Make your own kind of Music | A Shubman Gill x Ishan Kishan Fanfiction

Skyfall

PRESENT

Nothing could Rohit bhaiya have said to prepare them for what they were about to see.

Both the doctors and Shikki paaji tried to stop Ishan and Shubman from entering Rishabh's ward. Ishan had sort of guessed by then he would deeply regret disobeying them, but he couldn't stand not knowing what they wanted to hide.

Rishabh was limp, eyes closed and still. His forehead was swollen inhumanly and the bandages were deeply bloodstained. His body was covered with a sheet, but that only meant there could be any amount of blood and injuries hidden from them.

Shubman slipped his hand into Ishan's the same moment as Ishan reached for it.

Now that they had had a look and frozen by its horror, their bodies didn't resist when Shikki paaji led them outside gently.

Ishan forced himself to speak. "What do the doctors say, paaji?"

"They say," said Shikki paaji in a shaking voice, "it's lucky he's alive."

"He'll...he'll..." Shubman couldn't croak further.

Ishan asked the question for him.

"He will...get better, right?"

"They're hopeful," said Shikki paaji.

Shubman's fingers tightened convulsively around Ishan's.

"They don't say they're hopeful unless they're almost sure," Ishan whispered to him. "Doctors don't give false hope."

"Right," said Shubman. "Right."

"How did it happen?" asked someone.

"The car crashed into the divider, apparently," said someone else. "They're saying he might have drifted off for a second or two."

"How many times have I told the idiot to drive safely?" Shikki paaji muttered furiously. "How many times-"

His rant was cut off by Virat bhaiya calling him. He walked off to take the call.

"Has the family been informed?"

"Yes, they are on the way."

"Any updates?"

"Might have to be shifted for the surgery..."

Ishan and Shubman simply stood in the middle of the corridor amidst all the bustle. They heard news being shouted all over the place, but Ishan did not think Shubman was processing them any more than he was. The image of Rishabh lying limply in the white sheets was plastered in front of his eyes. No amount of blinking could banish it.

"What do the police say?"

"Accident. Definitely an accident."

"The car?"

Ishan wasn't sure who showed them the picture of the wreckage of the car. It was enveloped in flames, so much flames that you couldn't even tell it was a car.

Shubman stumbled back from the picture, almost as if the flames burnt him, so violently that he collided with the pillar behind. Ishan caught both his arms...they were shaking...and pulled him towards himself.

"It's all right, Shubi, they got him out," Ishan said. His voice shook as hard as Shubman's whole body was.

"Who got him out of that?" cried Shubman. "He can't have got out of that on his own."

"Well, someone did." Ishan gave him a small smile, the best he could summon. "We should, um, send them our best wishes."

Shubman buried his face in the crook of Ishan's neck before bursting into tears. "May God fulfill every last wish of theirs," he sobbed.

"And just one wish of ours," Ishan muttered under his breath.

***

A lot of people arrived at the hospital over the day, friends and teammates and relatives of Rishabh's.

The most painful to watch, of course, was when his parents and sister arrived from Dehradun.

Shikki paaji held them all together. He took innumerable calls with unwavering patience, teammates calling to enquire about Rishabh's condition. He led in the visitors, consoled a hysterically sobbing Sakshi, and came over to check on Ishan and Shubman, and Kuldeep, who had taken a return flight to Delhi as soon as he had landed in Kanpur.

Ishan wondered how he could do all that and be so steady while he did it, too.

Rohit bhaiya called Ishan several times. Ishan could at least show him that he was being calm, even if he could not give much good news. Virat bhaiya called Shubman first, but Shubman was crying so much he couldn't speak a word and Ishan had to take the phone from him and update Virat bhaiya instead.

However, Virat bhaiya didn't want news. He must already have got it from Shikki paaji.

"How are you two?" he asked.

Ishan patted Shubman's head still drooping against his shoulder and said, "We're all right, Virat bhaiya."

"Stay there," said Virat bhaiya. "Don't do anything stupid."

"Stupid, like what?"

"I don't know. Just don't."

Then Virat bhaiya asked to talk to Kuldeep, whose face was also tearstained.

Ishan occasionally wondered why he wasn't crying.

Between stormy sobs, Shubman would keep chanting, "Rishabh will get better, won't he, Ishu? Rishabh will get better, won't he?"

"Of course he will get better, Shubi," Ishan would reply mechanically. 

***

Shahneel and Aditi dropped in around midday.

Shubman shifted from Ishan's arms to talk to his sister, who asked anxiously, "How is he?"

"Why could you not just drop a text?" Aditi asked Ishan angrily. "What did you think we would feel seeing you two just gone?"

Ishan remembered with a start he'd forgotten to inform her, or anyone. "Really sorry...we just...we forgot..."

"Do you want to go in and see him, Aditi?" Shahneel asked.

Aditi seemed to forget her anger, too, and took Ishan's hand. "Yes."

"I don't want to go again," Ishan said, looking away.

"Me neither," said Shubman.

And he returned to the safety of Ishan's arms soon after. This time, Ishan found themselves a bit of space on the bench to sit on. Shahneel and Aditi came back with Sakshi, all looking sick.

As they waited into the night, praying fruitlessly for news, at some point, Shubman fell asleep, slumped against Ishan. Ishan patted his damp cheek absentmindedly, feeling a sudden burst of warmth, which left him surprised.

He hadn't thought he'd possessed any warmth inside him underneath the ice-cold terror.

Rishabh's teammates stayed over at the hospital till he was flown with his family to Mumbai for the surgery in a chartered flight early next morning.