Chapter Text
Luigi relied heavily on his other senses. For as far back as he remembered he had relied on the textures, tastes, and smells of things and places when his vision began to give out. And how fast it gave out indeed. At first, it was just the slight blurriness in one eye. It didn’t seem to bother Luigi as much. His world wasn’t completely turned on its axis yet.
Then that eye slowly began to lose its vision in its entirety. Soon, the Italian was only left with vision in one of his eyes and that was already beginning to worsen. Before Luigi lost half his sight he would be on adventures with his older brother, Mario. (At least when the adventures weren’t too demanding or frightening to say the least.) Once the vision started to leave, Mario started to grow more concerned.
“You need to-a stay and rest, Weegie…” His brother voiced in the concerned and slightly patronizing voice that he usually addressed Luigi with.
“I’m not-a completely impotent yet, bro… besides, ti preoccupi troppo a volte…” Luigi would mumble back with a slight shake of his head. The idea of Mario worrying too much was a true statement, however when you held it up to how Luigi worried it was almost hypocritical.
Almost.
Mario had every right to worry about him though, Luigi would tell himself. Just as he had every right to worry about him. Even though Mario constantly went through life unscathed, untouchable, and nearly perfect in many regards. Luigi often shook these thoughts off though. They didn’t matter to him. They were both different people who wanted different things out of life.
The worrying got worse when his other eye began to lose its vision. Luigi could faintly remember the day when Mario rushed him to Doctor Toad and many other nurses in the Mushroom Kingdom to find out what was wrong with his younger brother. It was horrifying. Not the vision loss, seeing Mario so… lost. So confused. It was almost as if that wasn’t Mario. While the vision loss was surprising the Mario bros did find out what was happening and how it wouldn’t stop.
The simple way to say it was that Luigi would be losing most if not all of his vision come this time next year. Soon he wouldn’t even be able to leave the house without Mario fussing about it. As of now, he could barely do so! However, that didn’t bother Luigi so much. (It bothered him but he knew that Mario was simply just becoming a worrywart.)
To any other person being the equivalent of home shackled would have sent them into hysteria. Especially when the staple, staring at a blank wall, became odd to do so considering that it was all a blob to him. To Luigi though? This whole situation gave him an excuse. Now he didn’t have to wander around town, seeing the disappointed faces when he would travel without the well-loved Mario by his side. That is if they even noticed him .
Which, they often didn’t but Luigi wasn’t one to take it in stride… usually. That isn’t to say he minded being totally invisible. He actually preferred to be in the background. Gods forbid that he himself was thrown into what seemed to be the limelight that Mario was in. No thanks. Luigi was perfectly content in his little bubble. Perfectly fine spending time with his brother, the princesses, and his pup, Polterpup.
This was where he was this particular afternoon. Not with the princesses or his brother, but with his dog. Simply laying on the couch with the latter sprawled on his lap. Over him, Luigi tried his best to focus on the book he held. He had to really be in the mood to read and be able to observe the words that were staring back at him. He couldn’t do that today. It wasn’t that the book was boring, it was just that it was blurry and he was already feeling pretty drowsy.
Luigi brushed some of his hair back as he craned his head around to look in the kitchen. Half expecting Mario to be there, cooking or as he more recently picked up, baking away. But no. Luigi had to remind himself, yet again, that Mario was off in another kingdom for who knows how long. He slightly smiled at the idea of his big bro being able to take in and see the new beauties of the kingdoms.
Before his health factored in, Luigi loved when Mario would drag him along on those types of adventures. Just ones where there was little to do and more to see. ‘I should have gone on more of those types.’ Luigi often thought. It was true though. The Mushroom Kingdom was beautiful, no questions about it. However, it was something that the Italians had gotten used to. Something that he was familiar with. Yet, that was safe. And safe was good.
Being safe was what had been keeping him alive. And being alive was important. Before he could go on a train of thought, Luigi heard slight barking. He turned his head to slightly make out Polterpup scrambling off his lap and making his way over to the door. That was his cue. Luigi pushed himself off the couch and slowly began making his way to the door, careful to not tumble into anything that Polterpup himself might have knocked over or that Mario might have left on the ground.
He clumsily pushed his feet into comfy brown boots and grabbed his usual green hat before he shakily put Polterpup on the leash.
Grabbing his keys and throwing the door open he was nearly taken off guard with his dog running out immediately. Luigi could barely close the door behind him before letting out a slight laugh upon hearing the ghost’s excited barks. Despite the absolute excitement of Polterpup, they were both able to make it into an easy walking speed. It had already seemed that Polterpup was well aware that Luigi wasn’t able to keep up completely with him. Even though they had given no implications whatsoever of that being the case.
However, whenever it was Luigi walking the dog, he noticed that Polterpup tended to stick closer to the trail and was less likely to go running off at the drop of a hat. It allowed Luigi to be able to walk without constantly worrying or looking over his shoulder at the slight movement or sounds that he heard.
He was able to take in the splash of colours that he was able to see, even if he wasn’t able to make out the tiny details. However, he was sure that with the bright sun shining down on him that nothing could really be wrong in a place like this. The details weren’t so important to him nor was he hung up on them anymore.
Sure, there were certain times when he would miss being able to make out a tiny detail in an animal or in the flower gardens around him. But it could be worse. It could be worse he constantly reminded Mario and himself. Besides, what could really be bad about it in the grand scheme of things? He wasn’t missing out on anything and he was still able to live contently.
That was the most important thing.