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beannoss · 4 months ago

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Hi Bean!

I have a question for you! I have noticed in your writings that Twilight and Yor begin a romantic relationship after their secrets are revealed. Are you opposed to any romance between them before they find out? I assume if so, it’s because it’s morally questionable, though a lot of fans find romance before compelling as it raises the stakes considerably. I’m not suggesting one is right and the other is wrong, I’m just interested in your take on this! I love your writing! Thank you! 😊

Hello you! I'm always chuffed to see your name pop up 🫶😊!

Oh boy! Thank you for this ask — it's a big question but also I do have thoughts XD Sorry it's taken me a few days to get my ducks in a row!

I want to start, though, by emphasising that my thoughts and preferences here are exclusive to Spy x Family as a canon enterprise; they don't pertain to fanworks or other fan theories, I'm not out to yuck anyone's yum ✌️ ditto for even my own writing! You're right that I don't really have an interest in exploring that dynamic but I reserve the right to change my mind ;)!

[Reference herein to manga chapters not yet animated]

Right, so. There's lots of things I love about SxF, but one of the things that interested me early and keeps me engaged is that it operates under an interesting and complex morality. Spy work and contract killing are obviously an ethical minefield, and in the real world, generally to the bad. Within the world of SxF, Endo takes pains to write Twilight and Yor both firmly on the morally right side, even if Twilight’s tactics or Yor’s actions in a vacuum are frequently questionable. With Twilight especially it seems Twilight is currently (resisting) working through the impact and ethical implication of his actions on Anya. When it comes to Yor, I expect that’s where we’ll see him wrestle with similar questions through a romance lens. I think it was quite deliberate and important that Twilight specifically articulated that he’d been wondering if Yor had previous romantic relationships, and that it was now confirmed she hadn’t. As far as I can remember, it’s the only time he’s had that sort of reflection on Yor's life before the Forgers; I mention it because it mirrors times he’s reflected explicitly on Anya’s history and trauma and her needs as a child, with implication that his actions and motivations for adopting her could/probably will hurt her. I hazard that his observation about Yor will be similarly indicative of an arc down the line.

When it comes to canon, if the Yor x Twilight romance were to firm up while Yor still believes Twilight is Loid, I admit there’s a high chance I’d nope out. I want to emphasize firm up though… I tend to think Yor already has feelings for Loid (Twilight?) whether she’s fully aware of them or would necessarily articulate them as romantic (and I think this is being really interestingly conveyed and explored through her current feelings about kissing, though I may differ with some on how I think that may shake out). I also think there’s a… less high but not impossible chance that Twilight is aware he has or is developing feelings for Yor. I’ve argued before that he knows he has formed/is forming an attachment to her and that he knows he trusts her. I don’t think it’s too far from there to romantic feelings for Twilight: after all, attachment and trust (intimacy) are not things he's had in a long, long time. And given his current pseudo-short temper and general malaise comes out most with Anya, with Yor he’s been notably softer and more receptive. In my view, this is partially because so far he hasn't really done much that would really hurt Yor and nor has she done anything that would really hurt Twilight. So far, Twilight and Yor are on a fairly even footing.

This is a very long way of saying that I trend toward thinking we’ve got at least a few toes into the romance already.

The reasons I’d be a squicked by the firming up of the romance, pre-reveal, are related to its being morally questionable as you pointed out (I'll talk a bit more about that in a moment.) But it's also because I think it would undermine character arcs and dominant themes.

Twilight’s arc involves finding and forging a new pack, a new family. Somewhere safe and loving that he’s been denied essentially for his whole life (I don’t dispute that his mother loved him deeply and did her best to protect him: living with an abuser and then with her under war was never going to actually be or feel safe). A big part of this safety and love for Twilight is about being accepted, warts and all. Twilight started lying because he wasn’t accepted by his father as he was. There’s a fair bit to work through by way of accepting Twilight’s warts already — I think Yor will be fairly understanding as things currently stand, and that’s part of why they’re a good match. Their moral compasses, their sacrifices, how they see the world and how they want to try and make it better, align and/or resonate in foundational ways. However, given their current standing, pursuing deeper intimacy of a romantic/sexual relationship with Yor before reveals, I think would take it past the line. And particularly when considering Yor’s character arc.

Yor’s arc is also around finding love and security, but centred less around acceptance (although that obviously also explicitly features!) and more around self-worth and understanding her value. If the romance were to firm up pre-reveal, the false pretences are… I mean, to me, they lob a Molotov cocktail into that theme of self-worth and being valued, as she really would just be being used: the intimacy could never be real because Twilight is not Loid Forger. To expand a bit on an earlier point, perhaps ironically, Yor’s relationship with Loid is mostly on the up-and-up: they both know any marital connection they demonstrate is fake. They may be (are) friends, and also they’re under no illusions that it’s something of a tenuous friendship (at least for now). They co-parent Anya but are clear that this co-parenting comes with clear lines around and between their relationship otherwise. I want to tread mindfully here, because I also really like and appreciate aroace interpretations of Yor and Twilight and their relationship: I think this discussion around firming up their romance actually also holds true in the case of attempting to substantially deepen their platonic bond, pre-reveal. In the same ways, Twilight needing acceptance and Yor learning self-worth would be severely undermined by a pre-reveal apparent and false deepening of their commitment to one another.

On the point of it being morally questionable generally, yeah it is. I mean, look, it's fiction and they aren't real people who can be hurt by those actions. So in principle, Endo can write what story he wants, I wouldn't think it reflected poorly on him or anything like that. I just don't really want to read a story that goes to that place; it’s a squick. I'm sure this has been discussed before in fandom, but my read on the moral dubiety centres around the idea that it isn’t possible to actively choose or meaningfully consent to emotional or physical intimacy when one person is lying about who they are (and in this case, they're both lying about who they are... Although Twilight to a greater extent). This does tie back into SxF themes as well, as choice and consent are also… maybe not big themes of SxF exactly, but active choice and informed consent are things which have come up more than once (I have my thoughts as to why: for a character whose choices drive so much of the narrative, Twilight is actually also a character who’s shown to have little actual choice or control over much of his own life. Considering his motivations for a world where children don’t cry, imo valuing active choice and meaningful consent are important factors required for that world. And I also actually suspect the theme of choice will become more important the more we learn about Donovan, and his role as foil for Twilight.)

Also, honestly for me, it would be too close to a common trope in a lot of popular western fiction/media that I don’t like: a woman being taken advantage of by a man in some way, shape or form, and then through the magic of her non-specific womanness, forgiving him his gross transgressions under the thinnest of pretences. Particularly as Endo has already taken pains to sidestep that as a foundation of their arrangement. To be fair, I wouldn't be surprised that were Endo to take the pre-reveal romance path, it would be a deeper interpretation of that trope, but as with other sexist tropes utilised in pop fiction/media, I have to ask why the choice couldn’t have been for a more interesting path, rather than retreading that one. And particularly given everything he's established for Twilight and Yor: it goes against much of what Twilight stands for — and indeed goes against much of what he meaningfully brings in his current relationship with Yor, that of encouraging her, supporting her, and shoring up her thoughts, opinions and self-image, particularly when she voices upset or doubt about them. It also goes against much of what Yor stands for: while the power imbalance would lie firmly with Twilight, it remains true that Yor’s lies in an apparently deepening intimacy would also undermine the safety and security she ostensibly creates for Twilight. She also so obviously hates lying, the prospect of her keeping her secret into what she believed was a real relationship would wreck her. Doubly so, given the weight Yor puts on Loid's acknowledgement of who she is and what she believes: something she hangs her self-worth on, a recognition of her value. And I'd argue here that it would actually, conversely, be impossible for Loid Forger to acknowledge or accept Yor's truth: that's only something Twilight can do.

And so I guess there’s also just the bare fact following from the above that I think a pre-reveal firming up of their relationship is the less interesting choice for what is a major franchise that has otherwise done innovative things. Another reason I love SxF is that it subverts tropes and complicates cliches. One of which includes communication: for a pair who have crossed lines as a foundation of their relationship, Yor and Twilight actually do a lot of communicating. That’s a subversion of many heterosexual romantic tropes and norms, at least in a Western context, and, to put it sort of flippantly, it would bum me out if it failed at the final hurdle.

I just want to emphasise one more time, my opinions and preferences here are strictly related to Spy x Family in an official canon capacity, and nothing to do with fanworks or fan theories or what fans want to explore in whatever fashion. Part of my feelings here are also honestly because of the tone and pacing of SxF. I think it entirely possible to do interesting things with those tropes and actually think Endo is the type of writer I would trust to do so. But the way SxF is written by way of tone, pacing, narrative priorities and audience demand, I don't think even Endo would be able to do them within SxF in ways that wouldn't squick me out and make me lose love for Twilight, specifically, pretty entirely. I'd rather he just didn't 😂

Tl;dr: in canon exclusively I’m not into a firming up of their romantic relationship pre-reveal! Their situation is complicated enough as it is; give these goobers the love they want and can share with one another, kindly and gently, when the world has been neither kind nor gentle with them. In my view, it’s already primed in their character and thematic arcs 🫶

#thanks again for the ask! honestly i’m touched you’re curious about my thoughts on this & hopefully they don't disappoint!#and also thank you for your kind words about my writing 😳🥰!!#twiyor #spy x family #spy x family meta #sxf manga spoilers #a.m.a.#here fandom take this!#hopefully this also all makes sense...#i think this has possibly become my longest meta dsjakgljakl #it touched on a bunch of stuff i already have half-written meta about which is part of why it's so long 😅#and as always i’m struck again that i’m not familiar with japanese storytelling norms #so how much of this is novel to me a random canadian lady with primary knowledge of english-language narratives #usian dominated at that #but typical/common in japanese narratives more generally i have no idea #that endo is riffing off western media… idk how much that factors ultimately #oh i suppose i should note that i don't think 'everyone takes their secrets to the grave' is a possibility at all really

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chloecherrysip · 2 years ago

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all the pain will change into a memory of when we were amazing (mario & luigi-centric post-movie fic, part 1!)

(My weekend got a little busier than I was expecting, but I was still DETERMINED to get this up today and hey, I succeeded!!! I will eventually post an AO3 version as well, so if you'd like to wait for that, you can (and I will of course link it here), but sharing on tumblr is just a little easier for me to start out with. :)

Remember that this is just the first part and there will be at least two or three more coming soon!! Like I've already said in other posts, this fic has become SO LONG that it needs to be split up a little just for ease of reading. The title comes from the song Casey by Darren Hayes, which for the record, is a song about siblings and really fits movie!verse Mario & Luigi's relationship, in my eyes. Also, just so you know, this part (and only this part) has some Mario/Peach moments as well! I hope you enjoy!)

It took roughly eleven hours to put Brooklyn back together.

Not to how it was before, just to be clear. Not even close. Just enough that you could no longer tell right away that it had been subjected to a catastrophic tear between dimensions or alternate realities or whatever the two worlds were in relation to one another — who even knew? Instead, it looked more like it had suffered a few earthquakes in quick succession, or a hurricane closely followed by a tornado for good measure. Y’know, normal disasters.

It would no doubt require weeks of work to fix the cracked roads, replace all the crushed cars, reassemble the shopfronts enough to reopen and finally, finally get rid of all the black chunks of molten rock and huge mushroom stalks that were still being found in the strangest crevices and alleyways. But there was a lot to be extremely grateful for too. It was an outright miracle that Bowser’s airship had happened to crash down into the empty construction site mere minutes before the workers were scheduled to get started, somehow missing all occupied buildings. Everyone on the block was unhurt and accounted for, and they all still had a mostly-intact place to sleep that night. That, Mario reasoned, was more than good enough for now.

He’d jumped headfirst into helping with the emergency cleanup efforts as best he could, of course. It was the very least he could do after unintentionally causing the whole mess to begin with, and Luigi had jumped right in alongside him, ready to go. The star had worn off — even if Mario was still seeing glimmering afterimages of rainbows in the corners of his eyes every time he blinked — but it seemed like there were some lingering aftereffects. They felt better than ever, every injury down to the slightest bruise or cut completely healed, an overflow of joyful energy humming pleasantly all through his core. Mario guessed it was some kinda mixture of leftover magic and his own adrenaline and relief, which probably could have kept him going strong for a long time all on its own. They’d actually made it home. They’d seen their parents and family again. His brother was back within arm's reach, smiling and solidly warm and safe. How could he not feel like he was on top of the world?

So they’d spent the rest of the day working with neighbors to clear debris and shattered glass, move cars safely out of the way that were too crushed to move on their own any longer, nail up boards to cover gaps where windows once were. There were various damaged water fixtures and pipes that desperately needed some TLC before they came entirely undone and caused more damage (thankfully, Mario knew two talented plumbers who were more than up to the task). And of course, there was the not-so-small matter of rounding up all of Bowser’s minions and stuffing them back through the pipe before they snuck further into the city and started causing mass chaos. Most of that went smoothly, thankfully (other than one notable incident of some Koopas messing around at a bowling alley and accidentally getting stuck in the ball return). The magician in the blue robe, the one with the wand, had vanished entirely, though. Luigi had been the first one to notice, nervously mentioning that he’d seemed important, like a second-in-command to Bowser. Mario didn’t like that one bit, but Peach reassured him that they would stay vigilant.

Speaking of Peach, she’d taken charge of the chaotic situation right away, her leadership skills shining bright in a way that left Mario quietly in awe. She’d personally overseen Bowser’s transfer and imprisonment back in the Mushroom Kingdom while also coordinating efforts on both sides of the warp pipe, DK and Toad providing support as they all passed back and forth between worlds several times throughout the day, transporting as much of Bowser’s broken-up airship back to where it came from as possible. Toad Town was still a mess from the invasion as well, and many of the Toads who’d evacuated needed to be helped back from the forests. Mario had only spent a little time there, but thinking about such a lively, cheerful place in abandoned disarray troubled him. He considered going back for a little while to help out there too, just to make sure everyone got home safe.

But the familiar warp pipe loomed before them, and Luigi’s smile strained. Mario, hand lightly pressed to his brother’s back, registered the sudden, new tenseness, the way his breathing became shallower, despite his best efforts to not let it show. And there was Mario’s answer. He wouldn’t put Luigi through that again, not so soon, and if Luigi wasn’t going, Mario wasn’t going — end of story. The thought of being an entire world away from him after everything they’d just struggled through, even briefly, was too much to handle. All day, that uneasiness had hung around him, the one wrinkle in his light-as-air happiness and boundless energy. He hadn’t even liked Luigi being out of his sight for too long as they worked on the cleanup, which he fully knew was silly and unreasonable. That was why he'd never breathed a word of the feeling outload, even when the discomfort settled in heavily like a bad stomachache.

It'll get better once a little more time goes by, Mario kept insisting to himself with a sure, stubborn forcefulness. What's there to be worried about? We made it, both of us. We're together. Everything's gonna be okay. It really is.

“Don’t worry! We’ve got it all under control,” Peach reassured him. “I promise. The Kongs are helping, and so are the penguins from the Ice Kingdom. We’re going to work with them to rebuild their castle as well. On the bright side, I think our alliances will be much, much stronger after this mess.”

“Are ya sure?” Mario couldn’t help but press, interlacing his fingers tightly. “I dunno, I just feel like I need to do something. If it wasn’t for you, all of you, I wouldn’t have gotten to Luigi in time.”

“Oh, and like you didn’t do even more to help us?” She gave the brim of his cap a flick that was somehow both playful and graceful. “Mario, you and your brother stopped Bowser in his tracks. Both of our worlds are safe from him now because of you two. If anything, we owe you! Toad was already talking about organizing a parade, or giving you both a chest of gold coins!”

“What? No, no, who needs all that?” Mario insisted, his face flushing a little. “Besides, those coins won’t even fit in my wallet! There probably isn’t an exchange rate or anything here for ‘em. Just my luck.”

“I thought as much.” She placed a fingertip to her pursed lips, tapping lightly as she pondered. “What about a house?”

“A whole house!?” Mario nearly choked on the air. “For free?”

Peach gave him an odd look and a shrug, as though it was perfectly reasonable in her world to offer someone she’d just met a few days ago real estate with absolutely no strings attached. “Why not? You and Luigi are always going to be known as heroes in the Mushroom Kingdom, you do realize. It's the least we could do. But…” She thought in silence for a moment longer and then smiled, the curve of it a little heavier, more subdued. “A house doesn’t do much if no one will be living in it, huh?”

Mario considered that. Across the sewer room, the black of the warp pipe’s insides spread out behind Peach, vast and unending. “That’s…yeah, that’s true,” he said, his shoulders sinking a bit. “For now, don’t worry about doing anything for us, all right?” He swallowed around a strange, new lump in his throat. “Before anything else happens, I just really need to make sure my family’s all right.”

Peach nodded. “And I need to make sure mine is too,” she said, voice warm with understanding.

She shot a meaningful glance over Mario’s head, and he followed her gaze to where Toad and Luigi were sitting off to the side. Toad was excitedly talking, making big, bombastic gestures with his pan as though he was reenacting something. Luigi, for his part, looked a little bewildered but interested, following along as best as he could manage with lots of nodding. The strain in Mario’s chest eased.

“But you’ll both visit before too long, right?” Peach brought his attention back to her, her tone pointed. “There’s still plenty of beautiful places to see in our world. We barely scratched the surface! But we can start with a nice cup of tea in the castle, of course.”

Mario couldn’t help but smile widely. “Definitely,” he said. “And besides, I already made a promise to DK before he headed back. Me and my “stupid overalls” have to give him a rematch at some point. C’mon, how can I pass up a chance to kick his furry butt all over again?”

“And I want to come back and visit this world again too!” She added excitedly. “I want to know more about the bowling we saw, and video games, and — what did you call that one thing? A calzone? — and well, everything!”

Mario laughed outright. “Sure, come back anytime! Luigi and me know allll the best spots in Brooklyn like the backs of our hands. With us, you’ll never have a bad time, guaranteed.”

Some bright, delighted mischief flashed in Peach’s eyes. “And besides,” she said, “your mom said she would show me some of your baby pictures next time. I have to see that because I can’t imagine you without a mustache, honestly. It just doesn’t seem possible.”

Mario’s laughter got less boisterous and much more strained in a big hurry. “Right, right,” he said, voice cracking. “Gotta remember to, heh, burn some of those before then.”

“Don’t you dare!”

With more than a little reluctance, she waved over at Toad, signaling that it was time for them to say goodbye.

“I’ve got to get out of this wedding dress already,” she joked, holding up the skirt so Mario could clearly see all the tears and scorch-marks and dark staining, all intermingled with white and glittering pink. On the top, she was wearing a new, light pink “I LOVE NY” shirt from a cheap souvenir store; Luigi had actually been the one to get it for her, having noticed that she was spending a lot of time standing out in the sun with her shoulders uncovered. At some point along the way, she'd also tied up her blonde hair in a messy ponytail to keep it out of the way. “What a disaster, huh?”

Mario honestly thought that she looked beautiful. But there was no way he could say that, and he also didn’t want to agree because that sounded rude. Thankfully, he had only had a few more seconds of mounting internal panic left to go on that subject before Toad and Luigi came over.

“Your brother’s just as cool as you are, Mario!” Toad brightly announced out of the blue, which in turn made Luigi jolt and blush behind him. “But I should have guessed! You guys are the SUPER Mario Brothers, after all!”

“Hey, I coulda told you that a lot sooner!” Mario grabbed Luigi around the middle with one arm and squeezed tight, enough to make his brother wriggle with a hoarse, surprised laugh. “He’s always got my back!”

“Hey, hey, I’m flattered, but there’s no way I’m as cool as Mario,” Luigi insisted, grabbing and squeezing Mario right back, playfully poking at his stomach. “Are ya kidding? This is the best guy in the world, c’mon! No contest!”

"You c'mon! Who came up with using a manhole cover as a shield out of the blue, huh?”

Luigi blinked a few times and then ducked his head down with a big, bashful grin. “Okay, maybe that was me.”

“Exactly.” He smushed his brother’s cap, ruffling his hair underneath. “What were you guys talking about, anyway?”

“Ohohoho, wouldn’t you like to know,” Toad insisted right away with a thick air of secrecy. He mimed locking his mouth with a key and then tossing it away, winking in Luigi's direction. “No need to be jealous, Mario. I can have two best friends.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Mario replied dryly.

“It was no big deal, r-really!” Luigi backed Toad up, a little too loudly. His eyes looked somewhat glassy, as though he was teetering on the verge of tears, but when Mario met his gaze full-on, worried all of a sudden, his brother smiled back, big and sincere and seemingly very happy. “We’re all good! Better than good! We’re great!”

Peach stepped forward, then. “You really made a difference when it counted most, Luigi,” she said warmly, taking one of his hands in her own and patting it. “Thank you again for that. I know you didn’t see the best our world has to offer, but I hope you’ll give us another chance soon enough.”

Luigi, having stiffened a little at her touch out of sheer surprise, relaxed again. “Of course, Peach — I mean, Princess Peach. Your highness? Ma’am!” He gave her a salute with the other hand, for some reason. “I, uh, definitely appreciate it.”

She let go of him and reached for Mario’s hand in turn. Out of the blue, he thought about kissing the back of it — she was a princess, right? Wasn’t that what people did in all the fairytale books? — but that was a silly idea, stupid enough to make the back of his neck burn from embarrassment. Instead, he simply held onto her tight for a long moment, reflecting her sweet smile back at her, his heart pleasantly fluttering.

Further down, Toad grabbed one of Mario’s legs and one of Luigi’s legs in both arms and hugged them fiercely at the same time, sniffling a little. They gave his head a few soft pats in return (and winced when he loudly blew his nose into their overalls).

“See you around, Mustache,” Peach said softly. She took a small step backwards towards the pipe but didn’t let go of him, their arms stretching out further. “And don’t forget what we talked about,” she added after a beat, delicate, maybe even the tiniest bit hopeful. “What I offered…it’s always on the table, if you ever do decide you want it.”

“I won’t forget,” he said in return, softer too. “Stay safe.”

She squeezed his hand one last time, and then she and Toad were gone. The warp pipe’s signature sound bounced off the impossibly high walls of the room they were in until it was just a tiny echo. Mario took a deep breath. He turned to find Luigi beaming at him, eyebrows raised high and wiggling a little at the ends.

"Shut up," he sighed.

“What!? I didn’t even say anything!” Luigi insisted, even as he continued to grin.

“Yes, you did. I can read your mind.” Even Mario’s sternest do NOT go there, I’m serious look could never do much when Luigi was ready to do some ruthless teasing, but he tried it anyway as they started to trudge towards the stairwell at a much slower pace then when they’d first come down it. When had he started to feel so tired? A big yawn fought its way up his throat before he could continue. “I just met her! We’re friends. That’s all there is to it, thank you and goodnight.”

“Look, you can't prove a thing, but if I was saying something, well, I'd start with the way she was looking at you.” Luigi whistled. Mario pulled down the brim of his cap, if only to hide the sudden warmth creeping into his face a little better. “She certainly seems like a princess with good taste, y’know?”

“All right, all right. Ya done?”

“As a matter of fact, I’m not! She’s already got a dress too, which is really convenient. After all, weddings are expensive—”

“Stop, Lu. You better not breathe a word of this back home! Cause you’re gonna get Ma and Dad all riled up too and then I’ll never hear the end of it."

“Are ya serious!? Oh, my poor, sweet, naïve Mario. They already smelled the blood in the water at least five hours back. They were talking about little blonde grandkids when you were in the bathroom and everything.”

At least the long trek ahead of them out of the sewers would give Mario time for his face to cool down to a normal temperature again. “Great, great, just what I need,” he grumbled. “Now I gotta find a princess for you to get the heat off me.”

“W-What!?” Luigi sputtered. “I mean, I wish. But a kingdom only has one princess, right? And you’re the lucky guy.”

“There wasn’t just one kingdom,” Mario mused. He was climbing the stairs by then, metal clanging with each step. “I betcha all the money I have that if I went looking around long enough over there, I could find a real cute royal out there who has a thing for the color green.”

He reached behind him to give Luigi’s shoulder a playful shove, only for his hand to meet nothing but air. Turning fully, he saw that his brother was moving a lot slower than he’d expected. He was still at the bottom of the stairs, clinging to the railing and blinking furiously, his gaze focused on nothing in particular.

“Luigi?” Mario asked hesitantly. “You good?”

Luigi perked up at that and gave a thumbs-up. “A-okay!” He chirped, starting to climb. “I just — whew. I’m a little, uh, dizzy. It feels like that crazy star hung around for a while, eh? Like, we weren’t super-powered anymore, but nothing hurt, and I still had tons of energy to do whatever I wanted. But now…”

“Yeah, I’m definitely feeling that too.” Mario realized it more clearly, his breathing already labored after only climbing one flight of stairs. The injuries weren’t back, thankfully, but he was aching all over, a new heaviness creeping into his bones more and more. Luigi was hurrying to catch up with him, moving unsteadily.

“Just go slow,” Mario called. “We’re not in a hurry. Be careful.”

It didn’t seem like Luigi heard him, still trying to talk as he climbed, huffing and puffing. “I mean, wow! We were running all over the place! We were fixing things! We were saving Brooklyn! But…huh. Something’s kinda weird.” His voice had dropped down into a mumble, so quiet and fast that Mario almost couldn’t understand him. “I’m having that pins-and-needles feeling, like my legs are asleep, but I’m still walking just fine. Right? Do I look normal walking? Be honest. I��I can’t tell.” He looked sleepy, and then he suddenly looked frightened, unfocused, as though he wasn’t even sure where he was at all. “Wait. Am I upside down? Mario…”

It happened so fast. With one last shuddery breath, Luigi’s eyes rolled back into his head. He started to fall backwards, about to topple down a nearly full flight of stairs.

Mario’s heart seized. “Luigi!”

He covered several steps in one desperate jump. Somehow, he managed to get one arm around his brother and pull him back with every last scrap of strength he had left, crushing their bodies together. The other arm, he wrenched over and around the railing blindly, worn metal scratching and squeaking against him painfully as he struggled to hold onto it. For a long, agonizing moment, the fight against gravity seemed like it was going to be too much to overcome, and Mario, teeth gritted, mentally prepared himself to turn them around in the air so he would take the brunt of the long fall. But miraculously, his shoes found enough purchase on the steps, and his aching grip lasted just long enough for Mario to pull their combined weight back in the other direction. The two collapsed in a heap against the ascending stairs instead.

Mario’s gasping breaths seemed like the only sound in the world, the echoes bouncing wildly all around.

“Luigi,” he finally managed to wheeze — quiet at first, then again, much louder. As gently and carefully as he could manage, he scooted up into a sitting position and turned his brother over onto his back, cradling him. He was still out cold. Mario patted his face. “Hey, Luigi. Come on, Lu, wake up for me, all right? I’m here. I’ve gotcha.” He patted a little harder, steadfastly ignoring the way his hands were trembling at that point. Every second passing with no change stretched on, an eternity and then some. “You’re all right, everything’s all right. Come on, Luigi, snap out of it…”

Up close, Luigi looked extremely pale, sweat beaded along the line of his cap. How had Mario not noticed that before? He’d been too caught up with all the cleanup efforts, too distracted by Peach and Toad and the thought of that hypothetical house. How could he not see that Luigi was starting to struggle? What kind of brother was he?

The kind that does something really, REALLY stupid because of pride or "destiny" or whatever you wanna call it. The kind that not only drags his brother down with him to do the stupid thing, but almost gets him killed because of it.

Mario's shoulders sagged. He gripped Luigi tighter, pressing his little brother's face close to the crook of his neck, if only to try and desperately ground himself in the knowledge that he could feel him breathing still, at least. Their injuries were gone, it was true, but for Mario, it was suddenly like the star had just shifted the pain around instead. He could feel it pressing up from under his skin, a deep well that was ready to split him open all the way through if he let it.

It no longer seemed like he'd just been in a magical world on a whirlwind adventure, or that he'd defeated a spiked turtle monster with anger issues and saved Brooklyn in a glorious, technicolor blur. Now, he was just a small, ordinary man in a dark sewer room underground, exhausted and terrified and unable to help the person he loved most.

All of a sudden, Luigi jolted under his hands. “Noooo more flambé for me, thankyouverymuch, I’m-a good!” He shouted, the words slurred together to the point of being nearly unintelligible. With a handful of slow, very confused blinks, he finally managed to focus on Mario’s extremely relieved face overhead. “Waaaaaaait. Whuh happen?”

Mario bundled up all those sharp, aching feelings behind a new wall and regathered himself. No matter what, he was going to stay strong, stay in control. He needed to do that for Luigi’s sake. There was no other choice. “You went down like a big sack of bricks, ya lug,” he tried to joke, even as his voice cracked badly on the last word. “Nearly gave me a heart attack! Are you okay?”

Luigi considered this information, eyes unclouding bit by bit. “I’m sorry,” he finally said, soft, a little embarrassed. “Y-Yeah, I think I’m good. I, uh, don’t really know what happened there! It was like…it all just hit me at once, I guess.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Mario worried his bottom lip between his teeth. “When’s the last time you slept, bro?”

Discomfort crept into Luigi’s expression at that. He looked away from Mario, not able to meet his gaze for more than a few seconds at a time. “Well, I dunno if I — I was wandering around for a while, and then I couldn’t really sleep in that cage, y’know? All that lava made the metal real hot, so I had to keep moving to not get burned, and you have no idea how hard it is to nod off when there’s a creepy star laughing its head — body? — head off in the next cage over, and, and...well, I’m sure I got an hour here and there,” he scoffed lightheartedly, waving off the thought with a wobbly sweep of his hand through the air. “Nothing worse than those all-nighters in high school!”

“You almost had a nervous breakdown because of those all-nighters,” Mario said. His grip on Luigi’s shoulder tightened, fingers winding snug in the green material. “And…what about food? Water? We’ve been go-go-go all day. I didn’t even think about…”

A brand-new sense of dawning horror came over Mario, sudden enough that he trailed off. He couldn't remember them ever taking a break, even sitting down in the shade for a few minutes. There'd just been so much to do, so many people in need of help, and the two of them had felt so good, laughing and joking and keeping up with no problems whatsoever. The time had flown by. But now...

“Pfft, who needs it?” Luigi said, extremely casually and extremely unconvincingly. He coughed, closing his eyes again for a long moment, resting his cheek sleepily against Mario’s chest. “Hmm. A guard gave me some sips a couple of times? And there was some weird bread. I think it was bread. Who even knows? It was stale like croutons. Not like the really good garlic ones Ma makes, though. These were like…like erasers or something. Blech.”

A few sips of water and some "bread." A couple of hours of sleep, if that. Luigi was on his own, scared and struggling and eventually imprisoned in a maniac’s floating lava airship, for over two full days.

“Well, no wonder you passed out,” Mario sighed, rough and very quiet. He had to talk like that — any louder, and his voice was going to become too unwieldy. It already felt like someone had promptly stuffed his heart into a blender and cranked it up to the highest setting. “Speaking of Ma, she’s probably got a full spread out by now. I’m gonna get you home, you’re gonna eat until you pop, and,” he had to pause for a moment to swallow, his throat hurting, “and then you’re gonna sleep until you can’t anymore, okay? That’s what we’re doing.”

Luigi sighed too, his smile resurfacing. “Man, that sounds like heaven. What are we waiting for?” He started to sit up with newfound determination, only for the dizzying sight of the stairs descending down into the dark beneath them to make his motions distinctly more rubbery again in a hurry. He sunk back into Mario’s arms, breathing faster, eyes closed again.

“Just, uh, one more minute," he half-wheezed. "Nothing to worry about, I’m getting up right now, I swear, but…is it just me or is it really, really hot down here? Those burns I had, they’re all gone, which is great, but I can still kindaaaa feel them? Is that a medical thing? Or am I freaking out? Because, heh, it’s starting to feel like I might be freaking out, and not to toot my own horn but some might consider me an expert when it comes to the signs of freaking out—”

“Just breathe, Lu,” Mario interjected, gently but firmly, the way he always did when Luigi got lost in a thought process that wasn’t going to lead him anywhere good in a hurry. “We can wait as long as ya need. No rush at all.”

Mario pressed back the brim of Luigi’s cap so he could brush his hairline soothingly, wipe away the sweat. He leaned down, gathering Luigi close enough to bump their foreheads together so they could breathe in slow, deep unison. He’d done that little motion to Luigi their whole lives, an unspoken shorthand that only they understood. When his little brother was scared or anxious, touching foreheads was a way to make the world smaller, less overwhelming, if only for a few seconds. It was an easy way to say: who cares about any of that? Focus on me instead. It’s just the two of us. I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you.

(And he’d tried, hadn’t he? He tried, and he hadn’t been good enough this time, when it mattered most. Luigi had suffered because he couldn’t hold on tightly enough. Because he hadn’t fought harder, been smarter, pushed to move faster throughout every part of the trip. And at the end when he’d finally found his brother? It had just been dumb luck, really. He’d squinted up at all the cages at the right time through the haze of the lava heat, breathless from the climb and still half-focused on trying to stay in the air without plummeting, and he’d seen his brother fall, and his body had just reacted without any thought, desperation and adrenaline screaming in his veins, the only word in his head echoing out as faster, faster, FASTER. And if one little thing had gone differently — if he hadn’t found that specific powerup, if he hadn’t figured out how to use it properly, if he'd been looking anywhere else, if he’d misjudged the speed or simply missed his grab entirely — then that would have been it, and it would have been all his fault. The sight felt seared into Mario’s head, something he could see whether his eyes were open or closed. He saw Luigi tumbling in the air, terrified and yelling and out of control, hurtling towards the lava at full speed. Only this time, he couldn’t reach him, he couldn’t move at all, he could only watch helplessly and in horror as he—)

“Mario?” Luigi asked quietly. “Are you okay?”

Mario jolted back into the moment. He was breathing too hard, too fast; a tremor ran through him, bone-deep. Luigi was holding one of his arms, his eyes big and shining with newfound worry.

Mario smiled reassuringly for him, as easy and unthinking as a reflex. He took Luigi’s hand and wedged his fingers through his with a tight squeeze, resolving not to let go again until they were safely at home. That awful drowning feeling was rippling all through him, but he could keep his head above it if he focused hard enough, if he refused to let it sneak up on him again. He could do that. He would do that, no matter what it took.

With a slew of careful, slow-going movements, the two brothers finally stood up together on the stairs.

“Don’t worry about me,” Mario said, and turned to lead the way. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here."

#mario movie #mario movie spoilers #super mario bros #mario and luigi #mareach #super mario bros movie #cherrysip fic #super mario bros movie spoilers #a succinct summary of this part: things are going great! and then things are going not so great :(#this feels very derivative of other people's fics but hey that's what happens when you take over a month to delve into your own #post-movie scenario - everyone's done most of the common things before lololol. I GOTTA JUST BE OKAY WITH THAT #anyway much MUCH more to come as soon as i can make it happen! thank you for reading - i appreciate you all!#(also i always hate having to say it but please do not tag this as ship!!! just don't!!!)

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