Fic: Even Odds (Sholay)
Title: Even Odds
Ratings: NC-17
Archive: Please ask me first
Notes: Written for veracious (Yuletide 2007)
Even Odds
The man was out of place. And it wasn't only Veeru who thought so, that was clear, because every eye in the joint was trained on him. Veeru poured another slug of liquor into his tea under the table and sized the man up covertly from the corner of his eye. He was tall and decidedly too well-dressed to be sitting in a hole in the corner joint like this one. Who in god's name wears a suit in a place like this? Shit, he's coming over here. On the pull?
"Oye."
Veeru ignored him. Looks like it.
"Oye," the man said again, more insistently.
"Outside in fifteen minutes," Veeru muttered.
Veeru finished his tea in a leisurely fashion, keeping an eye on the grimy clock. He slipped the bottle back in his pocket and walked into the dark. Evening birdsong competed with the noise of trucks on the highway. He looked around. There, a white silhouette in the gloom behind the building.
"Let's get this over with," Veeru said, leaning in close enough that the man could smell the liquor on his breath.
"Uh," the man said, "I don't think -"
"Shut up," Veeru said, turning to walk further into the gloom of a nearby stand of trees.
The man followed him.
"Look, I can see you're a bit con- " Veeru cut him off by leaning in to kiss him, groping him roughly at the same time. The man's mouth fell open. He unzipped the man's ridiculous pants deftly, palming his cock and jerking him off fast and hard.
Veeru smiled at him. "Do me, too."
He felt hands fumbling with his trousers, handling him almost hesitantly.
"Harder," Veeru said, hastening his own movements and licking the man's ear in counterpoint. The hand on his cock sped up. At least he takes direction well.
He could feel the man's breathing grow harsher. His eyelids fluttered shut, his body tense as he came all over Veeru's palm. Predictably, Veeru had to finish himself off.
"First time?" Veeru asked, once he'd tucked himself back inside. "Because that was the most inept come-on I've ever heard. And, can I just say, the follow-through wasn't great either."
The man scratched his head and sighed. "This is a bit embarrassing, Veeru, but that wasn't actually the reason I wanted to talk to you."
"How do you know my name?"
"I've heard about you. You have a bit of a reputation around here."
"Not anymore," Veeru said warily. "That's all over now."
"I have a business proposition for you."
"Look, boss, I'm totally straight now. I don't do break-ins, I don't do lock-picking, I don't do any of that shit."
"Yeah? Okay, fine, I'll tell you anyway and then you can make up your mind."
>>>
Veeru bent down to enter the jhopdi, holding up the gunny sack covering the opening with one hand.
"Good evening, bhabhi," he said to his sister-in-law's back.
She muttered something, not looking up from where she was kneading the dough for the chapattis.
"I got paid today - here's half," he said. She turned around for that, taking the money from him without meeting his eyes. She took a tight roll of notes out of her sari blouse and added his contribution before replacing it.
"Drinking again? Typical," he heard her mutter.
He lay on the charpoy till the kids came home and then suffered their excited chatter good-humouredly. The water tanker did its evening round and he helped fill the buckets, while the kids had their daily wash and his sister-in-law washed their dishes. Up and down the row, other families were going through the same routine. Soon after, his brother came home and the family ate their usual meal of chapattis with chillies and salt and one vegetable on the side.
That night, Veeru lay in the loft, trying not to listen to his brother and his wife having sex below. Unbidden, his thoughts returned to the stranger. You know Heera Lal, the diamond merchant? he had asked Veeru, as though he were speaking to a wet-behind-the-ears boy fresh from the village. Heera Lal keeps a cache of diamonds in his house in a safe, he had said and Veeru had told him that any fool knew that. Yes, but do they know the combination to the safe? the stranger had asked. Bullshit, Veeru had said flatly, then walked away.
He didn't want to think about Heera Lal or his diamonds. Or what a great story stealing them would make. Another chapter in the legend of Veeru. He remembered his last break-in. The prickling anxiety as he worked gently, gently at the safe with his tools, his partner holding the torch steady behind him. The rush as he heard the click of the tumblers falling into alignment. His fingers flexed in the darkness, alive with sense memory.
Then he thought of the look on his brother's face when he came to visit him in jail. He snorted and turned over, consigning the stranger to oblivion.
>>>
Veeru couldn't stop thinking about him, though. He kept looking around during his shifts at the construction site, somehow expecting to see him there. One day, he did.
"How's the hard labour working out for you?" the man said, smirking at him. His white bellbottoms were immaculate, of course.
"Stop following me around, saale," Veeru muttered, stepping hard on the part of him that was flattered the man hadn't given up.
"No, really, is it much of a change from the prison chain gang? Are you warmed by the beauty of earning your livelihood in a virtuous fashion?"
"I'm mostly warmed by the thought of bashing your head in with this shovel right now, actually, unless you go away and leave me alone."
"My name's Jai," the man went on, ignoring what he'd said. He dusted a half-finished brick wall fastidiously with a white handkerchief and perched on top of it.
"It would be an easy two lakhs, you realise? In, grab the stuff and out again. No mess, no fuss, no problem."
"Go away."
"No matter what you do, Veeru, you're never going to be happy living the honest life. Being a crook's in your blood."
Veeru looked at him and said, quietly, "I've said no thrice now. Find someone else and leave me alone."
Whatever Jai saw in his eyes at that point was enough to make him shrug his shoulders and leave.
That should have been the end of it. But over the next week, like a tongue worrying at a sore tooth, his thoughts kept returning to Jai and his proposition.
>>>
It wasn't Jai who changed his mind, finally, but his own family. He'd been on his way home when he saw a crumpled fifty rupee note on the street. He'd picked it up incredulously, elated when he checked the watermark and found it was genuine. That was four months of daily necessities for the family right there. Rushing home, he tried to hand it to his bhabhi only to be refused. Confused, he turned to his brother sitting on the charpoy.
"You'll never change, Veeru," his brother said disgustedly. "You still can't do an honest day's work."
"I did! This is all on the up and up. I swear I just found this in the street." Veeru looked imploringly from his brother to his bhabhi's face, willing them to believe him.
"Our parents might have been labourers, but they weren't thieves. They would be ashamed of what you've become."
"Why won't you believe me?" Veeru said, almost whispering and knowing it was hopeless even as he said it.
His brother and bhabhi's faces were closed, unyielding. Veeru the screw-up, Veeru the liar, the cute younger brother who told funny tall tales and then grew up to become a thief and a waste of space. He could spend his whole life on the construction site and he still wouldn't be able to redeem himself.
Veeru's shoulders drooped. "Okay, I get it," he said. "I'm sorry for having bothered you for so long. Thank you for letting me stay with you."
There wasn't much to pack. He slung his bag over his shoulder, said goodbye to the children and left the hut. "Take the money with you," his brother called.
"Throw it away if you want," he said and kept walking.
He saw Jai again in the bar and walked up to him. "I'll do it," he said roughly. "Don't ask me any questions. Just give me the combination."
>>>
He crept through the darkened house silently, ears pricked for the sound of a footfall. Up the stairs to the second floor and left along the narrow corridor. The polished marble floor was cool under his bare feet. First door, second door, and then the right door. He dribbled oil over the hinges and opened the door slowly, willing it not to creak. He was lucky - not a sound as the door swung open. He made out the square shape of the safe in the darkness and crouched down, feeling for the combination lock. Click, click, click, and stop. Then the other way, a gentle series of clicks, and back again. Three...Seven...One...Four, he counted in his head. A final click, but nothing happened. What the hell? Light flooded the room and Veeru's heart nearly stopped.
"Too old to learn new tricks, eh, Veeru?" Heera Lal said.
"Sahib, what a pleasure to see you again," Veeru said, turning the full force of an ingratiating smile on the diamond merchant, as his eyes darted from side to side. Shit, shit, shit! No less than five bodyguards, all big, sturdy...his thought trailed off and his mouth gaped open as he saw Jai standing behind Heera Lal.
"I credited this fool with a little more sense than to try this stunt again, but it seems you were right, Jai."
What?! A croaking denial began to issue from Veeru's open mouth and Jai stepped forward to backhand him casually across the face, silencing him.
"It seemed inevitable, sahib. Idiots like this one never learn from their mistakes."
"So it seems. Let me check the safe." Heera Lal bent over the safe, working the combination lock with his body hiding his hand movements. Veeru heard the safe door swing open. The diamond merchant exhaled in relief. "All safe. Jai, can I rely on you to make sure he doesn't try again?"
One corner of Jai's mouth turned upward. "But of course."
"Teach him a lesson before you dispose of him, yes?"
"Haan." And with that two of the men grabbed his arms, while the other two began to work him over in a highly scientific manner. Jai leaned against the wall, his eyelids drooping as he watched, slapping Veeru hard across the face every time he attempted to speak. Veeru finally got the point and shut up, mentally willing him to shrivel up under the force of his hatred.
Heera Lal watched the proceedings from a leather chair, a faint smile on his face. He was so relaxed he hadn't even bothered to close the safe again. Bastard.
All at once, the lights went off. "What is happening?" Veeru heard Heera Lal ask querulously, as panicked, confused voices rose around him.
Veeru heard a meaty sound to his right and then his left. The hands holding him were abruptly removed. Long fingers closed around his forearm and yanked him imperatively towards the door. "Run," someone breathed in his ear. He didn't bother to argue, sprinting for the front door as if his ass was on fire.
Ten agonising minutes later, he found himself climbing the wall of an apartment building, his heart pounding in his ears. He heard the sound of running feet approaching. Fuck, he thought, frantically reaching upwards. His groping hand found the edge of a balcony and he pulled himself up and over too fast, scraping his elbows and knees.
He lay on his back, panting, and a heavy form dropped on him, a hand clamping over his mouth. He struggled frantically until he heard a soft "Keep still."
Of course, it would have to be Jai. "Behenchod," Veeru breathed, "I'm going to fucking kill you."
Jai looked unimpressed. "Can it wait till after they stop looking for us?" he said. Pricking his ears, Veeru could hear footsteps below.
He lay still, barely daring to breathe. There was a flash of white teeth in the darkness, and then Jai's body pressed more closely against his, a very discernible hardness pushing into his groin.
Motherfucker! He's getting off on this. Veeru could hear Heera Lal's thugs yelling below, trampling around the colony like a herd of elephants while he lay furiously immobile.
Eventually, they ran off to look somewhere else, but Veeru didn't dare climb down. He lay there, every bruised muscle aching with tension and the beating he had taken earlier, for a good half hour before he threw Jai off and started climbing down. Jai followed him. He hadn't said a word the whole time. Veeru turned to him with murder in his eye.
"What the fuck was all that about? You set me up!"
"Yes," Jai said. "It was necessary."
"You see," he went on, "I lied about knowing the safe combination. The only one who knew the combination was Heera Lal, who, being a smart, paranoid fuck, never told anyone the combination or even wrote it down. So the only thing to do was to get him to open the safe, so I could get at those diamonds. Which, of course, is where you came in." And then he patted Veeru affectionately on the cheek.
Veeru was deprived of speech for a whole three minutes.
"You bastard...you unmitigated swine...you piece of shit. I'm going to turn you in to the police!"
"Ah. I take it you don't want your half of the diamonds, then?"
Veeru hesitated.
Finally: "Give them to me. I earned them."
"Sure, but how're you going to get rid of them safely? With the whole place swarming with Heera Lal's men?"
"I'll manage!"
"I was going to suggest that we go to Delhi together and fence them there. I know a guy who knows how to keep his mouth shut. Besides, it's a problem for me if you get caught, you know."
"I wouldn't go to the end of the street with you, let alone Delhi." But the truth was that Veeru had never fenced something this big. He really wasn't very sure how he was going to get rid of the stuff.
Like a vulture, Jai picked up on the fact that he was wavering.
"Tell you what," he said, "let's flip a coin. Heads says we go together to Delhi, tails we split up now."
Ah, what the hell. "Done," Veeru said.
Ratings: NC-17
Archive: Please ask me first
Notes: Written for veracious (Yuletide 2007)
Even Odds
The man was out of place. And it wasn't only Veeru who thought so, that was clear, because every eye in the joint was trained on him. Veeru poured another slug of liquor into his tea under the table and sized the man up covertly from the corner of his eye. He was tall and decidedly too well-dressed to be sitting in a hole in the corner joint like this one. Who in god's name wears a suit in a place like this? Shit, he's coming over here. On the pull?
"Oye."
Veeru ignored him. Looks like it.
"Oye," the man said again, more insistently.
"Outside in fifteen minutes," Veeru muttered.
Veeru finished his tea in a leisurely fashion, keeping an eye on the grimy clock. He slipped the bottle back in his pocket and walked into the dark. Evening birdsong competed with the noise of trucks on the highway. He looked around. There, a white silhouette in the gloom behind the building.
"Let's get this over with," Veeru said, leaning in close enough that the man could smell the liquor on his breath.
"Uh," the man said, "I don't think -"
"Shut up," Veeru said, turning to walk further into the gloom of a nearby stand of trees.
The man followed him.
"Look, I can see you're a bit con- " Veeru cut him off by leaning in to kiss him, groping him roughly at the same time. The man's mouth fell open. He unzipped the man's ridiculous pants deftly, palming his cock and jerking him off fast and hard.
Veeru smiled at him. "Do me, too."
He felt hands fumbling with his trousers, handling him almost hesitantly.
"Harder," Veeru said, hastening his own movements and licking the man's ear in counterpoint. The hand on his cock sped up. At least he takes direction well.
He could feel the man's breathing grow harsher. His eyelids fluttered shut, his body tense as he came all over Veeru's palm. Predictably, Veeru had to finish himself off.
"First time?" Veeru asked, once he'd tucked himself back inside. "Because that was the most inept come-on I've ever heard. And, can I just say, the follow-through wasn't great either."
The man scratched his head and sighed. "This is a bit embarrassing, Veeru, but that wasn't actually the reason I wanted to talk to you."
"How do you know my name?"
"I've heard about you. You have a bit of a reputation around here."
"Not anymore," Veeru said warily. "That's all over now."
"I have a business proposition for you."
"Look, boss, I'm totally straight now. I don't do break-ins, I don't do lock-picking, I don't do any of that shit."
"Yeah? Okay, fine, I'll tell you anyway and then you can make up your mind."
>>>
Veeru bent down to enter the jhopdi, holding up the gunny sack covering the opening with one hand.
"Good evening, bhabhi," he said to his sister-in-law's back.
She muttered something, not looking up from where she was kneading the dough for the chapattis.
"I got paid today - here's half," he said. She turned around for that, taking the money from him without meeting his eyes. She took a tight roll of notes out of her sari blouse and added his contribution before replacing it.
"Drinking again? Typical," he heard her mutter.
He lay on the charpoy till the kids came home and then suffered their excited chatter good-humouredly. The water tanker did its evening round and he helped fill the buckets, while the kids had their daily wash and his sister-in-law washed their dishes. Up and down the row, other families were going through the same routine. Soon after, his brother came home and the family ate their usual meal of chapattis with chillies and salt and one vegetable on the side.
That night, Veeru lay in the loft, trying not to listen to his brother and his wife having sex below. Unbidden, his thoughts returned to the stranger. You know Heera Lal, the diamond merchant? he had asked Veeru, as though he were speaking to a wet-behind-the-ears boy fresh from the village. Heera Lal keeps a cache of diamonds in his house in a safe, he had said and Veeru had told him that any fool knew that. Yes, but do they know the combination to the safe? the stranger had asked. Bullshit, Veeru had said flatly, then walked away.
He didn't want to think about Heera Lal or his diamonds. Or what a great story stealing them would make. Another chapter in the legend of Veeru. He remembered his last break-in. The prickling anxiety as he worked gently, gently at the safe with his tools, his partner holding the torch steady behind him. The rush as he heard the click of the tumblers falling into alignment. His fingers flexed in the darkness, alive with sense memory.
Then he thought of the look on his brother's face when he came to visit him in jail. He snorted and turned over, consigning the stranger to oblivion.
>>>
Veeru couldn't stop thinking about him, though. He kept looking around during his shifts at the construction site, somehow expecting to see him there. One day, he did.
"How's the hard labour working out for you?" the man said, smirking at him. His white bellbottoms were immaculate, of course.
"Stop following me around, saale," Veeru muttered, stepping hard on the part of him that was flattered the man hadn't given up.
"No, really, is it much of a change from the prison chain gang? Are you warmed by the beauty of earning your livelihood in a virtuous fashion?"
"I'm mostly warmed by the thought of bashing your head in with this shovel right now, actually, unless you go away and leave me alone."
"My name's Jai," the man went on, ignoring what he'd said. He dusted a half-finished brick wall fastidiously with a white handkerchief and perched on top of it.
"It would be an easy two lakhs, you realise? In, grab the stuff and out again. No mess, no fuss, no problem."
"Go away."
"No matter what you do, Veeru, you're never going to be happy living the honest life. Being a crook's in your blood."
Veeru looked at him and said, quietly, "I've said no thrice now. Find someone else and leave me alone."
Whatever Jai saw in his eyes at that point was enough to make him shrug his shoulders and leave.
That should have been the end of it. But over the next week, like a tongue worrying at a sore tooth, his thoughts kept returning to Jai and his proposition.
>>>
It wasn't Jai who changed his mind, finally, but his own family. He'd been on his way home when he saw a crumpled fifty rupee note on the street. He'd picked it up incredulously, elated when he checked the watermark and found it was genuine. That was four months of daily necessities for the family right there. Rushing home, he tried to hand it to his bhabhi only to be refused. Confused, he turned to his brother sitting on the charpoy.
"You'll never change, Veeru," his brother said disgustedly. "You still can't do an honest day's work."
"I did! This is all on the up and up. I swear I just found this in the street." Veeru looked imploringly from his brother to his bhabhi's face, willing them to believe him.
"Our parents might have been labourers, but they weren't thieves. They would be ashamed of what you've become."
"Why won't you believe me?" Veeru said, almost whispering and knowing it was hopeless even as he said it.
His brother and bhabhi's faces were closed, unyielding. Veeru the screw-up, Veeru the liar, the cute younger brother who told funny tall tales and then grew up to become a thief and a waste of space. He could spend his whole life on the construction site and he still wouldn't be able to redeem himself.
Veeru's shoulders drooped. "Okay, I get it," he said. "I'm sorry for having bothered you for so long. Thank you for letting me stay with you."
There wasn't much to pack. He slung his bag over his shoulder, said goodbye to the children and left the hut. "Take the money with you," his brother called.
"Throw it away if you want," he said and kept walking.
He saw Jai again in the bar and walked up to him. "I'll do it," he said roughly. "Don't ask me any questions. Just give me the combination."
>>>
He crept through the darkened house silently, ears pricked for the sound of a footfall. Up the stairs to the second floor and left along the narrow corridor. The polished marble floor was cool under his bare feet. First door, second door, and then the right door. He dribbled oil over the hinges and opened the door slowly, willing it not to creak. He was lucky - not a sound as the door swung open. He made out the square shape of the safe in the darkness and crouched down, feeling for the combination lock. Click, click, click, and stop. Then the other way, a gentle series of clicks, and back again. Three...Seven...One...Four, he counted in his head. A final click, but nothing happened. What the hell? Light flooded the room and Veeru's heart nearly stopped.
"Too old to learn new tricks, eh, Veeru?" Heera Lal said.
"Sahib, what a pleasure to see you again," Veeru said, turning the full force of an ingratiating smile on the diamond merchant, as his eyes darted from side to side. Shit, shit, shit! No less than five bodyguards, all big, sturdy...his thought trailed off and his mouth gaped open as he saw Jai standing behind Heera Lal.
"I credited this fool with a little more sense than to try this stunt again, but it seems you were right, Jai."
What?! A croaking denial began to issue from Veeru's open mouth and Jai stepped forward to backhand him casually across the face, silencing him.
"It seemed inevitable, sahib. Idiots like this one never learn from their mistakes."
"So it seems. Let me check the safe." Heera Lal bent over the safe, working the combination lock with his body hiding his hand movements. Veeru heard the safe door swing open. The diamond merchant exhaled in relief. "All safe. Jai, can I rely on you to make sure he doesn't try again?"
One corner of Jai's mouth turned upward. "But of course."
"Teach him a lesson before you dispose of him, yes?"
"Haan." And with that two of the men grabbed his arms, while the other two began to work him over in a highly scientific manner. Jai leaned against the wall, his eyelids drooping as he watched, slapping Veeru hard across the face every time he attempted to speak. Veeru finally got the point and shut up, mentally willing him to shrivel up under the force of his hatred.
Heera Lal watched the proceedings from a leather chair, a faint smile on his face. He was so relaxed he hadn't even bothered to close the safe again. Bastard.
All at once, the lights went off. "What is happening?" Veeru heard Heera Lal ask querulously, as panicked, confused voices rose around him.
Veeru heard a meaty sound to his right and then his left. The hands holding him were abruptly removed. Long fingers closed around his forearm and yanked him imperatively towards the door. "Run," someone breathed in his ear. He didn't bother to argue, sprinting for the front door as if his ass was on fire.
Ten agonising minutes later, he found himself climbing the wall of an apartment building, his heart pounding in his ears. He heard the sound of running feet approaching. Fuck, he thought, frantically reaching upwards. His groping hand found the edge of a balcony and he pulled himself up and over too fast, scraping his elbows and knees.
He lay on his back, panting, and a heavy form dropped on him, a hand clamping over his mouth. He struggled frantically until he heard a soft "Keep still."
Of course, it would have to be Jai. "Behenchod," Veeru breathed, "I'm going to fucking kill you."
Jai looked unimpressed. "Can it wait till after they stop looking for us?" he said. Pricking his ears, Veeru could hear footsteps below.
He lay still, barely daring to breathe. There was a flash of white teeth in the darkness, and then Jai's body pressed more closely against his, a very discernible hardness pushing into his groin.
Motherfucker! He's getting off on this. Veeru could hear Heera Lal's thugs yelling below, trampling around the colony like a herd of elephants while he lay furiously immobile.
Eventually, they ran off to look somewhere else, but Veeru didn't dare climb down. He lay there, every bruised muscle aching with tension and the beating he had taken earlier, for a good half hour before he threw Jai off and started climbing down. Jai followed him. He hadn't said a word the whole time. Veeru turned to him with murder in his eye.
"What the fuck was all that about? You set me up!"
"Yes," Jai said. "It was necessary."
"You see," he went on, "I lied about knowing the safe combination. The only one who knew the combination was Heera Lal, who, being a smart, paranoid fuck, never told anyone the combination or even wrote it down. So the only thing to do was to get him to open the safe, so I could get at those diamonds. Which, of course, is where you came in." And then he patted Veeru affectionately on the cheek.
Veeru was deprived of speech for a whole three minutes.
"You bastard...you unmitigated swine...you piece of shit. I'm going to turn you in to the police!"
"Ah. I take it you don't want your half of the diamonds, then?"
Veeru hesitated.
Finally: "Give them to me. I earned them."
"Sure, but how're you going to get rid of them safely? With the whole place swarming with Heera Lal's men?"
"I'll manage!"
"I was going to suggest that we go to Delhi together and fence them there. I know a guy who knows how to keep his mouth shut. Besides, it's a problem for me if you get caught, you know."
"I wouldn't go to the end of the street with you, let alone Delhi." But the truth was that Veeru had never fenced something this big. He really wasn't very sure how he was going to get rid of the stuff.
Like a vulture, Jai picked up on the fact that he was wavering.
"Tell you what," he said, "let's flip a coin. Heads says we go together to Delhi, tails we split up now."
Ah, what the hell. "Done," Veeru said.