Author's Notes: Still all Marth's POV.
P.S. Asheris, thank you for loving these two utter walnuts. Also, I've only ever played Brawl, but I so appreciate the FEH invite!
Warnings: Everything declared from previous chapters still applies.
This is hands down my favorite chapter thus far. I'm not sure if that counts as a warning, but it might. (:
Pairing(s): IkeMarth for us poor unfortunate souls.
Disclaimer: I don't own Super Smash Brothers.
Summary: He was sixteen when he presented as an omega. Ike, on the other hand, didn't present at all. [ABO AU] -Yaoi, slash: Ike/Marth-
Delta
7. (M) Sigma: Surface Charge
By SSBBSwords
Leaving the apartment and loitering at a patio table in the grassy abode encircled by graduate housing put much-needed distance and perspective on the circumstances. As much as he was inclined to deny the turn of events, the words said, the actions done, he grew reluctant to continue avoiding the issue at hand. Despite his concerns of clipping Ike's potential and opportunities short, the young alpha had made every attempt to unobtrusively make clear which option was preferred, and it was frankly a little ridiculous how long he had allowed his own circumvention of the matter.
He wasn't looking forward to the conversation he promised to have upon returning to their apartment in about two days, but he was committed to seeing it through.
Thus bringing him to his next related agenda item: Cap.
After the postdoc stopped by his desk the next day before he left work, they stepped out of the building together and he said, "I need to tell you something."
The older man turned toward him, expression veering more toward atypical stoicism than polite curiosity. For an instant, he thought maybe Cap's nose had picked up remnants of rut pheromones on him but he had since showered so the other's seriousness must have stemmed from another indicator. "What is it?" his colleague asked with a measured smile that didn't quite reach the eyes.
There was probably no universe in existence where this wasn't going to be at least a little awkward. He swallowed dryly. "I," he began, thinking he knew what to say but apparently did not. "I'm sorry," he settled on, gaze cast to the handrail descending behind Cap's patient form.
"Oh," the postdoc said, mouth set in a firm line and subdued, "this conversation."
The lack of bitterness was much appreciated, but he found the other's resigned tone peculiar, like Cap had been poised for this outcome all along. "What do you mean?"
Instead of slapping a label on it, the older alpha asked, gentle in tenor but unequivocal in interpretation, "You—you've chosen to bond with," the other paused to draw in a fortifying breath, "someone else. Right?"
Had he not been clenching his jaw tight against any unpleasant shifts in expression, his mouth might have dropped open at the spot-on guess. Instead, he worried his bottom lip in lieu of grimacing at the topic at hand. His mental blockage against inappropriate thoughts toward someone he cared for since his formative years was still alive and well. However, even though he hadn't fully reconciled the idea of bonding with Ike, the intention and likelihood of the outcome was the impetus for this uncomfortable discussion. "Y-yes."
"Beyond this point, I understand it's none of my business," Cap nodded in acceptance, erasing ex-suitor persona and replacing it with mischievous co-conspirator, "but is it Ike?"
Tamping down the impulse to blush, he frowned in malaise, traitorous mind still reeling at the idea of a formalized bond with the younger man. He stared the older alpha down, willing himself to glean some of the other's gallantly manufactured levity. "Kind of," he admitted, swimming in uncertainty.
Cap's eyebrow arched. "No hard feelings here, obviously," his colleague stated, hands lifted in the universal sign of surrender, "and thank you for indulging me, but as I rewind myself back to before I asked you out, can I ask… why 'kind of'?"
"Thank you for not making this weird," he returned with a grateful smile, which the postdoc matched with a gold-star service grin. Smile faltering upon consideration of the other's question, the best he could come up with was a very unimpressive, "It's complicated?"
"Ah, the notorious Facebook status," Cap quipped with a contemplative nod. "Want to talk about it? I'll walk you to the shuttle stop."
By nightfall, the withdrawal symptoms had crept in with the elongated shadows of the setting sun. The growing headache was enough to make him regret the distance placed between himself and the one on which his instincts had imprinted. Link stared at him sympathetically and offered to text Zelda about illicit acquisition of stronger painkillers.
"How about some nitrous oxide? Freshly smuggled."
"It's fine," he muttered, curled miserably on his friends' pullout couch. He pulled the sweatshirt's hood over his hair and the blanket higher up his torso. "It's just one more night."
"Does that help?" the beta asked in candid wonder.
Even though he had left his apartment to avoid the teeming pheromones, whatever state of pseudo-bond he shared with Ike was writhing by day's end, causing him to blurt out after dinner that he had forgotten something back home, despite being fine without it the night before. Link took one look at his harangued appearance and drove him back to his apartment, where he absconded with a hoodie Ike had carelessly left on the armchair by the entrance.
Upon returning to his friends' living room, he was relegated to stewing in irritation, but at least he had something to wrap himself in that smelled like the alpha. It was just his luck that the other's hamper was in the locked bedroom or else he could have had a shirt too, maybe even sweatpants. Ike's collection of comfy athletic apparel was impressive.
Perhaps he had fallen deeper into this hole than he originally presumed.
"It probably doesn't hurt," he mumbled, ignoring the nagging logic that this type of behavior only exacerbated withdrawal in the long run. What was he doing? For the life of him, he couldn't remember why he was depriving himself of an established bond.
Why was the bond there, again? Why wasn't he with Ike, again?
"Damn it," he murmured, and Link blinked in muted shock at his language choice.
"Hey, so," the blond interjected, attempt to distract evident and successfully interrupting his spiraling, "about this accidental bond that's a bitch to break… it's been months? And the withdrawal symptoms look worse than you've described."
He winced, not at what Link had said, but because the 800 mg of ibuprofen he had taken wasn't making much of a dent in his pain even though an hour had gone by. "I think I'm going to bond with Ike," he whispered, apropos of nothing.
The beta gaped at his out-of-blue announcement. "What?" the other exclaimed, hushed to match and lilting in perplexity. "Is this the addiction speaking?"
"I—I don't know. No?" He pulled the collar of the hoodie up to his nose, an involuntary movement that he belatedly recognized as instinct-driven. "He wanted," wants, "to keep the bond, so," he swallowed, gut twisting with guilt or fear or anticipation of something or nothing at all, "so we didn't—haven't really tried breaking it." Trailing off, he glanced at Link, finally recognizing the vague nausea as a combination of pain and anxiety in the face of judgment.
Link's head cocked to one side, and the beta studied his frazzled expression in silence before—bless his best friend—declaring, "Okay, and what do you want?"
"I miss him," he keened into his drawn-in knees, volume pitched low and muffled through layers of material.
How long the silence stretched, he did not know, but when Link finally spoke up again, the blond sounded faintly astounded. "You like him."
"I've always liked him," he shot back, a bit miffed that the other's unhelpful observation even pulled a response from him.
"No, Marth," the other corrected placidly. "You've always been fond of him. This is different."
Lips pursed, he stared at the blanket between them before closing his eyes and agreeing, "This is different."
In a roundabout endeavor for comfort, he draped Ike's hoodie across his lap during work the next day and pulled it on upon leaving, making a pathetic excuse of chilly evening temperatures to Cap, who only nodded in understanding, eyes bittersweet. He returned to his apartment after work a little worse for wear from sleep deprivation and the withdrawal-inspired ache rooted joint-deep in his bones.
His text threads were worryingly stagnant; he had expected at least one notification that Ike's cycle was winding down, but the home screen remained unchanged. His concern piqued when he stepped across the threshold into living space still redolent of rut pheromones. Too tired to consider his room and too restless by Ike's scent to leave and return in a few more hours, he sunk onto the couch and receded into the other's hoodie like a turtle, mood not wholly content but ameliorated now that he was home.
Worn-out, he fell asleep right then and there but nearly rolled off the couch in shock when he awoke to the clock above the television reading something like 11:47 PM. When he moved to sit up, he couldn't help but pull a face at the dampness between his legs, which he should have foreseen, napping through wave after wave of an alpha's rut, no matter how unconscious he was. Grumbling to himself because there was no need to be polite in his own company, he gingerly stood on shaking legs, wondering if he had woken up because of some trigger like arousal or hunger or thirst, because he wouldn't mind more sleep.
Hoping the discomfort in his head was more from dehydration and less from withdrawal (the former easier to solve than the latter), he meandered into the kitchen to retrieve a glass of water. As he reached for the tap, he realized it was the sound of Ike's shower running that colored the background to his waking dream. It was a good sign that the alpha's rut had drawn to a close if the other was lucid and determined to start cleaning up. It was earlier than he estimated, but maybe Ike's cycles were condensed into two days rather than three.
Pleased at the other's rapid recovery, he unlocked Ike's door and, en route, went to sprawl on his own bed. They had both missed the window for dinner but he wasn't opposed to cooking after midnight. He must have dozed off again in the middle of freezer inventory—he wasn't sure he had the patience to defrost anything—and came to, groggy, with the ingenious idea of taking advantage of living near a university to forage for late-night food.
Swinging his legs over the side of his bed to sit up, he reached for his phone. Still no new messages.
He startled at the time. It was now 1:03 AM. He turned toward the other's room, his own bedroom door wide open to the hallway, and the shower was still running.
The shower was still on?
Something akin to dread chilled his blood. There was nothing wrong with a long shower, but what had it been? Seventy-five minutes now? There were long showers, and then there were panic-inducing, why-has-he-left-the-water-running-for-that-long showers.
He rushed to the other's door and stopped short of opening the previously unlocked door, a closed monolith of silence.
He was about to walk into a den of alpha emissions and he needed to be emotionally prepared to deal with whatever his instincts would make of it. However, concern for Ike won over his reflex to avoid the hazardous area, and he took a deep breath, clamping down his nerves, and eased the door open into the darkness.
Ike's room was less stuffy than apprehended—the younger man apparently had the wherewithal to open the window at some point—but even in the alpha's absence, he was struck with the lingering alkaline smell of semen and sweat, a mixture he might have found repulsive had it not been mixed so thoroughly with Ike's normal scent, rut pheromones a mere afterthought in his growing horror as he observed the state of disarray in the second-year's room.
His palm instinctively covered his nose, ineffectual as it was, and with faltering steps, he forced himself to venture further into the room, willing his instincts to stand down because he had more important things to worry about than mating with an available alpha that he was sort-of-kind-of-not-really bonded to by complete-or-not-complete accident. There was a significant part of himself that detested wanting to collapse on the other's stained sheets and mess them up further. He gritted his teeth and headed for the other's bathroom, door ajar, shower curtain plastered against the ceramic edges with the beat of water droplets.
About to announce his presence and apologize for the invasion of privacy, it was two things that alarmed him: (1) the acrid hint of vomit and (2) the muffled hiccupping underlying the otherwise consistent rush of water within and out of metal pipes.
"Oh, no," he managed, words lost beneath his breath as he stifled the reflex to clean whatever basin was baptized in stomach acid because Ike hadn't made it into the shower in time before unloading a foodless stomach's worth of contents.
He unceremoniously drew aside the shower curtain, treating himself to a fine mist of lukewarm water and the alpha seated curled directly under the spray of water, both boneless against the porcelain and twitching with tension, so sopping wet that when Ike's head painfully lifted to catch his gaze, he couldn't tell the rivulets down the other's face as shower water or tears.
"It hurts," the other said, voice catching in a crushing sob.
"Oh my god," he stammered, senseless, and climbed straight into the shower, jerking the shower curtain shut behind him as he rearranged himself as best he could in the tiny space available.
His clothes were soaked within seconds, the shower beating against his back as his fingers grasped for purchase against the other's wet skin. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he hissed, attempting to worm his way into Ike's locked fetal posture, instincts screaming the logic that the other just underwent a rut cycle heavily exacerbated by withdrawal. "I'm sorry," he whispered, pulling at the other's arms, knees knocking against the other's ankles to separate them. "Let me in," he pleaded, tone turning slightly shrill. "I can help." He could only hope he could help.
Wordless, Ike shuddered and unfolded enough that he darted forward, heedless of the other's utter nudity, and knelt as close as possible, wrapping arms around the other's torso and pulling Ike against him as tight as he could. The alpha was dead-heavy in compliance, body still shaking and exhausted from crying. Even wrapped together in a drenched knot, he could tell it wasn't enough. He wasn't about to extricate himself to shut off the water, so he laced his fingers into Ike's wet strands and yanked the other's head forward into the crook of his shoulder. "Scent me," he begged.
Water blurring his vision, he stared hard at the grout lines before him and desperately wished there was some way to absolve the young alpha of all the accumulated pain and suffering. Ike shivered against him in the wake of the tepid shower temperature, slack arms coming up to wrap around his back, one dipping down to his sacrum to pull their lower bodies closer together, which caused Ike's groin to shift away from the shower wall toward his since his knees were already pressed against the glossy surface. The other's thighs pressed against his ribs and Ike mumbled, delirious and frustrated, "I can't—" The other's cold nose nudged against his neck. "I can't, the water—"
"Use your mouth," he instructed in a rush, too preoccupied to do more than shallowly recall that smell and taste were closely entwined.
He could tell the exact moment Ike realized what he meant because the other's limbs framing his body tightened in anticipation. "Okay," the young alpha whispered before lips trailed from the junction of his shoulder up to his scent gland and clamped down.
It was the scrape of the other's teeth in combination with the meltingly hot suction at his neck that made him come in the most unimagined and anticlimactic manner, and he was desperately grateful that Ike didn't seem to notice his low moan in response or his full-body spasm. His thoughts swam and swirled like the water pooling around them. Maybe it was the subsiding of panic or their close proximity or the exposure to days-worth of rut pheromones, but whatever slow-burning arousal he had ignored for days had broken, and he was glad to be in the shower because the evidence was hidden well, what with every inch of his body soaked through.
Focusing all he had on regulating his breathing as Ike shifted from steadfast sucking, dangerously bordering outright nibbling, to gentle laving, tongue nursing the area that would definitely bruise after the rough treatment, he swallowed and tried to recollect his mind with a long-drawn inhale. He released his hold on the other and pulled back, taking in Ike's puffy eyes but sedated appearance, like the tension had bled straight out with the bathwater.
"How do you feel?" he asked shakily, the soreness with kneeling on the shower floor while being rained on and wet clothes sticking unpleasantly against him making themselves known, his core temperature cooler than he would like. Cupping the other's face in one hand, he swept Ike's wet hair back and studied the other's sodden features.
The alpha stared back, looking dopey and awestruck. "I-I feel better." Ike blew out a hard exhale but made no other indication of moving their entangled configuration. "Oh my god," the second-year exclaimed, gaze lowering for a grand total of two seconds before shooting back up to find his in shock. "I'm really fucking naked!"
He burst out laughing, not at the other's abrupt embarrassment or adorable blush, but at their outcome, now that his terror was mostly dissipated. "That's how people usually take a shower," he informed coolly as if they were discussing the weather.
Picking unnecessarily at the sopping wet hoodie, Ike raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "You missed the memo."
He smiled at the playful response, just so, so fond that his heart hurt a little. "I'm a trend-setter, obviously."
With an inquisitive head tilt, the alpha noticed something else. "Are you wearing my hoodie?" Ike asked, pulling at the wet drawstring absently.
"Yes, it's very cold in here," he answered, admirably impassive, keeping his eyes level in absolute avoidance of the mounting awareness that he was still plastered against the other's naked body.
All agreeableness and practiced nonchalance, Ike nodded. "It's a pretty cold shower."
The urge to clean up and dry off was escalating. "Are you done in here?" he blurted out, watching the teen's eyes widen in surprise. They were still, at best, only a foot apart. "I could use a shower—" and as Ike's mouth opened, likely to point out that he already had some form of a shower, he clarified, "A shampoo-and-soap type of shower. Some nudity required—some nudity that is not yours."
With a bark of laughter, Ike leaned back and shoved a warm, wet palm across his eyes. "Fine, I'm getting out, but close your eyes. I'm shy."
"Fine," he echoed, giving an Oscar-worthy put-upon sigh, as he replaced the other's hand across his eyes with his own, keeping them pinched shut and scooting back so Ike would have more room to exit the confined space.
"If I knew college was about doing laundry at two in the morning, I would've joined the Peace Corps," Ike groused, frowning at the miscellaneous collection of dirty linens at the foot of the washing machine. "Fuck it," the teen declared with a careless gesture, shoving the sheets in with the shower-drenched clothes. "I don't care that these are white. I'm not doing a separate load."
"Yes, show them who's boss," he replied mildly from the kitchen table, before taking a bite of instant noodles and relishing the hit of sodium and glutamate. He had come in his pants like a teenager earlier and was feeling rather vindictive about it—less toward Ike and more toward his well-chastened instincts (as much as he could scold biological inclinations, anyway).
As the second-year finished measuring the detergent and pushing whatever buttons needed to be pushed, Ike dropped into the chair across from him with a clatter and heavy sigh. "So that's not how I imagined my first romp in the shower with another person."
He nearly lost his noodles laughing.
"Also, I'm totally eating another one, so please don't mention the words 'daily,' 'sodium,' or 'allowance' as I do," the second-year pleaded, stealing his container briefly to eye the nutritional information printed on the label.
"You're a grown man; you do what you want," he deadpanned in return, retrieving his half-eaten poly-something-ene cup of carbs, having not even bothered to dispense the contents into a real bowl for consumption.
Bottom lip gnawed, Ike stole a glance at his unguarded carriage at the table and made no motion to stand up and do just that. "Hey, uhm, th-thanks for helping, uh, earlier." In the dim lighting fit for the wee hours of the morning, something like a flush darkened the teen's cheeks. "I think you—I don't know—saved my life or something."
"No."
He set the food and utensil aside just as Ike's downcast gaze jumped up in befuddlement. "Okay, you probably think I'm exagger—"
Holding a hand up to derail the other's jump to conclusions, he reached across the table, palm up, and waited for Ike to take his proffered hand. The second-year's brow furrowed, but regardless of uncertainty, Ike closed the distance, upping the ante by wrapping both hands around his like he had signaled for reinforcement.
"It's my fault," he said without preamble, ignoring the way his heart kicked into high gear at the other's endearing gesture, and shook his head when the other moved to argue. "No, it is my fault," he repeated, feeling the words gain traction across his tongue. "It's something I could have prevented if I hadn't avoided the topic for so long." He swallowed guiltily. "I didn't think three more days would have made a difference."
"Oh," Ike said quietly, coming to terms with his standpoint. "Uh, well, I wasn't entirely in my right mind on Tuesday, so I get it—"
"Sorry," he interjected again, withdrawing his hand only long enough to take the other's hand like he was about to read the alpha's palm. Playing with Ike's slack fingers, he stated, "You've done everything right, and I shouldn't have even let Tuesday happen the way it did."
The second-year sucked in a torn breath. "What are you saying?" Ike whispered, looking seconds away from breaking into a cold sweat, tears, or both.
"This bond," using his free hand, he pointed between the two of them, "I'm saying we formalize it."
Ike's hand remained loose in his relaxed hold. The second-year's expression remained somewhat petrified. "What?"
Prepared to repeat himself, he carefully enunciated, "I said—"
"Wait," the young alpha interrupted, eyes a touch wild. "Wait, wait, wait, wait."
Biting his bottom lip to suppress further flow of words at the other's behest, he withdrew his hand from Ike's, in case the physical sensation was unappreciated and distracting. The other's hands dropped beneath the table edge, out of view, but he would bet Ike was knotting them together in consternation.
"What does that mean though?" Ike finally asked with a severe kind of solemnity. "I mean, I'm down, of course," the second-year threw in as an after-thought, as if realizing the initial reaction held no ounce of enthusiasm and could be interpreted negatively. "I think I suggested it first, and my opinion hasn't changed, y'know, just in case I wasn't clear—"
"I appreciate your clarification." He smiled gently at the other's bumbling. Some things just didn't change and he was glad for it.
"Okay, good, so yeah, uhm, is there a standard handbook I should've read? Like, rules or procedures or stuff? Like," Ike's gaze drifted to what was probably the angry rubbed-raw patch on his neck and lowered in guilt, "marking? Is that way far down the line? Actually, what's on the line, exactly?"
"I don't believe we need to carve it out on stone tablets right here and now," he answered, losing the fight against the amusement lifting the corner of his mouth. He pushed his seat back to stand and rounded the table, coming to a stand by the second-year's seated figure. "But I thought reciprocation might be an appropriate first step."
"Eh?"
"We have a bond from scenting, right? Stay still." Arms bracketed for support, one palm on the table and the other at the back of Ike's chair, he bent at the waist, angling for the other's scent gland. "You're a bit too tall for me to do this standing," he explained softly, moving slowly as to not alarm the teen.
He was close enough to pick up the skyrocketing of something in the other's scent—perhaps cortisol or epinephrine—but just as he was about to brush against the other's neck, Ike toppled right out the other side of the chair, clambering clumsily to a stand.
"Oh my god," the alpha squeaked, eyes round like the moon, one hand wrapped around the small area he had lightly exhaled on.
Raising one eyebrow, he straightened from his bend, which hadn't been very comfortable to begin with. "I'm sorry," he offered, sincere but not entirely surprised. "You're uncomfortable. We can forget about—"
"No!" the other burst out with conviction unbefitting such intense avoidance. "I'm not uncomfortable."
"You literally fell out of your seat," he pointed out, not offended but acquiescent to the reality of the matter. Reflexes spoke louder than words. Ike could swear until the end of time that bonding was fine, but that was a visceral-enough clue that the alpha didn't like him like that.
"I—I," Ike stuttered, stumbling for words, "uhm, I'm ticklish?"
"You're ticklish," he deadpanned, head tilting to one side to assess what he read to be distress lacing every fiber of the second-year's body language. "Really, Ike, we can call it off. Don't force yourself."
"No, really," the alpha insisted with a frown, forcing hand away from neck. "I wouldn't give up our bond for the world, but, but—"
He blinked at the other's fumbling, waiting patiently for the sentence to finish.
"—uh, maybe a little warning next time? So I can, uhm, prepare my heart or something," Ike mumbled, regarding him somewhat warily.
He couldn't help the disbelief edging into his voice. "Ike, you scented me like that," well, he hadn't come close to what the young alpha had accomplished, technically, "for months."
"I didn't know you have nerves of steel?" Ike countered accusingly.
"You're sensitive," he concluded, sounding perhaps a touch too fascinated, because the other bristled like an angry cat.
"Ticklish!"
A quiet giggle escaped. Trying to contain the hysteria-fueled mirth at their situation was causing tears to prickle at the corner of his eyes. "I'm not sure that's better?"
"For the record, I'm still on board," Ike grumbled, "but come on, give me some time to adjust." The other waved at him from head to toe. "Reality is a lot different from whatever my brain comes—came up with."
"More tactile, I presume," he offered, smirking.
"Your fault for not updating your PowerPoint presentation," the second-year shot back, blush undiluted by the playful tone.
"I'm sorry," he hummed, satisfyingly unrepentant. "I'll get on that tomorrow."
-tbc-