A/N: My girl 5SOS_TO_MY_HEART requested this. She's making me write this as "punishment" for uhh supporting Australia at the Ashes. Prompt taken from Virat saying that he and KL just sit and watch the highlights of the 2016 IPL finals everytime it's on Star or anywhere. Anywho this is set after the Australia ODI series.
After their humiliating loss to Australia, the kids of the team were a little down, but an hour with their big brothers and reassurance from them, they were in a much better state of mind. While Virat, Ro and Jaddu were off somewhere doing who knows what, Yuzi came up with the genius idea of watching the IPL highlights which were showing on Star Sports. Everything was going well and fine, Rah and him even had a good laugh watching the disaster that was their 2017 season with RCB, even the 49 all out didn't dampen their moods. Shub didn't hesitate teasing them for setting the bar high and low at the same time. And then the atmosphere in the room got chilly, the ever smiling Yuzi quietly asked,
"Can we change the channel? Please?"
While Rah was searching for the remote, they heard cackles of Virat and Jaddu as they were followed by Ro who was screaming at them for dumping his pillows in the pool. They plonked down onto the bean bags and Vi looked at a visibly upset Yuzi,
"Oye! Tujhe kya hogaya?!? Don't tell me you and Kul got into a fight again."
"Bhaiyaa...wo..."
Before Yuzi could complete that, they heard the commentary on the TV,
"FOUR! But it's too late! SRH are the champions of the VIVO IPL 2016. Ohh the fireworks have begun!"
Virat's breathing halted, he was immediately transported back to that day. The helplessness, the hopelessness, the silence of the home crowd, David screaming and running towards his team, Iqbal and Baby standing at the crease both in tears looking back at the dugout as Rah was openly weeping. Yuzi looking down, AB and Watto holding back their own tears and him? He put on the best Kanesque smile he could, he walked with his team to the celebrating team and gave them hugs and back pats as even they returned tight hugs apologizing to him telling him he was amazing the entire tournament, he didn't want to hear it, he had gotten the formalities done and then he barely even remembers saying, "Of course records are meant to be broken, there will be someone having a much better season than me."
Flashes of the entire tournament sprung into his head, every single detail he remembered,
Virat hadn't said a word to his ICT teammates after the World T20 semis, he had parted ways with them without even saying a goodbye to anyone, boarded a flight to Bangalore, all he needed at that instance was the feeling of home and his big brother who'd understand more than anyone. Reaching the hotel the first thing Virat had done was rush into AB's room and just collapsed in his best friend's arms weeping as he cried at the unfairness of it all, blamed himself as AB had fumed hearing that self loathing. But AB had just shushed him whispering it wasn't his fault over and over again, Vi wanted the voices in his head to just stop the taunting but they wouldn't listen, exhaustion had hit and he fell asleep in his big brother's room.
Like almost every season, RCB had gotten off to a shaky start in the tournament but then came their first match against MI. He was going to be seeing Ro and Hardik for the first time in weeks, he had been ignoring all of their texts, even their match against SRH, he had barely spoken to Shikh, Yuvi pa and Bhuvi, it was nothing personal he just needed space. He walked onto the field with both AB and Rah talking about how Wankhede hasn't always been kind to them, Virat desperately tried to knock off Ian Bishop's commentary from his head, Russell's winning six, he looked ahead and quietly went to the nets after a quick warm up. He of course smiled at Ro and Harry, but kept to himself, the match was a disaster in Virat's books, 170 on a pitch like Wankhede where they couldn't even defend 190? So he wasn't surprised when Polly and Rohit had set up the run chase almost effortlessly. Watching the downcast expressions on his teams face Virat had taken it upon himself to have a late night pool session for all of them to cool off.
