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Virat asks Faf when he fell in love with him, like it's a simple thing, like love is something that happens once and then you know you're in love and it's not at all messy and hard to know.
Faf almost laughs.
Faf knew it would sound too dramatic to say it was the moment he saw him, too much like a story told for earning applauses instead of truth.
So he told him a different one.
About a woman who fell in love with a boy twice her age, and how time did what time always does, slow and merciless and terribly patient, turning the boy into a man and then into something worn out with time, something that forgot itself in pieces. How memory leaves you like that, not all at once, but in careful, deliberate thefts, names first, then faces, then the details that you swore you'll never forget.
But not her.
Never her.
Even in sleep, he would whisper her name, like it had rooted itself somewhere deeper than thought, somewhere untouchable. And later, when forgetting became a habit, when faces slipped and names refused to stay, he would still look at her and recognize. She could be sad, and he would know. She could say nothing at all, and he would still reach for her like he could read her silences.
And Faf says it like it's the answer to every question Virat has ever asked or never asked,
isn't that what love is,
when the mind forgets but the heart refuses to learn how.
Virat hums, soft as the sheets beneath them, like he understands, like he always understands more than he says, but he asks again anyway, quieter this time, like he's afraid of the answer and wants it anyway
when did you fall?
And Faf could say he's still falling.
He could look into those pair of eyes and say it, easy and sweet and devastating in the way people expect love to sound, but it feels too much like a performance, like something meant to be heard rather than meant to be true, so he lets it go unsaid.
Instead, he tells him about a match.
A century no one saw coming. Not the crowd, not the noise, not even Virat himself, because you could see it then, the doubt sitting heavy in his shoulders, the way hope had already started to loosen its grip like it was preparing to leave.
But hope is a stubborn thing. It doesn't leave cleanly. It lingers, like perfume in fabric, faint but persistent, returning every time.
And Virat finds it again.
The victory which has always belonged to him, his crown, his throne.
And Faf is watching.
Faf remembered the way he had jumped then, the way the victory felt too personal, loud and bright and impossible to hide. He remembered laughing, shouting, not caring who saw.
And then Virat was there pulling him in, holding him like he meant it. Tight enough that for a second Faf thought, absurdly that Virat might reach in, tear out his heart, taste the devotion sitting there, flowing in abundance.
And Faf holds on.
Just for a second too long.
Long enough to feel it, how complete it is, how terrifying, how there is no part of him untouched by it anymore, how loving Virat has become something that lives in him like a heartbeat, constant and unrelenting and impossible to silence, how he would lay out his heart and Virat could step on it.
Virat asks, did you then?
And Faf thinks he should confess, should say it out plainly.
But Virat is already running a hand through his hair, restless in that familiar way, like he does when he's waiting too long for an answer, when patience begins to fray at the edges, and suddenly Faf's scared.
So Faf does what he's always done.
He tells him another story.
About the only time they were ever on the same side of things. The same team, the same schedule, the same hotel room.
About that night.
Virat had been pressed close to him, not in the careless way he is with everyone else, not loose or thoughtless, but deliberate, like he needed the contact, like distance would have been unbearable. His arm had come around Faf's middle, Faf had let his hands move, slow and steady, over his back, his shoulders, the careful rhythm of it meant to soothe, meant to quiet whatever storm had driven Virat there in the first place.
Virat had made a sound then, small and broken, like something cracking open, and then another, and another, until it wasn't something he could hold back anymore, until the sobs came fully, uncontrollable, shaking through him, his face pressed into Faf's shirt as if he could disappear into it.
And Faf had just... held him.
Stroked his back, his hair, anywhere his hands could reach, each touch gentle, careful, and still, every time his hand moved, another broken sound would leave Virat, like he was breaking under it, like being held was what made it impossible to stay contained.
Faf had asked, quietly, if he wanted to tell him.
And Virat had only cried harder.
His eyes had been so red when he finally looked up, so raw and hollowed out that for a moment Faf had thought that this is what it looks like when someone has nothing left to give.
And then Virat spoke, like the words had been sitting in him too long.
He said he didn't understand it, the sadness, the way it clung to him without reason, without warning, like it had settled somewhere in his bones and refused to leave. He said he was afraid all the time, not of anything he could name, just a constant, quiet certainty that something bad was going to happen, that one day he would step out of a room like this, ordinary and unaware, and it would be the last thing he ever did because a truck could run him over.
That he wasn't afraid of dying, but what about the life he was in the middle of living?
Who would live it for him if he wasn't there to finish it?
And then, softer, almost ashamed of it, like it was something he shouldn't admit, what if something happened to Faf?
He had laughed then, broken and uneven, called himself selfish for it, said he knew it was selfish to think like that, to hold someone that tightly in his thoughts, but he could be selfish in love, couldn't he?
He could want that, just this once.
Faf doesn't say what he answered.
He doesn't say how long he held him after, or how the sobbing eventually quieted but not the yawning distance between them or Virats incessant fear.
He just lets the story end there.
And when it does, he looks at Virat, and Virat is crying again.
Quietly this time, And Faf feels it then, heavy and inescapable, the way all these stories have started folding back into each other, circling the same truth without ever touching it, the way he has been walking around it instead of through it.
He knows he can't keep doing this.
Knows he can't keep hiding it.
And that's when he finally says it.
Like it has been sitting at the back of his throat all this while, waiting for him to stop pretending it needed to be hidden.
That he fell for Virat the moment he saw him.
It sounds almost ridiculous after everything, the stories, the careful circling, the way he tried to shrug it off, dilute it, make it safer but once it's out, it doesn't feel like a risk anymore. It just feels... obvious. Like he'd been afraid of something that was never there to begin with.
Virat smiles.
Not like he's surprised, like he's been waiting for it, like this was always the answer and Faf just took the scenic route to get there.
He reaches out, smacks Faf lightly on the head, a little annoyed, a little relieved, like really? this is what took you so long? and then, softer, he leans in and presses a kiss there too, easy and unthinking and so full of something Faf doesn't even try to name.
And Faf thinks, he's been a fool.
To think any of this could sound stupid.
To think anything, anything at all, that had Virat in it could ever be.
----
Later, they go out for ice cream, because in this universe Faf has decided that Virat must try every possible flavor that exists, and Virat, who pretends to argue every single time, still follows him anyway, still lets himself be led from one ridiculous choice to another like it's something he's grown used to.
Faf is bent down, tying his laces, fingers working through the knot with quiet focus, when Virat smacks his bum and darts away laughing, bright and sudden, like he's been waiting for the exact right moment to do it.
Faf looks up, already half-annoyed, half-amused, and then he's on his feet, catching him easily, lifting him clean off the ground the way you do with a child who doesn't know when to stop.
And for a second, the thought slips in, what if Virat had been one?
Faf decides quickly—thank God he isn't.
And then, just as quickly, he is, anyway.
At least here. At least like this.
Virat is already wriggling out of his hold, laughing, and before Faf can even set him down properly, there's the sound of a click, then another.
Two pictures.
Faf groans immediately, already knowing they're terrible, already certain he looks ridiculous in ways that will somehow matter more because Virat is the one looking.
"Delete them," he says, but there's no real weight behind it.
Virat doesn't listen. (He's definitely a child)
So Faf reaches for the phone instead, quick and decisive, and catches Virat off guard, fingers digging into his sides, merciless, until Virat folds in on himself, laughter breaking out of him in helpless bursts, loud and unrestrained and almost unrecognizable in how uncontained it is.
Another click.
This one is worse.
Virat looks half-possessed in it, eyes squeezed shut, mouth open, laughter caught mid-spill and Faf stares at it for a second longer than he means to.
And there it is.
The kind of laughter that feels like it could slip through your fingers if you're not careful, like it belongs to the air more than to you, like it was never meant to be held. Faf wishes, suddenly and fiercely, that he could keep it. Bottle it. Save it somewhere safe where nothing could touch it.
He would bring him the moon if he could, but it's not his to give.
He would tie up the stars, gather them close so Virat would never have to look up and wonder, so they would always be within reach, always his, but his hands are only flesh and he can only reach so far.
And something about that sits heavy in him for a moment.
Because Virat deserves impossible things.
And the way Virat loves him, he can never be loved this way again.
Not like this. Not in this quiet, consuming, unreasonable way that asks for nothing and still wants to give everything. Because there is no one, there could not be anyone who would look at Virat and not feel it, who would not see everything he is and fall short of it anyway.
Virat is too much, too bright, too impossibly himself.
And Faf is the one who gets to love him.
So he lets the sadness go as quickly as it came, something softer settling in its place, something almost like gratitude, almost like prayer.
And he thanks whatever it is that decided this,
that out of everything, out of everyone,
it would be him.
It would be his heart Virat finds a home in.