Well, my first Mother fic. I just recently beat EarthBound and Mother 3 and loved both of them. Wondering about Ness and Pokey's relationship combined with my usualy love of yaoi and foe yay then turned into this. Doesn't help that Pokey/Porky made Ness' adventures into a freaking movie AND had a boat ride dedicated to it...

Anyway, enjoy the delicious angst.

The robot was a perfect replica. Everything was there, from the blue and yellow shirt to the red baseball cap with a blue rim. Eyes flashed red before settling on obsidian, matching messy raven hair.

There was a definite age difference. After all, the time travel abuse had aged him drastically and he couldn't imagine the robotic duplicate of his one and only friend any older than the last age he had seen him at. This wasn't a problem though. No one ever entered his private chambers, witnessed what he did to this copy of one lost long ago…

A robot wasn't good enough though. You couldn't program the original's complex personality. Courageous, defiant, eager to please and protect the ones he loved. And under that a hidden insecurity, an inability to stray far from home before shrinking up and caving into himself.

Things had changed.

They were so close back then. Pokey, the tall and overweight ten year old who everyone laughed at and picked on. Ness, the small and ruffled new next door neighbor that was always eager to run head first into trouble. Something had clicked when they had walked to school together during the raven haired boy's first day of school and they had ended up being friends.

Ness had stood up for him. It had to have been humorous to the adults who were witnesses. A tiny little kid in an off center baseball cap facing down several others while the tallest of the group stood behind him.

What people didn't know was that sometimes the roles had reversed.

Ness acted strong and vicious, but the boy had one weakness. Deep at heart, he was his mother's baby boy. While Pokey had never been able to understand the love and devotion Ness felt towards his mother, since his mother was not at all as kind and nurturing as Ness', the shock of Ness actually suffering from being away from home for too long was no less unsettling. Seeing his usually confident friend so melancholy hurt.

Ness made enemies while standing up for him. Adults never realized how cruel children could be towards each other, lashing out at unfamiliarity and weakness like cells attacking a virus. By defending him, Ness distanced himself from the norm, siding with the virus to be destroyed.

When Ness showed weakness though, when his little heart became heavy with homesickness, the cells would try to get revenge. That was when the roles would reverse and the adults would walk in on Pokey using his size to intimidate and protect, making himself a human wall between his usual protector and the kids who tormented the overweight reject. Unlike Ness, who's small size made such situations humorous and avoided him trouble, Pokey would find himself sent to the office and lectured for bullying.

Years had passed.

They had grown closer. He could remember that so well. They were almost impossible to separate. Where ever one went, the other was sure to not be too far. When one was upset, the other would crack some sort of joke to make the upset boy smile. Around the time he turned twelve, Pokey had come to realize something.

He loved Ness.

While most adults would say he loved him like anyone would love a friend, he knew this was different. Yes, he was young, too young to fully understand the feelings swirling in his chest whenever the smaller boy grabbed his hand or dozed off on his larger belly. But he knew that what he was feeling was more than one felt for a friend. It was stronger. Fiercer.

He'd never told the other. He didn't really think anything needed to be said, that his actions spoke for him. And Ness seemed to understand. Dare he say, the smaller boy had even seemed to return the feelings.

Ness trusted him.

He trusted him too much.

One fateful day, one action performed, one secret entrusted…

They were sitting in front of Pokey's house, staring at the sky. Ness had been quieter than usual. Pokey had noticed and asked what was wrong. Maybe, if he had ignored Ness' unusual behavior, what followed would never have happened.

Ness told him about how sometimes, if he focused hard enough, he could move things. How he could read the thoughts of animals and sometimes humans. How he could sense how people were feeling.

Ness told him that he thought he was psychic.

And instead of supporting him, Pokey had reacted out of fear and rejected the boy. Years of friendship, loyalty, and love were forgotten as he had back away in terror. Psychics were not well liked in Onett. Or anywhere in Eagleland. They were a rare and mysterious oddity. It was human nature to fear the unknown.

Before he turned and fled, he remembered pained onyx eyes brimming with tears.

After that, he had acted cold and distant. Pushing the other boy away. Spitting and insulting whenever the other tried to talk to him. Deep inside, under the fear of what he couldn't understand, his heart cracked with each loathing action.

When Ness broke and lashed back, his heart has shattered.

And once word got around that his only friend and protector had left him, the cells were quick to close in, mocking more than ever before and crushing the shards of his heart into dust. Perhaps that was when he had given up on humanity, desired to exact revenge on those who had tortured him for their own sick amusement. Wanted nothing more than to make them his puppets while he played with and cut their strings…

Months later, the meteor had fallen and a voice, the one who would later be revealed to be Giygas, had spoken to him. Promised him everything he wanted. Told him what to do. It hadn't been mind control. Oh no. It had merely been suggestions and an excuse to act on what he thought so frequently…

That was all in the past now.

He looked at the robot before scowling in disgust and instructing a nearby Pigmask to take it to its holding cell. As it vanished, he pouted like the child he mentally was and stared out his window at the sprawling New Pork City.

He wondered, for a brief second, what would have happened if he had accepted Ness for what he was.

It didn't matter anyway.