Author's Notes: This document has been sitting on my computer for half a year now, and reworking it was like reading another person's writing, lol.

Warnings: Author Amnesia evident. Zero fucks given.

Pairing: Pit x Synthesizer. I'm positive he's sweat all over it with no shame.

Disclaimer: I don't own Super Smash Brothers.

Summary: He was only checking his reflection en route to the band's rehearsal room. He didn't mean to notice the pianist at all. [Modern AU] -Yaoi, slash: Ike/Marth-

Fermata

By SSBBSwords

"Were you looking for me then?"

Had he been looking for Marth? Yes, at most in absentminded curiosity; yet no, presumably in the more acceptable sense of professional interest.

Arrested by his mental Olympics and the other's leveled gaze, he stalled. "Actually, it's kind of a—" funny story? coincidence? deus ex machina? "—uh, I was. Well, sort of. Not really," he finished in a smeared mumble, because like any wannabe sane person, he had a gut-wrenching refusal to admit to budding symptoms of a stalker.

He expected the pianist's stare to turn suspicious, but to his surprise, the corner of the shorter man's mouth twitched. "So," Marth began with a ruminant head tilt as if allotting proper consideration to his muddled reply. "Yes and no."

"Yes," he parroted back, both subscribing to the interpretation and ensuring an invisible, albeit permanent, criminal label. "Wait, no," he redacted hastily with an urgent sweep of drumsticks in hand, a sudden liability if the pianist didn't have the foresight to evade. "I meant no."

The other's laugh was a streak of sunlight through the sea of clouds that was his indelible fumbling. "I didn't mean to put you on the spot," Marth said, tone softening apologetically. "To be honest, I didn't recognize you as Link's drummer that day. It's a small world, but not that small."

Straightening in surprise, he blurted out, "You know me?"

The opening of the door suspended any attempt to reply. "Is that—" Marth's question died away as the pianist turned toward the sound, only to be accosted by a blur and managing a thrown, "—oh, hello."

Pit had traversed the room in, maybe, three leaps and a bound by Ike's estimate. "You must be new," the synth player greeted with a winning smile and outstretched hand. "I'm Pit and I need your brain, like now."

And with that, any chance of conversation with the other man dissolved as his bandmate stole Marth from right beneath his nose, which, upon reflection, he really should have anticipated. Thankfully, the rest of his colleagues filtered in, minus Pit's whirlwind energy.

As the only person in the room able to redirect Pit's attention (toward checking equipment, no less), Zelda got in enough words edgewise to Marth before Pit rebounded with two armloads of juggled laptop and printouts of their remixed scores.

Roy looked a bit put-out during this ordeal, presumably because roommates meant something in his vocabulary, like dibs on welcoming and hosting. Link, bless his heart, had taken up residence among the rows of chairs, all but appearing to have fallen asleep, despite all the excitement.

Not that Ike was trying to compete with his bandmates for Marth's attention, no. Not at all.

"So what do you think?" the redhead asked him, a subtle grin clearing away any lingering irritation.

"Hm?" His gaze shifted from overcompensated laser-focus on the rhythm sheets before him to their publicist.

"Marth. What do you think?" Roy reiterated with magnanimous patience.

"He," Ike had to stop finger-tapping the music's phantom beat in order to formulate the optimal response, "seems nice."

Eyebrow raised, the strategist repeated dubiously, "Nice?"

"Yeah."

Second eyebrow joining the first in solidarity, Roy at least figured Ike had no plans to say more and swiftly changed subject, following up with, "Have you heard him play?"

He shook his head. "I wouldn't know Beethoven from Mozart."

Roy barked out an abrupt laugh. "Oh, good. Me neither!"

"I sincerely doubt Marth cares that we can expound on Mozart's influence on Beethoven," came Link's nonchalant voice from a row away. "Who cares that his Fifth copied from his Fortieth." The blond turned clumsily on his line of chairs and fell silent again.

Darting wide eyes at the sleeping vocalist, their publicist mouthed inaudibly at Ike, Oh my god how does he even?

"Okay, people, look alive!" They all startled in place as Pit clapped for attention from the other side of the room. "Let's do a run through!"

"What?" Ike assumed Marth needed some time to tune strings or practice the melody or something. "Now?" His confusion was only exacerbated when no one seemed all that surprised.

"That is what practice is for, yes?" the newcomer teased, withdrawing the stringed instrument and accompanying bow.

He did not just watch the other's fingers give the inanimate object a gentle stroke before propping the instrument between shoulder and chin. Neck slightly more exposed now, Marth gave a small smile. "Whenever you're ready, Ike."

God, he hoped his mouth hadn't fallen open. Damn it. Why did he initiate most of these songs? His numb fingers flexed and re-gripped the drumsticks again in hopes of waking up.

"Uh, yeah..." He wanted to tumble into the other's eyes in whatever implausible poetic glory he could manage. Like an automated robot, he opened with the base notation.

"Hey, hey, wait for Lead Singer to get into place there," the redhead complained with a chuckle, guitar strap halfway over his head. "You know, the guy lying on five chairs over there." Roy gestured in the general direction of the prostrate blond.

"Well, hurry up, Sleeping Beauty," Pit giggled from behind the keyboard. "I'm ready to fulfill my vision."

Marth re-oriented his head to breathe out an amused huff. "Pit, I need you to take your expectations down a notch."

"Uh-uh, pretty boy," Pit shot back, unapologetic. "Bring it. I've seen your CV."

"My CV says I haven't had enough coffee yet," Link interrupted, muttering into the microphone.

A bottle was flung at the blond's head by their manager. "I come prepared."

Link fumbled with the container of caffeinated liquid before replying with an unceremonious yawn, "One of us has to."

He'd say something to get started, but really, the beat spoke for itself. The bass guitar entered with practiced flare, the musical equivalent of Roy skipping up to the start line. The violin interlaced itself about a dozen measures in, and with a happy titter of joy at the melding textures, Pit threw in the final rounding effects on synth.

Link joined the mix soon after, and they made it to the break without any cacophonic issues. He could usually tell by ear when Link or Pit was wrapping up an improvised section, but he hadn't worked with Roy long enough to be 100% sure. The redhead injected so much panache into a casual guitar solo that he could not believe the guy gave this up for a desk job.

For a second, it sounded like Roy was about finished and he was prepared to double back to the chorus tab, but a storm of rapid-fire violin threw him in for a loop. He swiveled completely out of alignment in his chair to face the discretely enunciated sawing on strings that his drumming petered out.

Marth was flying through the passage with chatoyant eyes and a grimly set jaw even in the absence of percussion, perhaps even in spite of. The violinist didn't even look like he was breathing. Fingers blurred up and down the fingerboard, minus the instances where a certain hold stuttered in place before dancing away again.

Ike was pretty sure his mouth had fallen open. For real this time.

The extemporized melody drew to a hesitant close as Marth realized all cues following Ike's accidental fadeout never picked up again. Removing the bow from string, the classical musician grew tense after scanning the mute expressions throughout the room and lack of feedback.

Like a stone dropping into a still lake, Pit breathed out, "Holy shit, yes, yes, yes."

With a sigh of relief, Marth relaxed a fraction. "You did tell me to 'go wild.'"

Ever astute, Link deduced after a swig of coffee, "So not Pit's score."

"Would you marry me?" the keyboardist interjected with all the coruscant charm he could muster. "I mean, do you like older guys?"

"Hah!" Roy threw his pick at Pit. "Good luck, 'cause keyboardists probably come in third after lead singers and guitarists."

"Hey," Pit retorted in a faux wounded tone while dodging the flimsy projectile.

Ike had to work around the hammering in his chest that seemed to have crushed his vocal chords. What the hell? He cleared his throat. "Was that—how did you…" learn the music that fast? Is that normal for classical musicians to come up with solos on the fly like that? He had clearly, grossly, underestimated classical musicians up until now.

"Marth," Zelda said, breaking through everyone's endorphin rush, "I knew your sight-reading was good, but that was something else entirely."

So that was unusual. Ike swallowed, hoping to evacuate the residual jitters in his system.

The contracted musician drew a subtle breath. "I," Marth paused, searching for the best phrasing, "may have played around with the music when I heard the EP."

"He does homework!" came Pit's emphatic swooning from across the room where the keyboardist had lifted both hands to the sky like he was ascending with a soul full of gratitude. "It's been, like, two days!"

"True," Marth agreed with a nod, "but I bought the EP when it was released last year."

"You," listen to our music? On your own free will? Ike set down his drumsticks with a grimace of surrender because words had completely failed him for the last time, and he decided to give up on speaking for the rest of eternity.

"You're a fan?" Pit hedged with a bright grin.

With an echo of the other's smile, Marth gave a tinkling laugh. "I suppose that describes me, yes."

"I could have gotten you tickets and so much merch'," Roy burst out in a rush, shame and regret all rolling together for having lost contact.

Link sunk into a nearby chair and gave a flippant wave. "Don't worry. I offered."

"Hold the phone." Pit held one palm to halt all conversations around him, free hand scrolling down on his tablet. "Why is there a laundry list of piano concertos and solo CDs to your name?" The keyboardist began babbling beneath his breath, "Oh my fucking god, this Wikipedia page is going to kill me. I'm going to die. I need to download all of these."

"Please don't," the outed pianist requested faintly and ineffectively, overwhelmed by Pit's reception. "They aren't that exciting."

"Uh, maybe to you, but," the minatory look Pit shot in Ike's direction was mischievous enough to destroy any remnants of cool factor the drummer might still possess, "some of us need to desensitize ourselves or else we'll never finish a song."

"Dude, are you okay?"

He glanced up as Roy settled into the chair nearest to him. Their publicist was studying his face like an anthropologist at a fascinating dig site. His expression twisted into conditioned bewilderment. "Yeah?" He ran through a mental list of why their publicist would go out of the way to check in with him. "Uhm, if this is about—"

"—Shhh," the other hissed back conspiratorially. "Look normal."

Huh? There were times he thought he couldn't be more mystified, but then something (someone) would come along and kick that notion in the shins. "Ah…"

"What fantastic drumming you've done today," Roy parroted mechanically, the volume of his voice designed to carry no farther than the member closest to them (Link, who raised an unimpressed eyebrow at the thinly veiled façade) before dropping back to a lowered hush, "is what I'd usually say, right? But more importantly, did you know you're eye-sexing you-know-who sort of really hard?"

His sympathetic nervous system kicked into high gear, and he felt the hot flush consume him from his core to his extremities. Shit. Shit? "Fuck," he amended for public disclosure, scrubbing both palms up his face.

"Uh, yeah," his publicist confirmed, frowning with way too much understanding. Elbows leaning on spread knees, Roy evenly delivered, "We need to talk."

"What?" he whispered back, alarmed at the other's ability to somehow capitalize the T in 'talk' just by pitch alone.

Swiftly standing with the calm befitting a professional, Roy bent at the waist to speak directly into his ear. "My office. After practice."

He opened his mouth to protest, but didn't get farther than, "But I don—"'t plan on doing anything? Okay, so he should tamp down the staring. He could do that.

Eerily zen, Roy lay a hand on his shoulder briefly before departing with, "I know, but I'm not your publicist for nothing."

And that was how he ended up in the redhead's office being lectured about the consequences of making propositions. Jesus. If he had just kept his eyes to himself, he wouldn't be in this embarrassing mess (i.e. trapped and subjected to the publicist throwing hypotheticals at him). The worst one so far was that he gets drunk and molests someone; he wasn't even sure why Roy was generalizing because they wouldn't be having this discussion if they weren't both well-aware who exactly was at risk of being molested in these scenarios.

He had to admit some of the situations were quite novel. Say he tripped and fell into the other man's lap and now they have a lawsuit on their hands.

"Really?" he asked for the umpteenth time. "That happens?"

"I wouldn't be mentioning it if it hadn't, now would I?" Roy deadpanned.

That being said, it made plenty of sense now why he never quite saw Link and Zelda engage in any behavior remotely incriminating. He used to think they either had the deepest platonic relationship he had ever seen or the deepest dance-around of the century. Maybe they planned to immediately elope the moment one of them retired. For their sakes, he hoped they were already married after he finished skimming Roy's standard nondisclosure forms.

So the safest conclusion was this: hope that he was asked out first, but really, how the hell would they finangle that? Laughable.

Not that he needed the pity, but before he left the office, he couldn't help but ask, "Uhm, he was your roommate, right?"

Apparently even Roy could get tired from talking that much, but the redhead nodded indulgingly in response from behind a swig of water.

"Does—I mean, would he…" He winced and trailed off because what an idiotic question to even share out loud. "You know," he swallowed the rest, deciding he was better off not knowing, "never mind."

Like a good friend, Roy knew exactly how to interpret his aborted question, and like a proficient specialist, the redhead supplied, "Not that I know of."

-tbc(?)-