Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mario wakes within a dream. He’s in his childhood bed, in his childhood bedroom, and the room seems darker than normal. Its corners are so pitch black they seem to go on forever, static-y darkness that seems to move the longer one stares into it. The room is also blanketed in an eerie thick fog that glows a luminescent green. The fog, like the shifting darkness, also seems to have a mind of its own, moving in eddies and flows. It parts for Mario as he stands from bed, dressed in the pajamas he remembers going to bed in. A few steps forward reveals that Luigi’s old bed is empty and made, as if it’s never been occupied. So Mario moves to the closed door instead, finding the doorknob with almost twenty years of muscle memory.

His gasp of shock and fear, along with his stumbling feet, as he jolts back, bumping his back to the doorjamb, is disruptively loud in the absolute silence of the dream world. There, hovering just outside the door, fist extended as if to knock, mouth open as if to call for him, is a ghostlike version of his mother, glowing pink from within and translucent, her legs fading into a wisp-like tail. 

"Mama?” Mario breathes into the darkness, and it’s only then that he realizes he’s seven all over again, his voice tiny and trembling, his mother seeming so tall. 

Considering her frozen posture, Mario is unsurprised when she doesn’t respond. He timidly steps around her, scooting along, weirdly scared to come into contact with her. Hoping again that this is all a dream, Mario worries what would happen if the spectral copy of his mother were to wake. 

Little Mario wanders this dark and desolate version of his childhood home with small, echoing steps, his heart pounding so loudly, the seven-year-old is sure it’s audible. The borders of each room are almost nonexistent, yawning into endless darkness instead, the glowing fog barely illuminating anything. Mario finds the similar spectral form of his father in the kitchen, sitting entirely still and unaware at their kitchen table, glowing navy blue. Sitting with him are grandma, Uncle Tony, and Aunt Maria, all similarly ghost-like, colored colors Mario’s little mind can’t unpack at the moment. He finds Grandpa in the living room, sitting in an armchair in front of a static-ridden TV, its glow the brightest source of light Mario has encountered so far. 

Mario has yet to find Luigi. So he keeps looking. He checks bedrooms, bathrooms, even the garage. As he searches, Mario’s nausea grows, his tiny, fisted hands shaking terribly. There is one place left to look. His stomach seems to descend all the way there on its own, his fear almost mind-numbing. 

The basement is forbidden. 

When he opens the door to the basement, his eyes widen as he spies the lone bare bulb growing brightly at the foot of the stairs. They creak loudly underneath him. 

“Weegee?” He calls into the darkness of the room, and there is no answer. 

Each step further into the basement seems to stretch for miles, Mario’s fear is so loud. He’s started to cry, but is unsure why. The fog down here seems to glow brighter, and move faster.

A low, muted groan echoes through the basement, and Mario breaks into a run.

“Weegee?!” He screams, and he thinks he hears an answering laugh, low and cruel. 

And suddenly, the fog shifts red, casting the room in a bloody glow. At the fog's epicenter is a ghost, sitting in a chair. Even sitting, he seems so massively huge, towering over Mario, who is frozen with fear.

Uncle Arthur smiles, his blank eyes like glowing coals, his form consisting of swirling blackness. His massive hands rest on his broad thighs, his knees spread. This ghost has legs, and between them, between his shoe-clad feet, is a cage. A dog’s kennel. And inside, entirely whole and seeming alive, all limbs and pale, bruised flesh, is Luigi. 

Tiny, seven year-old-Luigi, his humongous aquamarine eyes dull and distant, unfocused. As if empty inside. He sits naked, knees to his chest, his matchstick arms wrapped around himself protectively. Mario, speechless, forces his hand and wrist between the thin bars, straining to reach his twin—

“You tryna take his place, coraggioso piccolo Mario? What a good fratellone you are!”

Mario wakes again with a half-choked cry, sitting bolt-upright in bed, his heart beating out of his chest. He pants hard, great heaving gasps, as his eyes wildly scan the familiar, sunlit features of his room. The room he had picked when he and Luigi first moved into this apartment almost five years ago, on their nineteenth birthday. 

He listens to the sounds of the bustling city outside his bedroom window and starts counting to ten, over and over, willing himself to calm down, willing his hands to quit shaking. 

“What the fuck?” He eventually mutters, scrubbing his face with his hands, pressing his clammy palms to his eyes. 

Behind his eyelids, the image of his seven-year-old baby brother lingers, silent and staring at the feet of Uncle Arthur.

With sudden, intense urgency triggered by the roiling in his stomach, Mario leaps from bed, sprinting down the hall to the bathroom, where his knees meet the cool tile floor, his hands finding the toilet’s rim. He barely has time to reconcile it’s happening as the vomit forces its way up his throat and out his mouth, coming out his nose. He thinks of the man-sized, hand-shaped bruises wrapped around little Luigi’s upper arms and thighs and vomits harder. 

“Mar? You okay?” A quiet, timid voice floats from the doorway, and Mario wills himself to stop crying.

He’s always been the strong one, after all. 

He hears Luigi’s sock-clad feet pad across tile. He startles, and then relaxes, as Luigi’s achingly familiar hand slips into his hair, rubbing his scalp comfortingly.

“What huh-happened, big bro? Did you have a nuh-nuh-nightmare?”

Mario can only nod before another heave begins. Luigi hums in sympathy, his hand slipping down Mario’s back to rub in firm, comforting circles. 

“Oh, Mar, andrà tutto bene. It’s over now.  I’m here, and everything will be—”

“Okay, as long as we’re together.” Mario finishes, his voice thick and rough. 

Luigi helps him to his feet, moves him with gentle hands to the sink. Mario swishes his mouth clean as Luigi wets a washcloth, pressing the cold, damp fabric to Mario’s temples, his forehead, cooling his burning cheeks. Mario does his best not to meet his little brother’s eyes during this whole process, worried that Luigi’s tender, gentle ministrations may bring him to tears all over again. 

“C’mon, let’s go get you cozy again. You can watch me fuh-finish this level if you like, and then I’ll make us lunch, okay? Your tuh-tummy should be settled by then, I huh-hope.”

Luigi leads his upset older brother to his room, Mario’s hand rough and warm in his. He settles once again in his pillow-nest and pats the cushions beside himself, smiling and humming as Mario obediently sits beside him. Mario sighs, as he tucks himself against his brother’s side, safe and warm. His eyes follow Luigi as he settles back into his game, his hands once again finding the NES controller, as well as the now-unlit joint resting in an ashtray on the floor between Luigi’s mound of pillows and his small, slightly grainy old box TV. 

“Decided to wake-and-bake, Weeg? Isn’t it a bit early?”

“It’s almost nuh-noon, Mar. I’ve been up for hours. I’m kinda stuh-stuh-stuck on this dungeon. Maybe you can help me.”

Mario watches Luigi bring the joint to his mouth, filter between lips, his cheeks hollowing out as he lights it and takes a drag. Thick, heady-smelling smoke wisps from his little brother’s nose, the corners of his mouth. Mario smiles, his mouth and throat feeling strangely tight and dry, as he watches Luigi’s pretty blue eyes glaze over, the whites turning pinker with each drag he takes. He watches that familiar, slightly-vacant smile bloom across Luigi’s face and ignores the painful ache in his chest. 

In the back of his mind, Mario wonders how much Luigi remembers.

When Luigi offers him the joint with a wordless little gesture of the joint between his slender fingers, Mario doesn’t hesitate to take it. He breathes in, coughing roughly on his exhale, Luigi patting his back. It’s good though, perfect even, as Mario’s mind almost instantly softens at the edges, quieting, a spacy haze slowly but surely blanketing his thoughts.. 

“Good?”

“Yeah. Better already, Lu. What would I do without you?”

Luigi’s smile captures whatever air is left in Mario’s lungs. But Mario can’t bring himself to mind. 

The twins spend the next hour or so like this, stoned and snuggled side by side in the gigantic pile of pillows that takes up most of the floor of Luigi’s bedroom. Their twin blue-eyed gazes, soft and glassy, are enraptured by the bright colors of the game. Luigi sways gently to the 8-bit music, occasionally humming along.

“So much effort in saving the princess.” He mumbles.

“I’d imagine there always is, Lu. I doubt saving a princess is easy.”

Luigi finally enters the boss room, and for the next ten or so minutes, Mario is silent and slightly breathless watching his little brother beat the hulking, tusked blue-toned pig with detached precision. The only sound in the room is the practiced little clicks and taps  of Luigi’s fingers on buttons and the impassioned, tense boss music ringing tinny from the TV’s speakers.

“That’s-a my fratellino! Awesome and strong!” Mario exclaims, lightly punching Luigi’s shoulder as the pig boss finally falls dead in a roiling cloud of purple smoke.  

Luigi just smiles shyly, his eyes flitting away to avoid Mario’s proud stare. He pauses the game and stands, stumbling slightly, stretching his arms above his head, his head tilting back with a groan. Mario looks away from the long, slender line of his little brother’s body, purposely ignores the pale sliver of skin that winks at him as Luigi’s shirt rides up, the soft dark curls descending from his twin’s navel to travel underneath the waistband of his white-and-green-striped boxers. 

That voice that’s always in Mario’s head says something, but Mario doesn’t catch it, its words addled and quiet under the stoned haze. 

“Gonna go make lunch.” Luigi mumbles, stepping over Mario’s lap and billy-goating his way over several pillows before reaching the door. 

Mario piddles around with the game for a few distracted minutes before standing, stretching himself before padding out into the hallway. Luigi’s distant, cheery humming grows louder the further Mario goes down the hallway. He eventually catches sight of his little brother at the island-counter in their kitchen, the sleeves of his forest-green hoodie pushed up his arms, elbow deep in a big glass bowl of dough.

“Whatcha makin’, Lu?”

“Calzone.” Luigi replies quietly, smiling gently as he kneads the dough into a big, smooth ball. “I started the dough when I got up this morning.”

“Looks and sounds perfetto, fratellino!”

“It is. Perfect, I mean. The duh-dough.” Luigi stammers just slightly, but he’s smiling contentedly, a blush riding high on his face. 

“Everrrything my little brother cooks is perfect! It’s-ah his talento, I think.” Mario praises in a sing-song-y voice, grinning, resting his hip on the counter to watch as Luigi turns the dough out onto his floured work surface.

Luigi’s blush deepens, but so does his smile. He buries slender hands in a massive porcelain jar of flour. They come out dusty and white-cast, sure and steady as they coat the round, perfect surface of the not-quite-yet bread. Luigi uses the side of his hand to expertly split the dough from a full moon to two halves.

“Could you make cuh-coffee?” He murmurs, and Mario complies in an instant. 

The sound of the coffee grinder is homey, and its smell even better. Mario tamps the espresso down expertly into their well-loved Moka pot, gleaming in the low light of the kitchen. He imagines Lu scrubbing it, pink-padded fingers and steel wool, and mindfully puts just as much care into starting the espresso brewing. While by the stove, he stirs the pot of rich tomato sauce simmering away, a wooden spoon resting on a little porcelain plate. 

The brothers work side by side then, ladling sauce onto dough, sprinkling cheese, precisely-placed toppings. Mario asks Luigi to fold and seal his calzone, trusting his brother’s skill far more than his own. They drink espresso—Mario’s black in a tiny white cup, Luigi’s with cream and a hopeless amount of sugar in a checkered coffee mug—as the calzones bake. Mario reads aloud from the paper, as Luigi stares, always just slightly vacant, out of their big bay window, absentmindedly petting the cat curled up in his lap. Capone, with his tuxedo fur and catfish-long whiskers, stares up at Luigi lovingly. 

Mario’s nightmare, the shadow of what “home” used to mean for them, is forgotten in the gentle domesticity of their new life together. 

Later, after the sun has long set, Luigi finds Mario reading at the bay window, Capone snuggled similarly in his older brother’s lap.

“Hey, Lu.” Mario acknowledges, and waits patiently for his brother, shyly staring at the floor, to communicate with him.

“I, uh…there’s a huh-house show tonight. At Destiny’s? Low Shoulder is playing, it’s their luh-last show before they go on tuh-tour.”

“You wanna go?” Mario asks, already scooping up Capone in big tan hands, pouring the disgruntled feline to the floor.

“Well yuh-yeah,” Luigi stammers, both of his hands out in front of him, as if in surrender, “buh-but you don’t have to go—”

“Of course I want to, Weeg! As if I’d rather be here alone than wherever you are.”

Luigi's answering smile is small and shy and painfully sweet. Mario stands, gently clasping the taller man’s shoulder as he passes. 

The water is cold after Luigi gets out of the shower, but Mario doesn’t mind. After, Mario stands in the privacy of his room, toweling his hair dry, the radio playing quietly. He dresses slowly, taking his time as the smell of weed wafts from down the hallway. Leave it to Luigi to pregame before the function. He finds Luigi sitting on his bed in his room, cartoons on the TV as Luigi pulls on his tan work boots, lacing them slowly with clumsy fingers. 

“Here, Lu.” Mario goes to his knees and takes over, his lacing neater and tighter, perfect little double-knot bows with Luigi’s green socks peeking from underneath. 

Luigi thanks him shyly and continues packing the tiny black bag resting in his lap, a small canvas shoulder bag shaped like a fanny pack, but with a shorter strap, a keychain of a plush little ghost wearing a crown dangling from it. Inside goes Luigi’s supplies—a jar of bud, his mushroom-shaped grinder, his green hemp rolling papers. His lighter, bright pink and patterned with kittens chasing butterflies. 

“Pretty gay of you,” Mario had said when Luigi had bought it at the gas station, and his little brother had just laughed.

Luigi also packs two Stellas— just in case —and his GameBoy (just in case), along with his phone, a beat up black screen with a slide-out keyboard, ringed in neon green. 

The walk to Destiny Del Vecchio’s house is chillier than Mario had anticipated, and he wishes he’d thought to wear a sweater like Luigi had, the soft green knit belling out baggily over his little brother’s black jean cutoff shorts. The long sleeves are folded over Luigi’s hands, his little bag on his shoulder. Tiny silver hoops flash in his baby brother’s ears as they pass under a streetlight, a simple silver chain around Luigi’s neck, and Mario’s stomach flips.

He’s dressed up. Why? 

“You look wuh-wuh-weird wearing your wuh-work hat, Mar.”

Mario self-consciously touches the brim of his red, M-emblazoned cap. He’s wearing his work overalls too, but his usual shirt is replaced with a red tank top, his muscles proudly on display. 

Damn, it is chilly out tonight.

“It would’na been weird if you’d worn yours, Lu.”

Luigi just shrugs. 

The party is in full swing when they get there, people spilling out the front doors of the Del Vecchio mansion and all the way down the wide marble steps, gathered in groups and pairs in the lawn, a bonfire glowing brightly off to the side, surrounded by people holding beers. Several people greet the Mario Brothers as they pass, the older, shorter one waving and smiling brightly, greeting them in reply. His taller younger brother trails behind him, his head tilted down, his face flushed. As the crowd gets denser, the further up the stairs they go, Mario feels one of Luigi’s hands wrap around one of his overall straps, his little brother very close at his back, hovering just behind and slightly over Mario’s shoulder. 

Mario is fully aware that Luigi would not have gone without him. 

The brothers weasel their way inside of the party, making an almost immediate left once inside into the Del Vecchio’s massive, marble-and-granite kitchen. The counters are a feast of empty liquor bottles, red Solo cups, and half-empty boxes of Brooklyn-style pizza. Luigi quietly makes himself and his brother rum-and-Cokes while Mario mingles, waving and smiling. 

“How’s the plumbing trade going for the Super Mario Brothers?”

“Lucrative!” Mario hollers, puffing up proudly as laughter scatters through their immediate vicinity. 

Drinks secured, the brothers pick their way through the crowd and into the main room. Everything vibrates just slightly, the floor shaking as bass booms from the massive speakers in the corner of the room. The crowd is denser near the stage, all of them jumping, yelling with closed eyes and open mouths, heads banging in time. 

“Love the Sleigh Bells.” Luigi sighs dreamily.

“You’ve always loved riot girl shit. Wanna move closer?”

Mario speaks into Luigi’s ear directly, so his little brother can hear him. He feels rather than sees Luigi’s head shake, his soft skin and hair on Mario’s face. The older brother steps back and scans the room before grabbing Luigi’s arm and dragging him gently over to where he spies Destiny, looking gorgeous and haunting as always in her trad goth makeup and Victorian mourning apparel. Mario tells her as much in a low-pitched yell as soon as they’re in earshot, and Destiny just beams, giving the brothers a slow twirl to show off her billowing skirt, her heeled boots and fishnets. There’s a reason Luigi had initially thought he had a crush on Destiny in high school, and there’s a reason why that crush built itself into a solid friendship over the last few years. Destiny is radiantly herself, radically kind and unquestionably cool, and Luigi (and Mario, if he’s honest) has always admired her for this. 

“Bangin’ party as always, Des.”

“Thanks Mario! Luigi, how you doin’ babe?”

Luigi just beams back at her and offers two thumbs up.

The three of them stand close together, sipping their drinks and head-bobbing, as the Sleigh Bells pound through the room. As the band begins their top-rated song, Luigi’s favorite, Mario suddenly finds Luigi’s now-empty cup in his hand as his buzzed brother begins to firmly head bang along to the music. Destiny’s laugh is like bells, ringing through the crowd as she joins in, and suddenly the crowd—Luigi included, Mario’s chest squeezes, his face warm—is screaming along.

“Wasted all day killing all the Capulets!”

Destiny and Luigi dance and scream along to the entire track, Mario standing to the side, slightly awkward, two empty cups stacked in one hand. Someone passes him a joint, and Mario shrugs and takes a drag. Ironically, this isn’t his scene. It’s loud, and crowded—it wouldn’t usually be Luigi’s cup of tea either, except the music absolves all discomfort. Luigi has always found absolute peace and joy in booming bass, in the high energy of all these moving people having a great time, in the ecstatic roar of their combined voices, not-quite drowned out by the music. 

The song finishes, and Luigi turns to Mario immediately. His aqua eyes practically glow with excitement, his chest heaving, his face red and beaming with a wide grin.

Mario offers the still-lit joint to his brother, watching how Luigi’s eyes gleam even brighter. Destiny and Lu share it, taking big deep drags, shotgunning smoke into each other’s faces, mouths open, and Mario tamps down the angry swell of jealousy in his gut. He’s just about to excuse himself to get more booze when Destiny’s brother Joe walks up to them, hollering an arrogant hey bros! as he loops a loose arm over his sister’s shoulders.

Destiny and Joe are as different from each other as Mario and Luigi are similar. While Destiny has always been an edgy, arts-minded girl, her brother is the definition of masculinity—big and muscled and top player on every sports team their highschool had to offer. Even now, Joe is a coach for the local college football team. And even now, Joe is clad in gym shorts, a muscle tee, and smells quite strongly of sweat and body smell. 

Joe plucks the joint out of Luigi’s hands, taking a drag, blowing smoke in Mario’s little brother’s face.

“Enjoying the show, little Lou-ee-gay?” 

Mario snarls at the mean pronunciation of his brother’s name, but Luigi doesn’t seem to notice, soft and stoned and nodding earnestly up at Joe. Anger rising, Mario forces himself to leave so he doesn’t start something Luigi wouldn’t want him to finish. He goes back to the kitchen to fix two more drinks. But when he comes back, he finds Destiny alone, gently swaying to filler music as the next band begins setting up their equipment.

“Where’d Luigi go?”

“Not sure! Bathroom I think? Anyway, Rio, I wanted to introduce you—”

Destiny proceeds to introduce Mario to some girl—she is pretty, with her blonde hair and her kitten-pink dress and matching heels—but Mario can only offer the occasional oh wow, that's-ah great, as he scans the room, looking for Luigi. 

“You party people ready to rock?! ” The lead singer of Low Shoulder shouts into the mic, some reedy elder-emo with raccoon eyeliner. 

Mario realizes suddenly that Luigi is about to miss his favorite band’s set. He abandons their drinks on some random table and works his way through the gathering, growing crowd out of the main room and into the hallway. He glances quickly in all the downstairs rooms, his worry and annoyance growing as Luigi is nowhere to be found. He even goes upstairs, stumbling across several couples in various stages of undressed fumblings and third-or-fourth bases. He grimaces, his anger reaching boiling pitch at these thoughtless public displays of “affection”. 

He claps his hand on his forehead when it dawns on him where he should have checked first—the stoner den, downstairs. He stands in the doorway, scanning the dim, smoke-hazed basement of the Del Vecchio’s, people lounging and talking quietly on couches and bean bags, several people playing a fighting game on their massive in-wall TV.  

But Luigi isn’t there either.

“Just where the fuck is he?”  Mario mutters to himself as he trudges upstairs, his anger settling deeper into concern.

He realizes his hands are shaking. With a sigh, he pats his front overall pocket, relieved to find his cigarettes and lighter there. With the foyer basically empty now, Mario gets outside easily, stepping into the cool summer night air. He begins to calm almost instantly, under the light of the moon, listening to the soft nighttime drone of bugs and the distant interstate. 

Mario walks through the front lawn into the Del Vecchio’s gated back lawn, putting his back to some artfully-manicured hedge.

“Rich people.” He mutters, sighing as he lights himself a cigarette.

The nicotine does wonders to clear his anxious mind, settles the discontented unease roiling low in his stomach. It always feels like this, being away from his little brother for more than ten minutes. He’s never really learned how to stomach Luigi being out of his line of sight in any capacity. Mario focuses on minimizing this feeling as he takes mindful, deep drags of his cig, watching the smoke curl up to a velvety sky, the stars hidden in the orange-ish haze cast by the city. Mario and Luigi used to love counting the stars out at the lake, the cabin in the country shared by the Mario family. 

But Mario doesn’t want to think about that place.

He’s just pulling out his phone to text Luigi and ask where the fuck he is, and if they can leave—they are missing Low Shoulder, after all—when he hears it. A low, slick sort of sound, followed by a muffled groan.

Ahh fuck. Shit. Mario mentally bemoans, as he peaks around the hedge, already cringing, knowing he’s gonna spy some couple literally fucking on the other side of—

Mario’s eyes go comically wide, his mouth falling open, his cellphone tumbling, silently forgotten, into the plush, striped lawn. That voice that’s always in the back of Mario’s mind is screaming now, impossible to ignore, but there are no words, as Mario’s gaze drinks up every single detail of what’s happening, even as he fails to comprehend it at all. 

Joe Del Vecchio has his back up against the hedge, his head thrown back, blond curls tugging in twigs. He’s struggling to stay quiet, his mouth pinched, his face scrunched, as he thrusts into Luigi’s mouth. Mario can hear the sound of the suction from here, can unwillingly imagine how delicious it is—as he stares at his beloved fratellino on his knees in the grass, his mouth pink and wet and open wide, drool ribboning slowly from swollen lips. Mario winces as Luigi gags wetly, his gut dropping as Joe’s broad, tanned hand finds its way into Lu’s soft, glossy hair, forcing his cock—just as girthy and long as Joe is tall and thick—further into the twin’s glorious mouth.

Luigi whimpers in response, his aquamarine eyes fluttering shyly, glazed with hesitant lust, as he stares up from the ground into Joe’s face. One of Luigi’s hands is a firm ring around the base of Joe’s dick, stroking whatever he can’t fit into his mouth, his other hand pressed firmly, palm down, at the little bulge in his shorts, as if willing his own erection away. 

Mario has just started moving to intervene—though he has no idea what he’s actually gonna do —when Joe speeds up, quite actively fucking Luigi’s face now. The lewd slapping sound of it, along with Lu’s muffled whimpers and gags, echo across the empty lawn. 

Assolutamente no—mio Dio— Mario’s only coherent thought so far, a snarl, as he feels himself swelling in his overalls. 

Joe groans loudly and suddenly, startling Mario enough to freeze him. He watches, his mind going blank with rage, fists clenched as Joe takes Luigi’s head in both of his massive hands, thrusting forward as deep as he can and going still, holding the twin in place as he cums. Lu seems to be struggling to breathe, his nostrils flaring, his eyes rolling back just slightly, tears rolling down his cheeks. His hands are wrapped around Joe’s wrists, pushing weakly, quite obviously needing Joe to stop, needing air—

Everything goes so quiet, and seems to move in slow motion, as Mario’s fist comes in direct, bone-jarring contact with the underside of Joe Del Vecchio’s jaw. He gets the much, much larger man on the ground in seconds, straddles his barrel chest, and starts punching as hard as he can with both fists. Joe’s head snaps from side to side, blood spattering into green grass. Distantly, Mario can hear his little brother crying.

Andrà tutto bene, Weegee, this’ll only take a second, just hold on for me—

But Luigi can’t wait, having taken both of his older brother’s overall straps in his hands, yanking as hard as he can, desperately trying to pull Mario off of Joe Del Vecchio, who has gone unconscious under Mario’s split knuckles.

“Mario!! Mario please! Please, please stop—mio Dio—Mar! Mar stop, you’ll kill him!”

Mario finally snaps back to reality, the rage-induced red haze obscuring his vision clearing suddenly. His body sags, his fists dropping to Joe’s chest, as he stares down at the man’s face. It resembles lasagna. 

Sound returns to Mario in full blast, and he can hear now with perfect clarity Luigi’s sobbing, hitching cries and wails, the pained, wheezy sound of his little brother hyperventilating. 

“Lu?” Mario asks, his tone rough and concerned.

He stands, staggering up to his feet unsteadily. He’s surprised to find that he’s shaking, hard. And his hands hurt…badly. He finds Luigi sitting in the grass only a foot or so away, his face hidden in his hands, sobbing uncontrollably, his body shaking as he struggles to breath through a panic attack. It seems after he wasn’t strong enough to pull Mario off, his legs had given out, and he’d sat in the grass and watched. 

“Lu?” Mario repeats, crouching down next to his little brother. 

He gathers Luigi into his arms, already rubbing his back and arms in firm, smooth motions, trying to calm down the attack and get Luigi to start breathing normally again. Lu seems to be shaking to pieces, his tears seemingly never-ending, his beet-red, fever-hot face pressed into the side of Mario’s neck, not calming down in the slightest. So Mario moves his brother with a gentle hand in his hair and a hand under his chin, pressing his forhead to Lu's firmly, their gazes meeting and holding. And it works like a charm, as it always does, Lu's breathing beginning to slow as a soft half-smile begins to blossom on his face. 

They sit like this for several long moments before the back door of the Del Vecchio mansion opens, Destiny Del Vecchio herself stepping through, mere seconds away from discovering the unconscious, smashed up, barely-breathing body of her older brother. 

In a blink of an eye, the Mario Brothers are up and running, through the grass, out the gate, onto the sidewalk, and down the street. They’re a full block away and out of sight when they both hear Destiny’s scream of horror echo through the night. 

“Mar, stop!” Luigi pleads, trying to plant his feet, trying to tug Mario’s vice-like grip off of his wrist.

But Mario doesn’t seem to register him at all, running as fast as he can, dragging his little brother behind him the whole time, covering several blocks in minutes.

“Mariooo!” Luigi cries loudly before dissolving into a coughing fit.

Mario once again comes back inside his own head and pulls Luigi into an alley where they can hide and rest, Luigi panting and half-crouched, his hands braced on his thighs as he takes great big struggling breaths. Mario catches his own breath, as he listens to the faint sound of yelling echo from down the street. Faintly, a siren starts up in the distance. Mario listens to the wail of the ambulance grow slowly but surely closer as he fumbles with his cigarettes, trying and failing to light one. 

“Why did you do that, Mar?!” Luigi yells, and Mario grimaces.

“I dunno, Lu, I had to—”

“No, no you didn’t—”

“Well I did!” Mario shouts. 

Both brothers flinch, his yell so much louder and angrier than Luigi’s. Mario’s face warps further into a snarl as his little brother backs away from him, his shoulders hunched, his outstretched hands trembling.

Cowering away from him, just like—

“I just couldn’t let him do that to you, Lu—”

“Do what, Mario?”

“Fucking— ugh, cazzo—” Mario pinches the bridge of his nose, his voice shaking with rage, unable to even put into words what Luigi had done.

“But I wanted him to, Mar!” Luigi cries, still holding his hands up in surrender, and Mario snaps.

He grabs his little brother up with both hands in the front of Lu’s soft green sweater, slamming him into the brick alley wall, holding Luigi up above his own head. Luigi stares down at his big brother in horror, tears dripping steadily from his chin, his lower lip quivering. He goes still, eerily still—it’s called a fawn reflex, Mario and Luigi had learned in joint therapy—both of his thin hands resting over Mario’s clenched fists, his bloody split knuckles. 

“Shut up Lu, stai zitto, cazzo! I don’t—ugh, I don’t want to...to know— ”

Mario’s voice breaks, and Luigi’s face twists in sympathy. 

“Buh-But I—”

“Ho detto stai zitto, cazzo, Luigi!”

Mario slams his little brother up against the wall one last time before letting go, stepping away, both of his hands pressed to his own head, as if trying to hold his skull together by force. He watches through narrowing tunnel vision as Luigi falls to the ground, grass-stained knees busting on asphalt. He can see Luigi looking up at him, his tear-filled blue eyes wide with timid concern.

“Muh-Muh-Mah-Mario?” Luigi stammers with great effort. “Are you oh-okay?”

Mario shakes his head with a grunt, his teeth grit. That voice in his head—the voice that has always sounded just like Uncle Arthur—has never been louder. The rage is a physical presence, the bitterness, that feeling of unease, of having been wronged—

“Are you...juh-juh-jealous, Mah-Mario?”

Luigi’s voice is so quiet that Mario is sure at first that he’d misheard him, even as his baby brother shuffles forward across the ground, on his knees between Mario’s feet, where Mario is slumped with his back to the wall. Confusion begins to edge out his anger, uncomprehending, his mental faculties painfully slow as Lu’s trembling fingers reach up to unclip Mario’s suspenders. Mario has no idea what’s even happening until he feels Lu’s fingers slipping under the waistband of his briefs.

“Merda! Lu? Lu, che cazzo—!”

“You were...are. Jealous.” Luigi mumbles, his gaze downcast, his eyes shadowed and unreadable under his thick lashes. 

“I—what—uhh—”

Mario’s mind goes absolutely still and quiet for the first time he can ever remember. No thoughts, a great big roaring blank, absolutely frozen (fawning) at the feeling of his little brother’s soft, slender hand wrapped firmly around his erection. Luigi gives his brother’s cock a few gentle, experimental squeezes and tugs, and Mario pants, blood beading from his white knuckles, his fists are clenched so hard. 

“I’m s-sorry, Mario.” Luigi mumbles, his gaze still hidden.

The younger sibling leans forward, hocks wetly, a slow ribbon of warm drool drizzling along the length of Mario’s dick.

“Weeg—! ”

Mario grunts loudly in shock as Luigi pumps his already-weeping cock, smoothing a gentle palm along the wet, cherry-red mushroom head. 

“Cazzo!” 

Mario pants harshly, his knees turning to jelly the second his little brother’s warm, wet mouth is on him. His mind reels, half-formed words and exclamations escaping him as Lu’s cheeks hollow out and he sucks, the lewd sound of his beloved twin brother sucking him off so similar to the ones echoing in the silence of the Del Vecchio’s backyard.

His gaze too-bright and blurred, Mario looks down, accidentally locking eyes with his baby brother, his adoring gaze. He listens to the soft, breathy little moans and whimpers Luigi makes, muffled around his older brother’s thick cock. He fists his hands into his twin’s hair, just as soft as he’d imagined, and tugs shakily, as hard as he can, trying to pull him off, unable to warn him—

Mario cums after several measly seconds of being in his little brother’s mouth, and it startles him. Startles Mario, hard, but also startles his sweet, timid little brother, who, not expecting the sudden velocity of spend down his throat, jerks backward, Mario’s tugging grip helping pull him off just in time.

Just in time for thick ropes of opaque, off-white seed to land in streaks across Luigi’s face, striping his blushing cheeks, his damp mustache, one of his pretty blue eyes closing, cum clinging to his lashes. 

“Luigi.” Mario breathes, his voice and hands and knees shaking in shocked pleasure, reeling from the blinding force of the orgasm his baby brother had wrung out of him.

“That was fast.” Luigi mumbles, giggling quietly, wiping at his own face with the sleeve of his sweater. 

Mario drops to his knees in an instant and takes over, cleaning Luigi’s face of his own cum with frantic swiping motions.

“Merde, Weegee, I’m sorry—I’m s-so sorry—”

“Sei dispiaciuto?” Lu breathes.

Mario freezes again, as the twins stare at each other. Luigi’s eyes are dark, and heady, and laced with some haunting, tear-filled emotion Mario can’t even comprehend. Several long moments pass like this, both brothers on their knees in a dark alley, red-and-white emergency lights flashing faintly from down the street. 

Luigi goes to stand and staggers, but Mario catches him, standing with Luigi’s elbows in each of his hands. The twins are silent and shaky, hands fumbling and uncoordinated as they get each other looking presentable again. Mario thinks he might pass out, as Luigi tucks his softening dick back in his briefs, helping him pull up his overalls and rebutton them. Luigi gives his own face one last scrub before ducking out of the alley, Mario following close behind. They start down the street at a slightly hurried pace, Luigi two steps ahead of Mario, his strides longer. Mario struggles to keep up, and gives up trying, watching Luigi’s back protectively as he roots around in his overall pocket again, finally procuring and lighting the cigarette he’d meant to smoke before he lost his temper, roughed up his baby brother, and had the most mind-blowing orgasm of his life while pressed up against the tender cheek and soft mustache of said brother.

Lu comes to a sudden stop, so sudden that Mario almost runs bodily into him. Mario is mid apology when Luigi interrupts.

“Can I hit that?” He asks, his voice quiet and soft, his gaze once again cast down shyly, his face still flushed.

Mario simply gives him the cigarette and procures another. Lu waits as he lights it before beginning to walk again. But this time, the brothers walk side by side, smoking in silence together. They only clear about half a block before Lu’s hand shyly and sneakily slips into Mario’s. Mario laces their fingers together and holds his little brother’s hand tightly. Mario is suddenly, viciously grateful that the street is empty, as they walk hand in hand. Like they used to, when they were kids.

“I’m so sorry, Weegee—”

“No, fratellone, I’m sorry. Really I am.”

“For what? What can you possibly be sorry for, Weegee, I fucking—”

Almost hit you, Mario was about to say.

“Everything.” Luigi breathes, and suddenly they are standing still, still holding hands and smoking, Mario looking up into the hurt, guilt-ridden gaze of his little brother. 

“I’m sorry…” Lu’s voice drops to a whisper, his eyes flitting painfully away from Mario’s, seemingly unable to look at him. “I’m sorry I...duh-did that, with Joe. It was..ruh-ruh-wrong—”

“No, Weeg, it was wrong that I—”

“It should have been with you.” Luigi whispers. He pulls away, and Mario’s hand outstretches, as if to pull him back.

“It’s ah-always been-ah you, for me, Mario. La mia metà.”

Luigi’s confession echoes in the roaring cacophony of Mario’s mind, taking several long seconds to settle in and make any kind of legible sense. Speechless, he yanks Luigi back to him, wrapping his arms very, very tightly around his slightly taller brother, as if he can keep Luigi from shaking apart like he is. As if, if he can squeeze his little brother tightly enough, he can stem the bitter, pained tears and sobs wracking Luigi’s skinny body like an earthquake. 

Chapter Text

Mario had lived—right up until the exact moment it happened in some dingy Brooklyn alley, bathed in the light of an ambulance—knowing deep in his soul that it could happen. And that he should avoid it happening at all costs. And that if it were to happen, it would be entirely because he couldn’t control himself. 

But Mario’s control over himself has been wearing down weaker and weaker with each passing year. 

It had been just as difficult when they were children, but in a different way. Before Mario had truly grasped what had happened—what had been happening, for much longer than any of the Mario family had ever imagined—immediately following the bombastic blow-up of the discovery. And even now, Mario is aware that he still does not truly grasp the impact of how deeply Luigi had been hurt, and how much that hurt had changed him. Luigi still has—rather obviously and intentionally—not grasped it at all. Had instead elected to push it down and ignore it, aided in his earlier teen years and up until now in ridding those thoughts—and most of his thoughts, almost entirely—in a maladaptive haze of weed smoke. 

Just how little Lu had recovered has become apparent in the light of that one moment of weakness. A moment of weakness they had both indulged in, Luigi appeasing his angry brother the only way he really knows how—the only way he refuses to acknowledge he had been trained to. 

And Mario…well. Mario had been trained to give his little brother whatever he could ever need or want. And if what Luigi wants is to not talk about it, well…Mario can only comply, even if it’s driving him insane. He’s even considered making a new appointment, restarting their joint therapy sessions…joint, because Lu had never submitted to therapy without Mario present, even when what had happened had finally come to light.

And so, in the days following that interaction that should not have happened — had finally happened, there in that alley—Mario is woefully unsurprised that Lu is going to pretend that it didn’t even happen at all. 

That night, they’d arrived home hand in hand. Luigi had smiled his same, usual smile, and had excused himself to get ready for bed. And if he’d spent a solid twenty minutes brushing his teeth  while Mario scrubbed his busted knuckles, scrubbed Del Vecchio’s blood from his skin, well…they didn’t talk about it. And after they’d both felt clean enough to leave the night behind them, Luigi had murmured, good night, big brother , and leaned down, as he always does. And Mario, so well trained, had kissed Lu’s forehead good night, sweet dreams baby brother , as he always has. And after both twins were tucked into their separate beds for the night, Mario had tried to find sleep. Difficult, considering the evening kept playing in Mario’s mind on repeat, slow-motion, vivid images of his sweet little Lu, on his knees for Joe. On his knees for Mario. His face, as familiar as Mario’s own, shy and timid and just so eager to please ( please don’t hurt me) marked with Mario’s weakness, his lack of control. 

In Mario’s nightmare that night, he’s the one with his hands on his thighs, his knees spread, looking down at a kneeling Luigi through Uncle Arthur’s eyes. Acknowledging, in Uncle Arthur’s voice, just how well little Lu could take it. Like he was made for it. And when he’d woken the next morning, once again violently ill, Luigi had comforted him, like he always does. And then they didn’t talk about it. Like they never really have.

Like Luigi had always refused to.

After it happened, days passed so normally, Mario had truly begun to fear he’d gone insane for good. They worked, as they do, dressed alike and side by side to save Brooklyn from inconvenient plumbing issues, as well as saving the occasional cat from the occasional tree and occasionally helping denizens in their daily, doomed-to-repeat fuck ups. Their off hours, when they aren’t reporting for duty as the Super Mario Brothers, are spent as they always are. Attached at the hip, as they live in oblivious domesticity together, with a slightly-vacant Luigi and a doting Mario sleeping, eating, existing together. And Lu seems almost entirely normal. If he seems unable to meet Mario’s eyes more than usual, or gently shies away from physical affection more than he usually would, well. Mario believes it’s just his imagination.

And Mario’s imagination has always been horribly, cursedly vivid. For Mario, the inside of his mind is even less normal than it had been before. Uncle Arthur’s voice in his head is louder and clearer than ever, his nightmares occurring near-nightly, rather than once in a blue-shelled moon. Mario has come to terms with being the only one living in reality. As always, Mario finds himself being the only one that seemingly cares, the only one who ever remembers. The only one who has bothered to think about any of it, their past or their present, at all. 

It’s all of this anguish and fretting that causes Mario to hesitate when Friday inevitably rolls around again, and Luigi inevitably approaches him again. It happens almost exactly the same as before, with Mario’s nose in a book, a cat in his lap, his belly full of rustic, familiar, delicious Italian food made by his talented little bro. Luigi encroaches on Mario’s peace with a blink-and-you-miss-it shadow of an apology in his glazed eyes, with his hands outstretched, again, as if in surrender. 

“M-Mar? There’s a…a house show, again, t-tonight, at D-Destiny Del—”

"Vecchio’s? ” Mario spits the name like a curse, and Luigi’s face crumples for a few hurt seconds. “And you want to go?”

“Well, yuh-yeah, I do. But you—”

“Don’t have to go with you, but I will. But Weeg…what makes you think we’ll even be welcome? I’m sure Joe remembers who broke his nose—and his jaw—and I doubt Destiny is happy—”

“He does, Mario, you’re right. But it’s ah-okay! Joe and Des and I have already actually…t-talked about it. They’ve both forgiven you.”

This statement finally pulls Mario from his book. In Lu’s gaze, Mario can spy fear. Fear attributed to Mario, and not Joe.

“You’ve spoken to them about it? ”

“Yuh-Yuh-Yeah, Mar. A few days after…after the last house show, Des texted me and confirmed it was you that beat up Joe. She didn’t believe her brother, at first. But I duh-didn’t want to lie to her, Mar. I duh-didn’t tell her why, though. I just told her you both had gotten into a dis-dis-dis-disagreement. And Joe hasn’t told her either, he’s not…well, he isn’t… uh-out— ”

“How do you know he hasn’t told her?”

“Cause Joe told me he didn’t—”

“You’ve been talking to Joe too? After—”

“Yeah, I huh-have, and he…he’s really an alright guy, Mario. He said he’s forgiven you. Said he got it, said that he’d also be obligated to buh-beat the snot out of any man he’d catch Des with—”

But Mario has stopped listening. He interrupts Luigi mid word with a firm come here motion and a cold, determined look in his eyes.

“Gimme your phone, Lu.”

Luigi hesitates, and Mario watches his little brother shrink in on himself, notices the instant Lu begins to shake. Mario only counts to one before Luigi’s dinky little cellphone is in his hand. The next few minutes of silence, as Mario reads through Luigi’s texts to Destiny and Joe Del Vecchio, are painfully tense. 

“So Joe actually apologized? ”

“Yes, Mario.” Luigi confirms, his tone edging on desperate. 

“And he says he wants you to come to the house show so he can “make it up to you”? What does that even mean, Lu?”

“I duh-duh-dunno, Muh-Mario. But I…I want to go anyway, tonight is guh-goth prom.”

Mario sighs, and pinches his nose. Of course .

“And you haven’t missed a goth prom since high school—”

“And I don’t plan to start now, Mar, I’m—”

“Don’t be sorry, Weeg. I’m sorry. I’m being an asshole, I know. While I don’t think appearing on the Del Vecchio property ever again is a good idea, I wouldn’t let my little brother miss his favorite party of the year for anything.”

And finally, Luigi smiles—his blissful, obliviously contented smile—and Mario submits. Anything to keep his little Lu firmly, delusionally happy. 

At least it’s easy, Mario consoles himself. At least it doesn’t take much to bring that smile to his little brother’s face. Mario has always been absolutely flabbergasted by how easily Lu can be brought to happiness and stay there. 

“And besides,” Luigi chirps, unknowingly unhelpful, “Joe decided not to press charges, so we’re in the clear!”

After a lovingly-prepared and undeniably delicious dinner of spaghetti bolognese and homemade garlic bread, Lu had excused himself to get ready and sequestered himself in his room. Even though Mario had resigned himself to how long that could take, he still finds himself restless after almost an hour apart from his brother. Mario hadn’t taken nearly as long to get ready—after all, all he had to do was put on a black shirt instead of his red one, had put on an old pair of Luigi’s black overalls, which he cuffed at the ankles, assured by Lu that the bagginess in the legs and hips, showing his midriff, was acceptable, even if Mario didn’t feel entirely comfortable.

“Lu? Can I come in?”

Mario had prepared himself mentally, and didn’t hesitate after Lu’s muffled come-ah in, Mar, but the sight of his brother engaging in his yearly ritual had still caught him a bit off-guard. 

Luigi sits at his desk, his reading lamp on and pulled close, a mirror propped up on it, with a beat-up Garfield (he loves-ah lasagna!) lunchbox full of makeup open, its contents scattered. Luigi is lent forward, elbows braced on the table, humming along to Bauhaus blaring from his boombox as he carefully and diligently makes himself look like a very, very different version of himself, a joint in one hand, a makeup brush in the other. Mario sits on his little brother’s bed and watches his twin, fascinated with Luigi’s expertise in this area. He looks at this version of his brother in profile and quietly admires him, committing it to memory. 

Lu’s complexion, already pale, has been rendered even more so, even more perfect, powder-soft and slightly blurred. His mustache has been trimmed thinner than usual, and slicked into an even more delicate handlebar, its curves glossy. Luigi’s eyes, already so large and beautifully expressive, have been dramatically accentuated—they even more resemble a doll’s now, so very large in his moon-pale face—defined with dusty, smudged-out kohl and ringed in long, thick, fluttering lashes. Their color, that gorgeous aqua blue, the same shade as Mario’s, shines even brighter in contrast to the smoky, red-toned brown applied in his deep, high-arched eye sockets. 

Mario tells his twin as much. That he looks like a doll.

“That’s the goal, Mar.” Luigi replies, as he pencils in a tiny, perfectly heart-shaped beauty mark under his left eye. “Almost done.”

And it turns out that the metaphorical cherry on top is underway, Luigi’s focused expression in the mirror breathtaking, as he lines the perfect cupid’s bow of his upper lip and the soft, pouty curve of his full bottom lip in black. Mario watches, as Lu smudges the black inward, expertly re-shaping his mouth to look smaller and intentionally and permanently mischievous, as if amused by a constant inside joke. The whole effect is further amplified, and rendered undeniably sexy, by Lu’s application of thick, green-tinged lip-gloss. Any time he turns his head, or moves at all, or even says anything , the lip gloss catches the light, rendering it damn near impossible not to notice the way his mouth moves. 

“What do you think, Mar?” He asks, turning to his older brother, smiling hesitantly with his pretty, glistening pout.

Mario can only nod, his mouth too dry to respond, willing his gut to become a pit of ice, refusing to give in to the heat rising damnably inside of him. Mio Dio.

But then, Luigi stands, and Mario’s battle with his very wrong and very damned thoughts and physical reactions, is immediately lost. 

“A dress, this year, Lu?” 

Mario thanks his lucky stars that Lu doesn’t notice the tremble in his voice. His twin just blushes, his smile hesitant but breathlessly happy, as he smooths down the front of his dress, self consciously running his fingers along the short hem.

“Well, y-yeah. I’ve been wah-working up the kuh-kuh-courage for a few years now. It’s the best…excuse? When else could I dress like this, and people won’t care?”

Oh, they’ll care. And they will definitely notice. But they won’t say anything…not if your big brother is there to stop them. 

“Do you…what do you thuh-think of it, Mar?”

I think you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I think you look nothing like you. I think it suits you. I think you should look like this, how you want, all the time. 

“It’s molto bello, Lu. Bellissimo. Do you like it?”

“I do. I really do. Mi sento me stesso.” Lu whispers, and Mario’s heart aches. 

Mario watches his little brother pack his little bag, as he always does, but this time, Lu’s usual supplies (GameBoy included, just in case!!) are accompanied by a compact mirror, his lip-gloss, and backup makeup. Feminine things. And Luigi is smiling, his made-up doe eyes glazed and red as he power-smokes once last joint. And Mario, instead of helping his little brother lace his ugly tan work boots, diligently and patiently laces knee-high, black leather combat boots instead, the platform soles of them rendering Luigi a few more inches taller. As if he needs them. 

“Fishnets, Weeg?”

And Luigi can only nod mutely, his blush deepening as his older brother just barely grazes his fishnet-clad knee with his knuckles. 

Boots laced, pregame-joint smoked, and bag packed, Mario stands to leave.

“Wait, Mar! Can I…do up your face? Solo un po? Like last year? Puh-please??”

Mario had been expecting this. Had never really planned to say no, even if he doesn’t really like it, doesn’t feel comfortable with it. Every moment of discomfort is entirely worth the ritual that proceeds it, every moment of Lu’s adoring gaze and soft little smile as he applies makeup to Mario’s face.

Mario obediently straddles Luigi’s lap, facing him, so their height difference doesn’t impede application. He stays very still, his fists clenched at his sides, his face lax, following Lu’s soft little instructions. He is grateful, though, that Lu keeps it quick and keeps it simple, keeps it more masculine rather than feminine. Rough, not as blended, not with the precise delicateness of Weeg’s makeup. Without foundation, or powder, or lipstick, which would never agree with Mario’s sensory issues. Luigi declares it finished after only five minutes or so of gentle application, and when offered a mirror, Mario has to admit that it looks good, and more subtle than he’d been expecting. 

“Is it okay, Mar? Do you luh-like it?”

“I do, Lu. I really, really do. Lo faccio immensamente.” Mario echoes his little brother’s excitement, and can’t help but smile in return. 

Unlike Luigi, Mario still looks like himself, just…edgier? His deep set eyes, the same blue as Lu's, are definitely more striking now. He looks somehow like an angrier, tougher version of himself, his mustache and eyebrows darkened, more precise, unforgiving. It’s always jarring, how something so inherently feminine as makeup can make him look somehow manlier.

It’s cause you look like you don’t give a single fuck what other people think.

And it’s a far, far cry from how Mario actually feels. He actually gives so very many fucks what other people think. But he doesn’t let that bother him, as he lets Luigi further adorn him. This part he likes—he likes the soft jingling of the numerous belts and chains. How secure they feel. And he really likes the adornments Luigi has chosen for himself—dainty silver shining from each piercing in his ear, of which Lu has several. Delicate silver bangles that jingle on each of Lu’s thin little wrists. Rings of various sizes adorning each joint of each lovely finger, long and graceful. Lu’s hands have always been Mario’s favorite feature.

What Mario doesn’t love, though, is Luigi’s boldest accessory. It could pass as a choker from afar, but up close, the thin band of real black leather encasing his little brother’s neck, with its utilitarian, heavy D-ring on the front and its thick heavy buckle at the back, is obviously a dog collar.

It makes Mario think of the dog kennel Uncle Arthur had kept in their basement, even though they’d never had a dog. And Mario considers ordering his oblivious little precious baby brother to take it off. But he knows Lu doesn’t want to think about it at all, and may not even actually remember. And he wants to preserve his brother’s oblivious, delusional happiness for as long as he can. For the rest of their lives, if he can. 

What Mario did not expect is the sheer amount of attention Luigi was going to receive, as they finally arrived at the Del Vecchio mansion, once again skipping the line in favor of Mario muscling through it with Luigi clinging to his back. The sea of party-goers parts easier than usual, and instead of how it usually goes down—with everyone greeting Mario and mostly ignoring his awkward, always-stoned little brother—almost everything said to the brothers is directed at Luigi , instead.

“Wow, Greenie! You look good , like…really good —”

“Really pretty, damn, you almost pass as a—”

Girl, they’d said, as Mario resolutely led Luigi away, his little brother a blushing, stammering mess, his tiny smile pleased but horribly self-conscious. 

“Oh my goodness, Lu! You look so fucking beautiful, holy shit! Have you been hiding this from me, all these years?” 

Destiny Del Vecchio positively shrieks, when she finally catches sight of the slender little doll-like version of her best friend, clinging to his older brother. 

Poor Luigi just stammers harder, unable to reply. He hides his face behind his hands and Mario worries Lu may have bitten off more than he can chew, presenting himself in a way he’s only imagined for years. 

“Sorry Des, Lu’s nervous, and he smoked a whole big bunch of weed on the walk here. You know how he gets—”

“No I get it, I get it! Luigi, my dearest, most-bestest friend, you are always more than welcome to be nonverbal at the function!”

Lu’s tiny, answering smile seems almost pained, his trademark two-thumbs-up shakier than usual. 

“When you sober up, though, Lu, you’ll just have to tell me where you got your dress, it’s so fucking cute—”

“And short, Wee-gay. You feelin’ a breeze, hombre? ” 

Joe Del Vecchio points out, unwarranted and unwanted, as he approaches the brothers. He still looks absolutely fucked—his face is a mottled mess of colors, both of his eyes still pretty swollen, his nose set in a splint. But he’s smiling, and he holds both hands palms out as he approaches. 

“It…ah, was im-im-impossible to find—-I ah, ah, ah—”

“You’re just tall, Luigi. I’m just picking on you. You look nice. Legs for days, little brother, legs for days!”

Mario has to focus very, very hard to not get angry at Joe Del Vecchio for always and inherently bullying Luigi. Even if Joe thinks it’s just friendly joking around, it’s not. Joe Del Vecchio, even after a beating, just can’t seem to get it through his head that Luigi can’t handle friendly fire, and that Mario wouldn’t tolerate it anyway. 

“And hey, Super Mario. Planning on sending me to my maker anytime soon? It’s fine, it’s fine, I don’t blame you—but I’d like to stay on this earth a little longer.”

“Wasn’t planning on teaching you any more lessons today, Joe, unless you can’t keep your paws to yourself.” 

Mario snarls pointedly, smugly satisfied as Joe immediately removes the big, meaty hand he’d clapped on Luigi’s shoulder. The smile on Lu’s face slips, as Joe puts distance between them, and Mario ignores it. Luigi should know better. If he wants the peace to last between Mario and his best friends, he better not let Joe get anywhere near him. 

And he doesn’t. He seems to be on his best behavior, keeping entirely to himself—too much so, as he stands with his hands fisted in his own dress, just barely swaying to the music. Luigi barely seems to be enjoying himself, and Mario has no idea why. So he brings his little brother a strong long island iced tea—it’d taken him a full ten minutes to make, pouring so many goddamn shots—and is pleased when Lu seems to loosen up with each swig of the insanely-alcoholic beverage. Once the Solo cup is empty, Lu seems to be himself again, smiling and giggling as he and Destiny dance to Ludo, performing the lyrics and dance moves at each other in a style that would make every ex-theater-kid nostalgic. 

As this transpires, Mario does what he always does—puts his back to a wall with his drink in his hand and watches Luigi. But his pastime and inner peace is almost immediately broken by Joe, who has decided, for some unknown fucking reason, that he and Mario should be friends now. But Mario has to (very begrudgingly, like pulling teeth) admit to himself, after almost a half hour of talking with Joe, that the guy really isn’t that bad. Is actually kind of funny, and decently smart, and with similar interests. Mario is actually shocked to find himself in a very in-depth conversation with Joe about the Mortal Kombat franchise, which inevitably leads to discussing fighting in general. Turns out that Joe actually kind of admires Mario, respects him even, after getting his ass positively handed to him. 

Mario is accepting Joe’s praise with a genuine smile, and is actually fucking shaking the man’s hand, wordlessly agreeing to be his friend, when Destiny and Luigi come back to them. It seems their last spirited rendition of Love Me Dead had rendered them tuckered out. 

“My high is gone, it’s time to re-up!” Destiny declares, and Luigi agrees with a thumbs up and a nod, and so the brothers—Joe and Mario—follow their siblings to the Del Vecchio’s basement. 

Since goth prom is a more specific gathering, the crowd of stoners in the basement is much thinner than it usually is on a Friday night. And so Des breaks out the big guns, while Joe loads up Mortal Kombat on their PlayStation, wordlessly handing Mario a controller. And so Mario finds himself actually having a good time, as he and Joe play together, and as Des and Lu take massive, brain-melting rips from a way-too-nice gravity bong. He barely pays attention to his little brother at all, as he drinks beer and furiously deals Joe combo after combo, entirely zoned in and focused. He barely even registers Luigi on the couch next to him, pressed up against his side, way closer than they’d usually allow themselves to be in public.

After a particularly intense match involving several rare and drawn out fatalities, both Joe and Mario verbally commentating the whole bloodbath, Joe pauses the game.

“I’m out of beer,” he states, matter of fact, “you need more, Rio?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely, thanks bro!” Mario replies, Lu giggling quietly beside him.

While Joe is gone, Des offers Mario a hit from the gravity bong. The girl is clumsy, her bottle-green eyes blood red in the whites, as she holds the jar for Mario. It seems Lu is similarly, helplessly zooted. And Mario can’t blame him, distantly shocked as one hit from the bong sends his consciousness to an immediately different, more colorful, slower version of reality. 

“Fuck, Destiny.” Is all he can say, his words slurred, and Des just giggles.

“The good shit, from…uh, Colorado. Had it smuggled. What do you think of it, Lu?”

Luigi is too stoned to reply. He just nods and gives his tried and true, shy little thumbs up. 

“Hey, you’re welcome, Des.” A slender, androgynous person pipes up from the floor. “I’m the one that got that shit, remember? So pass it here. Greenie…what do you think, do you like it?”

Once again, Luigi can’t reply, several beats of awkward silence passing as the person waits for Lu to reply. 

“Sorry about him,” Mario intervenes, “Lu already isn’t much of a talker, and then when he’s stoned, he goes almost entirely nonverbal. Especially around strangers. The only exception is when he’s alone with me, or Des.”

“And I’m honored,” Destiny replies, in response to the heartbroken look Luigi gives his brother. “You’ll always be my best friend, Luigi. Even when you're speechless.”

Mario is infinitely grateful for Destiny in that moment, as she blatantly pays his awkward little brother unconditional favoritism. Destiny gets it. There’s just something about Lu. Little Lu, quiet and shy and almost always so needlessly content and happy. Luigi, with his thumbs up, his little smiles, his stutter, his genuine, bone-deep need to please . Destiny, in their years of friendship, has never taken advantage of this trait. Like others have. 

Like Joe did, but Mario tamps that thought down as the man in question shows up with drinks. Joe might not have meant to. Might not have realized just how willing Luigi would be blow him, whether Lu actually had wanted to or not

Destiny and Joe have no idea at all how Luigi had been raised. Had been trained by Uncle Arthur. And by the time the rest of the Mario family had known, it’d been far too late, and the vibrant version of Luigi Mario had used to know—the one that held his head high, had never backed down—was gone. By the time Destiny had met Luigi, Luigi had just begun to speak again. After being entirely nonverbal for five very long, silent years, from the ages of seven to twelve. 

So Mario gives Joe the benefit of the doubt, as Joe hands him an entire six pack of his favorite beer. He even respects him a little, considering Joe had brought Luigi another drink too, one Luigi accepts with a smile. His face scrunches when he takes a sip. But then he takes another, and Mario just assumes that the drink is strong. And when he notices Joe watching Luigi drink the drink, an unreadable expression on the man’s face, Mario just assumes this is part of Joe’s apology, making his intention to befriend Lu and Mario apparent. 

Mario is almost done with the six pack of beer and several dozen more matches into Mortal Kombat with Joe when he realizes something could potentially be wrong. Luigi had finished his drink long ago, and had curled up into Mario’s side to watch his big brother fight in-game. But as the hours had passed, and Joe had brought Luigi two more drinks, which Lu had downed, he’d grown more and more uncoordinated, and more and more unresponsive, aside from his usual bout of being ‘nonverbal at the function.’ Luigi had been quietly hyping Mario up as each fight progressed, and if his words had been slurred, Mario had just attributed that to the alcohol. And when Lu had taken another hit from the gravity bong, his doe-eyes watery, his irises unfocused, his pupils blown wide, Mario had just assumed it was the weed. 

So Mario doesn’t think anything is wrong, until he turns to Lu between matches, and finds his little brother slumped against him, heavy and weirdly warm, his eyes closed, his mouth parted around labored breaths.

“Lu? How you doin, little bro?”

But Luigi doesn’t respond, and doesn’t seem to be able to—his head lolls just slightly to the side, as if to face Mario. His mouth, still shiny and green-tinged with gloss, moves sluggishly. His eyes open a sliver, flutter, and then close again. His dress has ridden up, and the fact that he hasn’t adjusted it makes Mario feel a little ill. 

“Luigi?? ” 

Mario tries again, his concern and urgency pitching his slurred speech higher. He tosses his controller aside with slightly more force than necessary and turns to his little brother. With both broad hands on Lu’s narrow shoulders, he shakes him, gently at first, then roughly. Mario’s grip falters, his eyes wide, as Luigi barely moves, barely mumbles.

"Lu, cosa ti succede? Per favore, parlami!" Mario cries out in shock, his unresponsive little brother lolling in his grip.

“Aw, looks like widdle Weegee has had one too many! Don’t worry, big bro, we’ve got plenty of beds he can sleep in. I’ll go make him comfy somewhere and he can sleep it off.”

As Joe stands, stretches, his words nonchalant but his gaze hard, alarm bells go off in Mario’s head. They reach fever pitch the second Joe lays his hands on the barely-conscious Luigi, already gathering Lu’s legs over one of his arms.

“Absolutely not.” 

Joe is unprepared when Mario shoves him bodily away from Luigi. Mario is strong, even as drunk as he is, swaying just slightly as he stands between Lu and Joe.

“Hey now, what—”

“Sorry Des, but we’re leaving.”

“Nooo, what, why? Honestly, do you even wanna to move him right now?”

“I wanna get Lu as far away from this monster as possible.” Mario breathes, and the Del Vecchio siblings go still.

Mario doesn’t bother explaining himself to a stammering and confused Destiny as he gently gathers his baby brother up in his arms, trying and failing to get Lu to stand on his own. He makes it up the stairs somehow, even with Luigi’s dead weight in his arms, his long limbs lolling. The adventure has at least roused Luigi somewhat, who’s mumbling nonsensically into Mario’s neck, one of his hands gently fisted in the hair at the nape of Mario’s neck. 

“Wait, wait! Mario—shit, wait up—!”

Joe corners them in the hallway. His expression is weird, and wrong. He’s trying and failing to keep something akin to a smirk off his face. 

“Just what did you do, Joe?” Mario hisses, the venom in his voice so strong, Joe takes a step back. 

“What do you—”

“You know exactly what I said, and I meant it—what did you give mio fratellino? ”

And suddenly, Joe Del Vecchio can’t keep the ugly, malicious smile off his face.

“Nothing you wouldn’t approve of, Super Mario. Just looks like your sweet baby brother can’t hold his—”

“No. I’ve seen Weeg far more lucid with way less alcohol and weed in his system. So tell me, how did you even expect to get Lu away from me long enough to—to—”

“What, can’t say it? I was just gonna take him upstairs and—”

Joe flinches and laughs nasally, grimacing as Mario’s punch to the face breaks the splint on his already-broken nose. He’s still laughing, even as Mario begins to walk away, his escape impeded by the limp body of his brother, held tightly to his side, Luigi’s long legs tripping Mario up. 

“Did you even consider that wasn’t my intention? That I didn’t do this for me?” Joe shouts after the two of them, bringing Mario to pause.

Joe stalks straight back up to him, meeting the older brother’s murderous glare with a coy, knowing expression. Mario snarls, as Joe leans in close to him, the smell of Joe’s blood distinct as the man whispers in Mario’s ear.

“I didn’t do this for me, like I said. I did this for you. Figured it’d be easier to give your precious little slut of a baby brother what he wants if he can’t hide behind that oblivious little act of his. All he wants is his big brother, Mar. I know that for a fact.”

By the time Mario has fully comprehended Joe’s statement, Joe has walked away already, disappearing back down into the depths of the Del Vecchio basement. Mario is so fully shocked that he doesn’t even notice Luigi slipping out of his grasp until his twin is on the floor, leaning heavily against one of his older brother’s legs, looking up at Mario between slitted eyelids.

“M’rio?” He slurs, a sleepy hand touching his own face. “Sumthin’s wrong.”

“I know, Lu, I know. We need to get you home. Can you stand at all?”

Luigi nods but doesn’t move, his hands braced on the floor, looking confused. So Mario helps him stand, keeps Luigi upright by pressing him tightly to the wall with his own body. He muscles one arm around his little brother’s lower back and uses his other arm to sweep Luigi’s legs up by the backs of his knees. Luigi mumbles and struggles only slightly as Mario manhandles him, quickly melting back into blissful unawareness as he lays his head on Mario’s shoulder, one of his hands weakly resting on his older brother’s chest. 

It’s one hell of a struggle, getting Luigi outside of the party, but Mario is successful. The situation seems less dire, now that they’re alone, the night around them quiet and cool as Mario dutifully trudges home, carrying his dolled-up little brother bridal style, who feels like he barely weighs anything at all. Weegee doesn’t seem to be aware of what's going on at all, his eyes closed, huffing warm little breaths against Mario’s neck. The walk home takes twice as long as usual, Mario still drunk and uncoordinated, especially carrying all of Luigi, his taller form awkwardly draped over Mario, their legs knocking together. 

Luigi wakes only briefly, once more, when Mario rather unceremoniously sits him down on the front steps to their apartment. He grumbles, and his eyes open, and Mario pauses to assess what level of okay his brother could potentially be.

“Lu?”

Luigi just shakes his head and mumbles something, trying and failing to pull his dress down over his thighs, his hands carelessly bunched in chiffon.

“Cold.” All Lu is able to whisper, before passing out again, slumping unconscious over the concrete steps.

Chapter Text

As Mario dumps his drugged-out little brother into bed, the true gravity of the situation finally dawns on him. Mario groans audibly, gripping his own head in his hands, a grimace on his face as Uncle Arthur’s voice makes an unwelcome, but unintelligible appearance in Mario’s subconscious. Something along the lines of he’s so pretty like this, even if Mario refuses to acknowledge the truth in the statement. 

Because Lu tragically is—so very, very pretty like this, even if he’s way too quiet for Mario’s comfort. Too soft, and boneless, and…fucking doll-like, all spread out like that. It’s unsettling, the way his joints don’t seem to matter, how Lu can’t seem to keep his head up, or his eyes open, humming so softly to himself, Mario worries he could be imagining it to make himself feel better. Luigi would never be like this, would never allow this unintentionally lewd display. Would be mortified, at his own spread legs, at the way his dress has bunched around his waist, naked from the waist-down except for his underwear and those god-damned fishnets. 

The voice is getting louder, Mario’s drunk mind a slurring mess. The sudden tightness in his overalls, when they’d been baggy before, only triggers mild panic for Mario, when usually it would trigger a full-blown mental breakdown.

“Gotta getcha outta these clothes, Lu.” Mario slurs, and Luigi doesn’t reply, even as Mario tugs his body closer to the edge of the bed. 

It takes so many tries to unlace Luigi’s stupid boots that Mario starts to get angry, muttering to himself as he fumbles with the laces, tugging them off of his brother so hard that Luigi’s body jerks once, twice, each time a boot is pulled off. Lu just mumbles, his eyes fluttering, his face half-pressed into a pillow. He still doesn’t respond, even as Mario sits him up by pulling on his arms, leaning the half-conscious Luigi over his shoulder, as he slips his hands underneath his little brother’s dress. It’s awkward, and sad, getting the dress off of Lu, slipping his long arms out of each little button-cuff of the dress, little pearl buttons slipped free under Mario’s drunk fingers. Mario realizes Lu is drooling, as he pulls the dress over his brother’s head. He gently pats Luigi’s face, his hand coming away stained with foundation.

“Lu?”

But Lu is completely gone again. He’s stopped humming, his mouth open and parted and yes, drooling onto himself. His eyes are closed, but Mario thinks he could be dreaming, the way he can see movement behind the closed eyelids. When Mario lets go of him, tossing the dress to the floor, Luigi’s body slumps to the bed, half on his stomach and half on his side. Diligent in his task, Mario uses both hands to manhandle his little brother entirely onto his stomach, ass up, to make getting him out of the fishnets a little easier. Mario straddles Luigi’s legs for better leverage, considering his brother’s dead weight. He’s got two fingers hooked into the elastic waistband of the fishnets when what he’s doing finally registers in Mario’s mind. He freezes, his hands going still, his eyes wide in shock, as he gazes down at the body beneath him.

Lu’s head of glossy brown hair, his loose curls tousled and sticking up. He looks so wrong like that—with his neck at an odd angle, his face in profile, his nose and jaw half-smushed into the pillow, his mouth a smear of lipliner and sticky gloss and drool, puddling from him. The pale expanse of his back on display, his skin weirdly warm under Mario’s palms as he presses them to the little constellations of freckles under his little brother’s shoulder blades. Mario’s throat feels tight, his mind mushy, light-headed. He’d forgotten about these freckles. He marvels at each little bump of Lu’s spine under his fingers as his curiosity descends all the way down to the waistband of the fishnets, and Mario once again remembers, only partly, how he got here. 

“Gotta get you out of these, Lu.” He acknowledges again, slurring, even as both of his hands find the plushness of Luigi’s ass, his pale flesh pudging just slightly out of black netting.

The texture of it is fascinating, and Mario gives each cheek in his grip and gentle knead, marveling at the contrast in color between the tights and the skin underneath. Mario’s mind is strangely silent for once, as he spends several dedicated, drunken moments kneading and gripping Luigi’s ass. And after a few moments, his addled mind decides it’d be better without them, and he once again slips his hands underneath. Frustrated at how tight they are, Mario hooks one strong arm under Luigi’s hips, lifting his baby brother up just enough to create space between body and bed, as Mario uses his other hand to doggedly push the fishnets down around Lu’s thighs. Mario smiles at his achievement, settling back to sit on the backs of Luigi’s knees. 

“Sei così tenero, Lu.” He breathes, running appreciative hands through the soft body hair complementing the snow-white flesh of his baby brother’s ass. He kneads the soft, furred flesh in his palms unthinkingly, absolutely fascinated, petting through glossy whorls of brunette curls. 

He’s never seen his brother like this.

Mario decides he wants to see more. So he stands from the bed, staggering slightly. Getting the rest of the tights off, slipping them down Luigi’s long, pale legs, is easy. This is almost better, he decides, as he runs his hands all along them, up and down, over and over. 

Lu Lu Lu, the only thought in his head, as he marvels at his brother’s slim, strong calves, as he squeezes the backs of Lu’s slim thighs. La mia bella metà.

Mario decides his second favorite thing is the fact that Luigi’s bony little ankles fit in his grip perfectly, his fingers overlapping when he wraps them around. But his favorite thing he discovers, during his mindless exploration of his baby brother’s unconscious body, is the fact that Lu’s knobby little knees fit in his palms as well, the hollow little dip between tendons fitting Mario’s thumbs almost perfectly. 

Like they were made to.

Mario grins as he uses this newfound grip to spread Luigi’s knees apart even wider, Lu’s hips settling deeper into the bed. He’s confused, though, genuinely, as this new angle—looking up as he is from between Luigi’s spread knees, his thumbs still in those blessed little divots between tendons—reveals clothing he missed, green fabric barely visible between Lu’s thighs. He finally notices then, too, the barely-there straps of green encircling his brother’s hips. 

Mindless, thoughtless curiosity, as Mario’s palms once again finds each of Luigi’s bare ass cheeks and gently pushes them apart. Any coherent thought Mario was capable of having has long been abandoned. Or ignored. 

“Oh.” He breathes, as he finally reveals the teensy strip of fabric between Lu’s cheeks, snug and warm against—

“Cazzo!”

One thumb hooked gently into the fabric, tugging it aside, Mario leans in close. Very close, his nose merely inches away from Luigi’s most private place, as he studies the soft, lavender-tinged skin of his baby brother’s crease, the pale-pink furl of his hole ringed in soft, dark curls. 

Mario startles suddenly, snapping back to himself. He jerks back as if burned, his own hands flying to his mouth.

“Lu?”

But Lu doesn’t respond, and Mario wonders if he’d imagined the soft, breathy sound he’d heard, the muffled little sigh he’d thought he’d heard his little brother make.

“Porca puttana! Oh, mio Dio—Madonna santa—!”

Why stop now? The deep, raspy Italian-accented voice in his head asks. 

When will you get a chance like this again?  Uncle Arthur asks, his voice as smooth as a snake slithering through grass.

“No.” Mario says aloud, though he doesn’t budge, still straddling Luigi’s legs, Lu’s body still spread as it is—

Perché no? Uncle Arthur asks again. It’s not like he’ll remember. And he wants you to. Like Joe said—

“I’m not Joe. I wouldn’t do this.”

But you are. You’ve been. And you’ve thought about it, I know you have. You should thank Joe. He did this for you. Practically gift-wrapped widdle Weegee and hand-delivered him to you—

“Shut up shut up shut up!” Mario shrieks. He scrambles off the bed and falls in the process, crab walking backward till his back finds the closed bedroom door. 

Don’t be ungrateful, boy. I thought your mother taught you to always accept a gift. Do you not know a gift when you see it?

Mario wails aloud in response, his face crumpled in anguish as he stares at the scene before him. Luigi, unresponsive and splayed, miles of pale skin. An unblemished, boneless little doll. 

It doesn’t matter if you stop here, you’ll still never forgive yourself. And as I said, and as Joe would know…Luigi won’t even remember. 

Joe. 

Mario scrambles on his hands and knees to the pile of Lu’s belongings, discarded carelessly to the floor. He grabs up Luigi’s bag, unzipping it roughly, dumping its contents to the floor. He presses the four-way button on the front of Luigi’s phone four times with precision he shouldn’t have while drunk. 

Joe answers on the second ring.

“Heeeeyyy, Wee-gay, is that you?”  Joe sing-songs, his tone almost mocking.

“Will he remember?” 

“Ah, Mario! What was that, come again?”

“Will. He. Remember?”

Dead air, before Joe Del Vecchio laughs. A full bellied, cruel laugh that makes Mario’s stomach turn. 

“No. No, Super Mario. Your widdle brother won’t remember a thing.”

Mario stays very, very still, still clenching the phone, a long few minutes after Joe abruptly hung up. The silence in the room is deafening. Mario feels like he’s being watched, the hair on the back of his neck standing up, his teeth grit. The warm, unconscious body of his little brother in his bed, tossed carelessly amidst so many green pillows, seems so much bigger than it actually is, and it draws Mario’s eye in the same striking way a Danger sign would.

“I can’t do this.” Mario says aloud.

Why not? It’s easy. I did. And it’s rewarding. Lui è celeste...I can assure you.

“I shouldn’t.” Mario states, even as he stands, even as he takes one step after another.

Oh ma dovresti! Lord know I don’t regret a thing.

“I know you don’t. Sei un mostro.” Mario replies to Uncle Arthur.

He spreads Lu’s knees just a little wider, more gently than he did last time. After a moment’s consideration, he once again hooks an arm under Luigi’s hips, lifting him up, as he carefully slips a pillow underneath his brother. Propping his slender hips up just so, his pretty, plush ass up, the long line of his narrow back damnably arched. 

Mario’s heart is pounding, the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears so loud, it drowns out any commentary Uncle Arthur may say. 

He settles onto his stomach between his little brother’s spread thighs. He wills his hands to stop shaking and takes big, deep breaths, as he touches Lu. Gently, so, so gently, he uses his thumbs to spread Lu open again, staring once again at the shy little furl nestled within the dark, soft hair between his little brother’s buttocks. 

“I’m sorry, Lu.” Mario whispers.

Goosebumps rise, slow and steady, all along Luigi’s pale legs, but he still doesn’t respond, his eyes still closed, his breathing even and deep. Mario, inches away, studies this hidden place on Lu, commits it to memory. Closer, closer…Mario’s huge inhale through his nose and his answering, bone-deep groan is shockingly loud in the stillness, his nose buried in the soft, musky-sweet crease of his little brother’s bottom. 

Mio Dio, lui profumo così buono. Smells like my little Lu. 

He’s not sure if it’s his thought, or Arthur’s, and he can’t bring himself to care.

It’s true, regardless. Even here, Lu’s smell is distinct, though just a bit different from how his hands (ringed in silver, currently) smell, or his hair, or even his body odor. Lu has always, inherently, somehow , smelled like vanilla, and flour—like the dough he makes so often—and the coffee that he drinks every morning. Sweet and bitter, all at once. Like home. These smells, and the rest of them—his lavender body soap, the heady smell of the weed he smokes almost constantly—comprise a scent Mario has committed to memory.

This is the way Luigi smells. Even here. Even when, and where, he’s most vulnerable.

God, and he tastes like all of these things too, Jesus fucking Christ above. Mario groans muffledly, panting against Luigi’s hole as he licks a stripe from Lu’s pudgy, heavily furred balls all the way up his crease to his tailbone. Mario’s vision is swimming, so he closes his eyes, absolutely lightheaded with how his baby brother smells, and tastes—

“Ti amo, ti amo Weegee—!”

What little shred of control Mario had convinced himself he’d been holding onto snaps. He holds Lu apart with both hands, as far as he can, and eats , fucking gorges himself, licking and biting and sucking his little Lu’s even littler hole. Trembling and pink and fucking delicious —

A soft, barely-there whine reaches Mario through the lewd sounds he’s making with his own mouth, his own tongue. He freezes, holding his breath. He jerks away, as the thighs on either side of his head shift. He stares down at the body splayed out beneath him, spit glistening between cheeks reddened by rough handling. He stares at Lu, with his smeary, parted mouth, his face still smushed into a pillow. Listens to his soft, even breathing. Observes, with growing horror, Lu’s open eyes, all pupils, staring, glazed and unfocused, into the blank, reflective screen of the TV. 

“Lu?”

Lu doesn’t reply. He simply sighs, nuzzling his face just slightly into the pillow, already stained with his drool and makeup. 

Ever so slowly, and ever so gently, Mario puts his hands back on his little brother. He spreads him apart again, watching Luigi’s face with rapt attention. Luigi’s eyes flutter, almost imperceptibly, and he sighs again. 

Mario prays to whatever God may be listening, closes his eyes, and licks a long, firm stripe across his baby brother’s hole. He listens to the soft, almost inaudible mhnn that comes out of Lu’s slack mouth, his heart pounding, his mind once again absolutely quiet. He does so, again, and again. His heart in his throat, his hands shaking horribly, as Luigi shifts again, a barely there wiggle of his hips, a breathy little sound. He wonders if it’s even possible that Luigi is enjoying this, if he can even feel it. He thinks both could be true, as he picks up speed again, eating Lu out like he was before. 

It’s confirmed that both speculations are true when a particularly harsh suck to his now-reddened hole causes Luigi to whimper audibly. Mario’s heart practically stops beating as Lu slowly but surely shuffles his hip further up and back, unintentionally pushing back into Mario’s lewd attention. The older brother rewards his twin’s genuine expression of pleasure by insistently pressing his tongue against Lu’s loosened, spit-slick hole. It breaches rather easily, slipping past the initial unforgiving ring of muscle and into the warm, fluttering channel it guards.

“Hnnn—”

The soft, pleased moan Lu makes summons a much deeper, louder, answering groan from his older brother. Mario pushes harder, and deeper, and is rewarded with a full-body tremble, with Lu pressing back even more, slow and weak but doing his best. He thrusts his tongue inside once, twice, and Luigi pants. He shifts to bury his face entirely in the pillow, muffling the already quiet sounds he’s making. 

Mario can’t have that. 

“Is this okay, Lu?”

No response, so Mario pulls away, panting, his face and mustache slick with his own spit, red with his own blush. 

“Weegee? Riesci a sentirmi?”

Luigi turns his head to the side again so Mario can see him nod. His eyes flutter and open, still unfocused, dark and depthless. 

“Is this alright? Va bene? That I’m…that I’m doing this?”

Luigi nods again, his eyes struggling to focus on Mario’s reflection in the TV screen. One of his hands moves, the silver of Lu’s rings catching the light. Mario watches as his little brother’s hand slowly but surely forms a thumbs-up against the bedspread. Hesitantly, carefully, Mario spread’s Lu open again. He uses his thumbs to gently spread his little brother’s loosened, reddened entrance. His mouth goes dry as he witnesses a soft, vacant smile bloom across Luigi’s face.

I…should thank Joe Del Vecchio for this gift, Mario realizes.

He slicks his middle finger with spit and holds his breath. He runs the pad of his finger along his little brother’s rim before gently—so, so fucking gently—pushes against his little brother’s tiny, shy little hole. The twins groan in tandem—Mario’s loud and rough, Luigi’s soft and drawn out, a breathy little warble of sound—as Mario’s finger sinks inside, slowly but surely. There’s resistance, sure, but not enough, as Mario’s first knuckle, and then his second, disappear into his baby brother’s impossibly tight heat. It’s only seconds before it’s all the way inside, the rest of Mario’s knuckles folded against Lu’s ass. 

Mario watches his little brother’s face as he slowly pulls his finger all the way out, before gently pushing back in to the hilt.

“Oh, Weegee.” He groans, as he watches Lu’s eyes flutter in pleasure, a soft, happy sounding sigh escaping his parted lips. 

He pulls back out, pushes back in, rapt to every barely-there signal his drugged baby brother gives him. All positive, all wanting. So he does so again. And again. And again. And before he really realizes what’s happening— that he’s inside his little brother— he’s picked up speed. Each thrust, just a little faster, wrings a trembling little moan or sigh from Lu. Mario purposely pushes in a little faster this time, a little deeper, and Lu actually cries out, a wordless expression of pleasure. Lu’s hips shuffle back farther, pushing Mario’s finger deeper. 

“Merde, Lu. Is this…is this good? Bene?”

“Uh-huhhh—”

“Mio Dio, Lu. I’m—so glad—”

Luigi slurs something, unintelligible, as quiet and weak as his voice is, the way his face is still pressed into the pillow. 

“Huh? Lu, what—”

“Più?” Luigi mumbles, with effort, his eyes barely open, his hands loose fists resting above his own head. 

Luigi’s plea is so unexpected, Mario hesitates, still middle finger still knuckle-deep inside of his little brother. He hesitates so long that Luigi whines, shuffles his hips. 

“Pleaseeee, please, M’rio, please—”

“Oh, Lu. La mia dolce metà.” Mario practically growls, his voice rough and deep with lust and nerves. “Mi dispiace tanto!”

He spits into his hand, making sure his fingers are thoroughly slicked. He holds Lu open with his other hand as he lines up his middle and ring fingers with the opening he’s made in his baby brother, a tiny sliver of darkness that winks at him every time Lu’s whole flutters and clenches needily. He pushes, slowly and gently. Weegee hums, a deep, satisfied sound, as the two fingers slip inside to the first knuckle.

“Mamma mia, Lu, there—there you go, oh—bene, così buono per me, il mio bambino—”

Mario mutters mindless, half-coherent praises as his fingers sink deeper and deeper inside his little brother. There’s a lot more resistance this time, and he can tell—and it makes his heart ache —that Lu is actually making an effort to relax around the intrusion. That he truly, actually wants it, as he rocks his hips, moaning quietly as Mario’s fingers slip deeper each time he does. 

“Per favore! Muh-Mariooo!” Lu begs again, so soft and so sweet and così caldo dentro, as Mario’s knuckles finally breach, unable to go any deeper. 

“I have you, I’ve got you, Lu—così buono, così buono per me—!”

As he pulls them out, pushes back in, he can feel Lu shaking, trembling underneath him, as he wiggles his fingers deep within his baby brother. He thrusts again, and again, just a bit faster each time, and listens to his little brother’s breathy, high-pitched little moans, soft whimpers as Mario drags the pads of his fingers along the slick, bumpy walls of his insides. Mario holds his breath as he maps out the unfamiliar texture. He turns his fingers, rotating his wrist, and Lu wails suddenly, a sound that gives Mario chills. The loose fists of Lu’s hands have tightened, buried in his own hair. The pretty silver bangles around Lu’s wrists jingle with each tug, each time Mario moves. The rings adorning each of Lu’s fingers glint amidst his chestnut curls. Mario repeats the same action he had and watches Lu’s mouth fall open in ecstasy, the way something seems to spark in his little brother’s wide, glazed eyes. Mario listens to the soft tinkling of Lu’s jewelry and concentrates, feeling out his brother’s insides, rotating his fingers this way and that, wondering—

And he finds it. If he angles his fingers down, just so, towards Lu’s front, where his dick meets his body. A particular rough, big bump of muscle. Something Mario vaguely remembers learning about in health class.

The sound his little Lu makes, as he presses the pads of his fingers against it and pushes, could rouse II Diavolo himself, could make any la suora blush. This thought actually makes Mario laugh, a breathy little chuckle, as he does it again.

“Mario!!!”

“SÌ, Luigi?”

“I—ah—wuh-wuh-wuh—”

“What is that? Is that what you’re asking?”

Luigi just nods, his face flushed and scrunched, biting his bottom lip to keep quiet. 

“No, no, no, Weeg.” Mario leans over his little brother, tugs Lu’s bottom lip free from between his teeth, tiny little crescent moons in ruined lipstick. “Don't—basta! I want to hear you. I want to hear how good you feel, Lu.”

Luigi’s face flushes impossibly redder and he closes his eyes, turning his face away, hiding behind one of his hands as he realizes Mario is looking at him. He squeaks, an adorably embarrassed and shy little sound, as Mario prods insistently at that special spot inside of him.

“Oh, il mio bambino. Questo non va bene…I want to see you, too.”

Lu whines, and then shrieks, as Mario pulls his fingers free, wraps his hands around Luigi’s shoulder and side, and flips him bodily onto his back. Luigi stares at Mario with an expression similar to horror, his eyes impossibly wide, the two of them now face to face. 

“There you are, my pretty little Lu. Il mio prezioso fratellino.” 

Mario cups his little brother’s face in his hand and smiles as Luigi’s eyes finally meet his. He rubs a thumb along Lu’s cheekbone, twirls his soft mustache. 

“Ti amo così tanto, Luigi.”

Luigi smiles in response, and it's the most beautiful thing Mario has ever seen. Lu’s silly, crooked little smile, conveying his sheer, giddy joy, his pretty, lust-darkened gaze the textbook definition of adoration.

“Anche io ti amo, Mar.” Luigi replies quietly, his voice steady. 

Mario leans back to his previous position between Lu’s spread legs, and his little brother blushes, his eyes flitting to the side, too embarrassed to look at his older brother as he shuffles his hips up further on the pillow, as he spreads his legs wider.

“Oh, Lu.” Mario sighs, as he re-slicks his fingers, pressing them against Luigi’s needy, fluttering entrance.

“Bravo ragazzo, così buono per me.” He breathes, as they sink right back inside to the hilt.

Lu moans loudly, his body jerking, his wide eyes looking down at Mario in shock, his bottom lip trembling. Goosebumps have bloomed all along his arms, his legs.

“You are.” Mario confirms the shocked disbelief in his little brother’s tear-filled gaze. “You are good boy! Il migliore—the best! And you’re mine.”

Lu shrieks, as Mario pulls his fingers out only to thrust back in, roughly and precisely striking that place inside that makes Luigi see stars. 

“You were asking what this is, right?” Mario pants, his brow beginning to sweat as he builds up a rhythm of finger-fucking his brother.

Luigi nods bonelessly, his eyes unfocused again, his mouth open as broken little ah, ah, ah-s escape him with each thrust, each of them deliberately and precisely aimed. 

“Wuh-wuh-wuh—”

“It’s a place inside of you, Lu. A place that was meant for me —made for me, to make sure I make my—ugh, Il mio prezioso, bellissimo fratellino feel good.”

Luigi is crying now, and nodding, his face hidden in his hands. Mario growls, pausing his ministrations to reach up with his free hand, wrap it around Luigi’s wrist, and tug. Lu obediently uncovers his face and fists his hands in his hair instead. Much to Mario’s shocked pleasure, he further submits, complies, by meeting Mario’s eyes with his own. 

“Does this feel good?”

“Yes, yes, Muh-Muh-Mario, please—”

“Oh, good, bene. It does? Sono così felice. You deserve good things, fratellino. All of it, everything you want.”

Luigi is openly sobbing now, tugging his own hair, obediently meeting the animalistic, lust-filled gaze of his grinning older brother. 

“Do you agree?”

“Yes, yes!”

“You don’t even know what you’re saying. Do you agree that you’re good, that you deserve everything you want?”

“SÌ, yes, I’m so guh-guh-guh—guh—”

“Good!” Luigi finally screams at a particularly rough thrust to that special palace inside, the place Mario said—

“So you do know you’re a good boy? Who deserves everything he wants?”

“Yes! ” Luigi shrieks, his face blood red and slick with his own tears. “SÌ, sono un bravo ragazzo, Mario! Il migliore! ”

“Coretta!” Mario praises. “And what does my good boy want, Lu?”

Lu shakes his head, clearly overwhelmed. Luigi’s erection twitches, precum smearing wetly against the pale, taunt skin of his own stomach. 

“I duh-duh-duh-dunno!” He wails, so loud his voice breaks.

Mario is suddenly, wildly thankful that Joe was wrong, that he’s a fucking idiot, that whatever date-rape shit he’d slipped Lu didn’t even fucking work right. 

“No, Lu, I think you do. Please tell me.” 

“No! No no no noooo!”

“Tell me, or I’ll stop—”

“You!” Mario’s precious little baby brother screams. “I wuh-wuh-wuh want you to—ho bisogno di te—per favore!”

Mario freezes for a long second, absolutely fucking shocked. That was not the answer he’d been anticipating. He’d expected his brother to beg him to get him off, make him cum. Potentially even beg him to stop.

Luigi is sobbing, pushing back into Mario’s hand.

“Per favore M-Mar, per favore! I wuh-want to—nuh-nuh-need to—feel you—”

“Luigi. Cosa ho fatto per meritarti?”

Mario rises to his knees, adjusting his stance, leaning over Lu. After a split-second moment of indecision, Mario hesitantly wiggles the fingers of his free hand underneath the dog collar Lu insisted on wearing, and tries not to think about that at all as he uses it for leverage. He looks into his baby brother’s eyes, his absolutely ecstatic expression, as he fucks him, pistoning his arm back and forth as fast and deep and as hard as he can. He witnesses the exact moment he cums, watches Lu’s eyes roll back into his head, listens to the scream that rips itself, ear-splitting and rough, from Luigi’s lungs. He leans back, watches his precious little Lu spill all over himself, so much cum it runs down Weegee’s ribs, oozes downward to pool in his little inny belly button.

Once Lu has stopped cumming—and it takes a while—Mario gently removes his damp, wrinkled fingers from his brother’s wrecked insides, the puffy redness of his abused hole. He lays down beside Luigi, who immediately turns onto his side, snuggling into his older brother, tears still rolling, seemingly endlessly, down his flushed face. They lay together for a long time, their breathing calming and deepening, Lu once again entirely limp. Mario assumes he’d fallen asleep, is about to himself, when Lu’s sleepy, shy little voice asks—

“Wuh-why wuh-wuh-wouldn’t you give me what I wah-wanted, Muh-Muh-Mario? Even after you made me tell you?”

Luigi’s tears are bitter as can be, and Mario feels sudden, immense guilt as he wipes them gently away. 

“I…I’m sorry, Lu. I didn’t think that was going to be what you would ask for. And I want to, I do, I just…want to do so when you…when you’re…when you’re alright, again. When you can say yes, and I believe you—”

“Buh-But I did say yes, and you buh-believed me—”

“I know, Lu. I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“But you did.” Lu whispers.

“...but I did.” Mario confirms. “We…we have all the time in the world, Weegee. Ti amo—”

“Anche io ti amo, Mario.”

And as his little brother softens against him once again, his body going slack, his breath evening out in sleep, unable to fight staying awake any longer, Mario begins to cry. He cries because that voice in his head—the one that sounds like Uncle Arthur—is entirely gone, and all he is left with is himself. 

Chapter Text

Mario wakes to the worst headache of his life and a pained grunt as he's kneed in the stomach, Lu's hand on his chest as his little brother climbs over him, scrambling out of the bed and bolting to the door before Mario can even raise his head. 

The sound of Luigi being violently sick floats down the hall and through the mushy remains of Mario's brain. He squints against the painful light of day, blurrily assessing the room, Lu's dress crumpled on the floor along with the contents of his bag, all of his little brother's precious items having been unceremoniously dumped. Just as Mario is trying to piece these details together, as he puzzles out what he's doing in Lu's bed, a memory hits him from the night before. Lu's rough, slurring, stuttering voice begging Mar, più, puh-please— Mario's stomach drops, his mouth literally falling open.

Oh, cazzo. Mario covers his face with his hands in shock and finds they smell like Lu, heady and bittersweet. The guilt hits him then—the realization of just what, and to what extent , he'd done to his drugged-out little Lu, finds him in bits and pieces. Finds him in slowed-down images:

Lu, his body limp and warm, humming softly in his sleep. Lu's head lolling as Mario tugs his boots off, his drooling, slack mouth as he'd been manhandled out of his dress. Lu's breathy whines and whimpers, his eyes barely open and unable to focus as his older brother—a s Mario—

Lu's thumb's up, his head nodding yes, long after Mario had already started, after he already had one finger buried deep inside his baby brother's too-warm, vice-like insides.

Mario vaguely remembers thinking he should thank Joe Del Vecchio while inside of Luigi. 

And he realizes he's going to be sick, too. The world spins around him as he makes it out of bed, and this, paired with the remembrance of the malicious, knowing smirk on Joe's face, means he doesn't quite make it. Vomit forces its way up his throat, spewing through the hand pressed tightly to his own mouth, spattering to the wooden floor of the hallway. And when he does finally make it to their one bathroom, he barely registers Lu's presence as he gags and vomits into the bathroom sink, his grip white knuckled. It's only after the worst of it is over that he can finally look over at his brother, concern and fear rising over Mario's self-disgust and guilt. 

Lu's still naked except for his jewelry. He's kneeling at the toilet with his arms draped over the seat, his head resting on his folded arms, his curly hair monumentally messy and hiding his face from view. As Mario watches, Lu dry heaves pitifully, lifting his head with a thick-sounding groan.

“Lu?” Mario breathes, and his little brother groggily turns to face him.

“What even huh-happened luh-last night, Mar?” Lu whispers.

And Mario finds himself unable to respond, his brain screaming in shock, his hands going numb as he looks at Lu's beautiful, wrecked face. His complexion is absolutely ashen, the skin around his bloodshot, hazy eyes puffy and red. Ugly black and gray streaks of watery mascara marr his cheeks, visibly signifying the tears Luigi has shed within the last twelve hours. 

When Mario doesn't immediately reply, Lu groans and goes to stand. He wobbles, seemingly weak and unsteady, and Mario reaches out to grip his elbow to steady him. Luigi leans on him gratefully, pressed up to Mario's side, his head on his older brother's shoulder.

“You guh-gonna be okay, fratellone ? Are you huh-hungover too?” Lu asks, and all Mario can do is nod.

“I've never been this hungover in my—” Luigi trails off abruptly, sucking in a gasp as he finally looks in the mirror, looks at the two of them side by side, looking like they do.

Mario watches Lu's expressions, watches the emotions in his eyes shift and change in real time with whatever is going on in Luigi's mind. Shock, first, his eyes going very, very wide. His left hand (the dominant one) comes up to his face, barely touching the black tear tracks descending down his face, all the way to his chin and down his neck. He touches his lips next, absently rubbing at the blurry, smudged outline of his lip liner, the dried drool on his chin. His eyebrows draw together and downwards then, obviously confused. 

“Porca puttana, che cazzo ? Wuh-what happened to me last night, Mar?" He asks, his voice shaking. "Just how druh-druh-drunk did I guh-get?” 

When Lu's eyes meet Mario's in the mirror, obviously afraid, Mario can't control the way his own expression twists into a grimace, immediately looking away, unable to bear looking into Luigi's gaze. Silence passes, thick and damning.

“Mario?” Luigi asks, a hint of accusation in his tone. It's all it takes for Mario to break.

“It wasn't just…no, you didn't get very…drunk.” Mario whispers, literally cringing, his eyes closed to escape his brother's tangible gaze.

“Wuh-What do you muh-mean, bro? I must've been hah-hammered, I-ah barely ruh-ruh-ruh-remember ah-anything—and when did I-ah cry ?”

Lu's talking as fast as his stutter will let him, made worse with nerves, pitched high in confusion. When Mario doesn't reply, Luigi turns to face him, gives his shorter big brother's shoulder a gentle shake, forcing Mario to look at him.

And Luigi must see something there, Mario can tell in the way he somehow goes paler, the way hurt and fear begin to edge out any other emotion in Lu's aquamarine eyes. 

“Mah-Mah-Mar? What is it, hwa-why are you…wuh-what are you not tuh-telling me fratellone ?”

Mario grits his teeth, forces himself to look at Luigi. 

He'd promised Lu a lifetime ago that he'd never lie to him. That he wouldn't ever keep secrets from him.

“I d-dunno, Lu. Maybe it was all the weed?” 

Luigi's gaze goes hard, then hurt. He turns to stare at himself in the mirror, his hand still on Mario's shoulder. Mario sees the exact instant Lu's pupils blow in shock, sees the moment his eyes fill with tears. He leaves abruptly, walking unsteadily out of the bathroom, the loss of his touch instant pain. 

Mario follows like a loyal dog, his body tense and his shoulders hunched as he awaits inevitable reprimand. 

He finds Luigi in his room, sitting on the edge of his bed. His expression is slack, his gaze distant. In his limp hands, ripped and wrapped around his fingers, are his discarded fishnets. Mario stands silently in the doorway, doing his best to mentally prepare himself, but finds his mind is a roaring, panicked blank. He’s so in his own head, scrambling around to grasp onto something , that he visibly startles when Luigi speaks.

“I…huh-huh- huh—had a duh-dream last night, Mar.”

Mario doesn’t respond, but the look in Lu’s eyes—suspicious and hurt and terribly, incomprehensibly confused—tells him Lu doesn’t expect a response. Mario watches his little brother struggle with what he’s about to say, his face pinching as he tries and fails repeatedly to find his words and get them out.

“I…fuh-fuh-feel nuh-nuh-now that it muh-muh—muh —might not hah-have buh-been a duh-duh-duh—duh—”

“Dream?” Mario whispers.

And suddenly, Lu is sobbing. Drawn out, wailing cries of grief. He hunches forward, visibly shaking, gripping his ruined tights to his bare chest. His face flushes quickly, blood-red and screwed up with pain, his grit teeth bared in a grimace. 

“L-Lu?” Mario breathes, stepping forward, his hands raised, palms out, once again surrendering—

“Wuh-was I even awake when you—stuh-stuh-stuh-started? ”

Mario feels the whole world shift around him, the floor seemingly going out from under him. He staggers, leaning heavily against the door frame, grasping onto it like it can anchor him against the mind-rendering betrayal swimming in his baby brother’s aquamarine eyes. Mario stammers, his vision tunneling, worried he may pass out—

Luigi stands suddenly, taking two wobbling, overwhelmed steps towards him. His pained expression has softened into something infinitely worse, something wide and vulnerable, almost beseeching, as if begging his brother to deny it. 

“Was I?” He whispers, and his face crumples again as Mario jerkily shakes his head no.

Lu’s knocking knees give out, his long legs folding shakily underneath him as he goes to the floor. Mario goes to him reflexively, reaching for his little brother, his hands stopping inches short of touching Lu as Luigi looks up, halting Mario with a look alone. 

“Wuh-Why was I so fuh-fucked up, Mar?”  Lu breathes shakily. “Did you duh-duh-drug me?”

“No! No, no no no—I d-didn’t ah-drug you, it was ah—J-Joe, he—slipped something in your drink—”

“Joe?? Why?” 

The heartbreak lingering in the depths of Lu’s gaze makes jealousy swell, red and roiling, deep in Mario’s heart. It rears its head as it always does—as it did in that damned alley—but for the first time in his life, Mario doesn’t think he feels angry at all. 

Mario doesn't know what to say, what answer to give Lu.

“And you—you— ”

Mario begins to back away.

“Hai deciso di approfittarti di me?”

Luigi’s voice, a cold, hard whisper, has never been steadier. Lu’s voice speaking in their mother tongue—slightly deeper, more melodic, and entirely absent of his stutter. The stutter he acquired so quickly after moving to New York, constantly nervous of speaking, of being made fun of for his beautiful, but woefully thick, accent. Mario has always loved—assolutamente adorato —hearing his fratellino speak as he was meant to by birth. But hearing those words, in their language? It makes it even more real, somehow. What Mario had done , put so plainly and precisely.

Mario shakes his head so hard his headache doubles, his head whipping from side to side, words beginning to spill from his idiotic mouth. 

“No, no no no!! No, I—I—I d-didn’t d-decide to, I—well, I just—I couldn’t—”

And Lu screams, a wordless yell that startles Mario so hard, he whimpers audibly, his eyes wide with terror and locked onto Luigi, pinned by his little brother’s bright, wild-eyed stare, unable to even comprehend the sheer amount of depth and emotion he finds in them. Luigi stands suddenly and starts forward, a snarl ripping free of him. 

Luigi spends so much time trying to disappear—to not be perceived at all—that Mario had almost forgotten just how much taller Luigi actually is, when standing at his full height, back straight, as he is now. And Mario feels infinitely small, breathlessly pathetic and powerless in the shadow of his little brother’s rage, eye-level with Luigi’s bared teeth. Mario flinches hard, trying to scramble away only for Lu to yank him bodily back, one of those slender hands he loves so much catching him by the front of his overalls.

Mario freezes seconds before it happens, and he finally has thoughts in his head, even if they are scattered and barely decipherable— 

Mossa! Gotta move—fauno—verrò colpito—!

It still catches him by surprise, somehow. Luigi slaps him so hard, Mario’s hearing goes, his head snapping to the side, pain shattering in his head like glass breaking, before it numbs into spidery, static white noise. The only thing keeping him upright is Luigi’s one-handed grip on his clothes. Mario spits out the mouthful of liquid he’s choking on and whimpers loudly.

Through blurry vision, Mario witnesses his little brother’s expression of rage almost immediately go slack.  Luigi’s grip falters, Mario’s body almost crumpling to the floor right then and there. Instead, Luigi catches him bodily around the middle. He lifts Mario with both hands—like one would a toddler—turns, and sits him down on the edge of the bed, steadying Mario with a hand on his shoulder. Mario doesn't even realize he's crying until Lu's other hand gently wipes his tears away, doesn't even realize he's bleeding until Lu wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and it comes away stained red. 

“Mario, il mio fratellone—mio grande stupido—idiota!” Luigi seethes, even as he tends to Mario, shushing him, his hands as soft and kind as their mother's was. “Why did you? Why would you decide to hurt me, when—when—”

The rage in Luigi’s eyes is slowly dissolving into absolute misery, hot, bitter tears rolling down his face, his hands—still mindlessly tending to Mario—beginning to shake. 

“You could’ve just—you cuh-cuh-could’ve just had me. I…ti appartengo già, fratellone!"

Luigi laughs, and that somehow hurts more than his anger. He takes his big brother’s face between his hands, still wiping his tears away with frenetic, nervous energy. 

“You know that—”

Mario's heart is a bottomless pit of suppressed, guilt-ridden love, rutted with well-worn paths of longing and denial. 

“I know.” Mario confirms in a whisper, and Luigi's face crumples in anguish. “You told me, showed me, and I—sei mio, l'ho sempre saputo—”

“Then why cuh-couldn't you wait, Mar?”

Mario's whole entire soul seizes as Lu closes the distance between them so forcefully, it’s almost a headbutt, pressing their foreheads together. Mario’s favorite place to be, pressed together like this, on eye level with his fratellino . Where the both of them have always belonged.

“It could've been duh-different, il mio unico amore in assoluto! La mia anima gemella…avrebbe potuto essere migliore! Why cuh-couldn't you—why can you never control yourself—”

“I just couldn't, Lu.” Mario's voice comes out in a tight, insistent whisper. “I never can, when it comes to you. I tried, il mio dolce piccolo Lu, I really did. But he—I said no, I tried, I begged him to stop but he wouldn't—”

Mario doesn't even realize what he's said until Lu pulls away from him, until he sees the fearful, hesitant confusion written plainly on his Luigi's face. 

“He? Lui chi, Mar?”

Mario shakes his head, absolutely speechless, his hands shaking, his world crumbling around him as he realizes the confession he's going to have to make…and the effect it will have on his sweet, oblivious Lu.

He can't find the words, and he absolutely rots from the inside out as he witnesses the cold horror and disgust dawning on Lu's face, making a home in his eyes.

“I—”

“No. ”

“But—”

“No! Fuori di testa?”

“Just listen, Lu, please. Per favore, ti sto implorando! ”

Mario traps Luigi easily, roots him to the spot, as he takes his little brother's beautiful hands tightly in his own. He gazes into Lu's eyes as he shares the one secret he never meant to. 

“After …long, long after…around when you started talking, again—when you were you, again—I…started developing feelings for you, Luigi. Sentimenti romantici—feelings a brother should never have—”

Luigi sobs suddenly, his tears unbearably bitter and sweet. Agrodolce, like him. He tries to turn away, but Mario guides him right back with gentle, firm hands cupping his baby brother’s beautiful, makeup-stained face. 

“And I felt guilty about them, unbearably so. I knew it was wrong, but it didn’t feel wrong. It felt so, so right—perfetto, like I was meant to, destinato. So I blamed—him, because I thought—I thought if he’d never—if I hadn’t seen what…h-happened, to you…the things you—the things he did to you —”

A choked whimper leaks from Lu’s mouth, his eyes bright with pain, but Mario pushes on. It’s far, far too late to stop now.

“That I wouldn’t…have such thoughts about you. But the thoughts kept happening, and I…I felt like a mostro, for thinking of you like that when you’d been so…hurt. So I decided those thoughts were his, or were at least triggered by him. So when I had a thought… uno romantico, about you…especially the really, ah… inappropriate ones, I would…well, I’d repeat them in his voice, in my head. So the thought would feel even worse.”

Luigi wails.

“And so I’d condizionato myself to react negatively to my love, and—well, mio brama, for you—by attributing those feelings to him. But then—”

Lu’s teary, pain-filled eyes widen impossibly. 

“But then he started saying things on his own, cose mostruose. Worse things than I would’ve thought on my own. He wouldn’t go away, and then it became…n-normal, having him there. Inside my head. Saying things about you.”

Lu’s head begins to shake side to side, slowly at first, before gaining speed. No no no no no. He tries to pull away again, so Mario just wraps his hands around both of Lu’s instead, his much broader grip almost impossible for Lu’s much smaller and slimmer hands to slip free of. 

“And last night, Lu, he…he just kept saying things like…how pretty and cute you were, like…like that. That you were a gift to me, inviato dal cielo. That I would never get a chance like that again. Perchè fermarsi adesso?"

Mario laughs harshly, and Luigi cringes away from him, trying so hard to yank free of his older brother’s grip.

“And I’ve never…really known how to say no to Uncle Arthur.”

Luigi goes very, very still, his hands at his sides clenching into white-knuckled fists. He stares over Mario’s shoulder, his expression growing more and more panicked with each passing second. But Mario doesn’t notice at first, so wrapped up as he is in trying to make all these broken pieces fit together, trying to make it all make sense.

"And sometimes…sometimes I’m not quite sure where my thoughts end, and his begin. Or when he begins, and I end. Sometimes it just blurs for me, Lu—”

“You duh-duh-don’t know how muh-muh-much of you is him ?” Lu whispers, his voice tight.

“Not exactly" Mario shakes his head slowly. "I’ve always felt the same, Lu. How I feel has always been me, just not…some of my thoughts.”

“Sei sicuro? ”

“Che cosa? ”

“How are you sure your fuh-feelings are yours, Mar?”

Mario struggles to reply. He thinks, long and hard about it, before shrugging.

“Uncle Arthur only ever really says bad things about you…when how I feel about you is so easily, distinctly mine, and positive. Ti amo romanticamente, Lu, ho sempre. I could never deny it, just how intensely I love you in all the ways someone can love someone else."

But Lu is shaking his head slowly, side-to-side again. His expression is almost entirely blank, now, except for an adorable little furrow of confusion between his brows. His eyes are glazed with some emotion Mario can’t place, and he’s distant. Like he’s barely here, with Mario, wandering off somewhere in his own head instead.

“But Uncle Ar-Arrrrrr-Artie said nice thuh-things to me too.” Lu whispers, his voice is so distant and faint, Mario almost can’t hear it. A foghorn echoing across the vast, impassable sea of shared trauma separating them. 

Mario freezes, his whole body tensing, his blood turning to ice as Lu painfully utters the name Uncle Arthur only ever let Lu call him. In the same instant, Mario remembers with sudden clarity the nickname his Uncle had assigned his little brother—

—his piccolo gatto spaventato. His little scaredy-cat.

“Zio Artie diceva che ero bellissima—”

“No, Lu, he—well, he m-meant that, but not…not like I mean it—”

“Fratellone ?” Lu breathes.

Something about Lu’s voice has changed—how faint and quiet it is, sure, but also how suddenly small it’s become, higher-pitched and laced with yearning. Something about it makes Mario feel nauseous all of a sudden. 

“Si, Lu?”

“Tu mi ami?”

“Of course, Lu! I love you endlessly. Sempre e per sempre, la mia metà. ”

Lu’s answering smile is breathlessly beautiful, absolutely divini in how wide and pure it is, deepening his laugh lines, unveiling the dimple in his left cheek that Mario just adora. His head tilts gently to the side in a manner Mario can only describe as innocent. His big beautiful eyes are so very bright with that same something, and so open, eager, and trusting. The look in them gives Mario cold chills, something like fear trickling down his spine.

“Credi che anche lo Zio Artie mi amasse? ”

Mario’s heart stops beating. Lu’s words, said in that voice, in that tone—

Mario loses control of himself again, as he takes Luigi’s shoulders in his bigger, stronger hands and shakes him roughly.

“Lu, no! No, he d-didn’t—he didn’t…love you right, like I do. He loved you badly—a torto— he doesn’t love you the way I do— ”

Lu’s earnest expression crumples, though his eyes still shine with that damned something Mario can’t place—

“Perché…no?”

And Mario witnesses the exact second that beautiful light—happiness, Mario suddenly realizes. That damned, delusional, oblivious joy Lu has always carried through life, that’s always shined from Lu’s lovely eyes—trembles and wavers before going out entirely. Dies, dying, like a blown-out candle. Luigi blew it out himself, the second he voiced his question.

“Dio, I don’t know, I don’t know how anyone could not love you, Lu. Uncle Arthur was a…a fucking mostro, il diavolo—”

Mario’s anger fades before it can even truly begin, immediately washed away in concern and intense, unadulterated fear. Because Lu’s eyes are still wrong, still dull and dead-looking, and he’s staring, and his mouth is open, and—

“Luigi? Stai bene, dolcezza?”

Mario shakes him again, roughly, but Lu’s body is limp, his face and eyes still vacant. He waves his hand in front of Luigi’s face and groans aloud when Lu’s gaze doesn't follow the movement at all, his gaze dull and entirely empty of anything. Mario releases his little brother from his grip and Lu’s body sags just slightly, but stays in its sitting position. 

Mario takes a big deep breath, focuses his strength just-so, and slaps Lu across the face just hard enough to hurt. But Lu doesn’t react at all, and his head stays where the blow leaves it, slightly tilted to the side.

This hasn’t happened since he stopped talking the first time. 

Luigi is entirely and completely dissociated. Lights out, no one home, and the last time this happened, it had lasted almost an entire month. And then, after that…Lu hadn’t spoken aloud again for almost five whole years. 

Resigned, Mario gently shifts Lu onto his side and covers his still-naked body with a blanket. He stares into the nothingness behind his brother’s eyes, watching, relieved, when Lu at least blinks, though sluggishly. Unbidden, Mario once again thinks of piccolo Lu, little seven-year-old Luigi with his dead-inside gaze, and realizes why the tone of Luigi’s voice—right before he triggered his own dissociation—was so familiar.

That had been Lu’s voice then. When it happened. When he was seven.

The weight of that—that for a few minutes, Mario had been face to face with his child brother—brings him to his knees. He shuffles forward and pushes his forehead firmly to Lu’s. Mario closes his eyes and revels in the familiar contact, even if Lu doesn’t—can’t —respond.

He whispers to Luigi fervently, his voice wrecked with nerves and tears, as devoutly as someone praying La Preghiera del Signore in the face of the devil himself.

“No, Luigi, per favore! Per favore, non lasciarmi di nuovo solo, mia metà! Non posso sopravvivere senza di te…mia stellina—!”

He wonders how long it will be this time. He prays to il Dio—someone Lu has always believed in—and wonders how long he will have to wait for Lu to come back to him.