Title: Serving Tea
Fandom: Indian Summers
Rating: Mature
Length: 802 words
Characters/Pairings: Ramu Sood/Ian McLeod
Warnings/Spoilers: Warning for age-appropriate -isms.
Author notes: Written for Challenge #140: Gift at fan_flashworks.
Summary: In which no sari is stolen.


Ian went to India thinking of becoming the heir to an empire.
He was going to learn the business, to inherit it one day.

He found out that his uncle, the family legend, was a drunkard, his plantation in ruin.

Their native neighbour was a striking figure on his horse. A finely dressed man, tall, dark, handsome. Ian felt a stirring of attraction in his gut, which he quickly tried to stomp down to nothing.
“You tell him from me, next time I catch him wandering on my land, I'll have him skinned.” had said his uncle. Stumbling, Ian tried to sent the native away.
He was met with impeccable manners.

The man was responsible for his uncle's collapse. He had trapped him in a debt and conspired to steal his land off him. Or so Ian told himself.
“Look at him. He's laughing at us.” Cynthia's words in his ears, poisoning him.
Ian had witnessed Mr Sood handle the eviction notice to his inebriated uncle. His uncle had stuck him and Mr Sood hadn't laid a hand back on him, when he could have easily overpowered him.

Ian found himself heir to nothing.
Except, Mr Sood gave back to him his uncle’s land, to manage. Offered him a chance to learn from his business expertise.

Time passed. One season became two, became five. Ian learnt from Mr Sood, from his cousin Prakash too, down at the lush tea fields of Simla.

People called Ian traitor and shunned him from their club.
He was a Scot. He was never going to be like the rest them anyway.

There were nights that he stared at the single bottle of Scotch sitting on his kitchen counter and imagined becoming a drunk fool like his uncle. Alcoholism ran in the family. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Would he become like Stafford Armitage, destroying anything he ever touched? That or going back home, always a possibility on the horizon, just giving up.
He wanted to stay.

At first, Mr Sood saw him just as a young boy, naive and privileged. But Ian was willing to learn: the work, the terrain. This country and its people.

They spent more and more time together.
Dinner and drinks at Mr Sood's house, then Ian left to go back to his home, to start another day. It became routine.

His uncle was dead. His family far away. Ostracised by the rest of his British peers, the club girls were left behind too.
It broke the solitude.

Mr Sood lost his wife Kavitha in childbirth a few months before their first meeting. Maybe he was just as lonely.

As they ventured into the international market, Ian found that his contribution became increasingly crucial. He felt useful.

Mr Sood has given him a job, a home, a purpose.
All in exchange for his name. In exchange for the pride of calling him is employé.

Slowly, from business partners they became friends, true friends.
Bit by bit, some of Mr Sood's cynicism began to fall away.

Ian started calling him Ramu.
Ramu kept calling him Mr McLeod, until one day he didn't. Until, one evening, after dinner, he didn't walk him to the porch but asked him to stay.

Ramu undressed him, slowly.
He made love to him, like a gentleman, kissing and lavishing every bit of skin. Then, a bite on his neck, in a moment of passion.

Ian wrote letters home and, like his uncle, told lies. He lied to his mother, lied to his sisters.
What would his family say, Ian wondered. If they knew what he did with Ramu. If they knew his sins.
What would they say if they knew that he worked for him. What would that scandalize them more?
Truth was, Ian didn't mind being Mr Sood British chai-wallah. Being Ramu’s friend. Ramu's lover.
Ian felt like he would have given his real name to Mr Sood if he could. Like he would give all of himself, if he asked him to.

It was early morning, the sun still a pale smudge at the horizon. Ian looked at himself in the mirror. With his fingers he traced the reddened skin on the his neck, the shoulder, his chest. Then turned back to the bed and watched Ramu slowly waking, rolling onto the sheets.
What had he seen him see in a naive, young fool like him?
Maybe he liked the idea of having conquered a British boy for himself.
Ian did not mind. In fact, he wanted more.
He felt like, no matter how many things Ramu gifted him with, he would always want more, never satisfied until he consumed Ramu entirely. He wondered if Ramu felt the same.
Ian's hand lingered on the bruise on the side of his neck.
Maybe he did.