#lhantcest

“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.

“Sophie, can I ask you something?”

The Zavhert inn was a blissful reprieve against the cold. Sat around the table as they waited for their dinner, Asbel dropped his voice to a whisper.

“Asbel?” Sophie’s curious eyes rose to meet his.

“Do you think Hubert is ignoring me?” he asked, before amending, “uh, I mean. More than unusual.”

After their misadventures on Mt Zavert, the two of them had needed several days of bed rest. It had been a miracle that their friends had found them. Asbel didn't remember Sophie carrying him down the mountain; only waking up in the inn, feeling sorer than he had after the hardest sparring session at the Knight Academy. But Cheria's healing magic had chased away the worst of the frostbite; several days in bed had done the rest.

So Asbel had thought, anyway, as he stole a glance at his brother across the table. They’d barely spoken since the the avalanche, and Hubert hadn’t said a word to him since they sat down for dinner.

It wasn’t his brother’s usual brand of gloominess, either. None of his staple sarcasm, and he hadn’t even got mad at Pascal all evening. Instead, something about him seemed unsettled. Elbows on the table, he fussed with the collar of his coat, eyes glazed, looking into some other place.

He still didn't look as well as he insisted, either.

Something sunk in Asbel’s gut. He thought after their talk, getting everything out in the air, their relationship might improve. But instead, if anything, Hubert's frosty demeanor seemed to have deepened.

“Hubert,” Sophie said. “Are you ignoring Asbel?”

“S-Sophie!” Asbel exclaimed. She inclined her head at him, as though to ask, didn’t you want to know?

In retrospect, he probably chose the wrong person to talk about this kind of thing with.

Hubert snapped out of his fugue, eyes clashing against Asbel’s, in a way that flipped his stomach.

The rest of the table turned to watch, Pascal standing up and leaning over the table to gawk.

Hubert flushed pink, crossing his arms against his chest. “Of course not.”

“She kinda has a point, Lil Bro,” Pascal said, ignoring Cheria as she pulled at her sleeve to try to drag her back down to the table. “You’ve been acting kinda funky since you got out of bed. What’s up?”

“Nothing is ‘up,’” Hubert snapped. “Can’t a man keep to his thoughts without these sort of accusations?”

Captain Malik leant forward on his elbows. “I’m not sure Pascal was accusing you of anything, Hubert.”

For some reason, Hubert flushed harder. “I don’t want to deal with this foolishness now.”

And then, without looking at Asbel at all, he pushed his chair back with a scraping sound and headed for the door, leaving the rest of the party in silence.

“What’s wrong with Hubert?” Sophie asked, brow drawn together.

Pascal shrugged her shoulders. “Musta' woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

Asbel just didn’t understand. His stomach felt uneasy, as though the bottom had dropped out. He raised his eyes, to meet Cheria’s concerned gaze.

“Heeey,” said Pascal, “if Lil Bro’s not eating, can I get his dessert?”

*

Striding out into the snow, Hubert took a deep breath.

He had to clear the snow from the bench before he could sit.

With his hands buried deeply in his pockets, burning and itchy from chillblains, he could still swear he could feel Asbel’s hands, caressing his. Could feel Asbel’s collarbone as he’d pressed against him, how fiercely his brother had held him.

Hubert groaned, and pressed his palms against his eyelids. But he still couldn’t manage to blot the humiliating memories out. Being so nauseatingly honest was fine when he thought he and Asbel were going to die, but now...

The snow crunched behind him. Hubert jerked up, ready to see Asbel following him out into the snow, to tell him to leave.

But his words caught. It was just Cheria, her brow knotted in concern.

“Hubert, you shouldn’t be out here in the snow. You’ve only just got over your fever,” she told him.

“Cheria, I’m sorry, but I’d like to be alone for now. I need to think.”

But instead, Cheria wiped the snow from the bench beside him, and took a seat. “Has it helped so far?” she asked, with a smile.

“Well…” he said.

She rubbed her hands together, pressing them to her face to blow on them. “Sometimes I need time to think things over too. But there usually comes a point when I realise what I’m actually doing is just sulking.” She smiled, apologetically.

“C-Cheria!”

“Sorry,” she said.

“I’m starting to see that harsh side of you Asbel mentioned,” Hubert said.

She turned pink. “Wait, he said that?”

“He said you were right too, though.”

“Oh.” Her smile crept up. “It’s funny. No matter how many years I’ve known Asbel, he never fails to surprise me.”

“I know what you mean,” Hubert said. “He’s changed, from when we were children.”

We all have, he thought.

Cheria nodded. “He’s… just as oblivious as he ever was, but… he’s gentler now, I think. I think that’s the right word.”

Gentler. Hubert had never thought of it like that.

“But… he’s less sure of himself, too,” Cheria said, gazing up at the star-speckled sky, pulling her knees up to herself. “He doesn’t like to talk about it, but I think what happened with Sophie when were kids really affected him. I not sure he ever got over it. That’s why he can’t figure out what do do about Richard.”

Once, Hubert would have made a biting remark that Asbel was weak, to cling onto such feelings.

But instead, he felt admiration, mixed with a pang of envy.

He’d only survived by throwing away those kind of feelings, by hardening himself. But Asbel had hurt and suffered as he had, and become kinder. “Gentler,” Cheria had said.

“You ought to talk to him,” Cheria told him, turning to him on the bench. “You realise if you wait on him, you’ll be waiting forever, right? I’m sure whatever happened between you on the mountain, you can work it out.”

Hubert asked… “You’re not going to ask what happened?”

“Well… I can’t say I’m not curious,” Cheria said with a smile, “but it’s none of my business is it really? Grandpa always told me I should never get involved in fights between siblings.”

“Thank you for advice Cheria, I’ll think of what you said,” Hubert said, dipping his head.

Cheria laughed, and patted him on the shoulder. “Sure, Hubert.”

*

Asbel watched Pascal eat both her and Hubert’s portion of pie without really seeing it.

“Hey, Asbel? Earth to Asbel? You in there?”

Asbel snapped back to reality. “Huh? Pascal?”

“I asked, you gonna eat your pie?”

He raised his eyebrows. “You can’t seriously still be hungry.”

“I seriously still can. You want that pie or not? It’s looking pretty lonely on that plate.”

With a sigh, Asbel pushed the plate across the table. He watched with dismayed bafflement as she polished it off in about twenty seconds, getting pie crumbs everywhere down herself.

Even knowing more about her Amarcian heritage and family, Pascal didn’t make any more sense.

Asbel shivered when he felt a draft from the opening inn door. He turned to see Hubert, his cheeks bruised pink from the cold. For a moment, he stopped, and looked at Asbel.

Asbel opened his mouth to speak.

Hubert seemed to bite down, and then his heels were clicking across the floorboards, as he beat a swift pace back to his room.

Asbel closed his mouth.

“I just don’t get it,” he said heavily.

“Iknowright,” Pascal mumbled, mouth full of pie. He cringed at the pie juice dribbled down her chin. She swallowed. “Especially since you guys looked so cosy when we found you. Like what’s his deal?”

The memory was hazy, but Asbel had a moment of recollection: how he'd tried to take his clothes off on the mountain. Huh. That was weird. He'd think about that later.

“I really thought we'd had a breakthrough. You know, I finally got to talk to him about some stuff that's been bothering me for a long time. I thought he felt the same way.” Asbel stared at his coffee cup, depressed.

“Heeey, I get it! Lil Bro’s such a stiff, but I bet he’s been totally missing his big bro all this time. But he’s such a square that now he’s admitted it, he’s all embarrassed. So you gotta just go tell him how much you love him!”

Asbel flushed. “Wait, what?”

“Yeah! And bring him in for a big bro hug.”

Was it really that simple? “Are… you sure about this Pascal?”

“Totally! Trust me, Fourier and I fought all the time growing up. We always made up. But…” Pascal’s smile faded.

At the same time, they both recalled the incident at the lab: Fourier telling Pascal how much she'd always hated her.

“Well… maybe not,” Pascal said, pushing her fork around her empty plate. “Siblings are complicated, huh?”

“You're not wrong,” said Asbel.

*

Hubert was pacing in his room when the knock came. Tentative, and uncertain.

“Hey, Hubert?” Asbel called.

Hubert froze.

“Are you still awake?”

If he waited, Hubert thought, Asbel would leave.

Butt he knock came again, more confidentially. “Hey, Hubert. Can we talk?”

Slowly, Hubert approached the door.. He tried his best not to make a noise.

“C’mon, Hubert… don’t be like this.”

Hubert pressed a hand to his head. It felt hot. As much as he hated to admit it, Cheria had been right. It’d been foolish to go into the snow when he hadn’t completely recovered. A wave of light-headedness rocked through him, and he steadied himself, leaning back against the door.

Asbel's voice came through the door as though he was stood inches away: “I thought we talked stuff through before… I don’t know why you’re being like this.”

Me neither, thought Hubert, letting his aching head rest against the door.

“C’mon, Hubert. I know you don’t go to bed this early.”

In an utter betrayal, Hubert’s body decided this was the optimal time for a sneeze.

“Uh. Hubert…”

Damn it.

Face-beet red, Hubert opened the door to his brother.

“Oh man. Hubert. You… don’t look so good.”

“You think?” said Hubert, voice hoarse and scratchy.

“Come on. You should be in bed.”

“Alright,” accepted Hubert, who suddenly had no fight left in him. He suddenly felt very poorly indeed. Enough that when Asbel pressed a hand to the small of his back to guide him to the bed, another wave of light-headedness washed over him. Hubert found himself grasping onto Asbel’s arm for balance.

“Whoah! You OK? Just hold onto me, Hubert. I’ve got you.”

Face splotchy pink and humiliated, Hubert could do nothing but bury his head in Asbel’s shoulder as he led him to the bed and settled him down.

He longed for death to come as Asbel tucked him, fluffing his pillow behind him. “Better?”

“Yes, thank you...”

Hubert closed his eyes, as though he could will the situation away, only opening them when he felt the bed sink down to accommodate Asbel’s weight.

“Hubert, listen. If I do something to upset you, I want you to tell me. I mean, I know I’m not always the perceptive person…”

You think, Hubert thought.

“But I want us to be friends again, even if we can’t go back to how things were when were kids. So if I’ve done something…”

This situation was unbearable. “You haven’t done anything, Asbel,” he said quickly.

Asbel’s brow wrinkled. “Then…”

Hubert bit down on his lip.

“I see…”

Hubert’s gaze flicked back to Asbel, panicked. “You see what?”

“You can’t trust me yet… I understand.” Asbel kept the cheerful lilt to his tone, but sadness was in his eyes. “I mean… I get it. Everything can’t be fixed in just one day. But I want you to know I’m going to try.” He nodded to himself, that old determined Asbel in him. “I don’t want things to be bad between us.”

That’s not it, Hubert wanted to say. He reached out for— what?

To his shock, Asbel grasped his hand, and studied it in concern. “What’s happened to your fingers?”

“Chillblains,” Hubert’s voice was shockingly steady and clinical. “When the cold causes blood to rise to the surface, and—”

“Does it hurt?” Asbel asked, turning his hand over. Hubert shivered.

“A— a little. It’s… itchy, mostly.”

“I bet we’ve got something for that in the inventory. Let me ask Cheria.”

“That not neces—” before he could continue, Asbel had already gone.

Hubert’s head hit the pillow. He sighed, covering his eyes with his hands.

*

“I need more blankets,” Asbel told the inkeep, hands wide apart on the desk.

The innkeep raised his brows. “You building a blanket fort or something? What do you need ‘em all for?” It was with reluctance he handed over another bundle.

“My brother’s still not feeling well.”

“Wait, you were the boys who got trapped in that avalanche, aren’t you? You’re lucky you’re both alive.”

“I know.”

“Well, lemme know if you need anything else,” said the innkeep. “Though I’m gonna run out of blankets if you need many more.”

He carried them back to Hubert’s room, where there the Hubert: blanket ratio was becoming thoroughly skewed in the blanket direction.

“Asbel,” Hubert protested, the voice rising from the blanket pile, “I told you, I’m not cold.”

“Yeah, but you might get cold in the night,” Asbel said, dumping them onto the dresser. He scraped up a chair close to the bed and pulled a tube of cream from his pocket. “Also I got this apple gel ointment from Cheria. She thinks it should help with your chillblains.”

“You really didn’t need to go to all this trouble, Asbel,” Hubert protested, but Asbel shook his head.

“I wanted to!” he said.

He hadn’t been able to help look after Hubert for so long… finally, now, he could begin to make amends.

So he didn’t notice Hubert’s rising panic until he picked Hubert’s hand up from above the coverlet, and Hubert’s voice rose in a sharp octave: “A-Asbel— what are you doing?”

“Applying the ointment,” Asbel said, matter of factly.

“I- I can do it myself!”

“It’s fine. I don’t mind,” said Asbel, popping the cap off and squeezing some of the ointment into his hand. It was gooey, like apple gel. He began rubbing it into Hubert’s palm, in small circles.

Hubert’s protests ceased.

The joints by the fingers were hardened from his dual blade training, but Hubert’s palms were unexpectedly soft, fingers tender from the chillblains. Asbel tried to be as gentle as a he could, concentrating on rubbing the ointment into the affected areas.

Another unexpected thing: how quiet Hubert had suddenly gone.

“Is this OK?” he asked, looking up to see Hubert, biting his lip. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”

Hubert shook his head, hair mussing against the pillow. A pink stain had spread across his cheeks. “N-no…”

“Good.”

A comfortable silence eased in between them. Asbel finished rubbing in the rest of the ointment. The fever was high in Hubert now. His eyelids were drooping.

“I'm sorry I've been acting so peculiarly, brother,” he said.

Asbel shook his head. “It's fine.”

“I'm just not used to it,” Hubert said. When Asbel looked at him enquiringly, he said, “you know...”

“You're gonna have to spell this one out for me, little brother.”

“Ugh. You know....emotions,” Hubert said, in disgust.

Asbel laughed. He set the ointment bottle on the side table. “It's fine, Hubert,” he repeated.

“It isn't. Garett taught me that emotions were weaknesses that could be exploited. They left you exposed. But...” With obvious effort, Hubert raised his eyes. His gaze clashed against Asbel's, and the warmth in his brother's eyes sparked something off his heart. Hubert couldn't hold it. He looked away, staring out the window, mumbling, “I'm glad we talked. And I'll try to do better.”

Seven years is a long time.

Long enough to become another person entirely, you think, as you thumb the old pizza leaflet in your dressing gown pocket, god knows where it came from. You can't even remember the last time you ordered pizza.

Hubert leans forward on the settee, hands on the controller and eyes stuck to the screen. You don't remember that either: that single minded determination as Hubert wipes the floor with some poor chumps from Finland at Mariocart. Hubert seems softer in your memories, somehow, although you don't know if the change is in Hubert himself or if time has roughed down the edges of your memories, made them gentler.

Your brother hasn't smiled, once, since he stepped into your house.

Our house, you correct yourself.

Despite this, however, you continue to skulk around the corner of the kitchen, hands in your pockets, until Hubert calls out, “Is there something you want?”

Busted.

Guilty without really knowing why, you shuffle into the living room. Your slippers have the backs kicked down. Hubert doesn’t look away from the screen.

“Just getting a drink,” you say, although it occurs after you say it that this lie would be more convincing if you'd brought a drink with you.

“Can I sit?” you say instead, by way of apology.

A shrug. “It's your house.”

“It's yours, too.” Spoken aloud, it sounds even less convincing. Rather than the assured voice you'd meant to use, the words feel flimsy, a paper facade. Hubert ignores you in favour of blue shelling Kooper, which is fair.

You sort of want to retreat to your bedroom, to blot out of the complicated feelings of the day with the heavy thump of bass, but you force yourself to stay. You've made it this far.

So you sit.

Your mother had told you, over a dodgy phone line wreathed in static from the Emirates: in September, Hubert would be attending the same Sixth Form as you. You'd been thrilled to have your brother back, up until the point a stranger had set his bag down on the kitchen counter and you'd wondered where your baby brother had gone in those chillingly cold eyes.

He hasn't looked at you, either, since he arrived.

There had been so much you'd wanted to ask, but Hubert had brought with him a deafening silence, that even Kerri, with her hand-wringing and loud, anxious laughter hadn't been able to fill.

“Where is he?” your brother had asked.  He. Hubert's mouth produced the word with distaste.

You'd hooked a wry smile. “Had to fly to Edinburgh, emergency meeting with one of the directors. He hasn't changed much.”

Aston was only dependable in his absence. Seven years hadn't altered that.

Kerri's silent disapproval was loud. You didn't care. Aston's absence was common ground. You and Hubert had been allies as children. You'd weathered your parents' stormy and painful divorce; you could weather this.

But instead, Hubert replied, “I see.” He gazed over to study the kitchen with its marble counter-tops and plethora of pans as though he'd never before stepped foot there.

Maybe he hadn't, a small, vindictive voice whispered.

Even now, he still won't look at you.

The only light is the blue phosphorescence of the television, bright in Hubert's eyes. It makes you think of sunlight on frozen water, which makes your throat constrict, tight and painfully, despite the years that have passed.

Before you can begin to self-castigate with endless “if only I hadn't'”s you force yourself back into the present. You speak, if only to fill the silence.

“You got pretty good at that, huh?”

There's something about the darkness that makes you speak softly.

“I suppose so.”

We're going to be living together, you think. You're going to have to talk to me eventually.

Although the thought occurs: though you and your father share the same house (most of the time) and although you talk (some of the time) – you very rarely actually  say  anything to one another.

You ask: “Got another controller?”

For the first time, Hubert looks at you. The glow of the tv seems to leech the hostility of his eyes. Even if it's just an illusion, you'll take it.

“You want to play?” he asks. He quickly covers his surprise with a healthy coating of skepticism, eyeing you like you have some other, weird ulterior motive.

“I used to kick your butt at this,” you say, and although he still shoots a look of suspicion at you, he tosses you the controller.

“We'll see,” he says.

Hubert kicks your ass.

He leans further forward into the TV's glow, ignoring you and your attempt at banter and complaints when he shells you. He still always plays as Yoshi, just like when he was kid. When he slaughters you a third, final time, you lean back, muttering, “I remember being better at this.”

Hubert presses the power button, plunging the room in an abrupt darkness.

“You haven't changed much,” he says.

You hazard a tentative smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You did always hate losing to me,” the darkness says. The click of the door is the only indication that your brother has left.

His departure leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. You thumb the old leaflet in your pocket: you'd thought about asking Hubert if he wanted to get pizza.

The thought punctures you like a needle of frost: that perhaps, Hubert blames you.

You press the balls of your palms to your eyes, to clear away the after-image of your sister, Sophie on the ice. You press so hard that when you open them, you see static.