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artpharos · 2 days ago

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Send me two characters or more and a prompt and I’ll write you a short fic

1. “Are you drunk?”

2. “You’re too young to hate the world.”

3. “I don’t want your pity, I want your absence.”

4. “We’re designed to be disposable.”

5. “There’s blood on my/your hands.”

6. “Could you be any louder?”

7. “I’ve never killed anyone before.”

8. “Your smile is not as bright as it used to be.”

9. “Don’t call me that!”

10. “Please don’t make me socialize.”

11. “Same time tomorrow?”

12. “I’ve been buying the wrong underwear.”

13. “How can anyone not be afraid of love?”

14. “You’re supposed to talk me out of this.”

15. “That was a perfect example of how not to do things.”

16. “If you want, we could go together?”

17. “I have contemplated becoming a hermit.”

18. “I’m alive… I can tell because of the pain.”

19. “Maybe you’re not thinking hard enough.”

20. “It’s 8:30, I have a hangover and you’re annoying me.”

21. “No one has a heart of stone.”

22. “Can I open my eyes yet?”

23. “So much for not getting involved.”

24. “I will if you will.”

25. “My nightmares are usually about losing you.”

26. “I didn’t intend to kiss you.”

27. “Can we go someplace high so I can jump off it?”

28. “I didn’t lose it, I just misplaced it.”

29. “Prepare to be amazed.”

30. “I’m fine.”

31. “Where’s your God now?”

32. “I’d ask you to stay but I don’t like you.”

33. “Something about you makes me want to commit extreme violence.”

34. “It’s not like I missed you or anything.”

35. “You look like a monkey who’s been strategically shaved.”

36. “Everything was fine, until you showed up.”

37. “Can you just shut up for five minutes?”

38. “Never mind, the moment’s gone.”

39. “You’re an idiot. I’ve met smarter sandwiches.”

40. “I believe you dropped this.”

41. “What are you doing in my house?”

42. “I don’t know if I should kiss you or slap you.”

43. “Why are you/we whispering?”

44. “If you really loved me there wouldn’t be a choice.“

45. “I think I made a mistake.”

46. “Shut up, I am a delight!”

47. “I can think of a million places I’d rather be right now.”

48. “Now, just hold on a diddly darn minute.”

49. “It sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself.“

50. “Why does anyone have to be naked?”

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artpharos · 2 days ago

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#3 for ihantcest (hope I spelled that right)

#3: "i don't want your pity, i want your absence." wc: 1 935 read on ao3 here

Hubert should’ve known his brother would find him out here.

Of course, even when they were young Asbel was never really the sensitive, thoughtful type. But his penchant for getting involved in things he shouldn’t has always been more than enough to pull him into people’s orbits at the worst of times. Perhaps this is why he was always so successful at pissing off their father, whom more and more Hubert suspects he has taken after in all matters of, at the very least, emotion.

Not Asbel, though, who spots him from the steps leading away from the inn and doesn’t stop even for one moment to consider Hubert might be outside, alone, because he does not want company.

All Hubert can do is sigh and accept his fate as Asbel settles down on the bench beside him. Above their heads, the arch of one of Yu Liberté’s famous fountains chills the air; Hubert tries very hard not to let himself appreciate the way his brother’s body heat chases it away.

“Can’t sleep, huh?”

Hubert resolutely does not look at him. “Obviously,” he says.

“Is it because of that girl? The gem polisher?”

Hubert starts. His resolve fails immediately as he turns to fix a baffled look on his brother, whose head is tilted to the side in a show of his curiosity. There is no judgement to it; he really does just want to know.

“Marian? Why in the world would you think that?”

“Well, I don’t know. You’ve been acting kind of weird ever since we helped her out. Cheria said we shouldn’t say anything, but if you’re losing sleep over her…”

Of course, Cheria must have all kinds of ideas about his history with a woman he took enough interest in to gift her something as personal as a set of tools. But not unlike Cheria herself, Marian was always something of an open book; and if Hubert had no choice but to stay on the path they were walking together when they met, the least he could have done in the moment was help someone else realize her dreams were not quite so unattainable. It worked out for them all in the end, so he doesn’t see much point in dwelling on the fact that he was paying close enough attention to her to let himself care what she wanted in the first place.

Realizing his silence is likely only reinforcing whatever ridiculous notions about him Cheria has planted in Asbel’s head, he says, stiffly, “Even if I had had any interest in her, we have long since gone our separate ways. As far as I’m concerned, we may as well be strangers now.”

“But being apart from someone for a long time doesn’t mean you don’t care for them anymore, does it?”

Hubert tenses. He did not want to have this conversation when they reunited in Lhant, and he does not want to have it now.

Asbel doesn’t really give him a choice, though.

“I mean, I feel the same about you as I ever did,” he goes on. “And Cheria, and Richard, and even Sophie. I think it’s okay to admit when you missed someone, Hubert.”

“You are completely missing the point, as usual.”

Asbel blinks. “I am?”

“I have no special feelings for her,” Hubert says. “And I don’t see what you would have to do with it if I did, in any case.”

“If not her, then was there anybody?”

Hubert bites back another sigh. Asbel’s well-meaning probing is landing far too close for comfort, in spite of his misguided aim.

“No,” Hubert says. “I have never had the time to bother with such…frivolous affairs.”

Asbel looks aghast. “Didn’t you have any friends, Hubert?”

That’s what he meant? Hubert shouldn’t even be surprised; his brother wouldn’t know romance if it slapped him directly across the face…and Hubert wouldn’t put that past Cheria, though that thought unsettles him, too, for reasons he wishes sorely it would not.

“Hubert?”

He turns a glare on his brother. “What difference does it make whether or not I did? Obviously, I had greater priorities than socializing for the sake of socializing.”

“Well, yeah, but…” Asbel frowns at him. “But you must’ve been lonely. Right?”

“Enough of this.” Hubert stands, crossing his arms over his chest. He looks at a spot just above Asbel’s head rather than his eyes as he says, “I don’t want your pity, brother. I want your absence.”

The flower behind the bench he has locked his gaze on is not enough to keep him from seeing the flash of hurt across his brother’s face.

But just when he expects—hopes?—Asbel will argue, he does not. He rises from the bench. His voice is very soft: “It’s okay. I know things are different than they used to be. Good night, Hubert.”

Hubert’s damned, traitorous heart leaps up into his throat as Asbel turns to walk away. Desperation spurs him forward, until his hand finds Asbel’s; and the shock of warmth ought to humiliate him, ought to encourage him to push Asbel away all over again, but he simply cannot bring himself to pull back. Asbel turns, eyes wide as they meet his.

“Is something wrong?” he asks after a moment, when Hubert is unable to force any words between his clenched teeth.

At once, Hubert retracts his hand, putting it and the other safely behind his back. Tied up with each other, just in case the near-overwhelming desire to reach out, to touch, rears its ugly head again.

“I should be asking you that,” Hubert mutters. “I didn’t mean I want you gone. I just…thought to be alone, for a while.”

“It’s okay, Hubert. Really. I know…for a long time now, you haven’t really—had a brother anymore.” Though it clearly pains him to do so, Asbel offers him a reassuring smile. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. Whatever I can do to make it easier…”

But the problem is not anything Asbel is doing, or has done. It is—a fantasy Hubert has had since their father put him on that ship with Garrett Oswell away from everything he had ever known. A dream he has had so many times since he has lost count. This shockwave of warmth now, the infuriating realization that Asbel has grown into such a beautiful, charming young man, and yet still he is Hubert’s brother. He has loved him and he has hated him and now he does not want to confront the depth of emotion just being near him sets surging forth, but all the same he cannot seem to rid himself of the desire to be close. As close as possible. Like they are children again sharing a bed because Hubert couldn’t sleep, Asbel’s arm wrapped around his torso to hold him in place against him. Their bodies flush against each other.

Of course Hubert was lonely. But until Asbel was standing right in front of him, he had never had a problem just ignoring it. Always, always, there was something of higher importance; and by all means that should be more true now than ever.

And yet.

Asbel’s watching him intently, waiting. But patience has never come easily to him, and so after a few awkward beats, he asks, “Do you…want me to stay?”

Hubert drops his gaze. His cheeks sting and sear. “Do what you like. It makes no difference to me.”

“Well…okay. If you’re sure.” He hesitates, and then: “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I…I was lonely, too, you know. Without you, I mean.”

The heat climbs higher. He turns away, lest Asbel take notice of it. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m being serious!” Asbel protests. “I wrote you all the time after I started at the academy. I think all I ever talked about in those letters was how much I missed having you around. I stopped writing them when I realized you weren’t going to reply, but I still thought about it a lot. And I guess I just hoped wherever you were, you’d found someone to replace me.”

Hubert takes a moment to digest this—he never received any letters from Asbel as a child, but he doubts he would have wanted to read them even if they had reached him, too afraid that he would find out something he wouldn’t have wanted to know. Something that would shatter the fantasy, as if the reality were not already abundantly clear to him.

Then, he has to admit, “You’re not so easily replaced, as it turns out.”

Though he’s not looking at him, he can hear the grin in Asbel’s voice: “So you did miss me.”

“I suppose I did,” but it is different, of course, than Asbel thinks. If it were just this, the desire to have a brother again, he would not have been awake tonight with all this dread weighing down on him. He would be able to take Cheria’s knowing looks in stride, because at least he would not burn with the compulsion to prove she has him all wrong.

A hand on his shoulder jolts him away from those thoughts. He twists back to see his brother, that soft, compassionate smile lighting up his eyes. The water reflects off of them, so they glisten with all his infuriating earnestness.

And it’s really not fair how a simple touch makes Hubert’s breath flee him. How the heat from Asbel’s hand above his sleeve is enough to drive warmth all the way down into his feet. He is arrested by it; his brother’s ridiculous, loving gaze. How simple things could be if Hubert had felt this for Marian, or any of the nameless—advantageous for them, for the Oswell name—girls his father had ever introduced him to. But he has learned to see the gleam of yearning behind them all. Everyone wants something they believe they can’t attain. Once you find it, any power they may have held over you switches hands. This is human nature: cold and calculable and easily manipulated.

“We should get some sleep,” Asbel says. His hand is still on Hubert’s shoulder, like he does not have the will to remove it. But that’s just wishful thinking.

A beat passes before Hubert can bring himself to nod. At his assent, Asbel pulls away, finally. He takes a step back, and waits. It is a courtesy he has rarely afforded Hubert before, but time has forced them all to change. And yet, as hard as he has worked to kill the compulsion since coming to Strahta, alone, Hubert follows after him.

They do not speak as Asbel leads them back up to the steps to the inn. Nothing has been resolved, and, if anything, Hubert feels worse than he did before he decided to get up and leave their shared room, Asbel’s suffocating presence, behind.

But when Hubert eases the door of that room closed behind them and Asbel says, very quietly, “Night, Hubert,” he cannot help relishing in the feeling of it. As if the sensation of drowning were really so pleasant.

He bites down on the impulse to say more. To reach out, to pull him closer. His desires surge and then retreat when they can find no hold over his will. With not another word, he returns to bed and closes his eyes and pushes his thoughts down, far down, as far as they will go.

He understands better than anyone just how unattainable one’s desires can really be.

#Lhantcest #Tales of graces #omg

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