Can't promise you the world, but... (A Rohit-Shreyas Fanfiction)

Chapter 1

3rd March, 2023

One step more. One step more. One step more.

"Don't make such a long face, Shreya, we're qualifying for the finals easily!"

Virat slapped Shreyas on the back a lot harder than needed, and Shreyas had to blink white out of his vision.

"Don't do that, Virat bhaiya," he gritted out, a lot harsher than he'd meant.

"Aw, sorry." Virat slung his arm around Shreyas' shoulder as they walked. "You're allowed to wallow in the horrifying loss for a bit."

Shreyas wriggled out of his grasp. Virat looked surprised and maybe a little hurt, but Shreyas wasn't sure he'd be able to keep up with Virat's pace--his heels were always on springs, anyway.

Virat didn't try to put his arm around Shreyas again, but he walked slow to match his speed, all the same. Though honestly, Shreyas couldn't focus on anything much but the ground in front.

One step more. One step more.

India had just lost the third Test of the Border Gavaskar Trophy within the first session of the third day, a dismal showing, but a tiny--or maybe a huge--part of Shreyas could only feel gladness that he could get off the field, get to his room, and lie down, and maybe his whole lower body starting from his back to his toes would stop screaming.

One step more. One step more.

It had become a rather repetitive chant in his life lately.

Pleading with himself to go through the tiny next step...except when he was on the field, playing, where his movements were governed largely by his intuition than his head, and charged with adrenaline...

But in hindsight, going off always felt like a sugar crash, each day worse than the last.

"Is something wrong, Shreyas?" Virat asked when they'd reached the dugout.

Apart from the monstrous stairs that loomed in front of them, that you HAD to cross to reach the dressing room?

"Just the way we lost," said Shreyas.

__________________

When his back started bothering him around the second Test, Shreyas took to analgesic injections and the thing was, he'd initially thought they were working.

Hell, he'd even thought he'd moved past that back pain after he had to sit out at the NCA during the ODI series against New Zealand a couple of months back.

Clearly not. To both his assumptions.

Even if he'd managed to play through the second and third Tests on injections, and hadn't played too bad, deep inside, he knew he was being an idiot both for himself and for his team. Only, it was not like national-level chances came down like rain upon most people. 

Even for people who deserved them, every chance to play for India was a miracle that could not be let go.

Shreyas stayed in bed the whole day since the team returned before noon, trying to sleep, which wasn't much good. The pain just wouldn't let him sleep properly anymore, either.

When he was practically (or hopefully) drifting off in the evening, his ringtone shook him out.

It was Rishabh, who received a earful of abuses instantly.

"Someone sure is in a bad mood," Rishabh said mildly when Shreyas paused for breath.

"Yes. You don't randomly call people at--" Shreyas couldn't even bring himself to turn to look at the clock.

"Eight in the evening? When else are we supposed to call?"

Shreyas couldn't find a counter, so he abused Rishabh some more.

Again, when he had to break off to breathe, Rishabh sniggered and asked, "Who put you in this mood?"

"No one," said Shreyas. "I was just going to sleep and you woke me up."

"So? You'll go to sleep again in five minutes," said Rishabh, like it was very matter-of-fact (which it did use to be before this horror started).

Shreyas could have told Rishabh right then that that wasn't the case anymore. Rishabh would ask why, and Shreyas could tell him about the horrible pain, the impulsive decision not to inform their physio, Nitin sir, the self-prescribed analgesics that seemed to have stopped working and the pain, the pain, the pain that even at that moment was making him nauseous.

But how could he tell Rishabh?

Rishabh had barely got up on crutches last month. Rishabh actually had a serious injury, that no one knew how long it'd keep him out of cricket.

At least I'm playing.

With Rishabh, there was a clear reasoning. With the others, not that much.

Shreyas wasn't sure of the reason why he wasn't telling anyone, except that national chances didn't come upon you every day, and you couldn't trust anyone at all.

__________________

A couple of hours later, when Shreyas was suspended in a state between sleep and wakefulness, with the line between feeling the pain and imagining the pain blurred, he felt someone shaking him gently.

"What's up with you, sleeping the whole day? You haven't eaten in hours, Yas, have dinner and go back to bed..."

Shreyas' consciousness returned, and with it, the imagination of the pain became very real again. He groaned and tried to turn over.

"No, you're not to go back to sleep again. You're getting up right now, Shreyas."

It was Rohit bhaiya's voice, and must therefore be Rohit bhaiya trying to shake him awake.

Shreyas felt wide awake all at once.

It was the opposite of how it'd been with Virat bhaiya earlier. This time, he wanted to slap Rohit bhaiya's hand away and hurt him as much as possible--though he knew it wouldn't really hurt Rohit bhaiya or make any difference to him at all whether Shreyas pushed his hand away or not--he wanted to, but he controlled himself and didn't.

"Yeah, getting up..." he mumbled.

"Five minutes," conceded Rohit bhaiya.

Shreyas could have come up with fifty retorts, all starting with how Rohit bhaiya had no business to be here, in his room at all.

More to avoid being in close vicinity with him for five minutes, Shreyas turned down the five minutes.

"I'm going down," he said, sitting up slowly, trying not to twist his back or his legs the wrong way.

"You don't have to do me the favour of going down," said Rohit bhaiya, smiling. "Just sitting up is enough. I told them to send it up."

This.

This concern used to fool him once.

Shreyas felt like laughing at his younger self, the way he often did lately.

He used to be stupid, once upon a time. For a long, long five years, he used to be stupid.