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“You’re a hard man to kill brother,” Sabal commented, helping dig him out of the snow.
“That’s a good thing, right?”
Sabal chuckled, grabbing his arm and giving a tug. Falling back onto the snow, Sabal grinned at him, propped up on an elbow. Ajay couldn’t help but laugh. What he had just been through was insane- escaping from the compound, running from assholes with guns, and just then being buried by an avalanche, all within an hour. Relief flooded him, making the laughter all the louder.
“Fuck me,” Ajay sighed, falling onto his back. “What the hell man?”
It was rhetorical but Sabal answered anyway, “We’ll bring you somewhere safe.”
Ajay rolled his head to the side to gaze at Sabal. The man was gorgeous; scruff highlighting a strong jawline, ebony hair pulled back in a mess of a ponytail, pieces falling in eyes that were practically golden. They were alight with amusement of their own, with a hint of fire that caused Ajay’s heart to skip a beat.
As he went to reply, he noticed the blood staining the man’s right shoulder. “You’re hurt.” He sat up quickly, laying a hand on Sabal’s arm. Then he remembered their dash from the compound. At the time it hadn’t registered but Ajay recalled Sabal being shot. Not only that but he’d simply switched hands and kept on firing, yelling at Ajay to run while he and the others continued to cover him.
“It’s nothing,” Sabal tried to insist.
“Bullshit.” Ajay looked around, finding the bell tower wasn’t buried in snow at least. Other Golden Path fighters were already gathering up the gear that remained. “Hey!” he called to one of the men nearby, “There any medical supplies in there?”
“I already dug the bullet out and put a bandage on it,” Sabal argued.
Ajay’s eyes widened. “You what?” Sabal didn’t have the opportunity to answer. “Oh hell no. Get your jacket off. It needs cleaned at least. It’ll get infected otherwise. And I’m going to take a wild guess you guys can’t just show up at the local hospital.” Sabal’s mouth clicked shut. “That’s what I thought.”
“Here you go Ajay,” one of the women offered.
“Thanks.” He opened the small kit. It wasn’t exactly the best but he figured it was enough to make due until they got to… wherever the hell it was they were going. “Jacket off,” Ajay ordered, noting Sabal’s deep frown and ignoring the man’s grumbling as he did so.
Ajay was glad he insisted when he saw the “bandage” tied around Sabal’s shoulder was soaked through with blood. It was nothing more than a torn off piece of cloth. “You are ridiculous,” Ajay muttered.
Most of his personal effects had been in the bus when it was attacked, including his pocket knife. The larger kukri he pilfered from the corpse of his getaway driver would have to do. “Hold still,” he warned, being careful as he cut the fabric away. “Damn.”
“It’s not that bad.”
Ajay cuffed the man in the back of the head. “Not that bad?! I hope someone around here knows how to do stitches, ‘cause I sure as hell don’t.” Sabal looked stunned. “That was reckless. You could have gotten yourself killed.” Sighing, Ajay inquired, “Water?”
Sabal blinked away his surprise, passing over a small flask.
Ajay tipped it into the wound, trying to flush it. “What the hell were you thinking? Taking it out like that. You could have bled to death.”
“I’m fine,” Sabal defended stubbornly.
Ajay scoffed. “By pure dumb luck it would seem.” Grabbing the antiseptic ointment, Ajay carefully put some around the jagged edges of the wound, afraid to put any inside. He wasn’t sure what was better for such a wound but he figured dirty fingers poking and prodding wasn’t the best idea.
He grabbed a gauze pad and a roll of bandages next. Deciding against attempting to stitch it himself, Ajay figured it was best to leave it open until a real doctor could see Sabal- they did have some sort of doctor they could see, right?
As he pressed the gauze over the wound, he noticed Sabal was looking at him thoughtfully. “You want to say something,” Ajay noted, “so what is it?”
“You are…” Sabal’s brows furrowed. “I want to say insolent.” Ajay snorted in amusement. Sabal smirked a bit at that. “But I think ‘brazen’ is the word I’m looking for. ‘Forceful,’ perhaps.”
“I won’t pretend I haven’t heard that before.” Ajay started to wrap Sabal’s shoulder. “Should hurry and get this wrapped,” he noted Sabal’s shivering, “Get you back into your jacket.”
Sabal remained silent, even allowing Ajay’s help at getting his jacket back on. He put his hand on Ajay’s then where it rested on his arm. “Thank you,” he said sincerely.
Ajay smiled softly back. “Yeah, no problem.” Trying to brush it off, he added, “Least I could do. You kindda saved my ass back there.”
“No one should be left to Pagan’s mercy. Least of all the son of Mohan.”
It was Ajay’s turn to look thoughtful. “You… you knew my father?”
“I did. He was a great man. He and your mother started the Golden Path.”
“Wow, I never… Mom never said much about Kyrat. Even less about my father.” In a moment of panic, Ajay reached around to confirm his backpack was still there, sighing in relief as his fingers brushed it.
There was a change of clothes, a few books, and snacks inside, but the important part was the urn holding his mother’s ashes. “My mom, she…” Ajay took his pack off, opening it to show Sabal the urn. “She wanted me to bring her home,” he informed the other man. “Told me to take her to Lakshmana.” He shook his head. “I don’t even have a clue where that is.”
Sabal appeared sympathetic. “I can’t say for certain myself. It sounds like a shrine or temple, but if that’s the case then it’s in the north.” He shook his head, using only his left arm when he stood. “We can’t get there. Not yet. Pagan’s closed that area to us and getting through…”
Ajay hung his head. “Oh.” He didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t expected to be dropped in the middle of a damn civil war. Without any way to fulfill his mother’s wish, what was he to do? Going home seemed like the smart option given what had just happened to him, but he felt ashamed for even thinking it.
He zipped up the bag, putting it back on before standing as well. His jeans were soaked through and the cold air chilled him to the bone. The ache in his chest that longed for home seemed to grow. “What the hell do I do now?”
“You come back with us to Banapur,” Sabal replied simply. “We’ll get you rest and some food-”
“And a doctor for you,” Ajay injected meaningfully.
“A doctor for me,” Sabal begrudgingly agreed before finishing his earlier thought, “And we’ll talk about what comes next afterward, yes?”
Ajay took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah... yeah, alright.” There wasn’t much else to do at the moment. Maybe once he calmed down he could manage to think straight.
An arm was slung over his shoulder, startling him. He looked over to find Sabal was right there , gazing at him with that same spark in his eyes, almost soft. Sabal’s smile was equally gentle. “I know it’s not what you expected brother, but I’m rather glad that you came home to Kyrat. Something tells me it was the will of Kyra.”
“Fate?” Ajay shrugged. “I dunno that I believe in that.”
“You will,” Sabal insisted. “You’ll see.”
Something in the way he said it made Ajay want to believe.
/End