Chapter 1: Unrequited Feelings

Ness sighed as he flopped his head onto they striped pillow. His hat tipped off sideways as he turned his head, making himself more comfortable. Battling was hard. Battling Wolf was impossible. Not to mention extremely painful.

Ness let out a sharp intake of breath as he flipped to the other side of his bed, letting a small smile creep upon his face as he looked around the shared room. It was amazing how contrasting the sides of the room were. Ness' room was filled with bright colors and half a dozen posters plastered on the wall. Pictures of home back at Onett were littered on his desk and nightstand. Lucas' room... not so much. It wasn't so much that Lucas didn't have bright colors, it was just that he had barely anything. No pictures. No posters. No connections to his life back home.

Lucas was so secretive about his life most of the time. Occasionally Lucas opened up about his dad but that was mostly it. Ness made a mental note to find out more about Lucas. He let out a yawn as he closed his eyes.

He sensed something. Happiness.

"Hi, Ness."

"Auoh!" Ness let out a small yelp, awkwardly twisting in his bed, feeling a pang shoot through his midsection. Had he not be in so much pain, he would have been embarrassed at the sound he had just made.

"Oh! I'm sorry" Lucas was at Ness' side in an instant. He couldn't believe he had forgotten how quiet Lucas could be. "I'm really sorry! I didn't mean to scare you! I..." Lucas continued with his apologies.

"Lucas it's okay, I shouldn't have freaked out so much." Managing to sneak in an excuse between the blonde's ramblings. Ness gave a reassuring smile, fueled with the knowledge that if Lucas had scared anyone else, Lucas would have tried to sneak away, giving all his effort to become invisible. "Was there something you wanted to tell me?"

"Yeah..." Lucas took a step back as he rubbed the back of his head. It was a habit of his whenever he was unsure. "I wanted to tell you about how I won a match."

"You had a match? Why didn't you tell me?" Ness asked as he scooted towards the edge of his bed. "You know I would have rooted for you!"

"It's just that you looked like you were in bad shape when you left the battle and I didn't want you to come all the way back down."

"Lucas, you don't need to be so... thoughtful... all the time," Ness scrambled to put together a coherent sentence.

Lucas raised an eyebrow. "I don't?" It was more of a rhetorical question that a real one.

"No," Ness replied thinking a moment, "I mean yes you should be care, but you shouldn't care too much. Maybe a person wants to see you fight a match."

Lucas flushed. "I'm sorry, next time-"

"And you should stop apologizing so much!"

"I'm s-" Lucas clamped his mouth shut as Ness let out a long breath of air.

"Uh, let's move on," Ness finally pulled himself together, "Who did you beat?"

"Meta Knight" Lucas gave an unfaltering smile. A small one but it was definitely unfaltering. He was certainly impressed with himself. There were moments when Lucas' true character shined. When his cowardice melted away and all that was left were the good parts. But there was a downside to this; Ness couldn't help but find Lucas like this slightly alluring. Ness bit his lip. He had to keep thoughts like those at bay for right now. Despite how more frequently the thoughts were occurring.

"That's good right?" Lucas' voice snapped Ness out of his stupor.

"Yeah, that's great- wait did you say Meta Knight?" Ness' eyes widened. "You beat Meta Knight?"

"Yeah, but I only won because of luck," Lucas said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his head again.

Ness fought the urge to chuckle. "You're so modest all the time, I'm sure you just won 'cause you're better than him" Ness flashed Lucas a grin. "How 'bout you tell me about the match?"

Lucas gave Ness an appreciative look before sitting close next to him. A little too close. Ness felt a numbing shiver run through his body like a shock. Lucas seemed to be totally unaffected by the lack of any real personal space.

"Well... I guess- I mean- you-" But Ness was already out of it. God, Lucas was good-looking. He knew he shouldn't have strong developing feelings for his best friend. Strike that. His feelings for Lucas were already developed.

It was weird coming to terms with it at first. At first he couldn't stop thinking about him, Lucas was like a plague in his mind. He had honestly thought he was sick with a kind of fever at first. But then he found himself wanting to spend more and more time with Lucas. He couldn't stop talking to him. But much more recently, Ness kept thinking about slightly more mature thoughts. He wanted to touch him. To hold him. He had gradually accepted that he liked Lucas a lot more than a normal best friend would, despite how unnatural or immoral his feelings for his friend seemed he couldn't stop them even if he wanted to. And he didn't want them to.

"And so when this Bob-omb appeared in front of him he just kinda... dashed into it- by accident!" Lucas added quickly. Ness just gawked. Was he hoping to just skip over that little tidbit of information?

"Wait so he missed you and ran into the Bob-omb? And he went flying?" Ness asked unable to stop himself from laughing. "That's awesome, Lucas!"

"Yeah, now that I think about, that is pretty funny," Lucas joined in on the laughter.

Ness held his gut, still powerless against the hysteria. Meta Knight- who tried to act cool and smart all the time- had run sword first into an explosive. It seemed way too funny to be true!

He could still hear Lucas' joy. He turned to face his friend. Lucas was on his back on the bed, continuing to shake from all the hilarity of it all.

Ness sensed something else. It was another emotion, but it wasn't his or Lucas'. The emotion wasn't even happy- in fact it felt like quite the opposite-, but whoever the emotion belonged to, they were getting closer.

"Hey, Lucas," Ness said finally coming down off the high. "I think that some-"

The door flew open. A pair of very irritated eyes glared at the duo through a mop of light blue hair. Bingo, his guess was right on the mark.

"I don't know what you damn kids are laughing about but some people are trying to sleep!" Marth was very much the opposite of happy right now. Even so, Marth didn't scare him. Marth didn't scare anybody.

"Hey! We're not kids anymore! Lucas and I are both thirteen! Right, Lucas?" Ness turned to Lucas for backup. Lucas was turned sideways looking at a blank spot on the wall. Typical.

"I don't care if you're sixty-nine years old, you two are still way too loud." Marth turned sharply giving a quick wave of his hand as he flipped off the light switch. He took a step back into the hallway, letting Ness give a sigh of relief. Marth was leaving, but he decided to pitch in one last comment. "Lucas, I think I liked you better when you were quiet." And with the slam of a door he was gone.

Ness boiled with anger. How could Marth say that? It had taken all the help of the smashers for Lucas to be social and a comment like that could mess up everything Ness had worked so hard for.

"He's right you know," Lucas spoke as if distracted, " I should have been more quiet."

Ness reached over and turned on his lamp next to his bed. He was about to lose it. It took everything he had not to blow it right then and there. "No!" Lucas looked up, taken off guard by Ness' outburst. "Marth is an idiot! Don't listen to what he says. He just mad because he looks like a girl. Lucas, we all like the way you are."

He could see Lucas shudder for a moment. "Do you really mean that?" Lucas was still staring at him.

Ness gave him a puzzled look. "Of course I do. Why would I say something I didn't mean? You're a really nice person Lucas. You-"

Ness felt the wind rush out of him as Lucas tackled him with a bear hug. Two thoughts went through Ness' head. The first one was that Lucas was way stronger than he looked. The second one was the large amount of heat that Lucas' body was giving off. Ness felt his face grow warm.

"Thank you." Lucas said, muffled through the fabric of Ness' shirt. Finally pushing himself off. "That... means a lot to me. It's nice to know I have a best friend I can count on. Some of the people I used to count on died a long time ago."

Ness paused. He had wanted to know more about Lucas' past and here he was pouring his heart out. Ness ventured further. "What happened?"

Lucas looked Ness right in his eyes. Lucas could tell that Ness was a much more emotional person than he let other people believe. "When I was nine-years-old," he paused taking a breath, "a drago killed m- my mother. Then my twin brother-"

"Claus?" Ness interjected.

"Y-Yeah. H-He tried to get revenge on the drago, but," Lucas was crying again, "but, it killed him. Then my dad couldn't handle it," Lucas gave another sob, "and he had a m-m-mental breakdown."

Ness cringed. He didn't want to hear anymore, "Sorry, Lucas, I shouldn't have asked."

"It's alright. I wanted you to know" Lucas was finally calming down now. "Can I sleep with you tonight?"

Ness froze. "Yeah, uh, yeah that's fine."

"Are you sure your okay with it? We're both technically teenagers now..." Lucas went on, wiping tears from his eyes, "and I understand if you don't want to sleep with such a c-crybaby."

"No, it's... I want to." Ness knew that, depending on how Lucas took it, saying something like that was risky. It didn't matter though. He had wanted to say it. He reached over and turned off the lamp and leaning back onto the striped pillow.

"Thanks..." Lucas said hesitantly lying down closer to Ness.

"It's alright" Ness breathed, waiting a moderate amount of time before giving a small kiss on Lucas' forehead. He was definitely pushing the limits now, but Lucas didn't say anything. Ness waited a few more moments before realizing Lucas was asleep. Ness let out a sigh of relief. Tonight's little escapade had only made things more complicated.

He couldn't keep his flame for Lucas bottled up for much longer. He really needed to talk to someone.

Well there it is! My first submission to .

Never thought it would be a Ness/Lucas fic but even so I enjoyed writing this

I think it's worth saying that Ness and Lucas are around 13, but I don't think an official age is ever given

I would greatly appreciate any kind of feedback for this!

-...Yep