(The Brothers of Indraprastha Series)
Hi! It’s been a while, I'm not dead!!!! Yayyy!!
I wanted to share a few one-shots I wrote earlier, exploring the dynamics between the Pandava brothers. So this will be a series I guess. Some might be Angsty, or Whumpy, or funny, depending on my mood. lol enjoy I guess.
Bheema had always believed that if you wanted to understand a man, you did not look at his face.
Faces lied. They smiled when they were tired, stayed calm when they were breaking, softened when they wanted to hide the storm underneath.
Eyes, perhaps, told the truth- but Bheema had never had the patience for riddles of the soul.
You looked at their hands.
Hands didn’t pretend. They bore everything- every fight, every failure, every hour spent becoming something greater than you had any right to be.
Arjuna’s hands never learned how to hide.
It was one of those rare, suspiciously peaceful evenings in Indraprastha. No messengers. No arguments. No impending disasters. Bheema didn’t trust it, though.
Peace usually meant something was about to go very wrong, very soon.
Across from him, Arjuna sat cross-legged, entirely too calm for Bheema’s liking, restringing the Gandiva as if the fate of the world depended on perfect tension.
Which, knowing him, it probably did.
Just, mercifully, not today.
His movements were smooth. Controlled. Despite the evetnts of yesterday, they were annoyingly elegant.
Bheema narrowed his eyes.
"Are you planning to marry that bow," he said, "or will you look at your brother before the night ends?"
“I’m already married, Bhrata Bheema.”
“Mm. Yes. That’s never stopped you before, when you snooped poor Subhadra up in your arms” Bheema shot back. “The way you’re tending to that bow, I’m starting to feel replaced.”
Arjuna didn’t even glance up. “Jealous?”
“Of a piece of wood? Absolutely not.”
“First of all,” Arjuna said calmly, adjusting the string, “this is the Gandiva you’re talking about.”
“I said what I said.”
“And second, stop staring at me. You’ve been doing it for the last half an hour.”
“I’m assessing damage.”
That finally made Arjuna pause…just for a second.
“To you,” Bheema said flatly.
That finally got Arjuna to look up—just briefly, with that infuriating little smirk. "I’m flattered."
Bheema leaned forward and, without warning, grabbed Arjuna’s bandaged wrist.
Arjuna sighed immediately. “Here we go.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
“It never is with you.”
Bheema ignored that and flipped his hand over anyway.
The same scars. The same thickened skin. The same stubborn proof that Arjuna had spent his entire life pushing himself far past what was reasonable—or necessary.
Bheema paused, his thumb pressing lightly over one of the rougher calluses.
Arjuna’s fingers smelled faintly of sandalwood: freshly treated, then.
At least someone had the sense to tend to them.
Bheema’s grip tightened just a fraction as he inspected them, eyes narrowing.
“They’re fine,” Arjuna said, already sounding tired of this.
They weren’t crooked. Like they were yesterday, Bheema shudders at his memory.
Bheema clicked his tongue. “Still the same old ugly thing.”
“They’re called hands, Bheema. Most people have them.”
“Most people aren’t idiots.”
Arjuna huffed. “They’re fine.”
Bheema snorted. “I’ve seen better-looking claws on the demons you were so busy showing off against yesterday.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Arjuna shot back, dry. “Next time I’ll make sure my hands look prettier while I’m saving your life.”
“They’re not fine.” Bheema cuts in.
Arjuna finally glanced up, eyebrow raised. “You have calluses from swinging a mace like you’re trying to rearrange the earth. Why is this suddenly a crisis?”
“That’s different.”
“I don’t go around breaking my fingers doing something spectacularly foolish.”
Arjuna let out a disbelieving laugh. “Foolish? We were surrounded by demons.”
“And I was handling them.”
“You were punching them.”
“You got thrown off a cliff.”
Bheema paused. “I was in the air for a brief moment. Stop exaggerating.”
“You were unconscious before you hit the ground.”
“Blah, blah, blah. I was awake-”
Arjuna shook his head, finally setting the Gandiva aside. “I had to jump after you.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You were falling into a ravine.”
“I would’ve landed.”
“With what? Your skull?”
Bheema grinned. “A very strong skull. Mata dropped me on a rock when I was a newborn: the rock broke but I was perfectly fine.”
Arjuna snorted. “Yes, I can tell you were dropped as a child, Bhrata. No questions there.”
Bheema smacked the back of his head for that.
“You started it,” Arjuna complained, rubbing the spot with an exaggerated wince.
“And yet,” Bheema continued, entirely unbothered, “here I am... stuck with an idiot of a brother with broken fingers because you decided to be dramatic.”
“Dramatic?” Arjuna scoffed. “I caught you mid-air.”
Bheema huffed, looking away for a brief second.
The distance alone- Arjuna had crossed it in a blink, cutting through demons like they were barely there, and still had the presence of mind to catch him before he hit the ravine.
Bheema wasn’t about to say any of that out loud.
Instead, he snorted. “You made a whole performance out of it.”
“With one hand,” Bheema added, eyeing his fingers again. “Like a fucking idiot.”
“I didn’t have time to consider better options! How was I supposed to hold on to the cliff then?”
“You have plenty of Astras. Heck, you had plenty of time to let me fall and make a heroic speech later.”
Arjuna, rolled his eyes, “That is not how this works.”
Bheema snorted. “You broke your fingers holding onto me.”
“I did not break them-”
“Yeah...They bent the wrong way,” Bheema cut in a mocking tone. “Sounded like dry twigs snapping.”
“That happens,” Arjuna said with a shrug. “We both know I heal fast. See?”
He lifted his hand right up to Bheema’s face, wiggling his fingers.
“They aren’t even crooked.”
“That is not a reassuring statement.”
Arjuna tried to pull his hand back again. Bheema didn’t let him.
“You never let them heal properly,” he muttered, quieter now.
Arjuna rolled his eyes, though the corner of his mouth twitched. “What do you want me to do? Sit out the next battle? Braid flowers with Nakul while you go get yourself thrown off another cliff?”
“At least Nakul would appreciate the effort.”
“And critique my technique.”
“He’d absolutely critique your technique.”
“He critiques everything.”
“Because you’re bad at things that aren’t archery.”
Arjuna gasped, scandalized. “That is slander,” he declared, making a whole performance of it: hand to chest, wounded pride and all.
Bheema just chuckled, low and fond despite himself.
His Phalguna. His headache.
Then, softer- gruff, almost hidden beneath the teasing-
“…Don’t do that again.”
Arjuna stilled, just for a moment.
He didn’t answer right away.
Didn’t pull his hand away either.
Instead, he tilted his head, eyes glinting faintly. “Then try not tumbling off cliffs,” he said lightly, “and I’ll consider keeping my very precious fingers straight.”
Bheema snorted. “Precious, he says.”
“They are. You rely on them far more than you admit.”
“And who keeps saving you when you get thrown off mountains?”
"It was one time", Bheema bumped his shoulder.
They bumped shoulders again, neither pulling away.
The bickering lingered, easy and familiar, settling into the quiet like it always di, like it always had.
Because this...this was them.
Yudhishthira, who had just arrived, watched them with a small, knowing smile.
These two were not just his brothers. Not just his warriors.
But the spear and the shield of the Pandavas.
Yudhishthira held Dharma like a flame: steady, unwavering, the kind of righteousness kingdoms were built upon.
But Dharma alone did not win thrones.
Dharma needed teeth. It needed a force that made men think twice before testing it.
that had always been them.
Bheema, who could break mountains and men with equal certainty.
Arjuna, whose arrows never missed, whose focus carved order out of chaos.
Together, they were the promise behind Yudhishthira’s crown.
The reason his justice could exist at all.
The reason the Kauravas did not simply take what they wanted.
Fear had a shape, in those days.
Sometimes it was Bheema’s bare unruly fist, or Arjun’s intelligent wit.
it was the two of them, standing side by side.
Unmovable. Unstoppable. Untamable.
The Samrat could think of no better word when it came to these two.
“Stop looking at them like that,” Arjuna muttered, trying again to pull his wrist free.
Bheema leaned in closer, squinting with exaggerated scrutiny. “Hai Bhagwan… they look worse up close. Like overcooked roots left out in the sun.”
“Yet, they’ve offended my eyes. I’ve seen my ingrown toenails look better than this.”
Arjuna physically recoiled. “Ew-Bhrata! Why would you say that?”
“They look wretched. Have you ever seen bent sugarcane after someone chewed on it wrong?”
“They absolutely do not-”
“You’re in denial.”
Arjuna glared at him. “They will heallll.”
“They betterrrrr,” Bheema muttered, still squinting at them like they had personally wronged him.
“Panchali is never going to hold your hand again,” Bheema continued, shaking his head gravely. “Tragic. Truly tragic.”
Arjuna stared at him. “They are bandaged and- again, for the tenth time....healing. And stop saying nonsense. Panchali will absolutely still hold my hands.”
“Subhadra will cry if she sees these,” Bheema added thoughtfully. “You’d better keep them hidden.”
“Oh, for the love of—they will heal,” Arjuna said, dragging the words out slowly, like he was explaining something painfully obvious to a very stubborn child.
“They better,” Bheema insisted.
Arjuna exhaled sharply. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re careless.”
“They will heal,” Arjuna said again, firmer now. “Or I’ll fix them myself.”
Bheema blinked. “What does that even mean? Do you want them to heal or get worse?”
A soft chuckle slipped into the quiet.
“…Jeshtha?” Arjuna said, turning.
Yudhishthira stepped forward, amusement still lingering in his eyes.
“I am certain,” he said dryly, “that between the two of you, the entire forest has been… thoroughly handled.”
Arjuna coughed, looking away. Bheema grunted.
Yudhishthira’s smile deepened just a fraction.
“Panchali has been looking for you both for the past hour.”
That made them straighten.
“…Ah,” Bheema added.
Yudhishthira nodded, entirely unsurprised. “Yes.”
Then, with quiet fondness-
“Come along. Before she decides to come looking for you herself.”
Arjuna winced. Bheema snorted.
“And stop fighting,” Yudhishthira added mildly.
“We’re not fighting,” they said at the same time. Yudhishthira gave them a look.
the terror of their enemies,
the strength behind a king,
rose to their feet: still bickering, still shoulder to shoulder, and very much still in trouble.
