like salt in the wound: ]

… they knew. Didn’t they? [ flat, almost dull. like he’s too exhausted to be angry, worn too thin to be hurt. ] The Golden Path. When I asked for —

[vacabdication]

Oh, darling. I don't know. I had Lakshamana canonized, in one of my fits of sentimentality, so they know she existed, but I couldn't bear to mention his name alongside hers. If they know, it would be because he told them. And I have a hard time imagining he did.

[ Who could brag about murdering a child? Could the leader of the Golden Path gloat the he made it into the Palace and killed a baby instead of the tyrant they were fighting against? Could the others have continued their mission in his name, knowing what he did? ]

I know it's not much, given the situation, but I doubt they set you against me knowing the man they used to spur you on killed your sister. If nothing else, it would have taken Mohan admitting I made him a cuckold. And when I knew him, he was far too proud for that.

[vaaris]

[ maybe they hadn’t known all the awful details, but they’d known enough. that lakshmana wasn’t a place, some temple in northern kyrat that they could take him to if only he did their dirty work for just a little bit longer. it’s not like he didn’t know he was a means to an end for sabal and amita both, but he’d still —

… it’s just ugly, the whole thing.

but. ] … why’d you think I was going to be pissed? It’s not your fault Mohan was —

[ what, crazy? capable of that kind of violence? (and what does that say about him, with the same blood in his veins?) ]

[vacabdication]

I -

[ And honestly, it's kind of a shock that Ajay isn't mad at this revelation, but when asked so directly Pagan can't quite put his finger on why. ]

I'm not sure. Maybe because I slept with you knowing I knew something that would hurt you? Or - because it felt like a deception to do what we did without handing you all the information first. I wasn't thinking about it at the time - I wasn't thinking about anything but how much I wanted you - but when I woke up, it seemed a terrible thing to have done.