#Sorry for the delay!! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

peaches2217 · 7 months ago

Text

Untarnished

Chapter 2 (TW: Brief but graphic descriptions of burn injuries)

AO3 Link | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

~~~

Bright lights. Distant beeping. Something soft beneath her head, silky and downy and pleasantly cool. Peach’s first conscious thought was a timid prayer of gratitude. She was dead, or she was dreaming a new and unfamiliar dream; both prospects filled her with a peace deeper than she’d felt in months.

Dead, she decided when she opened her eyes and found Toadsworth at her bedside. The strain of her abduction and taking charge of the kingdom in her absence must have killed him. The thought didn’t bring her as much sadness as she felt it should have, because her slender hand in his small, wrinkled hands felt just as it had in life, and fat tears of joy and relief rolled down his round cheeks and dripped from the tips of his mustache, and if only she had the energy, she would have cried too.

No — dreaming, she amended when Toadette joined him. Her lady-in-waiting was still far too healthy and young and feisty to have dropped dead suddenly, unless by some great coincidence. Peach was laying at a slight angle, her legs straight out but her upper body inclined; Toadette climbed up into her lap (which Toadsworth objected to vehemently, but his protests, naturally, went unheard) and threw her arms around her neck, and suddenly she was crying too. Yes, this was certainly a dream. Since when did Toadette cry?

“I made wishes for your safety every single day!” she said between hiccuping sobs. “And I kept your room dusted and aired it out every day and had the maids change the bedding every week because I knew you’d be coming home! But I’m— oh Peach Pit I’m so happy you’re alive!”

Peach's throat suddenly felt tight, almost suffocating. She’d never dreamed about going home. In her dreams, she simply hadn’t been abducted to begin with, or else her abduction was treated as a memory so distant that it scarcely crossed her mind.

She didn’t dare let herself believe this might be real; perhaps waking up would be even harder now, and perhaps it would finally sap the last thread of hope she uselessly clung to, but for now, what was the harm in enjoying this strange dream? False happiness is still happiness, however temporary. So she let herself hug her dear friend back, and she let herself reach out and find Toadsworth’s hand once more, and she let herself feel present in their company and protected by the plush blanket tucked around her. It all felt so fuzzy and surreal and good.

And then the screaming began.

Instantly Peach’s blood froze in her veins. Her surroundings didn’t shift or go dark, as they usually did when she was startled out of a dream, and though she felt cold, everything around her remained warm. Even her illusionary Toadsworth and Toadette reacted to the sound, twisting their necks in alarmed horror in its direction — some room to the left of where Peach lay, it seemed.

By the second scream, a nagging sense of familiarity kicked in. She knew the wall she and her steward and lady-in-waiting stared at, recognized the muted pink wallpaper with white and dark pink accents. Didn’t the castle infirmary have that same wallpaper? She rarely had need to visit, lest she might have been able to place it sooner.

And she knew that voice. She couldn’t quite place it, since the cries were wordless and muffled by a layer of dressed stone, yet it made her stomach turn all the same. It was guttural, it was heart-wrenching, it was—

By the third scream, it all came flooding back.

“Y-your Highness, please��”

“Peach, hey, it’s okay, lay back down—”

“Princess, you mustn't—!”

More familiar voices surrounded Peach, voices she should have been happy to hear, but she paid them no mind. Something was holding her back. A blanket. A body. A wire taped to her hand. She winced as she ripped herself free, her feet moving independently of her mind, which assaulted her with vision after vision after terrible vision.

Mario, collapsing to the cobblestone streets of Toad Town in pure exhaustion, fate catching up to him once more. Mario, his face strained and his spine slumped but his eyes ever sure, wincing and hissing through his teeth but soldiering on anyway, stopping only to ensure that she was able to do the same. Mario, a broken heap at her feet, scorched to the point of disfigurement and motionless in a pool of his own blood.

Mario, screaming in unbearable pain, just out of her reach.

This was no dream.

Something caught her right hand just as she reached the door.

“They’re taking care of him!” Toadette cried somewhere behind her. “You’ve gotta let us take care of you, too!”

Some job “they’re” doing, Peach wanted to snap back. She could help him. How long had she been unconscious? Surely she had enough magic back now — she could continue mending the worst of his wounds, or she could help “them” fix him more quickly, or at the absolute least she could rearrange the receptors in his brain and make him think he wasn’t in pain.

She tried to yank free of Toadette’s grasp, but she only held on tighter.

“I can help him.” She tried again, throwing her body forward against the much smaller girl’s weight, but it still wasn’t enough. “Just let me help him, and then I’ll return.”

Then her left hand was seized, just as she tried reaching for the door. “You’re not helping anyone in this state.” Toadessa, head of the castle’s medical staff. She didn’t actively try pulling Peach back as Toadette did, but she remained firmly planted and unmoving. Something hot burned in Peach’s chest and throat, bitter like bile, and though the room was beginning to spin and her legs were already shaking, she tried once more to throw herself forward.

“Let me help him!” she cried. “Please!” She could have easily ordered them to let her go; she was their Princess, and no matter how they wished to help her, her word was still law. But this never crossed her mind. Those agonized shrieks drowned out every last rational thought, and all she could muster were futile efforts to break free and pleas that went unheeded.

Two Toads. It took all of two Toads to hold her back. One more effort was all her body could take before it failed her, and she fell to the infirmary floor with a startled yelp.

By the time she went slack, the screaming stopped.

All Peach could hear now was panicked murmurs behind her and the sound of her own breath, gasping and rapid. Air came too quickly for her lungs to absorb any oxygen. Her hyperventilation only exacerbated her dizziness, and that in turn nauseated her beyond measure, yet she knew vomiting would be of no use, because there wasn’t even anything in her stomach.

Silence rang in her ears. The silence was even more oppressive than the screaming. At least if Mario was screaming, she knew that he was alive.

Not that she could help him anyway. Not if she couldn’t even breathe properly. Not if it only took two Toads to hold her back.

“Your Highness…”

Her hands remained seized, as though she might actually try to escape again. As though she could.

The small but strong hands holding her back were real. The chill where stark tiles met bare skin was real. Mario’s screams, and then his silence, were real.

Peach’s gasps gave way easily to sobs, yet she couldn’t even do that properly; they came in quiet, punctuated whines, the kinds of sounds an injured animal might emit. She doubled over there on the floor, making her best effort to fold in on herself to stave off the cold and the wooziness and the sheer helplessness that threatened to crush her alive.

If only it would.

~~~

Peach still shivered as she stood beneath a rain of hot water. Her favorite soap had been brought to her, and while she wanted to revel in this small luxury, its flowery fragrance just made her dizzy. The soap also helped her identify every last scratch and sore on her body, burning with white-hot heat where it touched broken skin, and she wasn't quite sure if she hated the sensation or if she was grateful for it. Whatever the case, she took slow and deep breaths to refamiliarize herself with the way she used to smell, taking care to keep her eyes closed as she scrubbed off.

The lights were just as bright in the infirmary washrooms as they were in the resting rooms. Glimpsing her reflection had been bad enough. She couldn’t bear to look at herself any longer than necessary.

She was even worse off than she’d expected to be. In the first month of her captivity, she had done her best to spread out the single daily meal she was given, eat it slowly over the course of several hours. As despair slowly claimed her, she found she couldn’t even finish her meals at all, and there were days when she refused food outright in favor of curling up on her cot and letting gentler daydreams sustain her. By the time Mario reached her, her skin hugged the bones in her hands closely, and the dress that had been tailored to fit her perfectly hung loosely from her figure. So she had expected to look in the mirror and find herself frailer and paler. Even so, she hadn’t recognized the sickly and bruised figure that stared at her with dull, sunken eyes.

Feeble and filthy and poignantly helpless. She loathed to think that might be Mario’s final image of her.

Another shiver tore through her body. No, that wasn’t the case. He was alive. He was alive and if he was going to die, it wouldn't happen while she bathed. Toadessa had graciously checked and reported back to Peach, and she confirmed his relative well-being with such assurance that she was either telling the truth, or she had suddenly become a spectacular liar. Peach couldn’t afford the energy to suspect.

He was hurt. But he was alive. For now, that was enough.

Toadette was waiting for her when the water shut off, and Peach graciously accepted the oversized, fluffy towel she offered, eager to trap as much of the water and steam’s residual heat as possible. It swallowed her whole while careful fingers worked through her tangled hair, yet she shivered anyway. Still so cold. Why was she still so cold?

The nightgown she donned once her hair was presentable was only slightly better. It too hung from her more loosely than she was used to, but the feel of laundered silk against clean skin made the cold a touch more bearable.

“You oughta have a hot bowl of soup waiting for you by now,” Toadette said from where she knelt on the floor, wrapping the open sores on Peach’s feet in pillowy gauze. Her usually energetic timbre was far quieter, her bright smile more nervous. The brief glimpse Peach caught of her black eyes as she sat back to asses her work betrayed even more unshed tears.

Peach couldn’t blame her. She could hardly stand to look at herself. Toadette had no choice. She tried to thank her, or at least apologize, but the words wouldn't come.

She wasn’t hungry, somehow. Perhaps she had grown too accustomed to starvation. Perhaps she would feel differently in a moment’s time, when presented with her first hot meal in three months. She would at least make an effort, she decided, because seeing her eat would lift Toadsworth’s spirits. She owed him that much after the hell she had put him through.

But it wasn’t Toadsworth that awaited her when she was led back into her room. A much taller figure sat hunched over on the leather loveseat against the opposite wall, his knee bouncing frantically, his cap dangling in his hand by the brim; he looked up when he heard Peach, and for a moment she could do nothing but hold his eyes and hold her breath.

“Princess…!” A smile spread across his face, and he slapped his cap back on his head and held his arms out as he stood, and Peach found herself rushing into those arms before her legs could fail her again.

Luigi’s hugs were light but sturdy, his embrace a beacon of security in uncertain times. The embrace he welcomed her into now was no different, solid and gentle and warm, and for the first time, Peach truly felt that she was home.

“Oh, santo cielo!” he whispered into her shoulder. “Per fortuna stai bene…!”

Peach inhaled sharply. No more tears. She was already so sick of crying.

He never pulled away fully. He kept his hands on her shoulders even as their hug ended, beaming at her through misty eyes. “Th-the doctors say you’ll need to eat soup, soup, and more soup for the time being, but lucky for you, Mama knew a thousand ways to make a good soup! So we’re gonna keep ya well-fed, yeah? You’ll be feeling like yourself again in no time!”

He looked… disheveled, in a word. His neatly-styled mustache wasn’t neatly styled at all, fraying at the tips into a series of split ends, and the hair on his head didn’t look much neater. But most obvious were his eyes. The skin beneath them was dark, and his upper eyelids drooped as he spoke, as if he was struggling to keep them open. Seeing him in such disarray made that feeling of home a bit more distant than before.

It made perfect sense for him to be in such a state, Peach supposed. Between a dear friend being kidnapped and his brother…

Wait. Why was he here?

“What about Mario?” She finished her thought aloud. “Where is he? Is he alright? Has he eaten yet?”

“Oh, Peach Pit,” she heard Toadette grumble not far away. Peach couldn’t bring herself to be annoyed, not when she knew how deeply her friend worried for her, but it was still well within her rights to inquire about his health, and she had half a mind to say as much—

“No, no,” Luigi said quickly, leaning sideways so he could speak over her shoulder, “it’s okay! We'll get her fed! Gotta make sure she's comfortable first too.” Then his attention was back on Peach, and he dropped one hand but still kept a point of contact on her shoulder, and Luigi was notoriously squeamish when it came to extended periods of physical contact…

The first stirrings of dread came alive within her, dark and heavy.

But Luigi’s face remained cheerful, and though his smile softened, it wasn’t sad. “He’s out cold right now. The doctors gave him the good stuff, so he’ll be out for a while, but I’ll bet the first thing he asks for when he wakes up is a big plate of carbonara, and we’ll take care of that! So don’t you worry.”

The corners of his eyes creased, and not just from his smile. These reassurances were as much for his own sake as for Peach’s. Suddenly her tongue felt woolen in her mouth.

“May I see him?” she somehow managed.

Luigi didn’t break from her gaze to seek Toadette or Toadessa or anyone else who might have been in the room’s approval. He nodded without hesitation. “O-of course. Of course.”

She tried not to hold her breath as she was led to the next room over, focusing on her breath and the grounding sting of each footstep. Growing faint or passing out wouldn’t improve his condition.

Not that his condition could get much worse, she realized upon seeing him.

He’d been stripped and washed at some point, but that still didn’t give Peach much to look at. Whatever wasn’t covered with a blanket was swaddled in gauze. Layer upon layer wrapped across his chest and arms and hands, around his midsection, over his shoulders, and their sterile white made the angry red splotches and scratches that peeked from beneath them look that much more painful.

All she could see in full was his face. Aside from a wrap around his head, partially covered by his hair, it remained unobscured. And the absence of soot and dried blood gave Peach a good idea of what the rest of him looked like: wrecked, his skin dark with bruises or else bright with first- and second-degree burns.

In spite of this, he looked… peaceful. His expression read as neutral and his mouth hung loosely open, the gradual rise and fall of his chest assuring Peach that he was breathing. It was even more obvious in this state that he hadn’t touched a razor in days, if not weeks; the stubble on his cheeks and chin had grown out enough that it looked almost like a proper beard. He looked handsome, even now.

Peach exhaled shakily. The picture of serenity on the brink of death. She wanted so badly to take his hand in hers, yet she feared to find it cold to the touch. She feared for the first time that a single touch might break him.

“It looks a lot worse than it is,” she heard Luigi assure beside her. “You shoulda seen him after this scrap he got into with Scapelli back in high school, or the first couple times he tried parkouring through an active construction zone. He didn’t look much better then than he does now!”

Peach tore her eyes from one unnerving sight to set them upon another. There was concern in Luigi’s tired eyes, concern and fear and uncertainty, and his shoulders slumped under the weight of those burdens. Yet his voice was friendly, his smile kind, and he regarded her with every bit as much fondness as always.

Why? He should hate her. It was for her sake that Mario was like this in the first place. And if he didn’t pull through…

Her vision went unfocused, and she ducked her head and squeezed her eyes shut, as if that alone could stop the guilt that overtook her, or better yet, make her invisible. One less pitiful sight Luigi would be forced to endure. Hadn’t she already put him through enough?

“Hey.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close, and she selfishly accepted his embrace, slumping against him. “Hey, h-he’s gonna be okie-dokie, Princess, you know that! He’s a tough cookie. This is hardly all it’s gonna take to keep him down.”

She wanted to believe him. She wanted so desperately to believe him. But she’d never heard Mario scream like she had today. “He sounded like he was in tremendous pain.” She could barely utter the thought above a whisper.

A pause.

“Well... y-you know how Mario is with doctors,” Luigi eventually answered. “He can get the stuffing beat outta him and walk away just fine, but the second a doctor touches him it’s ‘Oh, the pain! The agony! Mamma mia, make it stop!’” And he laughed, just genuinely enough to fool anyone else, but not well enough to fool her.

The remnants of a smile still lingered on his lips when she found the nerve to look at him again. How could he smile through all of this? How could he smile at her, the one responsible for his brother's potential demise?

“...They put something really strong on the worst of his, uh… everything,” he finally confessed. “Cleaned ‘em real good then slathered ‘em in some mix of Mushroom tonic and crushed Flowers and…” He laughed again, even less convincing than the first time. “The anesthetics had kicked in just enough to make him kinda loopy, but not enough to knock him out. I’ll bet it wasn’t nearly as bad as he thought. He probably just panicked.”

Or he was well enough out of it that he couldn’t hide how badly he hurt any longer. This went unspoken, but the thought hung heavy in the air above them nonetheless. Peach’s mind conjured up a disturbing image: Mario thrashing in agony, his brother pinning him down so the doctors could work, meeting his cries with reassurances stuttered in their shared tongue.

She did her best to force the image from her mind, replace it with the image of Mario resting peacefully before her. She didn’t need to know any more than she already knew. What mattered was the here and now, and here and now, he was alright.

“...I honestly thought it was gonna be a lot worse.” Luigi’s voice was quiet, the slightest bit slurred with exhaustion. “I’m just… happy he’s okay, for now.”

Mario, hurt but clean and on the mend, dozing restfully beneath comfortable sheets— Mario, his face melted and blistering, charred skin sloughing from every exposed plane and floating atop the viscous scarlet that flowed without end—

Peach balled her hands into fists and squeezed until her arms trembled from the force. She had put the younger brother through enough heartache. She alone would bear the truth. It had been worse. So, so much worse. Getting him to the state he was in now — getting him home alive, if only barely — had nearly killed her twice over.

And until she saw him back on his feet, she would continue to wish she had succeeded in giving her life to him. At least then his recovery would be guaranteed.

It should have been her. Why wasn't it her?

Luigi jostled her out of her ruminations, letting go of her shoulders to clap a hand gently against her back.

“How about this: we let him rest, you get some rest too, and I'll come get you when he wakes up. Sound good?"

Peach thought to protest, but she knew any objections would be pointless. Denying herself the chance to heal wouldn't help Mario any faster. She nodded in reluctant agreement, an action which Luigi mirrored.

“Then let's get you some’a that soup, yeah? Toadsworth will have my head mounted on the wall if I let you starve. For that matter, I don’t think Mario would be much happier.”

A new image cut through the morbid memories and visions that weighed heavy in Peach's mind: Toadsworth, chasing a screaming Luigi through the corridors of the castle with a halberd twice his weight and three times his height, a scuffed-up but otherwise healthy Mario looking on from a doorway in some mix of exasperation and amusement.

For the first time since awakening, laughter bubbled in Peach’s chest, fleeting but joyously light.

“‘Ey,” Luigi cheered, his own expression perking up, “there’s a smile! Oh, it’s so good to see you smile again, Princess! C'mon.”

She let her muscles loosen as he led her back towards the door, already prattling on about the hearty tomato soup waiting for her, and his newfound pep made her feel just a bit less heavy. No, martyrdom would benefit no one. To let herself curl up and wish for death, no matter the reasoning, would be to spit in the face of all that Mario had fought so hard for. All that he had nearly died for, too.

Taking one last glance at him as she left the room, she let herself believe for the time being that everything had worked out exactly as it needed to.

As it stood now, they both held a fighting chance for normalcy. Though Peach would have happily given her life for his, she much preferred the thought of them both living, rediscovering their own normals side-by-side, reveling in all of life’s little pleasures together. And if that was selfish of her, well, maybe she could afford to be a bit selfish for now.

~~~

Sleep eluded Peach, which she counted as both a blessing and a curse.

She was tired, so utterly tired, and yet she couldn’t get comfortable. The lights in her room were dimmed, but not turned out entirely for the sake of sporadic nurse visits, confusing her already ruined circadian rhythm. She hadn’t struggled to eat as much as she feared she would; the soup she’d been promised was tangy and sweet and the slightest bit acidic, and she’d scarfed it down while Luigi and a slightly more upbeat Toadette entertained her with lighthearted stories. They’d even managed to draw a few more laughs out of her.

But now her belly felt uncomfortably heavy, and the silence felt heavier still. And she was still so cold. Laying on her back, she couldn’t breathe properly, not helped by her constant shivering. Laying on her side, she could at least pull her blankets tighter around her own huddled form, but curling into herself agitated her full stomach and nauseated her. She'd only had one meal. She didn't care to lose it.

The blessing part of this struggle came from the simple notion that she’d already slept enough. There was little to do in her dungeon but pace and brood and sleep, and she hadn’t even done much of the first two in the past several weeks. No, she decided, folding back her blankets and finding unsteady footing, there was no point tossing and turning. If she was going to remain awake, the least she could do was use her time productively.

This was how she found herself back at Mario’s side in the hour before dawn.

As she approached his bedside, she glanced over at the loveseat against the opposite wall. Luigi was sprawled on its cushions, his cap pulled over his eyes and a thin stream of drool dripping from the corner of his mouth, his legs dangling over the sofa’s arm. How many sleepless nights had he endured in these past months? The room was silent save for his soft snoring and the steady beeping of a heart monitor, and Peach intended to keep it that way. Stars knew she owed him that much at least.

Kneeling beside Mario, she hesitantly reached for his hand, steadying her breath before touching his wrist. A sigh of relief forced its way past her lips at their contact. Her fears were unfounded. He was warm.

She spent a moment tracing her fingers over the back of his hand in contemplation. The dark hair that normally covered his skin had been shaved in the name of finding a good vein for an IV drip, and a piece of medical tape beneath a thin layer of gauze held the needle in place, delivering much-needed fluids to his system. A perfect entry point. Though her magic could penetrate even covered skin easily, she found it was most potent when concentrated directly into the bloodstream. Right now, she needed as much potency as possible.

Resting her palm atop that spot, she closed her eyes and focused. Surely there was enough by now. Maybe not enough to heal, but at least enough to ease the pain, or maybe even seal up some of his lesser injuries.

But even conjuring her magic in the first place proved a great struggle. Her muscles constricted as she called it forth, a dull ache which grew into sharp, stabbing surges, and she dug the nails of her free hand into her thigh to keep herself focused. No matter how she tried, nothing came of her efforts. She willed it forward once, once more, once again, as if dragging a barbed hook through layers of sinew; she sniffed and gasped each time, biting into her tongue to keep any further noise reigned in, and still nothing came of it.

Only once had her own magic caused her such pain: reviving her dead hero, what felt like weeks ago now. But it worked. Her pain bore fruit, and her efforts were rewarded with renewed life. Why wasn’t it working now?

The ambience of the heart monitor came into the forefront of Peach’s senses, its once-steady tone picking up in tempo and compromising her already fragile concentration.

Her body relaxed against her own volition, and she cursed beneath her breath. Yet as oxygen poured back into her lungs, as blood flow returned to her brain, her frustration morphed into hope. Increased heart rate. If his heart was beating faster, that meant something was happening. That meant her magic was coursing through him, no matter how little, and his body was repairing itself again. Right?

With one last deep breath, she lifted her eyes to his face.

His eyes were already fixed on her.

Peach yelped out in shock before she could stop herself, slapping a hand over her mouth moments too late. That shock was reflected in Mario’s eyes, already wide when their gazes met, growing wider still as they stared one another down; the brilliant blues of his irises caught the blinking lights of assorted medical equipment, cloudy and drowsy but awake and aware.

The monitor hooked to his pulse went haywire, but its frantic beeping faded into ambiance once more.

“Hey,” he whispered. His voice was hoarse from exertion or disuse or some combination of the two, but it was his, and that single word set Peach’s pulse racing every bit as quickly.

“Hey,” she whispered back. He smiled weakly at this, and somehow, she smiled back.

Peach had never been the impulsive sort. As a politician, she made sure to consider her every move deliberately before acting, a habit that had been drilled into her while she was still in high chairs. So she wasn’t quite sure what force compelled her to climb into his bed, nor was she quite sure what force compelled him to make room for her. Whatever their reasoning, three minutes and several careful adjustments later, they laid facing one another, their heads sharing the same pillow, their bodies separated only by her gown and his blanket.

Peach knew well enough how improper this was, and still she didn’t care. Not with Mario so close, so present, so alive. The exertion of rolling onto his side and scooting a few inches back had exhausted him; with his last ounce of physical strength, he draped an arm over her side, weakly flexing it forward, as if trying to pull her closer. She would have happily met him halfway if it didn’t mean losing her line of sight. She wanted to look at him just a moment longer, just to make sure he was really here.

She drew her hand up slowly, careful not to agitate any of his numerous wounds, until at last her fingertips rested at his jawline. That seemed the safest place to touch. Perhaps the only safe place to touch for now.

Mario muttered something beneath his breath, too quiet for Peach to hear, and she feared that even this gentle touch was too much for him.

“Beg pardon?”

“Sorry about the beard,” he repeated, and though his eyes remained closed, he smirked. He was joking. He was awake and aware and alive and cracking jokes. He really was going to be okay.

Though she lay exposed above the blanket, the bitter cold she had grown begrudgingly accustomed to melted away, and warmth penetrated to her very bones.

“Actually, I quite like it,” she found the strength to tease back, and she swore she felt his skin grow hot beneath her fingers.

“Y’do?”

“Mmhm.”

“Mm. Think I should keep it?”

“I think you should do whatever you want for the rest of your life.”

He chuckled at this, deep in his chest. “I like the sound of that.”

Her touch remained light, just in case, but if his facial hair hid any additional injuries, he wasn’t showing it. He looked peaceful beneath her touch, smiling softly as she stroked her thumb along the curve of his jaw. Had he gone without food, too? His face seemed sharper, his cheeks less plump than she remembered.

She didn’t have very long to muse on this notion. When he eventually peeked his eyes open, they pulled her back into the present moment; they were heavy with impending sleep, and the pain she feared would remain etched into them eternally was nowhere to be found. All she could see in those eyes was adoration. Adoration so strong and pure that it made her feel impossibly small yet equally unstoppable, so obvious that she wondered how she hadn’t seen it before.

Perhaps she had seen it. Perhaps she had convinced herself it was all in her imagination; perhaps she was too afraid to let herself hope that he might return her affections.

He returned her affections. He was alive, and he would be okay, and he loved her just as deeply as she loved him. The rush that overtook Peach would have easily brought her to her knees, and she thanked the stars that she was already laying down.

Their words of mutual confirmation comprised the second of two mantras that kept Peach going, even when she was certain she could go no further, and in her fear for his life she hadn’t let herself dwell on them any further. But they’d exchanged that mantra back and forth even as their already limited energy dwindled, even when collapse and failure and death felt inevitable, filling the air between them when all other words failed: I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you…

“I love you,” Mario said now, in that same hoarse whisper as before.

Peach inhaled sharply, and suddenly the tears she’d so valiantly fought off stung at the backs of her eyes. He’d told her those three blessed words ten or twenty or fifty times in the past day, but this time was different. There was no desperation or disbelief in his voice, no heaviness of affliction or regret or uncertainty, no exhaustion holding his tongue. He said it quietly but unwaveringly, unapologetic.

How else had he said it? At multiple points in their journey, he couldn’t find the strength to translate his thoughts into the common tongue, and so he would squeeze her hand and utter a pair of foreign words to her, the same two words, over and over and over.

“Ti amo,” Peach echoed now. Foreign or not, those words felt right on her tongue, effortless.

Mario’s face changed, suddenly more alert than before, and for a brief instance Peach felt cold again. Had she misremembered or misspoken? Just as quickly as he’d reacted, though, he closed his eyes and pushed his cheek deeper into the pillow, that breathtaking smile returning in full force.

“Noooo,” he whined, the syllable broken up by a breathless laugh, “don’t say that, Princess! I’m not ready to wake up yet.”

The arm draped over her flexed again, and his bright smile morphed into something darker, sadder. Something like bleak resignation.

He thought this was a dream. Nothing but a pleasant and misleading dream, perhaps one of many, just as she’d thought her own awakening to be. The first of a new wave of tears forced their way past Peach’s defense, and she swallowed thickly to rid the lump in her throat.

“Then don’t.” She obliged his nonverbal request this time, scooting closer until their bodies were flush, ducking her head beneath his chin. Warm. So present and real and warm. “Just— just sleep for now. Rest with me.”

Mario hummed, and she felt it reverberate in his throat, the vibrations and unshaven scruff tickling her cheek. “Will you… be here?” he managed after a moment. “When I wake up?”

Peach sniffled. He no longer smelled of burnt skin and fresh blood. Medicinal salve filled her olfactory senses now, sharp and clean. “They’ll have to drag me out kicking and screaming.”

This earned another laugh from her hero, her closest friend, the love of her life, and he nuzzled his chin into the crown of her head with a satisfied sigh.

They lay together in comfortable silence after this, and while Mario dozed, Peach took the opportunity to ground herself. The twangy aroma of salve; the rise and fall of his chest against hers; the weight of his arm holding her close; the beep-beep-beep of a heart monitor gone steady once more. She buried her face into a thick patch of gauze on his shoulder and let her tears flow freely, content to tremble in the safety of his embrace.

This was real. She was home.

She was home.

#sorry for the delay!!#also sorry toadsworth has like one line. he gets more attention down the line I promise #super mario bros #smb #mario #princess peach #toadsworth #toadette #luigi #mario x peach #mareach #peaches' fancy fics

52 notes · View notes