Unfortunately, Rohit couldn't use the five-hour flight to Dubai to drive some sense into Jassi's head, because Jassi flatly turned his back on both of Rohit and Hardik and stuck firmly to Virat's side.

"Um, Virat," Rohit said when they'd boarded the flight. "Mind exchanging seats with me?"

Jassi caught Virat's arm with a fierce expression. Virat looked between the two of them, and motioned at Rohit, what's going on?

Rohit gave a helpless shrug and had to return to sit beside Hardik and Ash, who were meeting after a long time and had their heads together. Hardik's heart didn't seem to be in the conversation, though, and his face fell when Rohit slipped into the seat beside him.

"Now he's mad at me, too," said Rohit. Hardik looked so glum, he had to add quickly, "But never mind, we have such a long layover, I'll catch hold of him then."

"Why is he mad at you?" asked Hardik.

"I suspect it's because I'm not mad at you," Rohit mused.

Hardik put his head down in his arms on the tray table.

________________

Jassi seemed to have cooled down considerably over the flight.

He smiled cordially enough at Rohit when he caught up with him after deboarding, and said, "Sorry I was rude to you earlier, Rohit bhaiya."

"Never mind that," said Rohit. "I hope you're in a better mood to listen now—Hardik's really—"

Jassi's expression turned stony.

"—he's really cut up about the whole thing, Jassi..."

"But he wasn't cut up before, was he, when he was in talks with the managements? Pretty smart timing to get upset, don't you think, Rohit bhaiya?"

"You know him, Jass," said Rohit gently. "You know he'd never do anything to hurt the ones he loves. Whatever you're thinking isn't—"

"I envy your faith, Rohit bhaiya," said Jassi with a wry sort of grimace. "But I know Hardik, too, and I know he'd stop at nothing to get his own way. Even if he had to sacrifice the ones he loves along the way."

"How are you being so illogical?" Rohit asked with honest curiosity, but it was the wrong thing to say, of course.

Jassi's eyebrows drew together and his tone turned ice-cold.

"It's bad enough he has you fooled and blinded without you starting to think every sensible person in the country is being illogical, Rohit bhaiya."

"I wouldn't blame them as much—they don't know Hardik, after all..."

"Very well then, keep blaming me."

Jassi stalked ahead to catch up with Virat again without a backward glance.

________________

Two hours into their precious layover, Rohit had still not managed to make any headway into drawing Jassi in for a successful conversation. Every time he tried, Jassi alternated between willing to talk-unwilling to listen and unwilling to talk at all and between very polite and very rude. It didn't help that every time Jassi snubbed Rohit's explanations, Hardik would come to join Rohit, dragging his feet, which got Jassi in a worse temper and Rohit in a progressively more hopeless mood.

The clocked ticked ahead relentlessly.

Then Hardik finally said, "You've tried enough, Rohit, I'll go and try myself now."

"Sure." Rohit's encouragement sounded more wariness than anything. "Go ahead, try." He said in a more cheerful tone.

They turned as one to spot Jassi. He was sipping from a glass of water at the bar counter with most of the rest of team around.

"I'll lead them off from the lounge for a bit," said Rohit. "You wouldn't want a crowd in case he starts yelling."

Hardik gave him a grateful smile.

Of course, Rohit was to regret that particular act of helpfulness not long after.

_______________

When there were only strangers barring Jassi in the lounge, Hardik sauntered up to the bar counter. Unsurprisingly, Jassi pretended not to notice.

"I know you're angry, Jassi," Hardik began, maintaining a safe distance. "But don't you think you owe me at least hearing out what I have to say?"

"Not really," said Jassi stiffly. "I don't see any point in that. You've got really good with words lately, and I already know what you're going to say. That you didn't ask for captaincy, you had no hand at all in this unfairness done to Rohit bhaiya...I think it's quite clear that none of this would have happened without you..."

The truth in the last bit felt like an arrow to Hardik's chest.

"Maybe not," he said. "But there are several ways in which that could have happened, and I swear whatever you've assumed is not what happened. When MI approached me for the trade—"

Jassi drained his water in one go and took on a much ruder tone. "Why did they approach you at all? There was no talk of a change in captaincy after next season, none of us—"

"Will you be quiet for five minutes and listen, damn it?" shouted Hardik.

Jassi's eyes narrowed to slits. "Haven't you been hearing what I've been saying nonstop so far? I. Don't. Want. To. Listen. To. What you have to say, Hardik."

"Like you have so many better things to do in an airport waiting lounge?"

"No, I have all the time in the world, just not for the person who took Rohit bhaiya's—"

"What's your problem, Jasprit Bumrah? Did you want to the captain yourself after Rohit that badly? Should I step down and tell them to make you the captain? I don't—"

Jassi flung the glass he'd been holding at Hardik's feet where it shattered with a jingling clang. Pieces of jagged glass lay glinting from the chandeliers in Hardik's stunned vision before he looked up at Jassi screaming back.

"Don't you dare suggest I want to take Rohit bhaiya's place! I am not you, Hardik!"

Hardik didn't have a glass to smash, so he bent to pick up a bunch of a bigger pieces from his feet and hurled them right back at Jassi's feet, where they shattered into tiny ones, too.

"And what about how you've dared to assume that's who I am? When have you known me to act against Rohit bhaiya or anyone close to the two of us!"

Jassi groped along the bar counter for something else to break. The barmen and the other people in the lounge all appeared too shocked to act before Jassi caught hold of a half-full wine glass, and this time he aimed it at Hardik's head. Hardik raised his arms on instinct to intercept it and send it flying in the opposite direction.

Lunging at Hardik, Jassi was screaming above the clinking of breaking glass and sloshing liquid.

"IT WOULD BE FINE TO ACT LIKE AN UNGRATEFUL, SELFISH BASTARD IF YOU AT LEAST ACCEPTED RESPONSIBILITY INSTEAD OF GASLIGHTING ROHIT BHAIYA, HARDIK!"

"DO YOU THINK ROHIT IS AN IDIOT AND YOU'RE THE ONLY SMART ONE?"

They were hardly aware of what they were breaking anymore, whether they were hitting each other with glass or hands—all Hardik knew that he wanted to break Jassi as badly as he could, and he knew Jassi wanted exactly the same.

"NOT JUST ME, HARDIK! THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS! YOU'RE LUCKY ROHIT BHAIYA IS THIS NICE, NO ONE ELSE WOULD WANT TO LOOK AT YOU AFTER WHAT YOU'VE DONE. NO ONE ELSE WILL, EITHER!"

"RIGHT! RIGHT! PLAY THE NEXT SEASON WITHOUT LOOKING AT YOUR CAPTAIN, JASSI. IT'LL WORK OUT REAL WELL!"

"YOU DON'T EVEN FEEL A SLIVER OF SHAME, YOU CALL YOUSELF OUR CAPTAIN LIKE YOU BECAME ONE BY FAIR MEANS--"

People were trying stop them, they were shouting, trying to pull them apart, but Hardik was only vaguely aware. And he did not care one bit how many lines of decency they were crossing so long as he got to hurt Jassi first.

"WHAT IS A FAIR MEANS? WHAT IS?"

"ROHIT BHAIYA MADE US EVERYTHING WE ARE, AND--"

"JASSI, HARDIK," a furious voice roared above the din, a roar that both of them somehow registered in spite of being completely deaf to everything but each other by that point.

As Rohit wove through the crowd towards them, followed closely by Virat and Ash, Hardik and Jassi, both of who had frozen, realised they were practically at each other's throats with glasses raised in their hands, and they just had the time to step away before their elder brothers reached them.

"What exactly do you two mean by this insane hooliganism?" Rohit spat out in a dangerously soft voice.

"Hooliganism isn't a word, Rohit bhaiya!" shouted Jassi.

"Yes, it is! It's a born noun!" shouted Hardik.

Jassi dropped the glass he was holding in shock.

"Enough!" said Rohit. "One more raised voice from either of you, and you're both out of the national team for good."

He seemed to realize he'd sounded a bit too harsh, because he added in a gentler tone, "Because we can't keep disgraces representing the nation on foreign soil, you know."

Rohit pulled Hardik away from the crowd by the arm as Virat steered Jassi and Ash stayed back to talk about the damage to officials who had come up to investigate.

"What on earth got into you both?" Virat asked.

Rohit indicated something at him, which must have said, I'll handle it, because once they'd reached a relatively isolated spot, Virat patted Jassi's shoulder, and was about to slip away when he came back to pat Hardik's shoulder too, to show he wasn't taking sides.

Hardik was mostly too distracted to notice, though, because he felt like he was twenty two again when Rohit faced them, and again, he just knew on instinct that Jassi did, too.