Disclaimer: I don't own Super Smash Brothers: Brawl or any of the characters, and this piece of fanfiction is for the sole purpose of entertainment.

Pairing: IkeMarth
Genre: romance, humor
Rating: G (subject to change)
Words: 1846
Warnings: homosexuality

A/N: If you've read any of my stuff, you'll notice I don't do fluff. I don't do G-ratings. But apparently I am an old coot now and want happy fuzzy things to keep me warm. There is cheesiness and campiness from here on out, and I make no apologies for it.

This fic is wholly and unabashedly inspired by SSBBSwords/LilPurpFlwr's "Cycles," which is seriously better for a troubled mind than all the anti-depressants approved by the FDA combined. She and I adore our headcanon Ike and Marth, the former like a lovable dog and the latter embodying stereotypical feline traits (with an unrestrained dash of sexiness). And my favorite character in ALL of our headcanon is Lacey, Ike and Marth's dog from "Less than Five Percent," so obviously... I had to write a fanfiction based on her fanfictions.

A Matter of Destiny
Chapter 1: Star-Struck

Ike genuinely and wholly loved animals.

His love of all creatures furry and feathered began when he was naught but a youth in elementary school. One day during mid-morning recess in October of his third grade school year, he happened upon a stranded baby bird beneath the large oak tree at the edge of the school grounds. It seemed to have fallen straight out of the tree and was lying in a rumpled, downy pile nearly directly below its nest on one of the highest boughs. Whether it was attempting to leave the nest for the first time or simply fell out by accident, it looked terribly hurt and lost, and Ike was overcome with both sadness and pity for the hatchling. Ever so carefully, he cupped the small bird in his equally small hands, and all but ran back to his classroom to tell his teacher because the baby bird needed help and it was hurt and he couldn't possibly have left it there.

From that moment onwards, Ike knew that he loved animals. He fed every stray cat he met and knelt down to pet every single dog on the sidewalk he chanced upon. When he was in the fourth grade, his parents bought him a guinea pig that he christened Squeaky and cared for with all his nine-year-old might. He not only played with Squeaky, but he learned to clean his cage and refill his food and water regularly. He didn't do the chores because his parents told him to, but because he loved Squeaky and wanted him to be healthy and happy.

It was no surprise to anyone that ever knew him that Ike decided to major in pre-veterinary studies when he entered university. He had volunteered part-time at the local animal shelter since his sophomore year in high school and knew, with unwavering certainty, that he wanted to dedicate his life to caring for animals. Sure, he knew there would be intense competition for entrance to one of the few veterinary schools in the nation, but it was a lifelong passion that he was willing to fight to see to fruition.

Currently, Ike was in the middle of his freshman year of university. He had moved away from home in his pursuit of a doctor of veterinary medicine degree, as there was no university offering pre-vet studies anywhere near where he grew up. But living far away from home took a toll on him emotionally and he missed interacting with animals on a nearly daily basis, so he sought out the nearest local animal shelter and resumed volunteer work upon his third day after moving to the city. By the second month, he had befriended a personable golden retriever, and couldn't bear the idea that someone else would adopt her—or worse, that she would be euthanized if she wasn't claimed when her time at the shelter had run out. So after confirming that his two roommates didn't mind and that, yes, his apartment complex allowed dogs as long as he paid a monthly pet-fee, he half-emptied his meager savings to adopt Lacey and brought her home that same day.

Lacey was a rescue dog. Her previous owners had perished in a tragic house fire, but she had managed to survive the flames and was collapsed and barely breathing by their trapped, crushed bodies. She was a seven-month-old puppy and her collar was still fastened firmly around her throat, the pink leather stained by ash and the heart-shaped pendant engraved with "Lacey" in cursive letters. After her emergency treatment at the animal hospital for lung damage and minor burns, she was transferred to the animal shelter the same week Ike started volunteering. Maybe it was simply luck and coincidence, but Ike liked to think that he was destined to meet Lacey.

Ike also considered another meeting four months down the line as a matter of destiny (warm-hearted idealist that he was). On January 13th at 3:45 p.m., Marth strolled through the door of the shelter up to the counter he sat at and right past it into his own star-struck dreams.

"Hi, are you accepting new volunteers right now?"

The young man (or adolescent?) with the impeccably styled hair and large, piercing eyes stood at the counter in front of Ike. He was dressed very similarly to Ike himself—pair of jeans, boots, winter coat zipped up fully and muffling his words against the collar sneaking over the lower half of his face. In all respects, there was absolutely nothing remarkable about him; just another student weathering the harsh January snow. Yet, Ike was dumbstruck nonetheless, and he suddenly knew in that instant how Lacey felt when she heard the kibble being poured on the other side of the apartment and came scampering into the kitchen at the furry speed of light. This, whatever it was¸ was something that he wanted and never even knew he wanted all along until it appeared right in front of him.

Ike only realized he had never answered the question when the young man started giving him a puzzled look, and he let out a small exclamation before muttering yes, yes, we always need more volunteers, let me find the application, it's somewhere here, I swear… seriously man, did the desk eat it or something?

"Sorry," he finally managed while laughing, and the young man was laughing too because, honestly, Ike was being ridiculous. He finally unearthed the application from the bottom right drawer of the desk where it had always been, if only his brain had cooperated in remembering that little fact. "I'm usually not this big of an idiot. Must be brain freeze, right?" He shot a crooked grin at the other as he handed over the two-page stapled packet and a pen.

The young man smiled back as he accepted the items but not before quipping, "Maybe they should crank up the heater in here, then."

Later that night, as Lacey curled up against his side as he studied for his biology midterm, he would tell her that he'd never been happier to be teased as he was that day.

His name was Marth, and Ike was sure that was the nicest sounding name he had ever heard. Marth, like hearth, and Ike thought that it was completely appropriate because being near Marth filled him with a steady warmth, as if he were basking in front of a merry fire to banish the below-freezing outside temperatures.

After the second day they volunteered together, Ike learned that Marth was also a student at his university, although he was his senior by two years and enrolled within the college of fine arts. Marth neither looked his age nor like his apparently stereotypical and probably bigoted idea of what an artist is supposed to look like. He didn't wear hipster nor boho-chic clothes, didn't have long and/or unkempt hair, and his clothing wasn't constantly covered in paint and various other art supplies. On the contrary, his hair was unnaturally perfect every single time Ike saw him. Even when there was a blizzard outside and Marth came stumbling into the shelter with a beanie on, the moment he pulled it off, all he had to do was smooth a hand over the top once and it was flawless again. Somehow, Marth's hair seemed to exist outside of the effect of entropy. If only Ike were so lucky; his own hair seemed to epitomize the second law of thermodynamics.

Marth's medium of choice was ceramics. Ike never much had any prior interest in pottery (or art in general), but after he learned that Marth was truly passionate about stoneware and planned to make that his career, he found himself browsing the internet for hours on end regarding clay, kilns, firing techniques, and glazes. He never realized making bowls was such a complicated procedure. But after weeks of studying the history of ceramics and its techniques, Ike found that he had developed a taste for it. Whenever he tried to explain to Lacey that the interest was genuine and not because he wanted to impress the older student, she seemed to give him a very pointed look before flopping her head down on his thigh.

Obviously, the girl was not convinced.

Ike had decided by March that Thursday was absolutely his favorite day of the week.

After the start of the spring semester, their volunteering schedules only matched up once a week on Thursday afternoons because their class schedules were vastly different. After he had gotten used to seeing Marth on a thrice-weekly basis, he suddenly found himself missing the other man a great deal. A shift at the shelter just didn't seem complete without Marth there to make some smart ass comment about his blithe idealism and unwarranted faith in humanity.

Even though they had exchanged emails, Ike had yet to gather the courage to actually write to the other boy outside of the mandatory introductory email to confirm they had each gotten the addresses correct. He just couldn't figure out a way to justify emailing Marth when he saw him once a week.

"Does that make me come off as needy, Lacey?" he mused out loud to his companion while staring oh so intently at the blank composition screen of his email client. Lacey gave him a confused whine, which made perfect sense considering he had asked the question out of nowhere and without a bit of context. "Emailing him, even though I see him once a week," he added afterwards for clarification.

Lacey just gave him a blank look that he interpreted as canine exasperation.

"Alright, girl," Ike muttered with a sigh. "Even you think I'm crazy now. I mean, it's just a friendly email… right? Why am I even worrying so much?"

A snide part of his brain replied that he worried because he was crushing on Marth like a sixth grade schoolgirl. He gave that part of his brain a swift boot right back to its snarky little corner. He was not acting like a middle school girl. You would think that his brain would at least have the dignity to compare him to a boy at the very least.

Ike sighed again before reaching down to scratch Lacey absently behind the ears. He had decided on coffee. Meeting for coffee was a totally normal thing that two people who work together might do in their spare time. It wasn't a date, so he needn't fear rejection. If Marth turned him down, it could very well just mean that he didn't like coffee.

Even after convincing himself of the extremely benign nature of the invitation, it still took Ike over an hour to send the email.

Hey Ike,

Coffee sounds great. Want to meet up at the coffee shop by Pauling Hall? I'm free all day Saturday or next Tuesday at 4pm. Let me know what your schedule's like.

Marth

Ike reread the email for the seventh time, wondering how Marth managed to sound so normal when he felt like a veritable nutcase.

-tbc-