His idiot

1

Virat had a problem. A big one. It started with the name Babar and ended with Azam. That fucking Pakistani idiot thought he could say anything he wanted to Shadab just because he was the captain.

Babar had screamed at Shadab for 'not playing well' against Afghanistan although everyone in a radius of 100 meters could see that the boy seemed to be unwell. And this asshole didn't even bother to look if there were any cameras around them. Unnecessary to say there were some. And they captured every damn thing Babar said to Shadab.

Virat just wanted to watch the match peacefully. His hopes for a final against (Shadab) Pakistan started to disappear the moment he saw the state Shadab was in. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his face was pale.

Who put him on the field?

The urge to call one of the Pakistani players or that incompetent coach of them was rising with every second.

Around the break, he restlessly paced back and forth in his living room while trying to call Shaheen, but that man's phone was every time off. Virat wondered, irritated why the other even had a phone if he never picked it up.

Someone needed to take Shadab from the pitch.

He had forgotten to put the TV on silent so when he heard this awful loud voice of Babar, he didn't pay much attention to it at first, but all it took for him was to hear Shadab's name being yelled and he looked at the TV like it was the answer to all his questions.

Oh, Virat was enraged. He was angry at Babar for screaming at his Shadab.

How dare he?

__

Nearly an hour after the official ending of the match, Virat called Shadab. Surprisingly, the younger picked up after just the third ring.

"Hi." Shadab said in a scratchy voice, and this was all it took for Virat to snap. "Why did you play when you were ill?"

"It was an important match. The team needed me. Besides, It was just a cold," The Pakistani tried to defend himself, which was pretty difficult when you had to sniff or cough every two seconds.

Virat breathed through his nose, trying to calm himself down. "Did you eat something?"

"I had some soup earlier, but I wasn't that hungry," Shadab admitted.

Virat pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I don't care if you're hungry or not. You'll eat the soup. Or I'll fly over. " He hated to act like a mother hen around Shadab, but sometimes the younger one didn't leave him with any other choice.

"You saw it, didn't you?" Shadab asked in a quiet voice after a few minutes had passed.

He hummed at that.

Shadab went silent before murmuring. "He was right, I didn't give my best today. We needed to win. If this continues, we won't even make it to the semifinals."

Virat wanted to tell him he played more than fine, and he wanted to shout at his boyfriend that he couldn't have given his hundred percent if he was on the verge of collapsing.

But he didn't do any of that. Shadab was as stubborn as a stone, and when the Pakistani was ill, he was unbearable - to put it nicely. Virat needed to ask Sheila what she ate, while she was pregnant with Shadab, so that Bhawna could avoid it. 

They talked for a while about his nephew Aarav, Mehtab's fiancé and the newest prank from some of the u19 players at Rohit. Well, he did most of the talking, and Shadab listened. That was until he heard Shadab breathing even and shallowly, indicating that the younger had fallen asleep with the phone still being on. Virat couldn't help but smile at that.