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Okay, so, things were not going as planned. What the plan was, was to do just one, simple, job. Take the van, do their job, fix everything up, and head home for dinner. It probably would’ve been spaghetti.
What Luigi wouldn’t give for some spaghetti right now. Or really, anything that wasn’t…whatever this was.
Somehow, pipes didn’t just transport water! Oh, no, they also could transport people! And separate them, too. Which is why Mario was nowhere to be found and Luigi was currently freaking out, all on his own, in some sort of TERRIFYING LAVA LAND.
Oh, and there were skeletons. Not human skeletons, that probably would’ve been worse. But seriously, turtle-things were not much better. Or, maybe, were these just their normal form? How could you tell if they were born skeletal, or if they had once been fleshy?
No, no, no, these questions were not important right now! What was important was…
Running for your life!
Luigi had never run for his life before. He had never seen a turtle-like skeleton creature before. He had never set foot anywhere even remotely close to lava before. It was kind of a lot to take in. Especially without Mario. If he had been here, he probably would have made some witty quip that would make the whole audience laugh despite the boring voice he would say it in. Man, Luigi would’ve given anything just to hear that boring-ass voice again right now.
He was still running for his life, unable to keep from screaming as he leapt across a gap between one rock and the next, crossing a river of lava. It was hot. Definitely wouldn’t want to be touching that. Well, DUH, Luigi! It’s lava!
Desperately attempting to speed up to outrun his skeletal pursuers, Luigi almost failed to notice the large doors in front of him. Oh, thank heavens for conveniently placed doors! He shoved through them and slammed the doors behind him. If a couple skeletons got crushed, then that was their fault. Who chases people around lava?? It’s dangerous!
Well…smashing people with doors is pretty dangerous too. Something Mario might’ve done, if he were in this situation.
Luigi didn’t get a whole lot of time to think about what Mario would’ve done in this situation, because he got a good look at his surroundings. Some kind of castle. This look only lasted a second before a group of red-clad, masked individuals caught sight of him.
“Intruder! Gettem, boys!” The apparent leader of these masked creatures screeched, in a voice that Luigi couldn’t quite place because Shy Guys talking in the movie hasn’t been confirmed yet.
“No, I, um,” Luigi attempted to say, but was instantly captured. It seemed like the sort of thing that happened to princesses, or would have happened to princesses back in the days before they all got into Girlbossing and Slaying and Other Women Things.
“Take him to the King!” the masked leader commanded. Oh, great. Kings with castles in lava never sound good. Luigi felt pretty darn panicked as they tied him up in ropes and began leading him through the castle. Somehow, the place felt rather cool in temperature despite the lava surrounding it. The air conditioning bills in here must be insane. Luigi wondered what their plumbing situation was like, and if he could use his skill to bargain his way out of here.
The masked guards took him through a door into a huge throne room, with a huge throne, upon which was sitting a huge, spiky, intimidating…turtle…thing.
What kind of universe was Luigi even in??
“Who’s this?” the huge turtle-dragon-man-thing said. His growly voice was instantly a million times more interesting than Mario’s, though this was not the time to be thinking about stuff like that.
“Intruder, sir.” the masked leader said. “Found him just inside the doors.”
“Hm.” the king, apparently, said. “Leave us. I’d like to have a little chat with this intruder.”
The masked guards bowed and left the room.
“Kamek!” the king shouted. Another little turtle-looking thing stepped forward. This one was wearing a blue robe and carrying a wand of some sort.
“Yes, Bowser, King of the Koopas?” the robed one said, apparently called Kamek. “I have to say that for exposition reasons,” Kamek explained to Luigi.
“Float this green bozo,” Bowser said. “It’s intimidating and cool as hell looking. Also, it’s rude to talk to a prisoner while they’re tied up.”
Kamek waved his wand and Luigi started glowing blue and floating. Okay, yeah, this was pretty intimidating. And it did look cool as hell with the blue glow clashing against the reddish-orange lava all around them.
“Not sure if you know who I am,” said Bowser, grinning as he stepped down from his throne and towards Luigi. (Luigi had just gotten expositioned about Bowser’s name, but no, he really had no clue who this dude was.) “But I’m about to rule the world.”
Luigi absolutely believed this to be true. Big castle, kingly title, armies, lava…seemed pretty world-ruley. Bowser was looking at him, and the king tilted Luigi’s chin up with a pointy claw. The claw thing would’ve been intimidating enough, but that wasn’t the only reason for the nerves pooling in Luigi’s stomach. Something about this guy’s eyes, and the tough-yet-chill way he carried himself, and the way he was grinning so self-assuredly was kind of freaking Luigi out. And not in a normal, easy for the heteros to explain way.
“Wow,” Luigi managed. “Yay.”
Bowser removed his claw from Luigi’s throat. “But there’s one problem.” Luigi couldn’t guess what this problem might be. Who’d wanna mess with this guy? He was obviously pretty powerful.
“There’s a human.” Bowser continued. His clawed hand moved to Luigi’s mustache, tugging at it. Okay, that hurt. Also, were humans not normal here? Was this whole world only populated by skeletons and turtle people and masked weirdos?? “Has a mustache, just like you.”
Mario?? How had Bowser met Mario? And how had Mario managed to escape? Well, intimidating as the Koopa King was, Luigi wasn’t going to let him lay a single claw on his brother. He may be terrified right now, but he still cared about his brother, despite, y’know, the voice thing.
“Wears almost the same clothes as you too, except with an ‘M’ on his head instead of an ‘L.” Bowser added, which isn’t in the trailers.
“Do you think I know every human being with a mustache wearing an identical outfit with a hat with the letter of his first name on it? Because I don’t.” Luigi said, wincing as Bowser’s grip on his mustache tightened. The Koopa King looked rather livid. Maybe talking back to a dangerous creature’s face like that wasn’t the best idea.
Bowser glared at him furiously and plucked out a hair of Luigi’s mustache with his sharp claws.
Luigi screamed in pain. Guess he should be more careful about potentially angering a giant turtle-dragon in the future…probably should’ve thought of that one sooner, Luigi.
“Okay, fine. So you don’t know the guy who looks like he could be your brother.” Bowser said. Darn, how’d he guess that one? “So, what does the ‘L’ stand for, then? Loser?” Bowser grinned, crossing his arms.
“No,” Luigi said.
“Lily-liver? You missed an ‘L’ there.”
“No.”
“Hmm, L…Little? ‘Cause you’re such a pipsqueak?” Was Bowser actually teasing him right now?
“It’s Luigi.” said Luigi.
“I’m sticking with Loser.” Bowser grinned. His teeth were sharp. Luigi tried to avoid looking at his mouth. Because it was scary. No other reason.
“All right, Kamek. Take this Loser to his cell. I’m sure that other human would just love to know I’ve got his definitely-not-brother.” Bowser commanded. Kamek nodded and floated Luigi out of the throne room. The last thing Luigi saw before the doors closed was Bowser’s smug, sharp-toothed smirk as he sat back in his throne.
It was ok. Mario would come and save him. Mario was always that kind of older brother. And he clearly had some sort of beef with Bowser, so if Mario found out Bowser was keeping Luigi here, then Mario would definitely come rescue him, right?
Well, Mario wasn’t really the best at fighting, or outrunning skeletons, or busting into lava castles, or anything other than plumbing, really. But he’d do something.
Luigi’s cell was a simple room, with a bed and a barred window, just like you’d expect in a castle prison cell. Who knew where Mario was, so Luigi might as well get comfortable. His brother might take awhile.
Apparently, that guess was more accurate than Luigi realized. He’d been in prison for weeks now, and still no sign of his brother. Skeletons, yes, koopas, yes, the little masked creatures which he’d learned were called shy guys, yes, but no Mario. Luigi overheard a lot of things about conquest and battles and stuff about some princess, and even heard his brother’s name once, but as for actually seeing his brother, nope.
As for his captor…
Well, what was there to say about Bowser? He was still just as scary and intimidating as ever. And he still had that same effect on Luigi. Which was being scared and terrified. Nothing else. He definitely didn’t have cool hair, or a nice grin even though it was a bit too sharp, or shiny eyes. And Luigi definitely hadn’t dropped everything to sit as still as possible when he’d overheard Bowser singing. That guy really knew how to rock. He sounded really… fun.
Almost made Luigi wish he were out there hanging out with the king. Anything is better than being in a cell, that’s true, but there was something else to it. Almost as if Luigi might want to hang out with him even if he weren’t a hostage prisoner.
But that’s just crazy talk!
Sure, Bowser was actually hella cool when you thought about it. But…
There’s supposed to be a ‘but’ here. But it’s hard to think of flaws in the face of somebody who’s just so…kick-ass.
Oh, oh, right! The whole imprisonment thing! There, that was a perfectly good reason to not like somebody. A perfectly reasonable reason. Mario would probably be trying to escape right now. Only, Luigi wasn’t Mario. And he doubted his brother would ever be impressed by a big dragon-turtle king living in a lava palace and jamming to rock music.
The only question now, besides ‘where the ever-loving mushroom is Mario,’ was ‘am I actually still a hostage?’ Because Bowser, evidently, had gotten really bored of the whole imprisonment thing. Luigi chalked it up to Mario taking his sweet, sweet time. Judging by the gossip the koopas talked about outside his door, Luigi guessed that Mario was pretty busy hanging out with mushroom people and princesses.
Well, that just sucked. And how rude of Mario, too! What kind of guy takes a whole movie’s plot-length of time to rescue his brother? Despite all this, Luigi still hoped Mario would show up soon.
Or…he could take a little bit longer, if he needed to. Whatever he was doing must be important, and Luigi wasn’t in too much of a rush to leave now. Bowser, being bored as he was with the whole hostage situation, had started letting him out, heavily guarded of course. Luigi privately thought it might have something to do with that one time Bowser had showed up at his cell to intimidate him and boast about how well things were going with his takeover. Luigi had mentioned Bowser’s singing, which at first made Bowser angry, and then embarrassed, and then he’d started boasting once Luigi had told him he’d liked it.
So now, sometimes the ‘heavily guarded’ part of Luigi’s castle roaming was done by Bowser himself. It wasn’t that they were hanging out, they were just…well, Bowser was just trying to freak Luigi out more, by showing him all his cool armies and weapons and stuff. That’s all. And it sort of worked, at first, because Luigi started feeling a bit nervous that his brother would be facing off against all of this. But then he heard more rumors about a toad army (though why people would want to fight using frogs was a mystery) and figured that Mario had a bit more of a chance.
So after that, it was more like, ‘hey, look at this sick thing I’ve got. Cool, isn’t it,’ as opposed to ‘this is what we’re gonna torture Mario with.’ Luigi liked this a lot better. But the best thing was when Bowser let him come to the throne room while he was having a jam session. The koopa king evidently remembered Luigi’s little comment about how cool his singing was, and took that to heart, because he let Luigi join in pretty often. Or maybe this was a normal thing to do with hostages. Luigi hadn’t ever been a hostage before, so it could be a thing!
“Well, go on, then.” Bowser was saying. They were in the throne room again, another one of Bowser’s severely bored kind of days, which were the kinds of days Luigi got to hang out in there the most.
“Well, gee, I dunno…” Luigi said, nervously. He was standing in front of Bowser, who was holding a truly king-sized electric guitar, with (what else) flames painted on it, as well as the Bowser head emblem that was on some of the castle’s decor. Bowser was attempting to teach him how to use it.
“C’mon, Lean.” Bowser was still calling him anything but Luigi. “Ya gotta strum it. If you like it so much, I’m making you learn it.” Darn. Why had Luigi given Bowser so much positive feedback? At least his mustache wasn’t getting plucked anymore, aside from an occasional, more playful tug.
“Okay, okay.” Luigi tentatively reached out a single finger and gave the strings a weak strum.
“That’s pathetic.” Bowser said. “I mean really strum it! Like this!” He played a loud chord with a flourish, which made Luigi jump at its suddenness. “Use your whole hand.”
Luigi used his whole hand with more force this time, and was rewarded with a quieter chord than Bowser’s, but a chord nonetheless.
“Finally, now you’re gettin’ it! Not nearly as good as me, though, Larva.” Bowser grinned in a sarcastic sort of way, but his eyes gleamed like he was giving a genuine compliment underneath. Luigi smiled bashfully. “Thanks… Bad-zer .”
“Terrible comeback.” Bowser said, his voice playfully disdainful. “Do better. Now lemme show you something really cool.” He stepped back and adjusted the guitar, then with a smug grin in Luigi’s direction, began playing an elaborately complicated and energetic riff. How he managed to work a guitar with claws like that is another of this world’s great mysteries.
Luigi watched in awe, and was it just him going crazy, or did the word cute cross his mind when Bowser started scatting along with the music? No, no, definitely not.
He did not like Bowser. They were just two dudes in a castle having a jam session while waiting for Luigi’s brother to show up. Luigi realized he’d been smiling this whole time. Best not to unpack why being here made him so happy.
“Boom! How’s that? That’s how a real professional does it.” Bowser grinned as he finished. Luigi gave him a polite round of applause, and Bowser bowed.
“If you ever wanna be as good as me at anything, you’re gonna need to practice a hell of a lot more.” Bowser said. “Wanna try it again?”
“Well, okie dokie.” Luigi said. (Catchphrase achieved.) Bowser held out the guitar for him again, and Luigi attempted a few more strums, though he couldn’t achieve the same volume and power as Bowser could.
“No, no, you gotta put more strength into it. Your dumb little human arms can’t match my raw power by being so cautious.” Bowser demonstrated what he meant by grabbing Luigi’s hand and strumming the strings for him. It sounded pretty cool, but Luigi was paying more attention to how warm the palm of Bowser’s hand was. Of course it was warm, they were surrounded by lava! But it made Luigi blush nonetheless.
Oh, shoot.
Oh, shit.
This was not normal. This was unprecedented. This was thoroughly not-even-close-to-canon, and yet…
Luigi tugged his hand away. Bowser raised an eyebrow at this sudden movement, but decided to pay it no attention.
“All right, Legs. That’s enough of you touching my stuff for today. Get back to your room.” Bowser commanded, though he sounded less stern than usual.
Luigi left with a lot more on his mind than when he’d entered.
Okay, so, maybe there was more to this thing than just being a hostage who occasionally hung out. Luigi was kept up at night, thinking about Bowser’s gleaming eyes and sharp grin and voice and singing and a million and ten other things that Mario definitely wouldn’t have been caught dead thinking. Well, Mario wasn’t here, and he had no idea how…how soft the koopa king’s hands were. Or how he looked when he laughed, even if he was laughing at something diabolical.
Well, Luigi was not Mario, so he was definitely thinking about all this stuff. Man, why couldn’t he go back to the days of plumbing and eating spaghetti, when nothing was this complicated and he’d never lain awake at night overthinking a big fire-breathing spiky ruler.
Luigi had seen Beauty and the Beast enough times to recognize this sort of situation. Person captured by monstrous creature, person befriends said creature, person…well, that last bit wasn’t important!
It wasn’t that he had a crush on BOWSER. Come on! Bowser! Really? That’s just crazy tal- oh my word he had a crush on Bowser.
Well, they had been hanging out for a while. And Bowser really wasn’t that bad a guy. But seriously?? This was probably the worst possible time to realize he had feelings for a KOOPA! Mario could show up any day now, if the never-ending and convenient gossiping was anything to go off of.
Luigi definitely could not wait for Mario to rescue him. Once they got home and everything went back to normal, he could just forget all of this crazy mushroom kingdom, koopa, shy guy, Bowser, magic pipes, Bowser, getting separated, army, Bowser stuff ever happened.
He’d said Bowser too many times.
Luigi tried to remind himself that this was the same guy who had tried to scare him into revealing where Mario might be, the day Luigi had been captured, but this thought did not help, because to remember that conversation was to remember how Bowser’s claw had tilted his chin up and the way Bowser’s smug grin had looked and DAMMIT, that did not help!
Luigi covered his face with his pillow and screamed into it.
“Hey, why’re ya screaming? Are you so scared of me that you know I’m coming even before I get there?”
Shit, that very well-casted voice was one Luigi would know anywhere. Out of all the plot-convenient contrivances that could have been executed, having Bowser outside his room at this very moment was one of the worst. So he did what Luigi does, and panicked.
“W-what’re you doing around here?” Luigi asked, attempting to sound calm and cool and chill and NOT AT ALL FREAKING OUT.
Bowser opened the door and stepped in. All doors in this place were built to fit him. “It’s my castle and I can go wherever I want. Also, I was just passing by and you screamed. It’s my job to torture ya if I want to, so I was wondering what punk was doing it for me.”
Luigi attempted a relaxed grin, but only managed a panicked one. “Oh, yeah, I, uh, stubbed my toe! That’s all.” Psh. Like Bowser would even torture him in the first place.
“Hm.” Bowser looked suspicious. “Okay then. Y’know, you’ve been acting weird since our little rock practice. Something’s up with you, and I wanna know what.” He crossed his arms. Great, now he was prying!
“Well, it’s nothing! Just, ah…waiting on Mario to get his shit together and rescue me!” Luigi haphazardly explained, trying and failing again to look and sound natural.
Bowser grinned. “Never heard you swear before.”
Luigi laughed, but it was a high and nervous laugh and not at all normal or relaxed. “I can swear here, this isn’t a kid’s movie.”
“Well, anyway, that scream sounded pretty bad,” Bowser said, and to Luigi’s dismay, stepped closer. “Lemme check out that toe you stubbed. Maybe I’ll get Kamek to fix it.”
Luigi stammered, trying to think of some excuse to scoot away on the bed. “Can he do that?”
“Yeah, he’s magic, ya dumbass.” Bowser said, a short snort of laughter coming from his throat. He’d reached the bed, and picked up Luigi’s ankle between his claws. “This the right foot?”
“Uh, no, the other one.” Luigi mentally kicked himself in the face for digging himself into a deeper hole like this. It did not help that Bowser’s hold was turning his limbs into spaghetti noodles.
Bowser dropped the ankle and picked up the other one. He looked down at it scrutinizingly for a moment, a moment that was far too long in Luigi’s opinion. Bowser’s eyes moved from Luigi’s foot to stare at his face, and Luigi felt warmth crawl up his neck and spread itself on his cheeks.
“Looks fine to me,” Bowser said, quieter and less commanding than a second ago. He was staring into Luigi’s eyes like he could see through them, and Luigi stared back.
Since this was not a staring contest, this look was lasting way too long. Luigi broke the gaze and looked down. “O-oh. That’s good, then. Nothing to worry about, if it looks fine.”
“Yeah, you do.”
Did Bowser seriously just-
“You…what?” Luigi asked.
Bowser looked a little flustered. “You know what I meant, Luigi. You’re pretty good-lookin, for a guy with a mustache wearing an identical outfit with a hat with the first letter of his name on it. Yeah, that’s what I meant.” he said with a sharp-toothed grin.
“Wow, no nickname?” was just about all Luigi could say at the moment.
Bowser looked humorously offended. “C’mon, can’t a guy compliment another guy without having to add loser to the end? Loser.”
Luigi laughed, and this time it was much more genuine. “I- I think you’re really cool too. For a koopa.” He looked away, face redder than a shy guy. Man, he should be the one called shy guy around here.
Bowser smiled, the most happy smile Luigi had ever seen on him. “Are you flirtin’ with me, Luigi? Cause if you are…” He raised a claw to Luigi’s chin and tilted it up towards him. Luigi decided to quit breathing.
“Then lemme know, cause I’d like to return the favor, eh?” Bowser chuckled, and it sent a rumble through his clawed finger and along Luigi’s spine. “Oh, but maybe I shouldn’t. I doubt Mario would be too jazzed about it. Aw, man, and I was having fun, too.” Bowser grinned cheekily and started backing away. That jerk knew exactly what he was doing!
“H-hang on,” Luigi said. “I’m not Mario. Also, he’s not here.” Did that sound too desperate? It probably sounded too desperate. It was a really lame excuse to boot.
“That’s right, he’s not here. And it’s a good thing you’re not Mario, cause if you were I’d burn you to a crisp right now. But you’re just Luigi. That’s good,” Bowser said, and he came back up close to Luigi. “I like Luigi. Even if he sucks ass at playing guitar.”
Luigi laughed again, completely not offended. “I like Bowser.” he said quietly. Bowser’s softer, happy smile came back and he leaned into Luigi’s space.
“So if Luigi likes Bowser and Bowser likes Luigi, then can Bowser and Luigi kiss on the mouth?” Bowser asked, rather cheekily.
“I, uhh, well,” Luigi said flusteredly, looking anywhere and everywhere except at the koopa king in front of him. “Makes sense to me!”
So Bowser did what the gay Mario Bros. fans have been waiting for this whole damn time and kissed that green plumber right on the lips.
Forget Mario, forget Peach, forget this movie has other characters in it, because this was the only thing Luigi cared about right now. Bowser broke the kiss, but didn’t even bother to move backward as he simply engaged in another one. He was very, very warm. Luigi was having a lot of ‘firsts’ lately, and including the running for his life, this was somehow the most nerve-wracking. Seriously, he was kissing a fire-breathing, sharp-toothed, clawed koopa king on the mouth, which was not only really gay but also totally against what Mario would want him to be doing at the moment.
“Mm,” Bowser hummed, low in his throat. “Luigi-”
“What?” Luigi whispered.
Bowser reached up a finger and gently brushed a claw over Luigi’s cheek.
“Your mustache is ticking me, man. Do better.” He tugged the end of Luigi’s mustache, effectively killing the kind-of-romantic mood they’d got going on.
“B-Bowser!” Luigi hissed, slapping the hand away as Bowser erupted into more rumbling laughter.
“Okay, okay. Goodnight, Luigi.” Bowser said, getting up and moving to the door.
“Yeah. Goodnight, Bowser.” Luigi called back.
“Tomorrow. Throne room. You’re gonna get better at strumming if it kills you.” Bowser
added.
“Don’t you mean, ‘if it kills me?’” Luigi asked.
“Yeah, that’s what I said. Night!” Bowser grinned and left the room.
Luigi lay back on his bed, musing over the whole thing. Yeah, it was definitely not anything Mario would even be caught dead thinking about doing, but he honestly didn’t care if Mario would have done it or not. He actually hoped Mario would hate the idea, because if Mario agreed with him, then that would mean Mario also agreed that Bowser was super awesome and attractive, and Mario should definitely not butt into this whole thing Luigi had going on with the koopa king. Yeah, Mario. Stay in your lane.
So, Mario would probably show up soon, try and defeat Bowser, and everything would get back to normal. But Luigi privately thought that his life would never be normal again, at least not unless Bowser was in it. That was really cheesy. Oh well, he needed sleep. All this Mario business could wait to be thought about until morning. Luigi had more important things to think about at the moment.
Yeah, yeah, namely Bowser. But that’s just the kind of corny-ass sentences you sign up for when you get involved in something sappy and gay like this!
And honestly, Luigi was glad he had gotten involved.