Chapter Text
For someone who wants to be a UN peacekeeper, Hal has awful spatial awareness. He got up early, got dressed, got to the train station on time in a city he'd never been to before, just to launch his rucksack across the aisle of the train while trying to toss it up to his berth.
He sighed, so this is how his trip was going to go, by injuring one of the other hikers in his group. He ends up making things worse when in the process of trying to help the other man up he pins him to the berth like an amateur.
"Hi," he squawks, trying to collect himself and pull himself up. "I am so sorry, I don't know what happened there, I'm usually not this clumsy," He sticks his hand out, "I'm Hal, we're in the same tour group,"
The other man's grip is quite firm, "I know, I saw you at orientation yesterday," the man has a beautiful smile, slightly dorky but it suits him, "Barry," he introduces himself, eventually helping Hal hoist the rucksack onto the top berth. He looks at the rest of the sleeper cabin, "Do you think anyone else is going to sit there?"
Hal shrugged, "I honestly don't know, the guide said I was supposed to be sharing the section with a couple of guys from the same group, said his name was Rabbit or something,"
"Bunny," Barry corrected, I'm pretty sure the guy's name was Bunny. Hal waves him off, "Bunny, Rabbit, same thing, who names their child something like that,"
"My parents were going to name me Barrence," Barry mutters, "Someone convinced them to change it to Bartholomew, but I don't think that's much better,"
Hal snorts, "My parents named me Harold," he whispers conspiratorially, "But I also met a guy called Lucky and his wife Lovely this morning when I was taking the rickshaw to the station,"
"I honestly would've preferred to be called Lucky," Barry admits, "At least there'd be some good parts to the name,"
Hal has to agree, "So why're you going to Manali?" he asks, Barry doesn't particularly look like someone who'd enjoy hiking, what with the nerdy Star Trek shirt, neatly pressed khakis and oxfords.
"Already done most of the hiking trails in the US, and one of my friends said she'd done this trip as a part of her exchange program,"
Hal's ready to eat his words, "You're into like, outdoorsy things?" Barry gives him the stink eye, "what, just because I don't dress like I snort river water for breakfast I can't be good at outdoorsy stuff?"
Hal holds his hands up, "Hey now, you said it yourself. Honestly, it's a miracle you didn't get mugged on the way to the station,"
"I took an Ola," Barry finally admits, "I know, I know, authentic experience and all that jazz but I really didn't want to take the local, I don't think I'm built for it,"
Hal doesn't want to admit it, but he doesn't think he's built for the local either, he has a feeling that the moment he tries to step on the train, he'll meet a violent end on the tracks below.
"I think I'd rather leave the local to the locals," he says, stumbling forwards slightly as the train starts moving. He looks back at the bottom berth, "I don't think Bunny's showing today, want the bottom?"
"Yeah sure, I'll bottom," Hal chokes a little, staring at Barry and trying to figure out if he knows what he's just said. The deadpan stare with the little twitch of the mouth indicates that he knew exactly what he was saying. Hal rolled his eyes, "Get over here then, are you planning on putting your shoes underneath the berth?"
Barry nodded, looking at Hal suspiciously, "Yeah… why?"
Hal whistles, "Oh you do not want to do that, my friend got his sandals stolen from underneath him when he did that, there's literally only a curtain separating us from the rest of the train,"
Barry fishes a bunch of safety clips out of his pockets, "I was just going to pin the curtains to each other,"
"That's actually a really good idea," Hal finally says, "You're actually quite smart,"
Barry rolls his eyes, "I have a masters degree Harold," he snarks back, pulling the curtains closed and pinning them together.
"I mean, so do I but it doesn't mean I'm the smartest cookie in the tin," Hal somehow manages to swing himself onto the top berth, "Jeez, they couldn't have swung for a proper ladder or something?"
"This is why I booked the bottom bunk," Barry's settling in nicely to his berth, pulling the back cushion of the seat down so that it was fully in bed mode. "Good luck clambering up and down this thing for the next 27 hours," he pulls his book out and pointedly ignores Hal's complaining.
"Hey, you're the one stuck with me for the next 37 hours," Hal tried leaning over the edge of the berth, letting out a muffled oof as his stomach hit the railing. Of course, Barry's laugh is as adorable as his smile.
Hal ends up sitting on the aisle of the bus as it trundles through Himachal, swerving around corners at Mach fuck, the beautiful mountains sprawled out below them. Colourful houses dotted every single inch of the place, metal roofs drumming as the rain fell in sheets. Despite the rain, Barry had insisted on sliding the window open. Struggling with the window until Hal decided it was time to step in; despite his bluster he also spectacularly failed when he tried to slide it open.
Eventually they managed to crack it open about halfway, Barry immediately pressing his head up against the window, smiling as he heard thunder rumbling somewhere in the distance.
"I like storms, counting the time between a lightning strike and the thunder that follows," Barry sticks one finger out of the window, looking over the edge of the cliff, "I do wish they had railings though, anyway, I just think storms are majestic. All of that energy and power you know?"
Hal hums in agreement, "I think the same thing about stars, these massive celestial bodies, much bigger than we can comprehend," he looks upwards, wishing he could see through the metal roof and up into the sky. "Sometimes I wish I could be an astrophysicist, I don't think I'd be up to it though,"
Barry looks at him weirdly, "I think you'd be able to do it, you seem like the sort who has the will to get what they want in life," he shrugs, "if you put your mind to it, you can make anything you want,"
The rest of the drive is filled with idle banter, the bus snaking its way towards Manali.
Hal's slowly beginning to regret the decisions he's made today. With the exception of choosing to room with Barry for the two days in town before they began the trek, he'd made some extraordinarily bad decisions the entire day.
Which of course, led to him sprinting down a dark alleyway at 2 AM in the morning, Barry just slightly ahead of him, trying desperately to find a way back to their hotel.
Hal turned back to look at the angry mob behind the two of them, the ringleader screaming, "ोय तू गवार फ़िरंगी लुंड," Hal decided to speed the fuck up, he didn't know what they were saying, but it sounded like he was going to get beaten to a pulp. "तू भोसड़ा है क्या , इधर वापिस आ जा बहनचोद!" Yeah, he was going to get mauled to death.
"Why did you do that," Barry hisses, "Now you've got me into this bloody mess as well,"
"He was trying to fleece us!" Hal exclaimed, "What else was I supposed to do?"
"Not flippin' punch him in the face, where the hell are we supposed to go now?" he managed to clear the fence in front of them with relative ease, and Hal continues to be left puzzled by this nerd's strange amount of athleticism.
"Look, emotions were high, I wasn't fully in control of what happened back there," Hal tried to defend himself, but the mob was quickly catching up. He grabbed onto the nearest stall and flipped the table towards the rapidly approaching group. "Well, we better figure out a way to lose these chumps, or we're going to end up dead in a ditch somewhere,"
Barry looked around him, Hal ducking as he grabbed a pallet of bamboo sticks and tossed them across the path, sending them rolling down the hill before dragging Hal towards the main road. "That should keep them occupied for a bit," he mutters. "Hey, look there,"
There's a truck barreling down the road, a supply truck for the hotel they're supposed to be staying at. "We should grab onto the back of that," and before Hal can respond, he's already getting ready to jump onto the back cab of the truck.
Hal's usually the one rushing into situations, but he supposes he can't complain too much, seeing as he's the one who got them into this mess in the first place. He huffs and follows Barry, jumping into the open back of the truck and holding on for dear life. Barry seems to be having a blast, and Hal's beginning to notice that he has a habit of sticking his head out of car windows like a small, excitable puppy. Eventually he settles onto the floor of the truck, before smirking at Hal, who was still white knuckling the bars across the truck's floor. "Not a fan of high speeds?"
Hal groans, feeling a bit of his stomach starting to come back up, the Gulab Jamun's he'd had fighting to make a reappearance. "Not when I'm not the one controlling it," He lies back down on the floor, and Barry pats his thigh in reassurance, face softening a little as he takes in the sorry state Hal is in.
"Looking outside actually helps, your body doesn't like moving without having visual confirmation of it," He manages to drag Hal so that he's leaned on Barry's shoulder, a warm flush spreading across his cheeks as he realizes how close the two of them are.
Barry points at the stars, "You said you liked those, count them if it makes you feel less sick, or look down at the valley, your choice,"
Hal, as always, finds himself captivated by the stars, feeling so incredibly small against the almost inky blackness of the night sky so far up, he's a little too out of it to properly identify all of the constellations, but he's sure he can see a little bit of Orion running across the sky, bow in hand.
"It's a lot better than the Bronx," Barry says, seemingly reading Hal's mind. "It's nice actually being able to see the night sky, I love La Guardia as much as any person can, but it's nice seeing the sky like this," he goes quiet for a minute, "It feels special up here,"
Hal can't help but agree.
The two of them have to sneak off of the truck when it nears the hotel gates, the driver giving the two of them a knowing look as the two of them sheepishly jump off the back. They make quick work of getting back to the hotel room, Hal making the same joke he'd made every time they'd entered it.
"Oh no, there's only one bed, what are we to do," he swooned, falling backwards onto the bed.
"Say that one more time and I'll sleep in the shower," Barry groans, flopping down right next to him. "My feet hurt," he whines, "and we're supposed to be hiking day after tomorrow,"
"Didn't you say you liked hiking?"
"Yeah, but there's a difference between peaceful hiking and doing parkour across a street market, Harold,"
"Hey, you came along voluntarily!" Hal tries to defend himself, knowing he's fighting a losing battle here.
"You pointed at me right before you clocked that poor man in the face," Barry seems so done with Hal's antics, staring at him like he's wishing he could light Hal's hair on fire if he just glared hard enough. "I didn't do anything back there!"
"You did throw a pile of really heavy sticks at them, you've probably given some of them at least a concussion,"
Barry sighs, "You're a bad influence,"
Barry wasn't lying about being really good at all this outdoorsy shit. Even though Hal's quite literally been training for stuff like this his entire life, Barry easily outpaces him. It's a real blow to his pride when the guy he's trying to impress is staring down at him, thoroughly unimpressed as Hal scrabbles up the hill.
"At this rate, my team's going to win the race," Barry smirks, "Looks like you're going to have to set up the tents," even when Hal tries to speed up in response, he's still being left in the dust. He's going to need to do something drastic if he wants to win this contest.
He lets out a fake pained groan, falling to the ground and curling up in the foetal position, one hand wrapped around his ankle. Sure enough, Barry comes jogging back to see what happened.
Hal whimpers, putting on his best acting performance in years, "I think I've sprained my ankle," he whines, leaning on Barry and allowing him to pull him towards a nearby rock. He sat down against the rock, and as Barry checked his ankle over, he kept him extremely distracted as he surreptitiously tied his shoelaces together.
"Your ankle looks fine-" the moment the jig was up Hal got up and started booking it towards the campsite, looking back to see Barry pathetically faceplant onto the ground. He sped up before Barry could manage to untie his shoelaces. Hal Jordan was simply too pretty to be setting up tents and digging lavatory ditches.
Barry finally caught up to Hal just after he crossed the finish line, immediately tackling him to the ground. "I was a rugby centre Harold, do not fucking test me,"
Pinned underneath Barry, Hal takes the opportunity to lightly thrust his hips up, revelling in the choked little gasp and the red flush that overtakes Barry's face. He quickly stands up, brushing the dirt off of his shirt as he helps Hal up. "I was being dead serious about that,"
Hal nodded, "sure, sure, but I'm pretty certain that you have a campsite to set up, while I," he pointed to himself, "get to chill with a beer by the campfire,"
Barry rolled his eyes but eventually huffed and went to grab the tents from the all the other campers. Even though Hal meant to sit around the campfire with a beer and take a well-deserved nap, he ended up staring at Barry the entire time.
The blond was deceptively strong, far more muscled than his wiry, whippet like build suggested. Hal watched in fascination, throat drying up a little as he saw Barry lift the centre pole above his head, the long muscles of his arms stretching out above him. He was so lost in thought that he didn't notice when Barry dropped down into the chair next to him, face red and flushed, hair plastered on his forehead from sweat.
"That was exhausting," he groaned, shoulders cracking as he stretched them over his head.
"I've heard that there's a party up at the other campground," Hal leans forward, "bunch of German college students, alcohol and some hot women, or men if that's your preference,"
Barry hummed, "Prefer both, are you going to be headed there?"
Hal nodded, hoping that Barry would jump at the chance to come along with him, face falling as Barry winced. "I wanted to take the time to study for my licensing exam," he muttered.
Hal groaned, "we're in Manali," he exclaims, "how many more times are we going to be this young?" He grabs Barry's hand and drags him into a fireman's carry, happily walking over to the party.
Barry reluctantly agreed to come along, walking besides Hal as the two of them approached the campfire, immediately having beers thrust into their hands. Hal watched as Barry took a sip, throat bobbing as he swallowed.
Barry grimaced, "Not what I prefer, but alcohol's alcohol I guess?" After taking another sip, Hal definitely had to agree.
The party ended up being more of a drinking around the fire session, Hal and Barry ending up slumped over next to one of the benches staring up at the stars.
"I think you can see Ursa Major," Hal tried pointing upwards at the stars, hand flailing out of control and thwacking against Barry's head.
"I'm going to Ursa your major," Barry mumbled, half asleep on the grass, face smooshed into the dirt.
"S'that doesn't make any sense,"
"You don't make any sense," Barry tried reaching over to swat Hal, retching violently into the grass when the motion caught up to him.
The next morning, the two of them were sporting matching sunglasses and grass stains on their clothes as they packed up the tents.
"So, you still planning on Ursaing my Major?" Hal teases Barry, watching to see what the reaction would be.
"Maybe if you behave," Barry smirked and Hal almost choked on his own saliva. Well, the response was better than he thought.