Author's Notes: Romance + What-Next?

Warnings: Badly formulated fantastical fanfiction of the yaoi, shounen-ai, slash, whatever-you-call-it nature. Cursing. Un-beta'd.

Pairing(s): IkeMarth.

Disclaimer: I don't own Super Smash Brothers.

Summary: A collection of one-shots in the genre of speculative fiction. Alternative universes in every sense of the term. –Yaoi, Slash: Ike/Marth-

Chapter Inspiration: [Organ harvesting and transplantation AU]. He was learning everything about the world from scratch, so when he recognized someone he had never met before, he figured there was something more to his perfectly engineered brain.

Speculative Impromptu

02. Residual

By SSBBSwords

He was a teenager when he was born. The adults at the institute provided him with everything to guide his development.

Everything truly meant everything.

When they realized he was waking to too much stimuli, they had kept him in REM-induced sleep until sufficient wiring had been established among the newly grafted regions of his brain.

It still felt like he was trying to swim out of a depthless amount of viscous liquid for some time before he could handle all the sensations at once without blacking out.

If it wasn't a security guard, trainer, teacher, or scientist, he was under lock and key and video camera.

Well, he didn't quite realize the latter until a few months into his now stabilized state of consciousness, but being raised in this world made him rather acquiescent to all conditions.

On one hand, it was rather scintillating to be able to grasp all academic material (no matter how dense or technical) oh-so-easily because his mental capacities were exponentially greater than anyone else's, thanks to the multiple transplantations of—really—the best of the best possible brain matter. To be quantitatively, linguistically, artistically, physically more able than any person on the planet? Right. Scintillating.

On the other hand, why did everyone seem so surprised that he started to question everything?

Everything.

"Are you my 'mom'?" he asked the ceiling of the MRI machine.

The voice of the woman to whom he woke up when he first stabilized came through the room's speakers with a mechanical twang. "Ike, stay still."

Would you believe he had chosen his own name? He had actually been attempting to communicate his inability to name the items pictured before him (spoon, book, cat) and the I-can't and I-don't-know failed to formulate, just as frustratingly as knowing but being unable to find the words.

In a strange attempt to pacify him, the woman had changed topics and thus his stuttering I-i-i… ccccc(an'tdon'tknow) somehow translated to Ike.

"I am still," he replied, almost petulantly, and knew deep down inside that he was acting like a toddler. Why, yes, he had finished an entire unit on child development just a few hours ago.

"We'll talk about this later."

Which was the end of that conversation.

Which was silly, because who was he supposed to ask about the subtle clamor in his head, about that tight feeling in his chest and throat when he thought of the idea of parents or siblings or a domestic household. He certainly had no shortage of people surrounding him daily, but something in his head told him otherwise. That this was different, and family was a whole different… thing. That he was supposed to have.

Or needed to have.

Because he felt off. Very off.

"You are moody today," the woman observed a week later.

He grumbled incoherently, temperament souring as hours passed. He was supposed to be a budding genius, and he could not rectify this one issue? He knew he hadn't been manufactured in a test tube (although how pieces of his brain had been linked may be attributed to some engineered tissue; but most of what was in his skull had belonged to previously very-talented individuals); so he had been told.

Then came a day, which started like any other day, that something (make that someone) caught his attention.

He was getting a tour of the research labs as part of his bioengineering curriculum when he spotted something that made him stop dead in his tracks. The professor paused and shot him a quizzical look. "Something the matter?"

He peeked closer through the glass window that led into an office, where a scientist had just turned back around after delivering a thick packet of data to another behind the desk. Without thinking much (beyond Iknowhim. iKNOWhim. Him. Know. I. Know), he strode in and after the guy.

Before he knew it, his hand was closing around a wrist. "I know you."

The shorter man looked around in surprise, but responded in a polite manner, "I'm sorry. I don't think we've met."

They hadn't. They have. Name? What was his name?

His professor appeared beside him, body language full of intrigue. Sure, Ike had taken up brooding as of late, but that still had not hampered any of his abilities. The wizened man glanced around the room, wondering just how good the facility's recording devices were or if he should take some notes where he stood.

"Dr. Carrel," the scientist began, "is this a new technician?"

"No, no," the professor responded in turn, stifling a laugh at the idea of a perfectly engineered human standing in the research labs doing something as menial as rinsing glassware. "Dr. Lowell, this is Ike. He is taking my regenerative medicine course."

"Oh, pleased to meet you. Call me Marth." The (whyareyou) lab-coated (beautiful?) man held out a hand, and Ike grasped it firmly and did not want to let go.

"I know you," he repeated, eyes darting all over the other's face and permanently (re-)ingraining the map into his (many people's?) mind.

Dr. Marth Lowell simply smiled, pulling away from the constricting handshake with little indication of pain from what was likely a crushing grip. "We haven't, Ike."

"Come on, Ike," his professor insisted, steering his immobile form away from someone he knew (he did!), and added, as if insult to injury, "If you leave Dr. Lowell to his work, maybe one day you won't have to take so many immunosuppressants."

At this, Ike was pulled out of the office and back into the hallway.

He was plagued with the image of Marth that day, night, next day, week, fortnight…

Because he knew Marth. From where, when, how… he did not know. But he could, couldn't he?

It took him more than a month to break into his (extensive) medical files. Sure, he had all the theory behind computer programming and security, but it was another thing to figure out the application and then find the time when bogged down with the institute's expectations of him. Classes, extracurricular activities, testing… by the time he had redone the camera feeds and coding to cover his tracks and open such classified material, he was spitting mad.

And he hadn't even read the dirty details yet.

His mind was a composite of thirty-seven different sources of brain tissue.

What. The fuck.

And one of them knew Marth.

-fin-

Author's Notes: Impressions, questions, ideas all welcome!

Chapter Hints: Neuropsychology. Brain anatomy. Memory formation and retrieval.