Fic: To See The World in a Grain of Sand (Part 4)
Fic title: To See the World in a Grain of Sand
Author name: belledewinter
Artist name: beelikej
Genre: AU RPS Slash
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: R
Word count: Around 45.000
Fic Warnings: AU.
Summary: Steampunk AU. Heartbroken and eager to prove himself, Jensen Ackles makes a bet: that he will be able to go around the world in 80 days, no matter what obstacles one could find along the way.
With the aid of a man with many hidden talents who now acts as his valet and a young engineer with a dubious heritage and a disarming smile, Jensen embarks on the journey of a lifetime, not knowing that danger is always just one step behind him. Will he make it home in time?
Link to fic: Here.
Link to art: Here.
The morning after, they wake almost more tired than they had been when they went to bed, but the train is waiting for them, and with their little luggage they make their way back to the small, dirty station.
It’s not a modern train, Jensen thinks, by any means. In London they would probably be ashamed to travel on something like this, and if it’s as slow and dirty as it looks, Jensen has his doubts that they will even make it out of the station at all, and maybe not even in one piece.
“It’s a lovely way to travel, isn’t it?” Misha says, looking at the rusty rails the train is on.
“Collins,” Jensen warns, “If this is something your eternal bravery is not ready for, I think you should by all means be able to go back home.” Of course, to get rid of Misha one would need something much stronger, and the valet does not move an inch.
It doesn’t mean the man’s not sassy. “Sir,” he says, but from his lips the title is little more than an insult, “I’m sure if I were to leave now, I would reach the comfort of my home sooner than you would reach Calcutta.”
“Calcutta is a couple of days away, Misha,” Jared says with a small smile, as if he had to defend that poor train just because he may not be as bad as it looks. It’s an endearing gesture, but Jensen doesn’t quite trust his judgment. He isn’t really sure Jared trusts it himself.
“Not on this train, Jared,” Misha bites. “But we may be surprised yet.”
“And also,” Jared says, as an afterthought, “it’s the ONLY train in town.”
Jensen snorts. “It’s settled, then. For now, we shall have to do with this… lovely way to travel. All aboard. Please don’t leave anything around - I would hate to have to come back for something.”
Jared has a second to think that he could leave just about anything in Bombay and it would be all the same, but leaving something in the train is not a thought that would inspire him the confidence to get it back anytime while he’s still alive.
Jensen checks his pocket watch and seems, for the moment, satisfied.
They climb aboard, and don’t look back.
The wagon they ride in is by no means new or particularly comfortable, but Jensen has to give them that it’s at least spacious. He looks out the window as the train takes off, takes in the sight of people working and after a while, of the jungle-like countryside they ride through. Misha sits beside him with a glass of lime juice their hosts have provided, and thankfully refrains from commenting every time the train makes a screech (probably to save himself the trouble - Jensen doesn’t think the train ever actually stops screeching).
“It’s not that bad, is it?” Jared and Jensen can feel his eyes on his face for as long as he’s staring at the view of the window. “Considering how we actually got to Bombay, this seems rather peaceful.”
“I think you’re speaking too soon,” Misha chastises. “We’ve only been here for a few hours, Jared. By the time you’ve sat here for three days, you will be sore, cranky and more than willing to get out.”
Jensen looks at the two of them just in time to see Jared frown at Misha. “I’m not cranky.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Misha says, almost automatically, but doesn’t sound sorry in the slightest. “It must be the young master here, then, who will be more willing to kiss the ground of Calcutta, if we ever get there alive.”
Jensen wants to laugh, but he straightens his back instead and does his best to look stern. “You seem awfully sure that I require your company to survive.”
“I have the security that you wouldn’t fire me if you found yourself in the middle of nowhere.” Misha shoots back, and after a pause, carefully adds. “Sir.”
Jensen figures that for now that’s true enough.
Jared likes trains.
Not as much as he likes mechas and not as much as he’d like walking free, for certain, but the sounds of the machinery moving would put him to sleep all the same. It’s familiar, it’s home. And even if he is not used to this and has never been able to fix a train before, he’s sure that if the train were about to explode, he’d find a way to safety. (Misha has at this point convinced him that they are a few hours away from being blown up. Jared has checked every door on the way to the restaurant wagon, and he’s sure they’d find a safe getaway.)
He walks the corridor a couple of times to stretch his legs and finds himself alone in one of them, staring out a small window at the landscape outside. Everything his eyes can see is endless black. No lights, no people, just the sounds the train makes as it passes through the night. He imagines they must look like a beacon, with so many lights turned on even this late, a fiery snake crossing the jungle at an alarming speed.
Jared recognizes the footsteps that sound behind him, doesn’t even have to turn to know who is standing beside him, seeing what he sees through the small window.
“Can’t sleep?” He asks Jensen, and for a moment Jared can make out a smile in Jensen’s reflection in the darkened glass.
“I’ve been sitting in here for hours. I’m anything but tired, and with nothing to do…”
“I thought you would appreciate the peace,” Jared says, and turns to look at his friend. “It seems that we either have days where we might as well be asleep, or everything falls on us all at once and we have to rush to our next destination like there was no tomorrow.”
Jensen laughs, and it’s a clear, pleasant noise. “You know, when I made the bet back in London, I said I would be able to go around the world taking into consideration all possible delays.”
“Well, wasn’t that brave of you?” Jared asks, and Jensen can’t but nod.
“Don’t tell Misha I said this, but when I first saw this train my heart stopped.”
Jared lets out a laugh, shakes his head and gestures at the machinery around them like it’s something spectacular. “Must be true love.”
Jensen falls very quiet for a second, then smiles. “Yes. That must be it.”
Jared feels like he’s been punched in the gut, but strangely, in a good way.
He falls asleep lulled by the rumble of the machines, thinking of green.
Color is always more vivid when Jared dreams.
He can never pinpoint the exact shade of blue in the sky when he wakes up, the chiaroscuro shades of the jungle as they cross by, the coal black of the train and the flames he imagines from within its windows. For a second he imagines that his mother is on the train with them, figures that he goes with her to every place, carrying her like a scar over his heart.
He doesn’t hear her over the rumble of the engine, but he knows - like only he could know in dreams - everything she means.
You have to get out of this train.
When Jared wakes, there’s very little he remembers other than the feeling that he’s not where he’s supposed to be. That he has to run. The train seems to become smaller every second, trapping him inside like a burning, moving, iron coffin.
It’s only three days, he thinks. Three days in a train compared to days on a steamboat are very little, and there’s no sense of being lost at sea. He spends most of the morning outside of their cabin as Jens reads through his maps and Misha disappears off to socialize with the rest of the travelers at the restaurant. Jared figures that it’s as good a way to kill the time as any other, but when Misha calls him over to introduce him to his new friend, he’s barely able to respond. It’s like he’s waiting for something that he knows is bound to come.
He can feel Jensen’s eyes on him all through their lunch together, knows perfectly well every time he looks at his friends that they want to ask him, but he cannot quite say the reason for his trouble. Jared figures he must be imagining things, that travelling so far really has taken its toil.
On their way back to the cabin, Misha accidentally bumps against a tall, dark Hindi man, and Misha promptly says his apologies in his language. The man lifts his head offended at the gesture, scowls something that Jared can’t quite hear, and looks straight at Jared over Misha’s head.
It’s then that Jared sees him.
For a second it’s like his whole life is spinning out of control. He remembers that face all too well, the dark set of his eyes, the easy way his smile twisted into something nobody would call friendly at all. He has not seen his uncle in years, but he knows that there must be something on his face that gives him away right at that very second, and he feels like prey.
His uncle looks at him for way too long, and Jared hides his face behind his hair and walks with his friends back to the cabin in utter silence. Misha closes the door complaining about people nowadays and their lack of politeness, but Jared can’t quite hear a word he says.
He has to get Jensen out of here.
“Jared? Jared, are you listening to me?” Misha prompts, and Jared turns to him like it was the first time he ever saw him.
“There’s something I have to tell you, that man-“
It’s then that the train makes a sudden screech and suddenly comes to a halt, leaving Misha to cling onto the walls and Jared to knock against a seat and land on the floor. Jensen, as every Lord should do, has barely moved an inch, though he does look considerably more annoyed. He checks his watch like he does all the time.
“Now, this is inconvenient.”
“Jensen, wait!” Jared starts, but their employer is already out the door.
Jared and Misha barely have the time to follow him to the machinist’s cabin, hoping that Jensen will not chew someone out just because they made a small mistake. Jared makes himself think of trains and that deep down they are very simple machines, maybe something he could fix within the hour. Surely a train in India would not be the worst thing they can encounter, especially considering the problem they may be about to face.
It’s Misha who drops the bomb, though.
“Sir,” he says, and Jensen turns as if he were a cobra.
“Yes?”
“I’m afraid finding the machinist will not really be the end to our problems.”
“How come?”
“Because there are no rails.”
Within the second, all three of them have struck their heads out through a window. It’s true. Not that they doubted Misha’s word before, but it’s not the same to hear it as a concept as seeing how, from a second to another, the carefully crafted rails line on the floor just vanishes off into a dense forest that Jensen had never seen before. It’s breathtaking. Or it would be, if Jensen was not saving all his breath to really give someone a piece of his mind.
Of course, losing his temper in another country and for a reason they may all very well know nothing of is not polite and proper for a gentleman of his stature. The passengers are starting to get off the train, many of them confused, others resigned to the fact that this is how things happen sometimes and that in time they will return home or reach their destiny.
Time. That’s just what Jensen doesn’t have.
In the distance there is a man who seems to be walking among elephants. Not the kind of animal they would bring to a Londonian circus. No, true elephants, no genetically modified creatures to make them appear more spectacular, no messages written on their grey skin or any kind of decoration that would make them palatable for the British audience.
“Is he selling those elephants?” He asks, and leaves Misha and Jared to stare after him. None of them is fast enough to respond, but the two of them are ready to get back to their journey, judging from the speed that they reach Jensen on the street at.
“You cannot be serious,” Misha is starting to say. “Most people cannot ride a horse, how on Earth are you meant to ride an elephant?”
“I can ride a horse,” Jensen answer flippantly, “And you can be sure that if a noble steed has not thrown me off yet, one of these creatures will be much more cunning.”
“The poor animals,” Jensen hears Jared say, but he cannot see - other than the captivity, he figures - why Jared would say that. Compared to those that visit London, these animals who live at their home with their skin unmarked and without having to worry about a performance are perfectly alright.
“How much for the animals?” Jensen asks, and before Misha can protest, Jared is already trying to remember the words to say that so that the vendor can name his price. Jensen seems absolutely nonplussed about the reply, even though in sterling pounds it’s more money than Jared has probably made in his life.
“Not so fast,” calls out a voice behind them. Jared turns just in time to face his uncle. He watches all three of them with open disgust. For being foreigners, for being on the wealthy side of the train. Or simply because they are with Jared - and Jared doesn’t for a second think that it could very well not be the case.
“It’s been a very long time, has it, nephew?”
Jared remembers the last time he saw this man, how he was trying to drag his mother to a pyre. He can still remember how she struggled and how he was dragged away. He never saw how she made it to the docks, but he figures she was lucky enough to be in a struggle and win. Her own brother would have let her die, dragged off with her cremated husband, because she fell in love with a foreigner and had his child, instead.
Jared already hated that thought before, that he could have lost her that day for a barbaric tradition, but now face to face with the man who would have carried out the sentence like she was little more than a piece of meat, Jared’s mind is reeling, trying to find a way to knock the man out and not see him for another second.
“This is your uncle?” Misha asks, and from the look on his face Jared knows that Misha understands better than to take it as a good thing.
“What is happening here?” Jensen starts to ask, but Misha does not say anything even though he knows Jared’s whole life. Whatever the reason for this question, though, the answer is not something Jensen is going to wait for. At not getting his reply, he walks past Jared’s uncle with the utmost security, feeling safe in his money and nationality, and for that Jared is pretty jealous. “If there is a problem, you may have to talk it out with me - this man is mine, at least until the contract is up. Now, what is the issue you have with my man?”
He says it in such a simple way that it cannot mean anything other than exactly what Jensen is saying - that they cannot take him because as long as he’s of service to him, he has to stay, and that’s a law that pretty much applies everywhere they go.
Not quite for this man.
“My issue is your man itself.” The man says. “If you don’t mind, I’ll handle my justice.”
Jensen snaps, “Of course I do mind.”
His uncle takes a step towards Jensen, threatening and fierce, and to Jared’s surprise, Jensen doesn’t move an inch. And that’s when the brawl starts. With elephants three feet away and as they move away from a wasted train, but as soon as his uncle lands a blow to Jensen’s face, Misha is on him like a tiger.
It would have been too simple if Jared had encountered his uncle alone, of course, and it takes merely a few seconds before a few more men come to his uncle’s aid. They speak so fast and with such rage that Jared can barely make out the words they say in hindi, something about fire and finishing what they started, putting the boy back in his place.
He does not quite dare to say it, that they want to burn him alive.
He merely has seconds to think of his possible fate before they all start to fight, with Misha separated from the two of them handling more men than Jared and Jensen put together, fighting back to back.
“Have you ever been in a fight?” Jared asks Jensen, eyes darting from one opponent to the other as they advance on them, the two of them watching in slight bewilderment as Misha dispatches a man much taller than he is with practiced ease like it’s as easy as breathing.
“Not in as many as he’s been in, that’s for sure,” Jensen replies, for once losing his elegant calm and staring open-mouthed at the display.
Jared doesn’t know if he should feel really glad that at least Misha will make it out alive of this or to be terribly ashamed that he’s never been much good in a brawl even though he’s always had the advantage of height over most people he knew. He looks at Jensen, squaring himself for a blow that’s sure to come again, and thinks, I would do it again.
“You did not answer my question.”
Jensen seems to think hard for a second. “In none, actually.”
Jared gets hit before he can actually laugh. After that it becomes a kind of blur where Jared does his best to, mostly, stay alive, and whatever he has not quite learned out in the streets, he’ll learn right now. After he’s managed to properly knock a man to the ground it seems to become easier. His head hurts, and his arm.
Well, Jared thinks, it’s not a bad life.
Jensen thinks he’s been hit more times in the last thirty seconds than he’s ever been in the rest of his life put together. He figures that it’s not unusual for someone of his rank to have this never happen to them in their lives unless they have an inclination for drinking or another unsightly habit, but all the same, this is one new experience that he really could have done without.
In his head, the clock ticks along with the throb in his head. One by one, his opponents are taken down, but, much to his dismay, not by his own hand. He has no dreams of being a champion at this, even though he’s almost surprised to discover that, other than a couple of bruises, he doubts there will be much left from this fight. Once with nobody to fight in front of him, he watches as Misha finishes off the last opponent standing, knocking him out cold. A closer inspection assures Jensen that they are still all breathing.
“Will that be all, sir?” Misha asks beside him, in a tone that’s not even out of breath. Jensen has a second to stare at his valet like he’d grown another head, and very pointedly thinks that once they get back to London, he should raise his salary.
“For now I think you’ve done enough work, Mr. Collins, thank you.”
The smile Misha gives him is so sassy that Jensen thinks of taking it back.
He turns to check his watch, and it’s been a mere few minutes that they have lost, but all time is valuable when you have to make it to Calcutta in record time. He looks over to Jared and sends him a smile, slightly amused despite himself that Jared, so tall and strong, is rather out of breath at the whole experience, even though it seems that he cannot have fought more than two men, and possibly not too competently without Misha’s help.
Jared brings a hand up to his face worriedly, and Jensen wonders if tomorrow it will be bruised black and blue. He pushes down the pang of worry and nods as a kind of salute, and calculates in his head the fare he’d have to pay for the elephants as he does his best to ignore the close-by crowd standing by the train, some of them having turned to watch them, most of them too worried with their own matters that they have not even bothered.
“Right, let’s not waste another minute,” Jensen tells Misha, and starts moving towards the man with the elephants.
He’s too slow to stop the man who rushes beside him towards Jared, and by the time he turns to look, he’s already late.
But Misha isn’t.
He takes after the man and manages to move him away from Jared just barely, just enough, and for a second it seems like he’s pulled the man off Jared just in time to keep him from harm. It’s once the man is on the floor that Jensen sees the bloodstained knife, and a second later, the warm, red stain that spreads over Jared’s shirt.
Jensen’s heart stops its clockwork pace and he’s left out of breath as he sees Jared slouch forward in pain. “Oh, God.” In a second both Jensen and Misha are at Jared’s side, Jensen trying to hold him up as Misha looks at the wound. The men around them are stirring again, and Jensen has just a few seconds to panic. He does not intend to waste more than that.
“Misha, we have to get out of here.”
It’s Misha who takes control after that, and Jensen remembers very little other than the small, pitiful sounds Jared makes as they walk together towards the elephants, the sight of his hand over his wound, bloodstained. With careful hands he does his best to hold him up, not touching the wound, thinking to himself that if Misha can truly get them out of this one, he is truly much more than a valet has ever been in the history of anything. The thought of Jared dying on this trip had never once crossed his mind, or the fact that his life or Misha’s could ever be in danger. London had seemed so vast and wild back them, but now every problem Jensen had thought he had with the social status seems to pale when placed against Jared’s blood.
“You can’t leave me, Jared.” He says, and Jared looks up at him hopefully, his eyes full of pain and yet, somehow, relief.
“This was my fault, you shouldn’t have brought me. This is-“
Jensen feels like he’s tripping over his own words. “No, Jared, that’s not-“
“Sir?” Misha calls, and Jensen looks at him enough to see him gesture to the elephants. “They say if you agree to their price, you can have the animals.” Misha goes over to Jensen and takes over in the task of holding Jared up. Jensen finds himself agreeing blindly to anything Misha would suggest, and even while he’s paying, all he’s looking at is the sight of Misha making a bandage with a part of his shirt and wrapping it around Jared’s side.
“How far until Calcutta?” Jensen asks the sellers, and they hold up four fingers, understanding from the city that’s where he intends to go. Jensen doesn’t want to think of what can happen four days on the road with a wounded man, all the complications that could rise, even if he was strong enough to keep travelling.
“Four days. We’ll make it,” Misha says, walking with Jared towards the elephants and helping him up to ride one. “The wound looks worse than it is. I almost didn’t reach him on time, but other than bleed very colorfully, it’s not deep.”
“How can you even know that?” Jared asks, threadbare voice, from above them. But there’s again a hint of a smile pulling at his lip, most likely because having confirmed that he’s most likely not going to die can make anyone’s day after getting stabbed.
“You’re going to have to trust me in this one, boy.” Misha replies, and Jared just gives a nod as all gesture of compliance before his friend climbs on behind him. Jensen is left to travel alone in an animal he’d much more likely be terrified of, if he were not pale from shock.
“Are you alright with us continuing like this?” Jensen asks Jared urgently, absolutely worried, and he feels like he’s been stabbed on the gut when he guesses that Jared may think he’s more worried about his bet than he’d be about him. “Jared, listen, if you can’t-“
“No,” Jared cuts him. “I will do all I can to continue. The moment I can’t, I’ll let you know.”
It’s Misha who sets them in motion, and all Jensen can do as they travel is to watch Jared struggle with his wound.
They make a few stops along the way, to eat and rest their legs. Every time, Misha carefully examines Jared’s wound, rummages through his meager suitcase for scraps of clean cloth to wrap the wound in and keep it clean, attempts to wash it with the contents of vial that seem to sting once he applies it on the bandage.
It has stopped bleeding, at least, and since Misha does not seem particularly worried, Jensen tries to keep under control. He doesn’t know what to say to Jared, or what to do. It occurs to him that they could be followed, but if they managed to make it this far along the way, it’s rather unlikely.
“Were you ever a doctor?” Jensen asks Misha as they ride, Jared sleeping lightly against Misha’s back.
“I’ve been a bit of everything.” Misha responds simply.
“That really doesn’t explain anything, Mr. Collins.”
Misha smiles, and Jensen can barely see it as the road darkens. “All things in due time, sir. For now, is not all you have to know that our friend will be safe?”
Jensen doesn’t have every intention to let this go, but interrogating Misha is harder than getting information out of a stone. “I may ask you again tomorrow, you know.”
Misha seems pleased at that. “Then tomorrow I may have a different answer.”
They ride in silence, stop to rest as the sun is down, and get back on the elephants with the first light of dawn.
It isn’t until the next morning that Jensen notices he has not checked his watch.
Most of the time, Misha and Jensen are focused on just travelling on. It’s Jared who starts to talk once he seems to feel better, and fills their heads with all kinds of stories of things he’d read and never seen. It pleases Jensen to see that, even if he must still be in pain, he is coming back to his senses. On the third day, Jensen has stopped fretting over his watch, mostly because there is little he can do to rush them. Jared talks, and it keeps him entertained.
“- And once I read about giant squids. Do you think you can fish those?”
“I don’t think those exist, Jared.” Jensen says from the side, shaking his head.
“Of course they do,” Jared responds, “Misha, tell him.”
“Have you ever seen one?”
“Well. No.” Jared says after a second. “But Captain Nem-“
“Captain Nemo, oh, that again.” Misha says. “I really wish you would stop bringing him up. He may not be even real, you know.” Jensen laughs at the note of amusement in Misha’s voice. Surely he must not exist, and the possibility of Misha believing as almost more amusing than the fact that Jared remembers his adventures.
Jared has been reading about adventures all his life, Jensen thinks. Has probably longed to have them, and now, he’s managed to get himself stabbed and is on the other side of the planet after a trainwreck. Not quite what the boy must have expected.
But he seems to value everything he’s seeing all the same. It’s because of that that Jensen starts looking at what’s around him, once his watch becomes useless. He watches his friends, and learns that they met when they were both poor working boys in the worst streets in London, that they did not quite grow up together. Misha’s employer - if that’s what he really was, since most of the time it seems to be more of a teacher - was a rather stern man who did not let him go a single day without learning something new.
It’s a life Jensen had never thought of. At some point, his problems with Somerhalder and his lack of family seemed to have made his world shrink, carefully box it so that he could not really get out. He thinks of Danneel and his friends at the club, and hopes to God that at least she is betting against Somerhalder every day of the week. If he makes it, Jensen thinks, he will truly learn how to live.
Jared smiles at him, probably asking for his support in something Jensen has not heard. Jensen doesn’t even bother pretending he was in the conversation, because Misha’s fast reply is for Jared alone, in any case. Jared doesn’t stop looking at him even when he replies, until Jensen smiles back, relieved that for now they make it out alive.
They reach Calcutta by nightfall, and Jensen almost regrets it.
Author name: belledewinter
Artist name: beelikej
Genre: AU RPS Slash
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: R
Word count: Around 45.000
Fic Warnings: AU.
Summary: Steampunk AU. Heartbroken and eager to prove himself, Jensen Ackles makes a bet: that he will be able to go around the world in 80 days, no matter what obstacles one could find along the way.
With the aid of a man with many hidden talents who now acts as his valet and a young engineer with a dubious heritage and a disarming smile, Jensen embarks on the journey of a lifetime, not knowing that danger is always just one step behind him. Will he make it home in time?
Link to fic: Here.
Link to art: Here.
The morning after, they wake almost more tired than they had been when they went to bed, but the train is waiting for them, and with their little luggage they make their way back to the small, dirty station.
It’s not a modern train, Jensen thinks, by any means. In London they would probably be ashamed to travel on something like this, and if it’s as slow and dirty as it looks, Jensen has his doubts that they will even make it out of the station at all, and maybe not even in one piece.
“It’s a lovely way to travel, isn’t it?” Misha says, looking at the rusty rails the train is on.
“Collins,” Jensen warns, “If this is something your eternal bravery is not ready for, I think you should by all means be able to go back home.” Of course, to get rid of Misha one would need something much stronger, and the valet does not move an inch.
It doesn’t mean the man’s not sassy. “Sir,” he says, but from his lips the title is little more than an insult, “I’m sure if I were to leave now, I would reach the comfort of my home sooner than you would reach Calcutta.”
“Calcutta is a couple of days away, Misha,” Jared says with a small smile, as if he had to defend that poor train just because he may not be as bad as it looks. It’s an endearing gesture, but Jensen doesn’t quite trust his judgment. He isn’t really sure Jared trusts it himself.
“Not on this train, Jared,” Misha bites. “But we may be surprised yet.”
“And also,” Jared says, as an afterthought, “it’s the ONLY train in town.”
Jensen snorts. “It’s settled, then. For now, we shall have to do with this… lovely way to travel. All aboard. Please don’t leave anything around - I would hate to have to come back for something.”
Jared has a second to think that he could leave just about anything in Bombay and it would be all the same, but leaving something in the train is not a thought that would inspire him the confidence to get it back anytime while he’s still alive.
Jensen checks his pocket watch and seems, for the moment, satisfied.
They climb aboard, and don’t look back.
The wagon they ride in is by no means new or particularly comfortable, but Jensen has to give them that it’s at least spacious. He looks out the window as the train takes off, takes in the sight of people working and after a while, of the jungle-like countryside they ride through. Misha sits beside him with a glass of lime juice their hosts have provided, and thankfully refrains from commenting every time the train makes a screech (probably to save himself the trouble - Jensen doesn’t think the train ever actually stops screeching).
“It’s not that bad, is it?” Jared and Jensen can feel his eyes on his face for as long as he’s staring at the view of the window. “Considering how we actually got to Bombay, this seems rather peaceful.”
“I think you’re speaking too soon,” Misha chastises. “We’ve only been here for a few hours, Jared. By the time you’ve sat here for three days, you will be sore, cranky and more than willing to get out.”
Jensen looks at the two of them just in time to see Jared frown at Misha. “I’m not cranky.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Misha says, almost automatically, but doesn’t sound sorry in the slightest. “It must be the young master here, then, who will be more willing to kiss the ground of Calcutta, if we ever get there alive.”
Jensen wants to laugh, but he straightens his back instead and does his best to look stern. “You seem awfully sure that I require your company to survive.”
“I have the security that you wouldn’t fire me if you found yourself in the middle of nowhere.” Misha shoots back, and after a pause, carefully adds. “Sir.”
Jensen figures that for now that’s true enough.
Jared likes trains.
Not as much as he likes mechas and not as much as he’d like walking free, for certain, but the sounds of the machinery moving would put him to sleep all the same. It’s familiar, it’s home. And even if he is not used to this and has never been able to fix a train before, he’s sure that if the train were about to explode, he’d find a way to safety. (Misha has at this point convinced him that they are a few hours away from being blown up. Jared has checked every door on the way to the restaurant wagon, and he’s sure they’d find a safe getaway.)
He walks the corridor a couple of times to stretch his legs and finds himself alone in one of them, staring out a small window at the landscape outside. Everything his eyes can see is endless black. No lights, no people, just the sounds the train makes as it passes through the night. He imagines they must look like a beacon, with so many lights turned on even this late, a fiery snake crossing the jungle at an alarming speed.
Jared recognizes the footsteps that sound behind him, doesn’t even have to turn to know who is standing beside him, seeing what he sees through the small window.
“Can’t sleep?” He asks Jensen, and for a moment Jared can make out a smile in Jensen’s reflection in the darkened glass.
“I’ve been sitting in here for hours. I’m anything but tired, and with nothing to do…”
“I thought you would appreciate the peace,” Jared says, and turns to look at his friend. “It seems that we either have days where we might as well be asleep, or everything falls on us all at once and we have to rush to our next destination like there was no tomorrow.”
Jensen laughs, and it’s a clear, pleasant noise. “You know, when I made the bet back in London, I said I would be able to go around the world taking into consideration all possible delays.”
“Well, wasn’t that brave of you?” Jared asks, and Jensen can’t but nod.
“Don’t tell Misha I said this, but when I first saw this train my heart stopped.”
Jared lets out a laugh, shakes his head and gestures at the machinery around them like it’s something spectacular. “Must be true love.”
Jensen falls very quiet for a second, then smiles. “Yes. That must be it.”
Jared feels like he’s been punched in the gut, but strangely, in a good way.
He falls asleep lulled by the rumble of the machines, thinking of green.
Color is always more vivid when Jared dreams.
He can never pinpoint the exact shade of blue in the sky when he wakes up, the chiaroscuro shades of the jungle as they cross by, the coal black of the train and the flames he imagines from within its windows. For a second he imagines that his mother is on the train with them, figures that he goes with her to every place, carrying her like a scar over his heart.
He doesn’t hear her over the rumble of the engine, but he knows - like only he could know in dreams - everything she means.
You have to get out of this train.
When Jared wakes, there’s very little he remembers other than the feeling that he’s not where he’s supposed to be. That he has to run. The train seems to become smaller every second, trapping him inside like a burning, moving, iron coffin.
It’s only three days, he thinks. Three days in a train compared to days on a steamboat are very little, and there’s no sense of being lost at sea. He spends most of the morning outside of their cabin as Jens reads through his maps and Misha disappears off to socialize with the rest of the travelers at the restaurant. Jared figures that it’s as good a way to kill the time as any other, but when Misha calls him over to introduce him to his new friend, he’s barely able to respond. It’s like he’s waiting for something that he knows is bound to come.
He can feel Jensen’s eyes on him all through their lunch together, knows perfectly well every time he looks at his friends that they want to ask him, but he cannot quite say the reason for his trouble. Jared figures he must be imagining things, that travelling so far really has taken its toil.
On their way back to the cabin, Misha accidentally bumps against a tall, dark Hindi man, and Misha promptly says his apologies in his language. The man lifts his head offended at the gesture, scowls something that Jared can’t quite hear, and looks straight at Jared over Misha’s head.
It’s then that Jared sees him.
For a second it’s like his whole life is spinning out of control. He remembers that face all too well, the dark set of his eyes, the easy way his smile twisted into something nobody would call friendly at all. He has not seen his uncle in years, but he knows that there must be something on his face that gives him away right at that very second, and he feels like prey.
His uncle looks at him for way too long, and Jared hides his face behind his hair and walks with his friends back to the cabin in utter silence. Misha closes the door complaining about people nowadays and their lack of politeness, but Jared can’t quite hear a word he says.
He has to get Jensen out of here.
“Jared? Jared, are you listening to me?” Misha prompts, and Jared turns to him like it was the first time he ever saw him.
“There’s something I have to tell you, that man-“
It’s then that the train makes a sudden screech and suddenly comes to a halt, leaving Misha to cling onto the walls and Jared to knock against a seat and land on the floor. Jensen, as every Lord should do, has barely moved an inch, though he does look considerably more annoyed. He checks his watch like he does all the time.
“Now, this is inconvenient.”
“Jensen, wait!” Jared starts, but their employer is already out the door.
Jared and Misha barely have the time to follow him to the machinist’s cabin, hoping that Jensen will not chew someone out just because they made a small mistake. Jared makes himself think of trains and that deep down they are very simple machines, maybe something he could fix within the hour. Surely a train in India would not be the worst thing they can encounter, especially considering the problem they may be about to face.
It’s Misha who drops the bomb, though.
“Sir,” he says, and Jensen turns as if he were a cobra.
“Yes?”
“I’m afraid finding the machinist will not really be the end to our problems.”
“How come?”
“Because there are no rails.”
Within the second, all three of them have struck their heads out through a window. It’s true. Not that they doubted Misha’s word before, but it’s not the same to hear it as a concept as seeing how, from a second to another, the carefully crafted rails line on the floor just vanishes off into a dense forest that Jensen had never seen before. It’s breathtaking. Or it would be, if Jensen was not saving all his breath to really give someone a piece of his mind.
Of course, losing his temper in another country and for a reason they may all very well know nothing of is not polite and proper for a gentleman of his stature. The passengers are starting to get off the train, many of them confused, others resigned to the fact that this is how things happen sometimes and that in time they will return home or reach their destiny.
Time. That’s just what Jensen doesn’t have.
In the distance there is a man who seems to be walking among elephants. Not the kind of animal they would bring to a Londonian circus. No, true elephants, no genetically modified creatures to make them appear more spectacular, no messages written on their grey skin or any kind of decoration that would make them palatable for the British audience.
“Is he selling those elephants?” He asks, and leaves Misha and Jared to stare after him. None of them is fast enough to respond, but the two of them are ready to get back to their journey, judging from the speed that they reach Jensen on the street at.
“You cannot be serious,” Misha is starting to say. “Most people cannot ride a horse, how on Earth are you meant to ride an elephant?”
“I can ride a horse,” Jensen answer flippantly, “And you can be sure that if a noble steed has not thrown me off yet, one of these creatures will be much more cunning.”
“The poor animals,” Jensen hears Jared say, but he cannot see - other than the captivity, he figures - why Jared would say that. Compared to those that visit London, these animals who live at their home with their skin unmarked and without having to worry about a performance are perfectly alright.
“How much for the animals?” Jensen asks, and before Misha can protest, Jared is already trying to remember the words to say that so that the vendor can name his price. Jensen seems absolutely nonplussed about the reply, even though in sterling pounds it’s more money than Jared has probably made in his life.
“Not so fast,” calls out a voice behind them. Jared turns just in time to face his uncle. He watches all three of them with open disgust. For being foreigners, for being on the wealthy side of the train. Or simply because they are with Jared - and Jared doesn’t for a second think that it could very well not be the case.
“It’s been a very long time, has it, nephew?”
Jared remembers the last time he saw this man, how he was trying to drag his mother to a pyre. He can still remember how she struggled and how he was dragged away. He never saw how she made it to the docks, but he figures she was lucky enough to be in a struggle and win. Her own brother would have let her die, dragged off with her cremated husband, because she fell in love with a foreigner and had his child, instead.
Jared already hated that thought before, that he could have lost her that day for a barbaric tradition, but now face to face with the man who would have carried out the sentence like she was little more than a piece of meat, Jared’s mind is reeling, trying to find a way to knock the man out and not see him for another second.
“This is your uncle?” Misha asks, and from the look on his face Jared knows that Misha understands better than to take it as a good thing.
“What is happening here?” Jensen starts to ask, but Misha does not say anything even though he knows Jared’s whole life. Whatever the reason for this question, though, the answer is not something Jensen is going to wait for. At not getting his reply, he walks past Jared’s uncle with the utmost security, feeling safe in his money and nationality, and for that Jared is pretty jealous. “If there is a problem, you may have to talk it out with me - this man is mine, at least until the contract is up. Now, what is the issue you have with my man?”
He says it in such a simple way that it cannot mean anything other than exactly what Jensen is saying - that they cannot take him because as long as he’s of service to him, he has to stay, and that’s a law that pretty much applies everywhere they go.
Not quite for this man.
“My issue is your man itself.” The man says. “If you don’t mind, I’ll handle my justice.”
Jensen snaps, “Of course I do mind.”
His uncle takes a step towards Jensen, threatening and fierce, and to Jared’s surprise, Jensen doesn’t move an inch. And that’s when the brawl starts. With elephants three feet away and as they move away from a wasted train, but as soon as his uncle lands a blow to Jensen’s face, Misha is on him like a tiger.
It would have been too simple if Jared had encountered his uncle alone, of course, and it takes merely a few seconds before a few more men come to his uncle’s aid. They speak so fast and with such rage that Jared can barely make out the words they say in hindi, something about fire and finishing what they started, putting the boy back in his place.
He does not quite dare to say it, that they want to burn him alive.
He merely has seconds to think of his possible fate before they all start to fight, with Misha separated from the two of them handling more men than Jared and Jensen put together, fighting back to back.
“Have you ever been in a fight?” Jared asks Jensen, eyes darting from one opponent to the other as they advance on them, the two of them watching in slight bewilderment as Misha dispatches a man much taller than he is with practiced ease like it’s as easy as breathing.
“Not in as many as he’s been in, that’s for sure,” Jensen replies, for once losing his elegant calm and staring open-mouthed at the display.
Jared doesn’t know if he should feel really glad that at least Misha will make it out alive of this or to be terribly ashamed that he’s never been much good in a brawl even though he’s always had the advantage of height over most people he knew. He looks at Jensen, squaring himself for a blow that’s sure to come again, and thinks, I would do it again.
“You did not answer my question.”
Jensen seems to think hard for a second. “In none, actually.”
Jared gets hit before he can actually laugh. After that it becomes a kind of blur where Jared does his best to, mostly, stay alive, and whatever he has not quite learned out in the streets, he’ll learn right now. After he’s managed to properly knock a man to the ground it seems to become easier. His head hurts, and his arm.
Well, Jared thinks, it’s not a bad life.
Jensen thinks he’s been hit more times in the last thirty seconds than he’s ever been in the rest of his life put together. He figures that it’s not unusual for someone of his rank to have this never happen to them in their lives unless they have an inclination for drinking or another unsightly habit, but all the same, this is one new experience that he really could have done without.
In his head, the clock ticks along with the throb in his head. One by one, his opponents are taken down, but, much to his dismay, not by his own hand. He has no dreams of being a champion at this, even though he’s almost surprised to discover that, other than a couple of bruises, he doubts there will be much left from this fight. Once with nobody to fight in front of him, he watches as Misha finishes off the last opponent standing, knocking him out cold. A closer inspection assures Jensen that they are still all breathing.
“Will that be all, sir?” Misha asks beside him, in a tone that’s not even out of breath. Jensen has a second to stare at his valet like he’d grown another head, and very pointedly thinks that once they get back to London, he should raise his salary.
“For now I think you’ve done enough work, Mr. Collins, thank you.”
The smile Misha gives him is so sassy that Jensen thinks of taking it back.
He turns to check his watch, and it’s been a mere few minutes that they have lost, but all time is valuable when you have to make it to Calcutta in record time. He looks over to Jared and sends him a smile, slightly amused despite himself that Jared, so tall and strong, is rather out of breath at the whole experience, even though it seems that he cannot have fought more than two men, and possibly not too competently without Misha’s help.
Jared brings a hand up to his face worriedly, and Jensen wonders if tomorrow it will be bruised black and blue. He pushes down the pang of worry and nods as a kind of salute, and calculates in his head the fare he’d have to pay for the elephants as he does his best to ignore the close-by crowd standing by the train, some of them having turned to watch them, most of them too worried with their own matters that they have not even bothered.
“Right, let’s not waste another minute,” Jensen tells Misha, and starts moving towards the man with the elephants.
He’s too slow to stop the man who rushes beside him towards Jared, and by the time he turns to look, he’s already late.
But Misha isn’t.
He takes after the man and manages to move him away from Jared just barely, just enough, and for a second it seems like he’s pulled the man off Jared just in time to keep him from harm. It’s once the man is on the floor that Jensen sees the bloodstained knife, and a second later, the warm, red stain that spreads over Jared’s shirt.
Jensen’s heart stops its clockwork pace and he’s left out of breath as he sees Jared slouch forward in pain. “Oh, God.” In a second both Jensen and Misha are at Jared’s side, Jensen trying to hold him up as Misha looks at the wound. The men around them are stirring again, and Jensen has just a few seconds to panic. He does not intend to waste more than that.
“Misha, we have to get out of here.”
It’s Misha who takes control after that, and Jensen remembers very little other than the small, pitiful sounds Jared makes as they walk together towards the elephants, the sight of his hand over his wound, bloodstained. With careful hands he does his best to hold him up, not touching the wound, thinking to himself that if Misha can truly get them out of this one, he is truly much more than a valet has ever been in the history of anything. The thought of Jared dying on this trip had never once crossed his mind, or the fact that his life or Misha’s could ever be in danger. London had seemed so vast and wild back them, but now every problem Jensen had thought he had with the social status seems to pale when placed against Jared’s blood.
“You can’t leave me, Jared.” He says, and Jared looks up at him hopefully, his eyes full of pain and yet, somehow, relief.
“This was my fault, you shouldn’t have brought me. This is-“
Jensen feels like he’s tripping over his own words. “No, Jared, that’s not-“
“Sir?” Misha calls, and Jensen looks at him enough to see him gesture to the elephants. “They say if you agree to their price, you can have the animals.” Misha goes over to Jensen and takes over in the task of holding Jared up. Jensen finds himself agreeing blindly to anything Misha would suggest, and even while he’s paying, all he’s looking at is the sight of Misha making a bandage with a part of his shirt and wrapping it around Jared’s side.
“How far until Calcutta?” Jensen asks the sellers, and they hold up four fingers, understanding from the city that’s where he intends to go. Jensen doesn’t want to think of what can happen four days on the road with a wounded man, all the complications that could rise, even if he was strong enough to keep travelling.
“Four days. We’ll make it,” Misha says, walking with Jared towards the elephants and helping him up to ride one. “The wound looks worse than it is. I almost didn’t reach him on time, but other than bleed very colorfully, it’s not deep.”
“How can you even know that?” Jared asks, threadbare voice, from above them. But there’s again a hint of a smile pulling at his lip, most likely because having confirmed that he’s most likely not going to die can make anyone’s day after getting stabbed.
“You’re going to have to trust me in this one, boy.” Misha replies, and Jared just gives a nod as all gesture of compliance before his friend climbs on behind him. Jensen is left to travel alone in an animal he’d much more likely be terrified of, if he were not pale from shock.
“Are you alright with us continuing like this?” Jensen asks Jared urgently, absolutely worried, and he feels like he’s been stabbed on the gut when he guesses that Jared may think he’s more worried about his bet than he’d be about him. “Jared, listen, if you can’t-“
“No,” Jared cuts him. “I will do all I can to continue. The moment I can’t, I’ll let you know.”
It’s Misha who sets them in motion, and all Jensen can do as they travel is to watch Jared struggle with his wound.
They make a few stops along the way, to eat and rest their legs. Every time, Misha carefully examines Jared’s wound, rummages through his meager suitcase for scraps of clean cloth to wrap the wound in and keep it clean, attempts to wash it with the contents of vial that seem to sting once he applies it on the bandage.
It has stopped bleeding, at least, and since Misha does not seem particularly worried, Jensen tries to keep under control. He doesn’t know what to say to Jared, or what to do. It occurs to him that they could be followed, but if they managed to make it this far along the way, it’s rather unlikely.
“Were you ever a doctor?” Jensen asks Misha as they ride, Jared sleeping lightly against Misha’s back.
“I’ve been a bit of everything.” Misha responds simply.
“That really doesn’t explain anything, Mr. Collins.”
Misha smiles, and Jensen can barely see it as the road darkens. “All things in due time, sir. For now, is not all you have to know that our friend will be safe?”
Jensen doesn’t have every intention to let this go, but interrogating Misha is harder than getting information out of a stone. “I may ask you again tomorrow, you know.”
Misha seems pleased at that. “Then tomorrow I may have a different answer.”
They ride in silence, stop to rest as the sun is down, and get back on the elephants with the first light of dawn.
It isn’t until the next morning that Jensen notices he has not checked his watch.
Most of the time, Misha and Jensen are focused on just travelling on. It’s Jared who starts to talk once he seems to feel better, and fills their heads with all kinds of stories of things he’d read and never seen. It pleases Jensen to see that, even if he must still be in pain, he is coming back to his senses. On the third day, Jensen has stopped fretting over his watch, mostly because there is little he can do to rush them. Jared talks, and it keeps him entertained.
“- And once I read about giant squids. Do you think you can fish those?”
“I don’t think those exist, Jared.” Jensen says from the side, shaking his head.
“Of course they do,” Jared responds, “Misha, tell him.”
“Have you ever seen one?”
“Well. No.” Jared says after a second. “But Captain Nem-“
“Captain Nemo, oh, that again.” Misha says. “I really wish you would stop bringing him up. He may not be even real, you know.” Jensen laughs at the note of amusement in Misha’s voice. Surely he must not exist, and the possibility of Misha believing as almost more amusing than the fact that Jared remembers his adventures.
Jared has been reading about adventures all his life, Jensen thinks. Has probably longed to have them, and now, he’s managed to get himself stabbed and is on the other side of the planet after a trainwreck. Not quite what the boy must have expected.
But he seems to value everything he’s seeing all the same. It’s because of that that Jensen starts looking at what’s around him, once his watch becomes useless. He watches his friends, and learns that they met when they were both poor working boys in the worst streets in London, that they did not quite grow up together. Misha’s employer - if that’s what he really was, since most of the time it seems to be more of a teacher - was a rather stern man who did not let him go a single day without learning something new.
It’s a life Jensen had never thought of. At some point, his problems with Somerhalder and his lack of family seemed to have made his world shrink, carefully box it so that he could not really get out. He thinks of Danneel and his friends at the club, and hopes to God that at least she is betting against Somerhalder every day of the week. If he makes it, Jensen thinks, he will truly learn how to live.
Jared smiles at him, probably asking for his support in something Jensen has not heard. Jensen doesn’t even bother pretending he was in the conversation, because Misha’s fast reply is for Jared alone, in any case. Jared doesn’t stop looking at him even when he replies, until Jensen smiles back, relieved that for now they make it out alive.
They reach Calcutta by nightfall, and Jensen almost regrets it.