Lucas was lying in his bed, snoring loudly. Claus, his roommate, walked into the room and crossed his arms at the sight. He looked at his non-existent watch. "Yeah, it's time." He turned around and rummaged through his dresser drawers for a very specific instrument. A lovely instrument named Cymbals. He walked over to Lucas and cleared his throat. He then slammed the Cymbals together, causing the iconically loud clang, making Lucas shoot awake. He was in a complete daze for a moment before setting his eyes on his brother, making him angry and tossing his pillow at him. The pillow hit Claus in the head.
Claus slammed the cymbals together once more before walking to put them back. "Why'd you wake me?"
"You have classes today, remember?"
"I dunno what you're talking about." Lucas was reaching for his pillow, but didn't want to leave the bed just yet, so he stretched his arm as far as he could and still couldn't reach it. He then moved closer to the edge, getting his upper body off the bed, inching closer and closer to the pillow until…it was kicked away by Claus.
"Let's go!" Lucas lost his balance and his face slammed into the floor, with his body slowly following suit. He stood back up and glared at him.
"Asshole." Claus rolled his eyes as he sat on his bed and began tying his shoes.
"Mom told me to make sure you don't skip classes."
"Oh come onnnn, that's part of the fun with college. I get to skip classes and not get in trouble!"
"Just shut it and get ready already." Claus stood up and looked through the closet for something to wear.
"And just where do you think you're going."
"A date."
"But don't you have classes?" Lucas mocked Claus. Claus simply turned around, holding a formal sweater.
"No. I don't have classes on Mondays."
"What? THAT'S NOT FAIR!"
"Indeed. Not fair, I'm smarter and chose my classes accordingly. Now, if I hear you skipped classes, I'll force you to watch hours of James Corden hip-thrusting the camera." Lucas's entire spirit felt right then and there. He just nodded his head. Claus knew exactly what to say to get to him. Lucas looked down before kicking his bed.
"Fuck you, James Corden." Lucas changed out of his pajamas and into formal attire. What was special about his college was that it was expected of each student to be formally attired. He looked into the mirror and stylized his hair. He was happy the school didn't have strict rules on hair, he heard plenty of horror stories of schools needing to cut people's hair off for "not fitting the guidelines". He winked at himself before leaving the room. He grabbed his backpack and saw Claus sitting on the couch, his feet kicked up onto the coffee table. "Don't forget protection." Claus looked over at him.
"Come back to me when you find someone to fuck in the first place, then maybe I'd consider your opinion."
"Well damn, shit." Claus snickered a bit before looking back at the tv, watching Transformers. He bit into his pretzel stick and waved Lucas off.
"Have fun at school, dweeb."
"You're a double ass." Lucas shook his head, grabbed a Poptart that just popped out of the toaster, and left the dorm. He knew Claus made the pop tart, and he was truly thankful for it. Lucas loved cooking, but he never woke up in time to properly make breakfast, and Claus couldn't cook Pizza Snacks in a microwave, the least he could do was work a toaster.
He walked around campus, conversing with some of the other students that were just hanging out, studying, or a mix of the two. Lucas, as much as he loved the idea of ditching classes, loved college. The way the entire feeling of freedom was for him, was exhilarating. He wouldn't mind if he was in college for the rest of his life, although, the prospect of being an old wrinkly man in class learning biochemistry for the 50th time was for sure an odd one. Lucas made it to the main academic building, soon being joined by his best friend, Ness.
"'Sup," he simply said as he was looking at his phone. Lucas spied on what he was doing and saw that he was simply playing a game of wordle. "Ugh, what the fuck? What word has RIE in those places?"
"Drive." Ness stayed silent as he typed in "drive". It was correct. He looked up at Lucas.
"Fuck you." Lucas giggled as Ness put his phone back into his pocket. "I hate that game."
"Then why do you keep playing?"
"I dunno, maybe cause I'm a fucking masochist."
"Are you?" Ness shrugged.
"I don't fucking know, maybe. I'll need someone to spank me to find out." Lucas smirked as he raised an arm, only to get that arm slapped away by Toon Link.
"Hell yeah, nice and high five!" Toon Link pumped himself up. The other two greeted him. Toon Link wrapped his arms around both of them. "Where you two goin'?"
"To class," Lucas responded.
"Hah, fuckers. Imagine having class."
"Don't you also have class?" Ness asked. Toon Link stood still as he blinked a bit.
"Oh, crap….I HAVE A DAMN TEST! SHIIIIT!" Toon Link ran off quickly, so quick that he even wound up slipping on the grass, ruining a poor girl's picnic. Why was she picnicking in the middle of a building? Didn't matter. What mattered was that Toon Link received a very powerful punch from her.
"He's really reckless," Ness shook his head.
"What do you expect, he's the typical jock. He's all brawn and nothing else." The two of them entered their classroom. It was a large room, specifically for history. They both loved history. Their history class almost seemed like a glorified IRL anime at times. Like when a man named AZ partook in a Pokemon War and shot a huge ass cannon into the air and birthed two whole different universes….in theory. Lucas believed it was true that there was a different, almost mirror, world, but he didn't really care in the end.
The teacher, Byleth, walked in front of his large class. His voice, despite being within a very large room, was able to hold itself in the room. "Today, we're diving deep into the Ultimatum theory. Anyone have an idea of what the Ultimatum theory is?" Byleth asked, looking around at the class. Lucas was the one to raise his hand, being called on. Lucas loved these theories. Even if the theories were very clearly fake, he still loved learning and thinking of the possibility of it being true.
"It's that our current city of Ultimatum isn't the first or only Ultimatum."
"Good job." Byleth snapped his fingers and some wording was being written on the board behind him. The technology within Ultimatum was immense. "To go more in-depth, the Ultimatum theory is that either an Ultimatum existed before, or currently exists parallel to our own. You might be wondering why I'm bringing that up. After all, this is a history class. Well, I wouldn't bring this up if there wasn't something historic about it." Byleth went on and on, Lucas being very invested. Ness watched him with a smile. He loved seeing Lucas so invested in something. Lucas soon enough felt he was being watched and turned to look at him.
"What're you looking at?" Ness blushed a bit before looking forward.
"N-nothing, you weirdo." Lucas raised an eyebrow before turning toward the front of the room,
"This here, class, is a crown. It seems like a normal crown, but according to the books, this crown was here from the very creation of Ultimatum. Rumors say this crown wasn't from this world, but instead, the other Ultimatum. It holds an odd aura about it, and no one has been able to lift this crown, only able to move it by moving what the crown is sitting on, this strange emblem of a ball with a cross slash in the bottom left of it." Lucas stared at the crown, oddly drawn to it. Lucas raised his hand.
"Can I try it?"
"Uh…I guess you can." Lucas stood up, looking at Ness.
"What was that about?" Ness asked. Lucas shrugged, not really knowing himself. He walked down to the front of the class and looked at the crown. The aura it was giving off was oddly familiar. Lucas grabbed the crown and lifted it off of the strangely designed pedestal it was on. Byleth stared at him as he was holding something that no one was capable of moving. Lucas tilted his head as he stared at the crown closer.
-Lucas….don't forget who you are….don't fall into the same routine….don't listen to him….he wants us separated….he wants every version of us to be separated….he's bitter, he's salty….I'll try to get through to him, but please…don't let him win. Good luck, Lucas….I'm not sure if I'll be able to succeed, but you have time. Please, for all of us. Beat this routine. Make life your own-
Lucas stared at the crown, in a confused shock. He slowly put the crown down, thinking over the words that were told to him by a voice he knew. It was Ness's voice. But it was stressed and strained. He shook his head, he decided to think it was just his own mind playing tricks on him. "S-sorry, sir." Lucas bowed before walking back up to his seat. He sat down, still playing over what was told to him.
"You alright?"
"Y-yeah, of course I am." Lucas chuckled nervously as he cleared his throat and looked at his teacher, who finally recovered from the shock and resumed class. Ness knew he was lying. He wanted to do something to make him feel better, which worked perfectly with the plan he had for the day.
"Hey, Luke?" Lucas turned toward him. "I have a small request…or rather, it's not small, but it's still a request."
"What is it?"
"Uh…well, I have this friend. He wants to ask this girl out on a date but doesn't know which places to do that date. So he asked me to test out certain locations…can you help me?"
"Help you test out date locations?"
"Exactly." Lucas looked down for a moment before thinking over the stuff they'd have to do to test things out. The thoughts were making him blush before looking back at him.
"Alright, we can do that."
"Sweet!"
"HEY! I'M TEACHING SOMETHING VERY VALUABLE, NOW SIT DOWN AND LEARN THE HISTORICAL COCK SIZES!" Lucas stared at Byleth. He was changed. Almost instantly. That didn't even sound like his voice. It was as if someone was speaking for him. Right after bolting that out, he turned back to normal and talked about some regular historic event, the defeat of a mutant turtle named Bowser. Ultimatum history was weird.
Lucas's classes were finished and he walked over to the courtyard. He was told to meet there by Ness, to begin their testing of date locations. Lucas was excited to do this, no one knew this, but he had this crush on Ness that he had yet to be able to act upon or confess to anyone. The idea of essentially going on one large date with Ness excited him but worried him at the same time.
"Hey, Luke." Lucas turned around and smiled at Ness. He stood up and walked over to him.
"Hey. So, should we waste any time?"
"Nope. Let's jump right to it. First off, have you eaten yet?" Lucas thought for a moment before shaking his head, only having eaten the one pop tart from earlier. "Good, then the first place we'll go to will also provide us with our much-needed food. Come on." Ness led Lucas out of the college and completely off of the campus. The two of them made it to a small cafe named Roost Cafe. They entered the cafe and a very calming aroma surrounded the boys. The conversations were also weirdly calming. They were monotonous yet not robotic. Something about the cafe just made both boys' worries nonexistent.
They walked to the counter and sat on the stools, seeing the bartender, Brewster. He walked over and smiled at the two of them. "Hello there. What would you like to order?" Ness looked down at the counter, which had the menu options on it. He looked back.
"Just a simple sweet coffee with a small bagel."
"Ditto," Lucas said. Brewster nodded his head as he went over to deal with it. Ness stretched out his back and gave a powerful yawn.
"Boy, class was tough." Lucas glared at him with fed-up eyes.
"Yeah, you're just lazy."
"Well, I can't help it! The class is so boring," Ness said as he slouched down onto the counter and groaned loudly.
"I dunno, I like the class."
"'Cause, you're a nerd." Lucas crossed his arms.
"I love learning about the theories." Ness sat up straight. Everytime Lucas talked about these theories, he would grow the biggest smile in the world. Ness loved this. He loved seeing Lucas's bright smile. He wanted to see it more.
"What was today's theory?"
"Well…" Byleth typically talked about various theories. Most of them he had talked about before, but he typically adds a new theory every day. The new one for the day was named "The Staircase Theory". It was a very intriguing one for Lucas. The basic synopsis was that their Ultimatum isn't the only one, similar to the Ultimatum Theory. But, the difference was that they weren't simply alternate universes, but universes that are aligned like a staircase. The theory was never able to say which universe would be the start of this staircase, but the theory did have a solution for what was at the very top of the staircase. At the top would be the one who created the staircase. The one who brought the staircase together. Was this person good or bad, was unknown. But that was just a theory.
"Jesus Christ, what tinfoil hat mother fuckers came up with that?" Lucas simply shrugged. That was when Brewster walked over and handed the two of them their orders. The smell emanating from the coffee was very calming to Lucas. It was amazing. He didn't even taste the coffee and already felt relaxed.
"How have I never known of this place before?"
"Cause you're an idiot."
"How can I be an idiot and a nerd?"
"Pfft, beats me. You're an anomaly." Lucas rolled his eyes and began to drink his coffee. Just as he suspected from the smell alone, it was able to calm any nerve he had, even if he didn't have nerves, it was still able to calm him. After the drink, he grabbed his bagel and sniffed it. The sound alone caused him to stick his tongue out a bit. Ness saw this and giggled. Lucas was an intelligent and smart man. But he had his moments of being cute, this was being one of them. When he liked something, he'd often unconsciously stick his tongue out.
"You're really cute sometimes." Lucas's eyes widened, making him look over at him.
"Wh-what?" Ness blushed instantly, already thinking of various ways to justify himself.
"W-well, we've gotta try these date spots, right?" Lucas slowly nodded his head. "Well, in order to make sure they're good for dates, we need to act the part."
"Oh…" Lucas grew a blush himself as he looked down into his coffee and giggled softly. "O-ok. You make a fair point."
"Of course I do." Ness looked at his own cup of coffee before carefully grabbing Lucas's hand. Lucas's spine jumped at the sudden feeling of a new hand being put into his own. Lucas soon grabbed back, though. Lucas just kept a smile on his face as he finished his bagel and coffee.
Ness paid for their stuff and led Lucas out of the cafe, not once separating their hands. They wouldn't admit it to the other person, but they loved the feeling of holding the other's hand. They walked through the city, Lucas simply doing what Ness was doing. They were simply walking, and it felt nice to both of them. No words were shared between the two of them, no noise was even shared, they were just walking the surprisingly calm streets. Lucas looked up at the sky and tilted his head.
"Ness?"
"Yeah?"
"You ever realize how little it rains?" Ness looked up and saw the clear sky. He never thought about it, but the weather was oddly consistent when normally it wouldn't be. Ness shrugged. Lucas looked back at him and smiled. "I'm glad it's not though. Where to next?"
"Oh right!" Ness completely forgot the reason they started this. He needed to think of someplace else to go. He didn't think he would even get this far, so a second place was the furthest thing from planned. He snapped his fingers and ran off, without breaking the connection they had. They ran through the city, hearing the chirps of the birds, basking in the bright sun, and seeing the wondrous sights of the city.
Lucas didn't know where they were going, but he didn't really mind it. It was just time to be with him, and that was all that really mattered to him. They walked through the city and soon, Lucas started hearing some splashing. He recognized the sound. It wasn't just a pool. It had a pool, but it was much more than that. It was none other than
The Splash Waters!
The Splash Waters is a very popular water park with some intense yet fun water slides and various other water-based attractions. Lucas looked at Ness, and Ness saw the look in his eyes before nodding his head. They turned the corner and boom, there it was. The Splash Waters.
They walked over and stood in line at the entrance of The Splash Waters. The owner was a girl named Misty who loved everything about water. Ness and Lucas made it to the front entrance and saw the guy behind the separate booth. He asked for the necessary amount of money, with which Ness provided. "You sure you wanna pay for it in full? We can go halfsies."
"Nonsense, the guy always pays for the girl."
"I'm not the girl!" Ness simply looked at him and put his finger to his lips, shushing him. Lucas huffed softly as the man handed the two of them some bracelets. Lucas wound up snapping his, making the man chuckle.
"Come on, give me your hand. There's a trick to these."
"I'll meet you inside," Ness said as he patted Lucas's back, making him nod as he handed his hand to the man. Lucas watched as the man took a definitely bigger bracelet over his hand. If Lucas didn't know any better, he would've thought he handed him a smaller one on purpose for it to snap. The bracelet was around his wrist, making him try to pull his hand back. But the man grabbed at hand and refused to let go, his grip was ungodly strong. Lucas tried using his other hand to pull his hand back but was unable to.
Randomly, however, the man let go, making Lucas shoot back. The man blinked blankly for a bit before shaking his head. "Sorry about that, don't know what came over me." Lucas stood back up and rubbed the back of his head.
"Weirdo." Lucas rubbed his wrist as he walked into the water park and found Ness admiring a water fountain. It was a pretty normal-looking fountain. Lucas looked down and saw through the transparent water and to the dirty ground. There was a single penny there. "What did you wish for?" Ness looked at him and winked.
"That's a secret." Lucas looked away from the fountain and at some of the locations in the park that he was able to see from there. "Where do you wanna go first?" Ness grabbed Lucas's hand, making his spine jump and a gulp to force itself in his throat. He looked at Ness and smiled before pointing at the simple super slide. It was a huge slide, and that was it. It was the tallest ride with a near 100% vertical slope downward.
They walked to this slide and Lucas stared up at it in amazement. They watched the current rider ride down the slide. They were moving so fast that the water was kicked up and splashed Ness and Lucas. Lucas simply giggled as Ness thought realistically. "We should change to swim trunks." Lucas looked at him with a small pouty face. "Nope. Nuh-uh. Don't give me that look. This ride isn't going anywhere, let's go change." Ness grabbed Lucas's hand and dragged him off toward a locker room. Lucas was protesting at first, knowing it'd give him less time to be on the rides, but then he imagined Ness shirtless, and all of a sudden he felt the need to hurry. Soon enough, Ness was the one being dragged away, which he didn't mind doing.
They made it to the locker room, where loads of shirtless men were naked or partially naked. Lucas wasn't hiding the fact that he was staring. Ness playfully rolled his eyes before jabbing Lucas's side. "Behave." Lucas huffed as he rubbed his side.
They walked to a more private area and began to undress. They had purchased temporary swim trunks at a small shop that was in the locker room. Ness was the first fully unclothed, and of course, Lucas was staring. Ness had the perfect build that he loved. Little did he know, Ness knew Lucas was staring at him. He didn't mind it. It gave him hope that Lucas was actually interested in him. So much hope he was pretty much willing to bet money he did. Lucas wasn't really hiding it all that well.
Eventually, they were able to get dressed in their swim trunks. They returned to the slide and thankfully there wasn't much of a line at all. They walked up the many stairs. About halfway up, Ness stopped and gripped the handrail. "Jesus….why so many steps!"
"Come on! You don't have asthma."
"I swear…how do you have so much energy after all those steps?"
"I'm currently running on pure adrenaline and excitement. Any minute now, I'll be fucked. So hurry!" Lucas grabbed Ness's hand and rushed him up the stairs. Thankfully, despite the rushing, neither of them tripped. They made it to the top, and Lucas looked at the man running the attraction. He smiled at the two boys.
"Welcome. Feel free to get into position?" he said, making Lucas chuckle as he walked to the furthest slide, since the slide was actually two slides, just with a small barrier between them. He looked at Ness, who just laughed softly as he sat at the other slide. The two of them looked at each other, with Ness gulping a bit out of the innate fear of being so high up and about to fall down.
Soon enough, Lucas let go of Ness and slid down the slide, shooting up a mighty roar of excitement. Ness gulped before sliding down after him, his roars being of pure fear. The water was splashing onto him. But then he stopped feeling the water, and when he looked he was no longer touching the ground. "Holy fucking shit!" He screamed as he landed back on the slide and slid down the slide even faster and soon enough landed in a large pool. Ness kept his eyes closed, however, and shook a bit as Lucas patted his back.
"You can open your eyes." Ness hesitantly did just that and looked at Lucas.
"I am never doing that again."
"It wasn't that bad."
"Wasn't that bad? I gained air for like 2 seconds!"
"That's part of the fun."
"Your balls are so full of titanium they're on the pool floor."
"I do take pride in my balls." Ness rolled his eyes and he swam away from the slide to relax in the pool. Ness loved pool time. He loved floating on the surface of the pool. His eyes were closed and he was just breathing in and out calmly. Lucas was looking at him and cackled. He sank underwater and swam over to Ness like a shark then lightly grazed Ness's back with the tips of his fingers. This caused Ness to screech. Lucas couldn't hold his laughter in, even though he was underwater, and came up coughing.
"Lucas! You're being so mean!" Lucas coughed out some water, which instantly worried him. He swam over and wrapped an arm around his back. "Hey, you ok?" Lucas continued coughing, worrying Ness more. He gave a powerful slap to Lucas's back, helping him cough up the rest of the water. "That's instant karma for you." Lucas cleared his throat. Ness saw tears in his eyes. He knew it wasn't because Lucas was crying, it was just because of the body's instinct, but seeing him with tears broke his heart. Ness used his other hand to wipe the tears away. He then grabbed Lucas's other cheek and made him look at him.
"Ness?"
"We haven't been acting like we're on a date in a while…we should."
"R-right now?" Seeing nothing but Ness's face and his space-like violet eyes made Lucas blush. He'd seen his face before, obviously, countless times. But something about this time seemed special.
"Yeah." Ness began rubbing Lucas's cheek. "You're beautiful."
"N-Ness…" Lucas, despite being unable to move his head, was able to move his eyes enough to see some of the other people. They were staring. "P-People are looking."
"Shush. You're probably an exhibitionist anyway."
"Wh-what? You're supposed to be romantic! Not insulting."
"Didn't deny it." Lucas averted his eyes down to the water, or as far down as his eyeballs would allow. Which wasn't directly looking at the water, but also Ness's chest. Of course, he loved it. "Lucas." Lucas tried to resist Ness, but the voice he put on, aided by the rubbing of his cheek, made it all the more challenging. He looked into Ness's eyes. "How have I never noticed how blue your eyes are?"
"Th-they get more blue with my emotions."
"What kind of emotions?" Lucas backed himself into a corner. The emotion that turned his eyes more blue was none other than the feeling he was feeling at that moment, love.
"I….N-Ness…."
"No. I think I know." Ness leaned in and kissed Lucas right on the lips. Lucas was taken aback instantly, but then he wrapped his arms around Ness. They kissed for a while and soon enough sunk under the water, which of course, broke the kiss up as they rushed to get to the surface. They looked at each other, then around them, before deciding to swim over to the edge.
Ness climbed up and sat on the edge as Lucas stayed in the water, not looking at him. "Y-you're an amazing actor, Ness."
"Yeah…I-I guess I am." Lucas looked at Ness, who was clearly lying. Lucas climbed up and sat next to him.
"Ness? This….friend. What's their name?" Ness was looking down at his lap as he fumbled with his fingers, seemingly doing a thumb war with himself. Lucas hummed softly before draping his hand over the battle. "He doesn't exist, does he?"
"I-I have friends."
"I know. But the friend who suggested this?" Ness stayed silent once more.
"I'm sorry. I stole your first kiss….just so selfish!" Lucas scooted closer and rested his head against Ness's shoulder. There was once more a silence between them. But it wasn't like the previous silence. Ness smiled softly before resting his head on Lucas's. He then moved his hands around to be able to grab onto the one that Lucas used. They stayed there in silence for a while. A long while.
Too long. It was almost as if time had stopped. No breathing. No blinking. Nothing was moving. Nothing, but one person. Byleth. He walked behind the two of them. "The theory is true. They are destined. Every step of reality, they are together. This step will end soon. I must get to safety." He walked away. As soon as he did, a kid who was floating in the air after riding the slide finally hit the water.
Ness picked his head up. "Hey, will you indulge me one more time?" Lucas looked at Ness, tilting his head.
"You wanna kiss me again?"
"Fuck yes I do." Lucas giggled before leaning in and kissing him.
"You're a needy man."
"You have no idea~."
"Hehe, well, there's a special private spot in the locker room." Ness's eyes narrowed as his smirk grew.
"So I was right about your exhibitionism."
"Just shut up, let's go." Ness stood up and dragged Lucas away. Lucas couldn't help but chuckle as he began looking around at people. As he looked around he saw….something. He stopped dead in his tracks as he stared at the shadowy figure. It was both shadowy and glitchy. "What the hell?" The shadowy figure turned away and disappeared.
"Lucas? What's wrong?" Just then, a single drop of water fell and hit Lucas in his cheek. He looked around to find the source and he saw he was too far from the pool to be affected by it. He was soon hit by another droplet of water. He looked up and saw that the clear sky was covered by dark clouds. It was raining. For the first time in however long. "Damn, let's go before the area gets taken." Ness rushed off, with Lucas finally letting himself get dragged off. It was weird to see rain. It was really weird. But he didn't think much about it.
But it did mean something. Something big. And Lucas is in the center of that.