never been a better time than this

[vacabdication]

[ Pagan Min has mellowed considerably since Ajay has become a more solid fixture in his life. There was a time when he thought the damage done by his past was irreparable, and perhaps that’s still true, but it’s far easier now to remind himself of the good things he has and focus on that. He doesn’t go off the deep end without good reason.

This, he thinks, is a very good reason.

Ajay still spends a lot of time out and about with the villagers, and to a lesser degree the Golden Path. Their relationship isn’t a secret from anyone in the palace, but it seemed... prudent, not to make it public knowledge, and Ajay can’t be disabused of the notion that literally everyone in Kyrat needs his help. So he’ll spend evenings in the palace – sometimes days at a stretch, when Pagan is very lucky – and then head back out to cookfires and safehouses and people who are apparently too worn-down by the Golden Path’s stories of how terrible everything is to hunt their own food. So it’s something of a surprise when Ajay shows up very early one morning looking... tired, more than anything else, tells Pagan I’m gonna stay here for while, if that’s okay and heads off to take such a long shower Pagan feels the need to call out to him and check he hasn’t passed out in there. But it’s a pleasant surprise, to have Ajay close for more than a couple of days, so he doesn’t overthink it.

He does start thinking when he wakes in the middle of the night and slides a hand down the taut plane of Ajay’s stomach only to have the boy jolt awake, giving a half-shouted stop!. He draws his hand back immediately, of course, and blinks as Ajay’s eyes focus on him and he lowers a fist it seems he didn’t even think he was making, mumbles shit, sorry and wraps his arms around Pagan, lowering them back to the mattress in a sleepy tangle of limbs. In the morning Ajay kisses him awake and curls into him like nothing ever happened, but the memory of it sticks. And then by afternoon word gets back to him from one of the people he’s placed in the Golden Path – not spies, heavens no, just helpful eyes and ears – that someone had seen Ajay leaving one of the safehouses in the middle of the night in the kind of hurry that usually means the outpost is being retaken, not a soldier to be seen, but with Sabal shouting at him out of the doorway.

What was he saying, Pagan asks, already forming an idea, and when the answer comes - whoring only for the king doesn’t make you any less of a whore - well, something has to be done, obviously. Which is why dear Sabal now finds himself bound and gagged in one of the lower rooms of the palace, where Paul used to the occasional spot of dirty work when called for, while Pagan decide what to do with him. In hindsight, that’s a mistake, because Pagan catches Ajay in the room right next door looking through a box of documents for god-knows-what, and now it’s up to Pagan to distract him.

Which... oh. Now that he thinks about it, could be a very fitting punishment all of its own. ]

Look at you, [ he says, his voice giving ample warning before he moves up behind Ajay to curl arms about his waist and bury a kiss behind his ear. ] You’re very attractive when you’re doing all your intelligence gathering. Like a sexy spy.

[ The fact that he may have a devious little plot in mind makes it no less true. ]

Comments

( 1/2 )

[vaaris]

[ okay, the double agent thing was a fucking stupid idea.

and that probably shouldn't have even come as a surprise -- as it turns out, you can know how to sweep an outpost without alerting a single guard and still be shit when it comes to actual espionage. and whatever ajay's strengths, he's never been much of a master manipulator; he gets a knotted feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever he lies about where he's spending his time, and he isn't that great about coming up with excuses to keep himself from doing things to strike at pagan directly.

but he wants to help the people caught in the crossfire of the civil war, and it seems to make sense that showing his support for the golden path now will smooth things along when it comes time to pitch the idea of working with the palace to help kyrat. if ajay can prove that he's one of them, maybe they'll listen -- it might be an impossible thing to ask them to trust pagan, but ajay can show that he's here to help the people.

it doesn't occur to ajay that amita and sabal would bother spreading the golden path's already painfully stretched resources to keep tabs on him -- he's been helping the golden path for months now, and that seems like it'd be enough time to convince anyone that he's not their enemy.

apparently fucking not.

unfortunately, he doesn't realize there's trouble until he's already stumbled into it -- he goes to debrief sabal after a supply run, business as usual, and doesn't even register an alarm when sabal sends his lackeys out of the room and leaves the two of them alone. it's really only when ajay stops to get a good look at the man that the first prickles of warning start to go off; there's a clenched tension to the other man's jaw that strikes ajay as weird, and his eyes are as unreadable as flat planes of glass. but ajay's first thought is that he's done something to provoke the bickering between sabal and amita -- talked to her for thirty seconds too long while he was restocking his gear, looked too interested when she was pitching one of her proposals. something stupid, because it always is, and maybe that's why what happens next catches him so off-guard.

i know what you've been doing. where it is that you've been going.

and before ajay even manages to ask him what the fuck that's supposed to mean, sabal uses one hand to make a messy fan of the pictures on his desk. it barely takes a glance before ajay realizes what they are -- he recognizes himself, obviously, and he's gotten familiar enough with the palace to know it's what he's seeing. but it's eerie that the pictures look like they've been taken from up close; there are shots of him doing yoga in the courtyard, talking to the staff in the kitchens, napping on one of the couches in the library. and even more damning are the pictures of he and pagan -- talking, eating together, even --

... well, fuck

you've disgraced yourself. and the anger in sabal's voice is something positively venomous, each word as sharp as broken glass. you've turned your back on your homeland. you've spit upon your father's legacy.

and dammit, ajay knows he should be doing his best at damage control here, but he can't help the awful little laugh that chokes out of him. a few weeks ago, and those words might have hit their mark -- but now? spitting on the memory of the man who whored out his mother and murdered his sister sounds like the least of everything he ought to do. having it thrown in his face is just flint to the kindling of his temper. ] Fuck him. I'm not Mohan Ghale.

[ if his goal was to keep this whole thing from going up in flames, it was the wrong thing to say.

sabal has him against the wall before ajay has the chance to react, an arm across his throat and a snarl twisting up his expression. you don't deserve to carry the name ghale. you're nothing but a common whore, spreading your legs for whatever man will have you.

he can't breathe past the arm sabal is using to pin him against the wall, and already it's making his vision start to spot and blur. sabal is strong, and the rage makes him stronger; ajay's clawing attempts to shove him off are scrabbling and useless, and pulling a gun in the middle of a golden path camp seems like a particularly stupid form of suicide. fuck, fuck, fuck --

but it isn't until sabal wedges a knee roughly between his thighs that the adrenaline in ajay's system starts to flare into a bright spear of panic, one hand rucking up the fabric of his jacket and the clothing underneath and starting to scrabble to undo the fastenings of his jeans. and sabal is practically spitting the words at him now, breath hot and wet against ajay's face. i'll burn the memory of that man from your skin. you'll beg for forgiveness for your desecration. i won't stop until you repent --

and that's when ajay drives a knee right into his stomach. the impact is enough to bend sabal double, his next breath rushing out of him in a wounded-animal sound of pain. but it's enough to drop his arm away from ajay's throat, and ajay shoves him back hard to put space between them and give himself a path to escape. sabal snarls something when ajay bolts for the door, manages to get a fistful of his sleeve, but ajay clocks him hard across the face with an elbow and sends him reeling backwards again.

it's all the opening he needs, and he explodes out of the cabin and into the night air, the door slamming against the wall like a gunshot. but he doesn't wait to see if anyone will come to investigate, if there will be anyone waiting to stop him -- he bolts into the jungle like a tiger freed from its cage, until banapur is swallowed up into the darkness behind him. until his lungs are on fire and his knees are trembling underneath him, until he's lost all sense of where he is and where he's going.

only then does he stop, barely managing to bend double before he loses his last meal all over the ground at his feet.

fuck. ]