Author's Notes: Uhm, so life hasn't been great, and I thought maybe I'd feel better if I started writing again.
Ten years and IkeMarth still doesn't have a strip club fic? Huh, weird.
Well, here you go. :P
Please enjoy this gratuitously cliché summer read.
Warnings: The usual host of yaoi, slash, shounen-ai, etc. Cursing. Implications all around. Rated M for solid reasons but not solid enough. Un-beta'd.
Pairing(s): IkeMarth.
Disclaimer: I don't own Super Smash Brothers.
Summary: It was easy to ignore the long legs, soft curves, and scraps of lost clothing when he was so in love with the club owner. [Modern AU] -Yaoi, slash: Ike/Marth-
Love Story
Chapter 1: Invert
By SSBBSwords
Most people thought any guy who worked at a strip club just reveled in the endless bath of free shows, but this wasn't exactly his scene. However, he was great at spotting trouble and tossing said trouble out doorways, so he spent most of his workday eyeing the customers for any shady business. The ladies co-existed harmoniously for the most part, but now and then, he had to haul semi-naked, upset women away from each other.
He was but a peon in this lucrative strip club business, so he originally assumed the club owner only stayed on site to fulfill their sleazy destiny—free shows and "perks"—but he had yet to see Marth lay a sketchy hand on any of the employees. There was something unearthly about the guy. The owner was preternaturally calm despite the sundry collection of threats from every possible direction. How Marth didn't even bat an eye at a ransacked office, unhinged patron, or aggressive officer was beyond his understanding.
In addition to the man's unflapping reserve, there was no indication that the guy was in it just to make a quick few bucks. There was no metaphorical revolving door, no overhead fees, no unspoken special (i.e. illegal) treatments. Dancers didn't have to rent their stage time or tip other employees out of their hard-earned dollars. Between running the place like a non-profit organization and the extensive staff, the club owner had to be hemorrhaging money, right? But he didn't major in business, so he really didn't know.
He wasn't describing Marth quite like the guy deserved, which was ironic, because he was unequivocally in love with the man. See, this was the age-old tale of a starry-eyed youth who fell in love with the strip club owner and was then whisked off to their Happily Ever After. The big difference was that he wasn't a stripper, and the owner hadn't spoken more than a couple hundred words to him since the start of his employment.
But there were some similarities. He probably did get a little starry-eyed, and compared to the owner, he was younger, but he was also the larger and more built of the two, so to be realistic, Marth would not be sweeping him off his feet, because as a security guard, he likely had fifty pounds on the guy.
It didn't take long for his illustrious colleagues to notice; after all, they were mostly women and an amassment of that amount of intuition meant he could hide nothing. There wasn't a day that he didn't get teased at least once, to the point that even the petite brunet DJ, whose enthusiastic remixing saved them from a hell of Top 20 Stripper Songs on repeat, played unrequited love songs when the owner appeared outside of the office. So yeah, he might shoot more than a couple glares at oh-so-(fakely)-innocent Pit.
However, the insinuations were subtle and easily disregarded, and his job was a dream, so he wasn't going to rock the boat and get his heart broken in the process. So yes, pining from afar was fine with him.
A little crush never hurt anybody, right? He felt harmless. He wasn't about to dig through the guy's garbage or digital footprint. He caught snippets of information from the other employees though: the chef knew the owner from business school; his favorite dancer proclaimed Marth a good listener; and the too-snarky lawyer was the self-proclaimed best friend. He rarely heard anything derogatory about his crush, which was an unbelievably juvenile label that juxtaposed the wayward thoughts he had about the man.
It was incongruous that he could watch carefully cultivated costumes come undone under flattering lights and pumping bass without breaking a sweat, but just seeing more than the usual buttons on the owner's dress shirt open was enough to back him out of the office mumbling nonsense just to get away. That was one of the worst days in work history: the air-conditioning was on the fritz, and although the owner got it running before the first performer (because nothing spelled death faster than slippery poles), he had run into nearby furniture because Marth had toned forearms under rolled up sleeves that he wanted to grip and dexterous hands that he dreamed gripped him.
He tried to keep his imagination generic, but preference was preference, and he really was quite enamored with the club owner. In order to keep his staring to a minimum, he had even mastered how to fleet a glance like the best of them. The most pressing issue was the guilt. There wasn't anything wrong with being attracted to a very attractive man; no, it was the fact that he couldn't have a normal conversation with Marth without buckling from under-collar guilt because he too frequently pictured his employer in various stages of undress.
No amount of healthy respect for the man seemed to cancel out the dirty mental images his libido produced. He probably had the best spank bank material outside of the porn industry, but there was something about how feminine bodies moved that didn't quite translate to a male body, because Marth wasn't curvy or bodacious or svelte. The club owner didn't have his bulk, but there was something about that elegant shift of muscle beneath the dress shirts and pants that made his head spin.
He wanted that body writhing beneath his on a mattress. He wanted his boss straddling him on a chair. He wanted the man rubbing against him on the edge of a table. And he wanted that perfect face and pretty eyes between his legs.
He was damn grateful that the club owner never seemed to spare him a glance unless he was specifically needed for something, because with the minimal interaction, he could complete his work with a straight face, his reel of favorite mental images clamped down and unreadable to the outside world.
Everyone could speculate and tease him until his very last breath, but he was taking this secret to the grave. So for six days a week, he walked into the club; made his greetings, his small talk, his good nights; and went home to fall asleep with sometimes a very tired hand. And for seven days a week, he dreamed of very questionable decisions and abstract reactions and intimate positions.
From his dark-fringed second-floor post, he watched the dancer below levitate her body parallel to the floor halfway up the pole before rolling forward in a dive that had her fans hollering at the panache and adrenaline rush, and he just thought that sort of acrobatic strength was wasted on this clientele.
At the edge of his vision, the office door opened and a dark figure exited like sweeping fog. After a practiced tug and twist to check the locking mechanism, the owner stalked down the narrow hall and stopped by his side, hands folding over each other to rest on the railing overlooking the main floor.
It was times like this that he was grateful his main job description was to watch the patrons and other employees, and therefore he had a valid excuse to avoid eye contact with the other man.
"How are things?" the owner asked, adopting a casual slouch to match the perfunctory rhetoric that hung between them.
He refused to look away from the stage, because this was an unintentional trap. Marth had an occasional habit of dropping the stiff posture in favor of atypical nonchalance, which most people interpreted as friendliness, but the languid body language made everything worse. And he wasn't about to discuss what his hormones made of his boss' jungle cat fluidity with his damn boss standing right next to him.
"Good," he answered with no plans to elaborate further. Some days he opted with fine or, when feeling particularly bold, nothing's on fire, because that sometimes got a chuckle out of Marth, and who didn't like making their crush smile?
Like pre-recorded script, the other echoed, "Good," and moved away to the adjacent stairs to descend to ground level.
He chanced a surreptitious glance at the owner's retreating back and heaved a sigh of relief. That went well. Nothing out of the ordinary and no one the wiser.
In the lull between performances, he tracked the other's circuit around the room. The club owner rarely spent extensive time on the main floor—enough to have a sense of whether a manager or employee's suggestion or grievance had any merit, but not long enough to be an unnecessary fixture distracting from the dancers. Marth stopped by a few unoccupied regulars and would, in turn, get stopped by employees not currently engaged in a client. There was always something a little funny when a dancer in eight-inch heels approached their employer to say hello; even from this distance, he could see how the man took an understated step back to angle away from the heightened breasts.
Just below, the stripper in reference looked straight up at him and blew a kiss. Caught red-handed, he jerked his head in terse acknowledgment. Before he could redirect his eyes, the owner had followed the woman's line of sight and turned toward him as well. With a short laugh, the man concluded the conversation with a polite kiss to the lady's hand. Yeah, no wonder they loved the owner so much.
He knew the importance of his responsibilities, but that still failed to prevent him from watching Marth instead of the floor during the next performance. The other man was observing the dancer from near the kitchen service entry, and never for a moment did those eyes hint of anything but technical analysis. The girls could tease him for his one-sided attraction, but their employer's apparent asexuality was no joke, and at times like this, he was amazed by his own imagination for creating such fantasies from thin air.
"How long do you think you can keep this up?" the lawyer asked him point-blank with narrowed eyes of blatant judgment.
Considering this was the guy who gleaned boatloads of incriminating evidence to defend the club owner against multiple subpoenas and lawsuits, his first and only reaction was a frisson of panic. What did they find on him? (and they still hired him anyway? was this his final notice? were lawyer-best-friends allowed to fire employees?)
"Dude, you okay?" Roy desultorily snapped twice before his blank face. "For a guy whose career rides on intimidation, you sure are skittish."
He cleared his throat, steeling himself. He went for the safest tactic: denial. "I don't know what you mean."
With an exasperated sigh, the lawyer declared, "You're big, not dumb." The man looked seconds away from an eye roll, a stiff drink, or both. "Can we please talk about your poorly hidden crush on Marth?"
This was not happening. Curbing the knee-jerk urge to run, he retorted, "This isn't high school."
"No," the other agreed with a tightening jaw, "but we are all mature adults and Ike, the UST is insane. The number of erections occurring under this roof is nothing compared to your repressed whatever with Marth."
He automatically refuted, "I don't have anything with Marth." With Marth? Yeah, he had a repressed something toward his boss, but with was the wrong preposition, and Roy was supposed to be a very intelligent guy.
With a frustrated headshake, the lawyer bit out, "Yeah, river in Egypt, man. Can I maybe convince you to—I don't know, indulge my wild ideas for a second—maybe ask Marth out?" Grimacing like this was low-level torture, the redhead added, "I cannot believe I have to sell this so hard."
"We can't," he asserted.
"Uh-huh," Roy responded, sarcasm barely tempered by lack of inflection. "Why's that?"
"I work for him." Wasn't it obvious? Visualizing bending the guy over the nearest surface was one thing. Actually shoving someone with authority over him down was a whole different story.
"We all do," the other pointed out like he was a slow child. "You haven't noticed he compartmentalizes his work and personal life like a damn boss?" The redhead stopped to smirk at the unintentional wordplay.
The problem was his lack of faith in his own actions. The likelihood that he slipped up and ruined the work relationship was high enough already without adding the complication of something else. In fact, he would probably ruin the personal relationship almost immediately, and there would go the work relationship soon after. No, he wasn't stupid enough to risk it.
Like a damn mind-reader, Roy ignored his silence and charged on. "Can you dial your insecurity back a little? Asking him out isn't a marriage proposal, okay?"
There was a pause, and with neither of them willing to speak anymore, they were caught in a not-so-mature glaring contest.
He backed down. The damn lawyer was a redhead after all, and even though he was bigger, he already suspected that Roy was fully prepared to threaten him with litigation if this conversation slid further south. He wanted to reassure the best friend that he was more than happy to comply and would try his absolute hardest to make things work, except he was also 100% certain he would somehow fuck things up.
"I," he began stammering, "but, I," and swallowed heavily. "I'll... ruin it."
"Right now, there's nothing to ruin," Roy affirmed evenly, posture relaxing a fraction now that he had caved.
He was starting to sound a little desperate. "I'm okay with nothing."
"No one else is," countered the lawyer.
"If he says no?" he asked weakly, already flushing from second—no—third-hand mortification.
"He won't," the other maintained, all too somber and all too promptly.
It took several days of wretched sleep, but at the end of his shift, his feet carried him to the closed door of the owner's office, and the only thought that cut through the numbness was this was happening.
Maybe Marth left early. His arm robotically rose to knock on the wood beneath the plate engraved BOSS. Just another reminder that he was about to make a horrible decision. Fantastic.
He staved off a hasty retreat by holding himself in place and mentally counting to ten. He had reached eight when the door opened with just as much care as he was methodically listing numbers.
"Ike," Marth stated, looking put together as usual, though maybe a tinge tired because it was almost three in the morning and half the city was in the middle of a fourth REM cycle. Stepping back, the club owner gestured for him to enter while asking routinely, "What can I do for you?"
His stomach squirmed. "I," wait, was he supposed to start with a compliment or something? His mouth went dry as Marth took a half-seated lean against the desk, palms braced to push off the edge if necessary. "Uhm," he mumbled, stalling for time in hopes his brain would catch up. He should have planned more openings, because the one he had settled on was unmistakably too loud, too brusque, too forward in the overbearing silence of the small room.
But he had no other alternative, so here went nothing: "I'm here to ask you on a date."
It was the delicate millimeter rise in the other's eyebrows and unusual blink sequence that had his mind screaming self-deprecating atrocities and waving white flags. And whereas Marth looked a bit surprised, he was downright shocked at himself for successfully getting the words out—and coherently!
"Oh," Marth said, shifting in place and folding one arm beneath the other in a cradle. The shorter man lifted one hand to rest upon the curve of that beautiful face, fingers drifting contemplatively across that set of lips, and his heart began to beat itself into cessation at the unreadable response. Gaze averted to the filing cabinet, Marth mused aloud, "Did someone put you up to this?"
There was no bitterness or suspicion or accusation, but clearly, the club owner concluded there was some unknown third party involved.
Not exactly, he thought to admit, but that would be a story for another time, because Marth hadn't outright accepted or declined the invitation. "I know this is," weird? unexpected? inappropriate? "sudden and I'm sorry I'm not very good at this." He hoped he conveyed how increasingly shitty he felt for causing the other to withdraw. He took a deep breath and tried again: "But uh, if I haven't already crossed a line, I would, ah," fuck, he was doing so well until this point, "like to spend time with you. Outside of work." There. Better, right?
He was prepared to insist that he wasn't creepy and that he was happy to just grab coffee (or tea, because he'd never actually seen any coffee in the other's office) if dinner was too big of a deal or would a 24-hour diner after work be too divey for Marth who deserved nicer things like long walks on beaches?
Pushing to stand, Marth unfurled from the defensive stance. After too long of a pause, the club owner replied, "All right."
He hadn't even reconciled his instinctive dread and the other's positive confirmation when he abruptly found the shorter man in his space, staring up at him with veiled amusement. "Uh, oh, hi," he stuttered out, vaguely concerned that Marth would register the alarming spike in his temperature due to the close proximity.
"I'm about to get off work," his boss murmured, warm breath ghosting against his ear in a knee-weakening contrast to how cool Marth felt against the heat seeping through his thin T-shirt. He almost collapsed right there, and if predicting his need for support, Marth had taken hold of his arm. "How about now?"
"Now what?" That came out higher pitched than normal, his vocal chords as tense as the rest of his body.
"This date," Marth clarified with a light laugh, like did you forget already? "Or were you thinking of indecent things?" the other asked lowly, placing one hand on his chest, right above his telltale heart.
Roy must have conveniently forgotten to warn him that this relationship was going to ruin him first instead of the other way around.
-tbc-