Early on New Years Eve, we took the time for some well-needed deliberation. Ironically unknown by the masses, we were finally dating, and anything that happened after today could bring our friendship flat on our faces.
We talked over many things: all the boring, the confusing, and the awkward. The nature of our relationship. Our personal boundaries.
My closet.
"The press thinks that we're dating, but you don't want your dad to know that we are for real-" Ness anxiously rattles off his fingers. "Lucas, I know you want to stay undercover from your dad, and that's totally fine, but we shouldn't lie in public. If you try to cover things up, and the paparazzi find out, it'll just blow up into a bigger scandal-"
"I know, I need to talk to my dad without blowing up the press," I say wearily.
Neither of us made much leeway.
But by mid-afternoon, we agreed on some clear rules. As roommates, many were redundant, and most were just common sense, but Link was right. Good communication would hopefully prevent unnecessary conflict later on.
After the New Years fireworks, I would go home and gauge my father's reaction. On the unlikely event that his response to the shipping scandal was favorable, we would seek his blessing on Ness's behalf.
On the likelihood that his reception was sour, things would get a little complicated. Assuring my dad that the scandal was media propaganda, I'd do my best to gradually ease him into the idea of accepting Ness into the family before introducing him to our relationship. Until then, I would still stay "closeted." Partially. For now. We'd agreed to let most of the Smashers know that we were dating if asked, only because they already ironically believed we were in a relationship, but on the outside, we'd lay low under media attention and do our best to avoid incurring my father's wrath.
Ness is right. We shouldn't lie to the press... but that didn't mean we were obligated to tell them the truth. The press would gossip and slander no matter what we did.
On one hand, I'm relieved that we finally have a game plan.
On the other, I feel like I'm trapped inside a pressure cooker. I'd refused to resort to lying, so it was imperative that I came up with a convincing cover to win over my dad. At my own request, Ness agreed to listen to me rehearse, but either way, talking to my dad wasn't going to be easy.
"You're rambling. Back up and start from the beginning," Ness says patiently when I freeze up yet a second time. He's nice enough not to point it out, but he knows that I'm nervous.
After what seems like the hundredth time, my shoulders slump over miserably. "I don't know, Ness. I'm not sure I can pull this off."
"Sure you can-"
"You've already helped me for an hour, and I've gotten nowhere." I rub my eyes. "He'll see through anything I say. There's no point in trying."
Clearly displeased, Ness frowns at me, as if he's sensed my negativity and decided that it's a horrible blight on the world.
So he remedies it with the only solution he has.
Horrible puns.
"I love you, my gay son," he says in the gruffest voice possible.
"My dad doesn't speak like that-"
"I LUV YOU EVEN IF YOU'RE UBER GAY. OR LYFT GAY. I DON'T DISCRIMINATE. YOU'RE GAY LUCAS AND DAT'S OKAY." When I can't stop a snort from escaping, Ness bursts out into a loud crow of triumph. "OH! You grinned," he yells, pointing at me. "I saw it-"
"Must've been a trick of the light," I say innocently. "Or maybe your eyes are going bad."
"Trick of the light, my ass. Show yourself, Lucas's smile-" Ness flits around now, eagerly trying to pop into my face. When I swivel away in my seat, covering my grin, he tries to pry both of my hands away. "Ha, see?! I know it's there, you can't hide from me, you lil fucker-"
"I don't smile-"
He jabs a finger into my face. "Uhuh. Then what's that on your face?"
"That's my nose, you smarmy git."
Trying not to laugh his ass off, Ness wraps me into a giant hug, an impossibly wide smile growing on his face. "I love you," he says earnestly, looking up at me with the sappiest eyes possible. If I got paid every time Ness has said I love you to me for the past month, I'd be debt-free.
But he's succeeded in lifting my spirits, and he knows it.
I poke him in the shoulder. "Hey, we still need to practice. Help me rehearse from the top."
"But your dad already wants to shoot me dead with an - ow, oww," he yelps when I poke him more furiously in the shoulder until he loosens his hold, only for him to pull me over by the forearms. "Okay, I'm gonna kiss you now."
"Wait, Ness-" Miscalculating our height difference, Ness faceplants into the collar of my t-shirt instead. "-Slow down, you're stepping on my foot-" Like the impatient, hyperactive dork he is, Ness re-adjusts himself, but accidentally ends up poking his nose into my chest. Fed up with him blundering around and smacking his forehead into my chin, I hold him down by the shoulders. "I told you to wait," I say, exasperated, but not before the overexcited git hops up to lick me on the tip of my nose.
Yeah... communication.
We're working on it.
Fastforward to New Years, after I wave Ness's mom goodbye for the ride home and crash into bed, I breathe, because this winter break has only reminded me that there's still someone Ness has yet to meet. Someone precious to me. Someone whom I've always wanted Ness to know, even from long ago.
But when Ness texts me, it washes away any lingering doubts.
I've waited nine years.
It's about time.
Nuss 10:24PM
my mom's back
did u get home safe
Lookas 10:31PM
I did thanks
Nuss 10:31PM
HOORAY
UR ALIVE :D
Lookas 10:31PM
Actually
wait
Nuss 10:31PM
wats up
I exhale. Though none-too-pleased over my explanation about the media blowing things out of proportion, dad's given me the benefit of the doubt. I know that he's going to be out at work all day tomorrow. He wanted me to visit mom too, so I might as well bring Ness along. Take extra care to avoid the paparazzi while we're at it.
What dad won't know couldn't hurt him.
My fingers return to my phone.
Lookas 10:32PM
I think imready
Wanna introduce you to my family.
.
.
.
~Chapter Twenty-Eight~
Adding Fuel to the Fire
.
.
.
I spend the rest of the day loitering around the empty baseball field.
It's a pretty futile attempt to avoid the inevitable, but I try to convince myself otherwise. That I'm not scared. That I'm using the next few hours as a buffer. That I'm giving my dad time to compose himself, that he'll hopefully cool down somewhat for me to explain. But when the sun goes down and the street lights flicker on, I've run out of excuses to justify myself.
Shuffling up the stairs, I unlock the front door and push my way in.
Then halt.
Because the whole place is a mess.
Shirts are strewn everywhere. My clothes. Unnerved, I catch what looks like my wardrobe in the living room, its contents and drawers dumped unceremoniously over the couch. When a sharp sound startles me to rear back my foot, a heavy glass bottle slowly rolls across the floor, empty and spent, but it's impossible because dad's a man of self control. Even though his company offers employees free drinks at the end of the day, my dad never partakes in the privilege. He never drinks...
Not unless he's upset.
With rising trepidation, my eyes follow the trail of wreckage to the familiar hunched figure bent over the wooden kitchen table.
Without saying a single word, my father folds up his newspaper before tossing something onto the kitchen table... Several somethings. They're each about the size of a postcard. When I recognize the gleaming squares, my blood turns cold.
They're photos.
High-res, printed, colored photos of me and Ness over winter break. Leaning against each other at the movies. Trying out samples in AsiaTown. Walking up the stairs of the condo holding hands.
Where did he get these?
Underneath the brim of his cowboy hat, my dad gives me a long, hard stare.
"You have five minutes to explain."
.
.
.
~oO0Oo~
.
.
.
My dad burns them all in the old fireplace.
The striped shirt Ness left behind last month. The rock collection we gathered in 4th grade. All the photo albums from our tournaments, all the tokens from our subspace adventures. All the mementos I collected over the years.
All of our letters.
Gone.
The smoke stings my eyes. The living room hisses with a shower of embers, but I force my eyes open to watch my memories go up in smoke. The blue fire licks each letter, devouring the white paper into ash. Shriveling up from the heat, the corners of the letters curl up, blacken, and die. Beside me, my father dumps over the last drawer from my desk and scrapes out a wayward letter wedged between the hinges.
I hold my breath. It's got to be over. We're not allowed to use the fireplace because the chimney hasn't been cleaned for years. He's got to stop unless he wants to trigger the smoke alarm.
Dad stops to appraise me.
Then to my dismay, he reaches for the crumpled ball of paper hidden in my pockets, but my fists involuntarily clench around it. I spent a good week reading over this letter when it arrived in the post. I have every word down. It's my favorite one.
I can almost hear Ness's voice speaking in fractured parts and pieces.
Dear Lucas,
Melee is super awesome! Last week, Samus showed me how to punch sandbag right in the face. And yesterday, Captain Falcon taught me how to "scream like a man"!
"Hand it over."
The kitchen floor feels cold against my toes.
Shaking my head, I clamp my mouth shut and stubbornly keep my fists closed, because this letter's worth more than anything, because the worth of this letter is irreplaceable.
But even that isn't enough.
With a wrench, my dad rips the wayward letter in his hands into two, tearing an ugly jagged line into the paper and splitting it into uneven halves. The fire blazes, reflecting off my dad's eyes as he looks at the remaining letter in my hands. From the mad expression on his face, I know that he's past forgiveness, that the situation is beyond saving, that my dad won't stop to listen to rhyme or reason.
I'm not sure if the last part really helped, but training here has definitely made me strong.
"Don't make me force you," he says quietly, and the warning makes all the hairs on my neck stand on end. My dad's never punished me without good reason, never disciplined me without fair judgement, but I don't want to push him over the edge. I know better than to test his temper. My brother took after his impulsiveness after all.
I don't think I've ever seen him with such an angry look on his face.
But I bet you've gotten a lot stronger too.
"Give it here, Lucas."
I tighten my grip on the very last letter, but my hands are shaking so badly like they do whenever I'm nervous or scared, and I hate it when they do that, I hate that my knees are knocking and my shoulders are threatening to shrink, because this letter's mine by every right, because this letter holds more importance than anything else I have left.
For better or for worse, this is a piece of me that my dad can't take away.
One day, I bet you'll grow even stronger than me. And that's okay! We can be strong together. Just don't get WAY too strong. I won't be able to catch up to you!
My dad's shadow looms over the kitchen wall.
Lucas, you're my bestest friend.
The fireplace sputters and dies.
.
.
.
~oO0Oo~
.
.
.
I'm grounded.
I have no idea for how long.
I'm not allowed to use magic. I'm not allowed to leave the house or answer the door. My dad's taken away my keys, phone, and laptop. He does let me check my email on his computer, but only under strict supervision.
Every night, he sits me down in the kitchen. We try to talk, but he's not ready to listen.
We make no progress.
Afterwards, he trudges over to the couch, loops his belt back around his hands, and quietly watches the floor sulking in denial. Other times, he stares holes into my back until I limp back to my room.
The third night, he speaks up from his cold shoulder. "You're not going back to the tournament."
It's ridiculous. He knows that my income is the only thing keeping our family free from Porky's clutches.
But when my dad looks deadly serious over his threat, I reluctantly yield, retracting my complaints. I'm only a minor at sixteen. As my parent and guardian, he has the right to sign and renew my application for the next season. If I can quietly slip back to his good graces, if I can endure just a little longer under his roof... then I might at least convince him to send me back to the tournament.
Because if he takes that chance away from me, then I might never see Ness again.
My hands are tied.
So bitterly, I abide by his wishes. I let him vent. I say nothing whenever he pokes unfounded holes into Ness's character. I don't stand up for myself whenever he rebukes me for escalating the situation, for leaving to a fighting tournament only to spark a shameful scandal, for forsaking my own grief over Claus's absence for perverted desires, for frolicking around my mother's gravestone without shame like it was a fucking playground - that I should've known better than to have wasted my mother's precious sacrifice on letting Ness string me along like a goddamn fag.
Though I try not to take them too personally, his words whittle down my confidence. I've never had much of a self-esteem, because it's so much easier to stand up for other people than to stand up for myself.
But I do my best to take it like a man.
From time to time, I feel Ness prod me through our empathy link, but I withdraw from his tendril of worry. I don't trust my own composure completely, and the last thing I want Ness to feel is my dad's emotional backlash through me. Then I think of Ness's letters, and my chest aches. That night had ended with my dad storming outside to cool his head, leaving me behind to sweep the remaining ashes off the floor. The second his heavy footsteps faded across the catwalk, I'd scrambled for the last burning letter, my fingers already reaching for the charred piece of paper before forgetting to quench the fireplace.
But by then, it was too late. The damage had been done.
I lost all of Ness's letters.
Regret prickles the blisters on my hands.
The nights progressively get no better. On the fourth night, his brow caving into a thunderous furrow, my dad calls me into the kitchen and slams my phone onto the counter.
"He keeps texting you. Tell him to stop."
So I do.
Though when my dad isn't looking over my shoulder, I add in a quick "I'll see you at work" as an afterthought and delete the text record before handing back my phone.
Dad checks my phone. He's not amused by the missing messages.
I keep my attitude in check after that.
A whole week sluggishly passes by.
On the eighth night, just like every other night before, my dad calls me back into the kitchen again, stoic-faced and waiting to discipline me with the belt in hand. But this time, he's visibly agitated. I can tell from the slight indent of his mouth. He doesn't like doing this either.
"Sit, son," he says.
In an act of defiance, I take the farthest seat away from him.
"Back in my day, a good father was expected to take his son to the barn out back... and keep beating the gay out of him until he turned straight again. It was the right thing to do. The reasonable thing to do." A pause. "The normal thing to do." Tightening the belt loop in his hands until his knuckles turn white, he gives me a look of concern, his forehead creasing into a hint of a puzzled frown. "But it's not working on you, is it."
Because that's not how it works, dad.
My father's shoulders sag. To my surprise, he tosses the belt away from his hands. It clatters onto the kitchen table between us with an echo that deafens my ears.
He seems to have lost some steam.
"How long are you going to behave like this?" he says, exhausted. "Son, I don't know much about these things... but the men at work talk. They say that your friend's a fag, but that at least he's a white fag. Most everyone here likes a white fag... because they'll judge you by the color of your skin and not just by who you court. They say nasty things about you, son. They say that you're weak. They say that you're less than a man. They say that you're his clone, even though you're none of these things. You're different, so people will treat you differently. That's the unfortunate nature of things." My dad rakes his eyes over photos on the mantelpiece. His voice turns gruff. "Lucas, I loved your mother, but she had a hard time proving herself to ignorant folks outside of Tazmily, even as a strong capable woman herself. You on the other hand... You're capable, but you're not strong. You'll crack under pressure. You can't be a fag. You're a man, not a goddamn woman. Cut him off. He's taking advantage of you. It'll only end in trouble."
My mouth tightens involuntarily. "..."
Dad lowers his drink with a tired sigh. I can almost smell the disappointment on his breath. "This isn't like you. When did you turn into such a bitter person?!"
Oh I don't know, dad. You tell me.
"You tarnish your mother's memory with your shortsightedness."
Well I wouldn't know, since she's dead.
"He's not Claus."
You're right, he's not Claus.
But he's family.
You can't make me choose between family.
"Does he make you that happy?"
"..."
Dad hangs his head. "I've got the debt covered... so stay out of my goddamn business," he says quietly. "Leave. Renew your contract on the roster. Don't let me catch you here again."
"Dad-"
"Come back when you're ready to be my son."
.
.
.
~oO0Oo~
.
.
.
Lookas 2:21AM, Jan 10
Ness, all clear
my dad gave my phone and laptop back.
Are you awake?
Nuss 2:32AM, Jan 10
yholy fuck
are you ok?!
Lookas 2:32AM, Jan 10
Yeah
Dad didn't take the news too well, so I'm giving him space
I might have to crash at your place tonight though
Sorry
Nuss 2:32AM, Jan 10
dude wtf r u apologizing for
fuck that
Lookas 2:32AM, Jan 10
When are you leaving?
Nuss 2:33AM, Jan 10
im flying out at 10 am
Lookas 2:33AM, Jan 10
I promise I'll leave in the morning
It's just for tonight
Nuss 2:33AM, Jan 10
but we can take the same skytrain together since u left ur bag here last week
lemme book the flight for extra seats wHAT THE FUCK
UH
EXCUSE ME
DID I HEAR YOU RIGHT
no
shut up and listen you
come crash rn and stay as long as u need to
das an order btw
srsly my moms gonna flay me alive if u dont, shes been worried sick about u this week
do u need me to teleport u over? just gimme 5 to dress
Lookas 2:34AM, Jan 10
Nah I'm taking the red line
omw
Nuss 2:34AM, Jan 10
oh no
plz dont get mugged
Lookas 2:34AM, Jan 10
Thanks Ness
dw I won't
.
.
.
~oO0Oo~
.
.
.
Around three in the morning, Ness opens the door.
Under the dim glow of his porch light, we stare at each other. He's in dorky Pokemon boxers and bunny slippers, and had this been any other time, I might've laughed.
His eyes look red-rimmed and puffy.
My throat dry, I avert my eyes from his pointed glare, and uncomfortably fiddle with the straps of my backpack. "It wasn't your fault, dad was bound to have figured it out sooner or later-"
Then Ness tackles me, his weight knocking us backwards against the wooden railing of his porch. His shoulders are shaking so hard that I can't make out what he's saying... if he's even saying anything at all. But even without words, Ness's obvious message hits home.
I am wanted.
I am loved.
Suddenly, I'm struggling to keep my own breathing under control, but Ness just squeezes me around the waist, like he already knows. He puts a lot into the hug, his fingers already at work and pouring pulses of magic through his fingertips in comforting waves. While the sensation feels almost euphoric after feeling so numb for so long, I gently push him away because I'm fine, I'm really okay, and he doesn't need to spend so much energy on something I've already put behind me.
But Ness refuses to budge when I do try to pry him off, stubbornly clinging onto me tighter. In response, his fingers pour out magic faster in desperate droves, as if he's pouring out his heart and soul into wishing me to feel better.
So I let him pamper me for a little longer when he mumbles incoherent words under his breath, rubbing soothing circles into my back, and I relax because it really has been a long week.
"I love you," Ness says suddenly, eyes roaming my face almost as if searching for an answer. He clutches onto me tighter. "I love you," he tries again. Oddly enough, his voice sounds so small. The empty silence of the night threatens to swallow it up. It's so unlike Ness to be anything but loud and enthusiastic, and it suddenly reminds me of the day he drunkenly confessed his feelings.
He's been through a rough week too, I realize.
I gently brush against his mind, and try to put my own feelings into words. "I'm sorry."
Scrunching his eyes shut, Ness presses the top of his head into my chest and hugs me close.
He doesn't say anything else after that.
Author's Note:
I enjoy writing different takes on characters I've written before. In this case, I made a huge stretch on Flint's character based on the how stoic he seems in the canon-verse, on how he lashed out against his fellow villagers in his grief/fury when his wife died, and on the last few quotes he says to Lucas in game right before the battle against masked man -
"Geez, you're persistent.
You're wondering about my hair, aren't you?
That's right.
I'm bald as a bean.
What's that? "Bald as a bean" is a dumb way
of putting it?!
When did you become such a bitter person?!
Talking to me like this isn't very nice.
Quit it!"
Though this easter egg was most likely intended for humor, and supports Lucas's characterization as a snark, the last few lines catch my attention. Perhaps it's the Japanese-to-English translation, perhaps it's the context of the situation, but what parent calls their own child bitter? That's not a nice thing to say.
While Flint's behavior towards Lucas in this chapter shouldn't be condoned, readers will understand that in Flint's generation (or at least, in the context of this modern AU), same-sex relationships were highly frowned upon. Especially after growing up in the "deep south" where social norms for men are more strongly imposed from childhood, shitpostfic!Flint refuses to accept his son, because he thinks that homosexuality is a choice. This stigma also applies to Ness's father in this fic, who felt pressured to remain closeted even after marriage. Ignorance breeds discrimination, and Flint (ironically) reflects that in this chapter.
I also based Flint's character on a (less emotional) version of my own father, who underneath his workaholic tendencies and love for his family, is stubborn to a fault, handles bad news poorly, and would not have been so accepting of his son being gay. If I were ever stuck in Lucas's shoes, I know my dad would've cried and drunk himself stupid that night.
And Flint's name derives from the "flintlock gun" - very fitting in this au as he owns a rifle.