Chapter Text
"Breathe," Darpan says, "I'll do the talking."
Ajay grunts at he falls from his seat on to the floor of the bus. God why? why was this happening? Now of all times. He was so close and now he was either going to die here or be imprisoned. He didn't know what anyone was saying. He remembers his mother speaking to him in Nepali but that was all. Just a select few phrases.
Darpan pulls him out of his little trance of fear and pushes him to exit the bus through the back. He quickly opens the emergency door and they both topple out onto the cold, wet and painfully solid ground. Ajay is still panicking. He doesn't know what's going on. Then there's the loud whir of helicopter blades too close to him. Maybe ten--no, fifteen feet away?
A man quickly comes in front of him, a soldier. He points the gun in Ajay's face and yells for him to put his hands up. Ajay does so, hoping to what ever deity there was that he wouldn't be shot. Another man limps. He's probably the one in charge. He'd been shot. He quickly taps the man holding the machine gun in Ajay's face and the soldier lowers it, quickly looking to the helicopter. Ajay does the same.
The door slides open and a man in very fancy clothes jumps out onto the ground. He was dressed too nicely to be a soldier of one of the commanding officers. Ajay refrained from judging the character too closely, his mind was racing enough as it is.
The man adjusts his jacket and walks to the injured soldier who was holding his shoulder to stop the bleeding. He walks close, gesturing to the bus as he did so.
"I distinctly remember saying stop the bus." He says with a disappointed frown. "Yes. Stop the bus. Not shoot the bus." The soldier visibly tenses and moves to try and put a small distance between him and the blond haired man.
"I'm very particular with my words." His voice raises in pitch slightly, "Stop. Shoot. Stop. Shoot." He presses his palms together and still makes small steps to keep within arms reach of the soldier. "Do those words sound the same?"
"But it got out of control...." The solder says quickly and quickly, keeping his face turned away from the older man. Ajay could see the fear in this poor man's eyes.
The blond places his hand on the man's injured shoulder and squeezes. "I'm sorry I didn't hear you. What did you say?" He asks, his voice low and dark as he reached for something within his jacket.
"It got out of control." The soldier repeats, visibly flinching.
"It got out of control." The well dressed man mimics and pulls a silver and gold pen from his jacket. "I hate when things get out of control." The older man says and before Ajay can blink the soldier is on the ground with the man repeatedly stabbing him in the neck. "You had onne fucking job and you couldn't fucking do that!" The man yells as the man continues to struggle for a couple more stabs before falling limp. Dead.
The blond falls to sit on the dirty wet ground with a sigh. He grits his teeth, "And I got blood on my fucking shoes." The man hisses. He looks up and his eyes widen when they meet Ajay's. Ajay can see the recognition in the man's eyes though he's never met this man in his life. He waves his hand with a hint of a smile on his face and turns to the now dead soldier. "At least there's a silver lining. You didn't completely fuck it up." he sighs, obviously a bit out of breath. He moves to get up and tells Ajay to do the same, taking Ajay by the arms as if to lead him up. "I'd recognize those eyes anywhere..." The man says with a smile. He hugs Ajay lightly. Ajay tenses, he doesn't hug the man back. He must have the wrong guy. Ajay thinks.
"I'm so sorry about this. This was supposed to be... Well not this." His voice lowers again as he gestures to the soldiers and dead occupants of the bus. "We have a party waiting for you," He grins at Ajay then turns to Darpan who is still on the ground with his hands behind his head, "but I don't think I know your name."
"Who is this? Hm? Is this your +1?" The man asks, squatting to look closer at Darpan. "Strong silent type. I like it." He grins and takes Ajay's shoulder again, going so far as to wrap an arm around him. Ajay does nothing. "I am terribly embarrassed about all this. This was supposed to be very simple, but you know..." He sighs again and gestures to his men and the whole situation, "if you give food to monkey they just throw their shit at each other." His tone turns to an exhausted growl for a moment.
"Oh! Would you hold this?" He hand the blood stained pen to Ajay. He holds it, his muscles really refused to do much else. The blond man took his phone from his pocket and held it out in front of the two. "Just a moment... I want to get a little... picture." he says with the same large grin he had been holding. Right into the camera," He says and the phone clicks, "awesome." Ajay can see out of the corner of his eye that the soldiers were lighting fire to the bus.
"Don't worry about a thing, my boy!" The man says and lightly squeezes Ajay's side before releasing him. "This will soon be behind us and we'll be off on our grand adventure." he takes a few steps away from Ajay. "Because I have cleared my calender for you!" he says over the whirring of helicopter blades. His voice raises pitch and laughs, "You and I are gonna tear shit up!!" He says. Overly pleased. He's got the wrong guy. He has to have the wrong guy... Ajay thinks in a panic before a black bag is put over his head and his hands are tied.
Ajay had had the bag on for far too long. He really needed air. His face was hot and his wrists hurt from the ropes. He didn't know where he was. He just knew he was sitting.
He could hear the blond man talking to someone. His brain wouldn't quite process english though. He was still in a full panic mode though he tried his best not to show it.
"Well go on. Take the bloody bag off his head!" The blond commands and so it was. The light blinded Ajay for a moment and he blinked a few times before he could finally see clearly. And god was the bright pink suit blinding as well. "Again, terribly dorry for what happened before. This, is more what I had in mind." The older man says with a pleased smile.
Ajay would rather not look at the table but it was kind of hard to miss the 'decorations'.
"So! Fresh start. Introductions. Ajay Ghale, our guest of honor; Paul, our very gracious host." The other man to the right of his nods a greeting and Ajay looks to Darpan as the older man in the pink suit does. "The little monkeys, whose name I still don't know. And I, of course, am Pagan Min." He says as if Ajay is supposed to know who he is.
Pagan pauses. "You really don't remember me, do you? Your mother, she never spoke of me, never mentioned me?" he asks, twiddling his thumbs. "Oh, we'll change all that." the man hums and looks to Paul. "Paul, I need cash."
"Uh, how much do you need?" The man to Ajay's right asks and pulls his wallet out.
"All of it." Pagan snatches the money from Paul's wallet. "Thank you. Here we are. Ah." Pagan lifts one of the papers, "Hm?" he tosses it aside. "All right, how about this, with the smile?" he smiles as does the face on the dollar, he drops it as well. He then hold the dollar a bit closer with a grim frown, displeased that Ajay did not recognize him.
"That's you." Ajay says as a conformation, though he really doesn't know who this man is. Only his position. Ajay's mother knew him but he wasn't quite sure how.
"That's me." The man smiles once again and drops the dollar aside. "Although I'm not so sure anymore." He adds quietly.
Ajay looks to Darpan, worried.
Pagan picks up Ajay's mother's ashes. The young man moves to take them back, a twinge of anger rising in the pit of his stomach. Paul moves to sit him back down. Ajay does so. He'd rather not be shot today if he could avoid it.
"No your mother, your mother on the other hand," Pagan hums as he takes the lid from the urn off. What the fuck? "She understood me." No one would understand you, you well dressed psycho. "She knew me in a way no one ever did."
Pagan ran a finger around the rim of the metal container then licked it. Ajau felt sick to his stomach. He really just stopped listening until the man put the damn urn down.
"So, when your mother decided to flee to the United States with you on her hip, I couldn't help but blame myself." Pagan picks up a fork and gets up from his seat, walking to the left and around Darpan. He stops behind the old man and placed his hands on the man's shoulders. "Then I realized, it's not me. No." His tone drips like acid as he hisses, "It was the fucking Golden Path!" He pushes the old man down on the table and rams the pointed end of the fork through Darpan's left shoulder. Ajay flinches and shifts back in his seat. Pagan gets too close. "Those fucking terrorists, they ruin everything." He hisses. "Like dinner! Did no one ever teach you that it's rude to text at the table." Pagan raises his voice and looks to Darpan with a frown.
"Lets see here. Give me the phone!" He swats Darpan's hand and twists the fork. He takes the phone, "Really guys? We're not checking for these anymore?" He says in a bored tone before looking at the phone. "Ah. "I'm with Ajay Ghale" You'll love this part. "Help" A text, for help?" He looks down at Darpan in distaste. "You don't text for help, you cry for help. So come on, you're going to cry for help." Pagan says and gets Darpan up out of his seat just by twisting the fork. Ajay might have been a little impressed in the back of his head but right now he was terrified. "You're going to do something, you're going to do it right. Here we go!" He leads Darpan to the railing of the outlook.
"Go on... cry for help." Darpan doesn't say a word, Pagan twists the fork. "Cry for help." he demands.
"H-help...." Darpan whimpers.
"Aw, pathetic. No. Cry for help." Ajay can hear the frustration in Pagan's voice.
"Help." Darpan says a bit louder.
"Like you mean it, boy!" Pagan growls.
"HELP." Darpan cries.
Pagan mocks him, "Help! From you diaphragm! HELP!" He yells with him. Or more like at him. Then he silences Darpan. "Shh, shh, shh. Now we listen... nothing. I'm afraid they're not coming for you buddy." Pagan hums then lets out a small chuckle before pulling the fork from Darpan's back. Darpan lets out a sound of pain. "Find out what he know." Pagan sighs and throws the fork down as Darpan is dragged away by soldiers under Paul's command. "Terrorists, right? Now, please, stay right here. Enjoy the Crab Rangoon." Pagan says as he pics up Darpan's phone, "Don't move. I will be right back." Fuck no. If you're not back in fucking ten minutes I am leaving this shit hole. Ajay fears the worst if he stays any longer. This was a fight or flight moment though his brain was telling him to do both. Pagan walks out talking to someone called 'Yuma'.
Ajay stands up from his chair when he know's pagan is gone and picks up his mother's urn. He closes it and leaves his seat but his legs refuse to carry him very far. He only walks the room. Ten minutes and Ten minutes only. Ajay promises himself as he paces the room.
And on the verge of Ajay leaving. Pagan returns, looking a bit exhausted and a bit less blinding without that bright pink coat he wore.
"Oh! Fan-bloody-tastic." Pagan says with a smile. "You sir, are a gentleman. I sincerely apologize." Pagan sighs, "We saw terrorists in the area, and yada yada." He sighs as if he'd gone through such things like this a number of times. "The crab rangoon, right? It's--" Pagan is cut off by a scream. Ajay'd rather not think on who is belongs to. "--fabulous. Mm!" Pagan continues as if he heard nothing. Well, come on, let's go!" He grins and waves for Ajay to follow. And Ajay does.
"You know... part of me is surprised your mother asked for you to bring her all the way back here." Pagan says though he's obviously still happy.
"You want me to follow you?" Ajay asks, cynical as to what this man's intentions were.
"Jesus Christ." Pagan huffs. "Yes boy, those ashes aren't going to scatter themselves." Ajay gets out of the helicopter, cautious as ever and follows Pagan.
"Did your mother ever tell you about your father?" Pagan asks and looks back at Ajay. The young man shakes his head. "No. Never."
"Ah. Mohan... the great protector of the Golden Path. Hmph." Pagan rolls his eyes, "He was a cunt." Ajay stifles the small laugh that he might have made at the sudden comment. He was still cautious though he wasn't too scared anymore. "He whored your mother out, sent her to spy on me. But we fell in love, we had a child and that is when Mohan showed his true colors. Hmph. He drove you and your mother away, even killed your sister, Lakshmana." Pagan says this as if it was nothing that effected him. "Which brings us here." He hums as he leads Ajay to a very small shack. He then turns to Ajay with a soft smile. "Lakshmana shouldn't be alone anymore. I'm so glad we're finally back together." he sighs. "After you."
Ajay walks in and Pagan shuts the door behind him softly. He slowly walks up to the alter and places his mother with his half-sister. He looks around for a few minutes then leaves the shack.
Pagan is waiting by the helicopter. "Oh good. Do you feel better now? Get it out of your system? Good. And we can finally shoot some goddamn guns." Pagan huffs as they both climb into the helicopter.
The king lives.