BROKEN THINGS

13

Before any of them could stop him, Rahul had strode across the room and switched on the TV. Sachin rushed to take the remote from his hands before he could flip to a news channel but Rahul raised a singular hand, dead serious.

"Don't,".

He flipped through the channels until he reached the desired one and stared at the footage of himself.

It was a twenty second video, taken from the hospital parking lot. When Sourav had pulled Rahul out of the car. It was not of a good quality, and taken from a side profile but Rahul's stumble and lean on Sourav was obvious. This would have been fine but, Sourav moves out of the frame in one of the last frames to help Rahul onto a wheelchair. That's where the channel kept freezing the frame. Even through bad quality, the split second where Rahul is almost completely facing the camera, light falling just enough on his face to highlight the swollen jaw and the blood dripping from his cut, his India practice jersey that he hadn't taken off since yesterday, torn up. Long story short, Mahi was right. Rahul did infact look terrible.

But on the bright side, they didn't know what had caused it. Well, Rahul thought, something to work with.

"Rahul," Sachin touched his shoulder. Rahul turned towards him. Sachin was looking at him with unbearably soft compassionate eyes. Rahul had to look down. Somehow, he noticed, Sachin seemed to keep forgetting that he was supposed to be angry with Rahul, that Rahul had broken him like no other person would ever be able to. Sachin had too big a heart, he lamented. A heart that he had never deserved, he didn't know how he had even dared to desire it.

"It will be alright. We will deal with this together okay, it will be alright-" Sachin was rambling now.

"Sach," the nickname slipped out before he could stop it. He hesitantly met the eyes of the man he could never stop dreaming of, the sinner that he was, "I know it's alright," he tried to smile but his jaw screamed with pain, making him grimace. Right, his jaw was hurt. Actually now that he was thinking about it, his entire body was screaming with pain, burning as if it was on fire, pins and needles all over. He wanted to double over as his mind chose the moment to remind him all the places that hurt, but he didn't. There were things to deal with first, namely, Mahi, the team and the press.

"Sit down," Sachin must have noticed the sudden sweat on his face, because he gently tried to guide Rahul to a chair.

"I'm fine," he waved him off, if Sachin took even a step closer, cared even slightly more, he was going to die of heartache.

Sourav rolled his eyes and walked over from the other side of the room, grabbed his bicep and dragged him to the bed. Far from the gentleness of Sachin. Rahul scowled at his brother but regretted when his jaw screamed again. Well, damn. Apparently expressions were banned for the foreseeable future.

Anil left poor Mahi be and came in an apology on his tongue, "I'm sorry. I am in contact with BCCI, we are trying to get the video taken dow-"

"It's fine Anil," Rahul interrupted, "I will deal with it,".

"You don't need to. We will look after this. You just get better," Sachin said, he looked downright dismayed by everything.

"Sach, it's fi-"

"It's not fine Rahul!" Anil exclaimed exasperated, "It's not fine. Nothing is fine. Greg Chappel beat up the Indian Captain. And an Indian Player landed the man in the hospital as retaliation. He is dealing with multiple concussions right now- by the way good job Sourav- that's why his mouth is shut. The second he recovers, he is going to raise a storm. We could have kept this all behind closed doors but some bloody idiot leaked a video of you injured. And now there are questions. It's so FAR from fine and I am not even talking about what has been done to you," he finished his rant and wiped his forehead frustrated, looking stressed.

Rahul tried to think of a way to pacify them all but before he could say anything, Sourav had taken charge.

"We will discuss about this after you have had food and medicines," Sourav ordered in a no nonsense voice before turning to Sachin and smacking him lightly, "Be better,".

He then turned to Anil, "And you. Relax please. Eat something. Drink some water,".

Finally his eyes went to Mahi who had been watching their argument frozen in his place. Rahul mentally face palmed, he wasn't sure he could do it physically without hurting. Shit. They had all forgotten about the boy. He had heard everything... things they had been planning to keep from the team for now.

"Kiddo, can you come in and close the door?" Sourav asked gently. Mahi followed his instructions warily standing far away from them all. 

"Now, I am ordering all of us food. We will eat. Then talk," Sourav ordered looking all of them in the eye.

They had no choice but to comply.