oml this is so delicious the potential of it>>>> TW: Self-Harm
like up until now he has never resorted to such extreme measures because he knows it will freak out the soulmate. he doesn't want to do that. so he doesn't usually resort to physical self-harm(doesn't stop him from finding other ways but we'll talk about that some other time). but things have been really shit for him and the icing on the cake was the IPL loss. so maybe it's the first time he does it.
his soulmate sees the marks, deludes themselves at first thinking it's another injury, cause well, the other alternative is a much more dark, concerning and morbid one. And whoever their soulmate was kept getting injured even before so it might be that???
But it keeps happening and now there are wayy too many to ignore. And they are freaking the fuck out cause how can they save whoever it is????
if we keep the soulmate as pat then more potential for angst? cause he's all the way in australia and has no fucking idea who it is. he tries to search for them in his team, but he can't find them. no one is wearing long sleeves or flinching when he touches their wrists.
Ooh wait the BGT is this year ryt???
so by then shubman's probably won some, lost some, so he has marks that he needs to hide. so he always wears long sleeves for practice now(not that he wears short sleeves all that often??) and he has no idea pat is his soulmate. so he isn't prepared for that specific scenario
Imagine they walk out for toss, and pat shakes shubman's hands. maybe one of the cuts are still healing, and shubman forgot to wrap them properly and it stains his compression tee a little. and pat notices. He's instantly suspicious but can't do anything with 20 fucking cameras pointing at them so he keeps quiet.
but this thing keeps nagging at him, the small stain, and he's now hyper aware of shubman's every movement through the entirety of the first test. infact, he ends up cataloguing all of his matches and matching the timeline where the marks appeared and a morbid and concerning pattern emerges. By day 5 he's dreading the result cause Australia has the upper hand.
maybe india loses the first test(now I hope this never happens in real life). and shubman slips back to his hotel room's bathroom after match and ends up resorting to the blade again cause it's become a habit now, not knowing that he was inaverdantly confirming pat's suspicions about everything. This time, Pat is waiting for the mark to appear, to confirm everything so that he can confront shubman, and when it does, he immideatly rushes out of his room only to realise he doesn't know which room number shubman is in. cue to a trip to the receptionist to find out which floor the indian team is in(assuming both the teams stay at the same hotel cause uh I dunno?) and some bribes with autographs, and some charming smiles later, he finally gets shubman's room number too.
At first he thinks he might have to break the door down. but then he takes the more logical route, despite his panic, depsite his crippling fear, and knocks. Shubman opens the door, clad in a full sleeved hoodie, and pat can't help but notice the bandages peeking out. He looks tired, like he hasn't slept in ages, and some how, thinner. Shubman asks him what he's doing here, he's the captain of the opponent team for gods sake? has he come here to gloat? The exhaustion and snark in his voice somehow manages to draw pat back to reality, and the actual situation at hand. he tells shubman, straight up, that they're soulmates, and he knows what he's been doing.
