His Priority (A Rahul-Virat bond fanfiction)

Part 4

When Rahul opened his eyes, he saw Virat's face in front of him. Like, right in front of him, since he was sitting on the bed and bending forward and staring at his face.

It was quite creepy, actually.

It took Virat a few moments to believe was Rahul was really conscious.

"What's up, Rahuliya?" he asked finally, his voice trembling a little.

Except that his elbow hurt mildly, Rahul felt perfectly all right. Ignoring the nickname for once, he asked, "How long was I out?"

"Almost 6 hours," said Hardik, who was sitting beside Rahul's head, and had been almost completely silent till then.

"God, you scared me," said Virat. His voice still wouldn't stop shaking.

"He scared all of us!" said Hardik at once. "Not only you, captain!"

Before Virat could retort, his phone rang. He would've ignored any call under the circumstances, but it was Anushka, and he knew she was calling to ask about Rahul's condition, so he said, "One second," and moved away and received the call.

Hardik was ranting to Rahul about what an idiot he was, and all the while he was gripping Rahul's hand hard. Rahul was gripping it right back as he listened to his rant with usual skepticism, and his eyes automatically found Virat at the other end of the room.

Jinks noticed and he leaned forward and said quietly, "Do you know Vi was talking about abandoning the match after they carried you out?"

"Oh," said Rahul, surprised and ridiculously happy.

Virat came back and saw everyone trying to talk to Rahul at the same time.

"The doctor said only one of us can stay with him now," he announced distinctly.

Rohit and Jinks were pretty sure he was making that up, but neither of them said anything.

"So scram, all of you," ordered Virat.

"I want to stay!" wailed Hardik, looking at Rahul for support, who was in a dilemma.

Of course he wanted just Virat to stay with him. But he wanted Hardik too.

"Hardik," warned Virat.

Rohit took Hardik's arm and pulled him away, saying comfortingly, "He's such a bossy idiot, y'know, Harry, but we don't have a choice but to put up with it..."

The rest of the team left, laughing at Rohit's words. Virat didn't bother to react, because he'd got what he wanted.

Virat sat down beside Rahul again. For a while neither of them spoke.

Then Virat said, "How many times have I told you to get that damn elbow guard fixed?"

"No one bothers to fix it!" said Rahul. "Why're you telling me?"

"Because no one else is like you. They don't collapse when hit on the elbow," said Virat teasingly, reaching out to hug him.

Rahul pulled away at once.

"You stay away from me!"

"No I won't. You come here," said Virat.

Virat hadn't expected Rahul to obey but for some reason, he did. He sat up and let Virat hug him like he had been waiting for it, and he buried his head in Virat's shoulder in a way he rarely did, and after a moment Virat realised that he was crying.

Virat had never seen Rahul cry except after his first Test hundred, and that had been on his shoulder too.

Should he be proud?