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Central Mushroom Kingdom was typically a place of constant movement, and today was no exception. Toad Town was alive with the hustle and bustle of busy denizens completing their daily errands. The shopkeepers, during the few breaks that they had, conversed amongst themselves about how particularly crowded their little town was today. As a matter of fact, it was the day that the Princess, along with the Mario brothers, had returned from their vacation! Most everyone had heard that some kind of unfortunate incident had occurred, but no one truly knew the specifics. This, of course, led to quite a bit of speculation among the townsfolk.
“I bet it had something to do with Bowser, but there’s no way he can beat Mario!” A young Toad girl walked alongside her brother, chatting animatedly about the plumber with admiration in her eyes. “We totally don’t even have to know what happened, ‘cause I can tell you for sure that he kicked that overgrown turtle’s butt. Maybe that giant jerk kidnapped the Princess again!”
Her brother scoffed. “Yeah, except y’know who else probably got kidnapped? That, uh, green one. What’s his name again?” The boy screwed up his face, struggling to remember. “Luis or something?”
Of course, the children would be floored if they found out about the true nature of the happenings at The Last Resort.
Meanwhile, the Mario brothers were arriving to their cozy home in the forest. It sat near the outskirts of the town, which was no coincidence—Luigi especially valued his sleep, and it could be hard to get it near town due to the area’s busy nature. The two had to cross through Toad Town to reach their home, and they were both grateful for the contrasting quiet. The younger twin was glad for the lack of interruptions from the adoring citizens as well. Too much attention from others made him feel overwhelmed.
Well, not that he was the one receiving the attention, but still, he just wanted to go home.
As soon as the front door was unlocked, Mario nudged it ajar with his shoulder and grunted as he lugged his suitcase inside. Luigi followed closely behind, seemingly lost in thought.
“Mamma mia…it sure is nice to be home, eh bro? I could use a vacation from our vacation.” The older twin smirked up at the younger, always eager to get a reaction out of Luigi with his shenanigans, but his smile faded when there was no sign that the other had even heard him. “Luigi?”
The young man in question, who had just then been staring off distantly with his green suitcase in tow, snapped out of it when he heard his name and quickly plastered a weak grin on his face. “Oh—hah, uh, y-yeah. For sure.” He began to make his way to his room, and spoke up before Mario could say a word. “I think I’m gonna hit the hay early, I’m kinda tired from the whole ghost misadventure.”
Mario eyed him concernedly as he disappeared into the darkness of the hallway, then sighed and began to take his suitcase to his own room. “Alrighty. Night.” He heard Luigi’s responding goodnight, and then the soft click of his bedroom door closing.
Luigi’s behavior was a bit odd, and Mario couldn’t help but think and worry about it as he unpacked his belongings. It wasn’t unusual for the younger twin to try and get some extra sleep, even when he hadn’t just gone through such a lonesome and frightening event. Mario found solace in this explanation, that Luigi was just well and truly exhausted both physically and mentally, but why the big rush to get to his room?
It sent the older brother right back into his troubled thoughts, too, when he realized that Luigi had forgone dinner for the night. His gaze traveled from his almost-empty suitcase to the clock on his nightstand, which read 6:02. Mario bit his lip, weighing his options.
Surely he wants dinner? I guess I can go and ask, there wouldn’t be any harm in that…
With the rest of his clothes lying forgotten on his bed, Mario crossed the hallway and knocked gently. A beat of silence passed. He put his ear up to the door, but couldn’t hear a thing.
“Luigi?”
There was another pause.
“Yeah?”
Mario pursed his lips. Something sounded off, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He cleared his throat before answering.
“Can I come in?”
“Um…o-okay, sure.”
The door swung open with Luigi’s permission, but Mario cocked his head when he didn’t immediately see him.
“Bro?”
“I-I’m in here.”
Mario perked up at his brother’s voice, which came from the bed—duh—and sounded a bit rough around the edges. He approached, worriedly taking note of the way that Luigi was curled up in a shuddering ball underneath the covers. “Is everything okay, Weege?” He peeled back the covers and felt his heart drop when he caught sight of his brother.
Luigi was in there, all right. He was hugging his knees and sniffling so miserably that Mario wanted to drop everything and fix whatever was wrong—and that was exactly what he intended to do. In answer to Mario’s question, Luigi shook his head, bringing his hand up to rub the tears away.
Mario sat on the edge of the bed, eyebrows furrowing sadly as he brushed Luigi’s tousled hair out of his face. “Oh, Weegee…” He gave a sad sigh and continued combing his hand through his brother’s hair. “Don’t cry, little bro…whatever’s got you down, we can fix it, I know we can.” Mario’s voice had taken on a cashmere-soft quality. No one else aside from Luigi had ever heard such a tone from him before.
Amazingly, Luigi’s tears began to come quicker with the loving attention. He tried to take a calming breath, but Mario didn’t miss how his breathing seemed to tremble with the effort.
“I’m okay, I swear,” Luigi said weakly, sitting up and looking up at his brother’s soft gaze. “I j-just didn’t want to be a burden to you, is all…”
“Bro, I don’t want to burst your bubble, but you’re definitely not okay.” Mario’s voice was low and calming. His hair-petting never faltered, though his arm was admittedly getting tired.
“I know I’m not,” Luigi mumbled, hiccuping through a little sob. “It’s just something that I say t-to convince myself, I guess…”
Mario’s heart broke. Convince himself? How much pain was Luigi hiding away from him?
“Weege, you’re my brother, how could you be a burden to me? You know I’ll listen to you no matter what, right? C’mon, stop those tears and tell me what’s going on.” He reached out to brush the trails away from the blotchy skin beneath Luigi’s eyes, giving him an encouraging smile.
Luigi knew it was silly to try and hide his emotions from his brother, since Mario would eventually find out anyway. He took another shaky breath and made an attempt to clear his throat. “Okay. I’ll try. I…um. I c-c-can’t stop thinking about what happened.” He looked down, then back up at his brother as if he was embarrassed. Mario nodded patiently, signaling for him to continue.
“I mean…I know that I’m not the bravest person out there. So I can’t say I’m not pleasantly surprised with myself for making it through that whole mess…but, Mario…what if I couldn’t save you? You, and Peach, and the Toads…we all would’ve been stuck forever!” Fresh tears came down in rivulets at the thought, and he paused to wipe them away with the heels of his palms. “I was just so scared that sometimes I couldn’t even move, but it felt like I was on autopilot, y’know? Like, if I didn’t do something I was gonna get everyone killed, I was so worried I wouldn’t b-be able to save you guys—and the ghosts! I almost died so many times…I-I knew I had to be strong but one time I was p-p-poisoned and I couldn’t breathe, a-and…and…!”
“Luigi, relax.”
Luigi paused, and only then did he realize that he had been hugging himself far too tightly, which made it unnecessarily difficult for him to get the oxygen that he needed. He obeyed, taking a deep, shuddering breath and letting it out, making a conscious effort to release tension as he did so. He let his hands fall into his lap, revealing the tiny crescent-shaped marks that were left on his arms.
Mario tutted, placing a hand on Luigi’s shoulder comfortingly. He’s shaking… Without another thought, Mario opened his arms invitingly to his distressed brother.
“C’mere, bro.”
Luigi nodded tearfully and inched forward to accept the hug, nuzzling his face into Mario’s neck like he used to when they were little. The action tugged further at Mario’s heartstrings, and he made a sympathetic sound, moving his hand to soothingly rub Luigi’s back.
“Y’know something, Weegee? You said that you were scared about not being able to save us, but look at us—we’re okay! You did it, right? That makes you a hero in my book.” He sighed inwardly, feeling devastated that his brother thought so lowly of himself.
“Really?” Luigi’s hopeful yet teary mumble came from his cozy spot, “I-I didn’t feel like a hero…I felt like a big coward. I still do…like, what if there are more ghosts? I don’t know if I could—“
“Just listen to yourself, bro…you can’t keep putting yourself down like this. If it weren’t for you, well…yeesh, I’d rather not think about what would’ve happened to us.” Mario felt a shiver run down his spine at his own words. “But the point is, I don’t have to! And that’s ‘cause of you. My brother. You saved us, and…heck, if there were more ghosts, I bet you’d just bop them again! You were so cool. I don’t think there’s a ghost in the world that you couldn’t beat.”
“I-I was…cool?” The uplifting words made Luigi smile against the older’s neck despite himself. To think that Mario, his brother and the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom, thought he was cool? He snuggled impossibly closer to Mario’s warmth, locking those words away in his heart.
“You bet you were! Those slamming moves with that vacuum? So awesome! I doubt I could pull that kinda thing off, I’ll tell you that much.”
“W-well, I don’t know, I feel like you could probably do it way better than I could with some kind of training…I’ve been using the Poltergust for, gee, a while now, and—“
“Luigi, I mean it, you need to stop putting yourself down! You should be proud of yourself. You are skilled.”
“Bro—oo, stop interrupting me!” Luigi groaned, though Mario could hear the amusement in his voice. Mario took this as a good sign; he absolutely adored bothering his little brother and knew he had won when the taller twin started to whine. Still, though, he had a point to make.
“I’m serious! I’m interrupting your negative thoughts about yourself. You need to start thinking more positively!” Mario pulled away from the embrace, holding his brother’s shoulders so that he could make eye contact.
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“It’s easy. Watch. I’ll give you a compliment: Luigi, you’re so brave! And you’d say…” He gave an encouraging smile and gestured for his brother to go on.
Luigi felt his cheeks grow warm, and he shyly broke the eye contact. Brave? He’d never thought of himself as such, and vocalized this before he could stop himself. “I’m…well, I don’t know about that, Mario…”
“Don’t say that, just accept the compliment!”
“How?”
“Say thank you! It shows that you’re grateful for the nice words, but you’re also not putting yourself down. It’s a win-win!”
“…Oh.”
“C’mon, say it!”
“Um…t-thank you?”
“Attaboy, Weege! See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“I…guess not.” He sniffled, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. His eyes were sore from crying, but the redness was less apparent.
“Way to go, bro.” Mario ruffled his hair affectionately. “Do you feel any better about the whole thing now?”
Luigi paused to consider this. He was still plagued by horrific memories of constant near-death experiences in that awful place, but the fact that Mario thought that he was cool, and that he was more than a match for any ghost? He felt his cheeks grow warm—maybe if Mario thought those things, there was at least some truth to them. He offered his brother a tiny, yet genuine grin.
“I think so…maybe a little bit.” His smile faltered as he pondered something else. “I guess what’s bothering me still is how you were trapped like that, and I let it go on for so long.”
Mario nodded sagely. “I know what you’re saying, like you don’t even want to rest until you do what you have to do.”
“Yes! Exactly! I just couldn’t bear the thought of you, stuck in there, ’cause I knew that you probably would’ve saved me a lot faster if it were me that was trapped in a frame.”
Mario’s heart sank, though he hid it well. He never realized that his brother was feeling this way, and by the sound of it, this had been an insecurity of his for a long time. “Listen, you know I’m your equal. It doesn’t matter how long it took, what matters is that you did it, and there’s no one in the great big world that I’d trust more than you.” Inwardly, he felt relieved when Luigi perked up a bit.
“I-I know! I trust you, too! I know it’s stupid, but I just wanted to get there faster, is all…”
“I get it, bro. But y’know, I didn’t mind so much. I think I make a pretty handsome picture, no?” Mario brought his thumb and forefinger to his chin, smoldering for an invisible camera. He held the pose, eagerly awaiting Luigi’s reaction.
Luigi, to his credit, kept a straight face for all of two seconds before rolling his eyes good-naturedly and breaking out into snickers. “Sure thing, Mario. Just keep telling yourself that.”
Mario chuckled himself, shaking his head before getting back to business. “Seriously, though. I want you to know that even though I was trapped, I wasn’t scared, not once. ‘Cause I knew you were on your way, and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that you would get to me.”
Laughing at Mario’s goofiness had brightened Luigi’s face, and now, hearing this from the very person he looked up to, he could feel himself shining like the sun.
“Gosh. Thank you, bro…” He felt far too bashful to make eye contact, opting instead to stare down at a particularly interesting spot on the bedsheet and trace a pattern into it with a finger, but there was no denying the upward quirk of his lips.
“Hey! You accepted the compliment! I knew you’d be able to do it!” Mario pulled Luigi in for a sudden and crushing hug, which caused the younger to yelp surprisedly. “See, isn’t it so much easier when you’re honest with your very favorite brother?”
Embarrassed, Luigi could feel his cheeks growing ever warmer. He scoffed in an attempt to save the shreds of his dignity, though he knew it had long since flown out the window when it came to Mario. “But, you’re my only brother.”
“Exactly.” Mario released his twin, who he could tell was feeling shy after all this attention. “Now…well, sheesh, this whole thing really got away from me.” He glanced at the clock on Luigi’s wall, noting that it had been a while since he had come in. “The reason I came knocking in the first place was so I could ask you if you wanted dinner, but it turned into a therapy session.”
“You do tend to turn things into therapy sessions.”
“Hey, don’t avoid the topic at hand! Are you hungry or not?”
“Uh…no, it’s alright, I’m good.”
“Okie dokie, I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Huh? B-but I said—!”
Mario interrupted him with a short laugh. “I can read you like a book! Yeah, you said you didn’t want anything, but you hesitated, bro. I know you’re starving. Twin telepathy is real, y’know.” He paused to take out his phone, thinking that Luigi probably wasn’t in the mood to cook. “How’s about a pizza?”
Luigi held his hands up placatingly with a nervous giggle. “But, I’m really fine, Mario! No need to waste your coins on me, I swear. It’s okay.” As if the universe couldn’t wait to prove him wrong, a particularly loud growl emitted from his stomach. He looked pointedly away from his brother, cheeks reddening. “You…didn’t hear that.” He dared to look at Mario, dismayed when he saw the smuggest look he’d ever seen on his brother’s face—and that was saying something. Resigned, Luigi sighed. “Fine. Whatever, you win, I’m hungry. You happy now?”
“Yes.” Mario stood from the bed and patted his little brother’s head. “For our next session, we’ll be working on how to tell someone that you want something.”
Luigi rolled his eyes so hard that it felt like they were going back into his skull, but he couldn’t say that he was truly annoyed. After all, his brother only wanted to help him feel better, and he trusted him more than anyone in the great big world.