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luxaofhesperides · 3 months

Note

For ghost lights prompts: eldritch/creepy/weird Danny + shy/flustered Duke + hand holding

Your ghostlights fics are giving me so much joy RN I cannot express how much, if this prompt doesn't spark a brain worm for it I get it but I'm excited to read all the others you may wind up posting

There’s a new kid at West Robinson High School.

This normally wouldn’t be a big deal. They get plenty of new students, being an average high school; not prestigious like Gotham Academy, but not terrible like some of the schools in the lower South Side. New kids are hardly anything to make note of, but something about this student has everyone paying attention to him.

It’s not charisma. The guy doesn’t talk to anyone. It’s not attractiveness, because no one really knows what he looks like under the tattered hoodie he wears all the time. It’s not curiosity, not really, because the student body moves around him like he’s dangerous, not like they want to pry all his secrets out into the open.

It doesn’t help that Duke sees things around him.

He considers briefly telling someone about it, but then remembers having to argue for returning to West Robinson High School instead of being put in Gotham Academy and decides that Bruce can continue to mind his own business. It’s not like this new kid has done anything bad (yet) and Duke can handle investigating this on his own.

So he watches, catching glimpses of the new kid—Danny Fenton—in hallways during passing period, hiding away at lunch, disappearing into the streets as soon as the school day is over. They even share a class together, French Language and Culture, but Danny is always in the back corner, ignored and made invisible by everyone else.

Well. That’s not quite true.

There are shadowy figures that surround Danny and they never leave him alone. Even when he’s got his arms folded on his desk, head down, looking as if he’s asleep, these figures pull at the hood covering his head or reach semi-transparent hands down to pet his hair. And Danny reacts to them, lightly batting their hands away or turning his head away from them.

Duke has no idea what they are. Ghosts are his best guess, but he can’t confirm it. As far as he knows, ghosts are magic and can only be seen by magic users, which Duke very much is not. They do lead to cold spots, keeping the temperatures noticeably colder around Danny, and make the shadows darker, which only makes other students more nervous about being near Danny.

Through his week of observing Danny, beyond the ghostly figures and visible unease he causes in everyone, what Duke learns is that Danny is lonely.

No one talks to him. People barely look at him. Teachers avoid calling on him when they can.

And Danny accepts it. He fades into the background, keeps out of the way, shrinks in on himself.

No one else sees it. No one else wants to see him.

It’s breaking Duke’s heart, just a little bit.

He’s lucky that he’s not an outcast at school. With his meta gene awakening and his free hours taken up by Bats and fighting crime, it’s hard to have much of a social life, but he still has a few friends during the school hours he can hang out with. Danny doesn’t have anyone, and the more Duke sees how isolated he is, the more upset he becomes.

Which brings him to step two of his investigation: befriend Danny.

So what if he has some ulterior motives! He also just wants to give this guy someone to hang out with! What little glimpses of Danny’s face he’s able to get show him a tired teenager, worn down the way Alley kids are when they’re at the end of their rope and have nothing left to give.

Duke’s first attempts at befriending Danny fail so fast it’s almost funny. It’s as if Danny knows when someone is seeking him out, because every time Duke goes to where he is, Danny up and disappears, hurrying away and vanishing in the crowded hallways, or in the alley a few buildings past the school, or into the fucking restroom, which is always empty when Duke goes in after him. Trying to use his powers to see where Danny goes next doesn’t help either; all he sees is some glowing figure resembling Danny walk through walls, which is either due to Danny being a meta or from Duke’s powers deciding to be unhelpful.

He’s about to resort to Tim level stalking to finally have a conversation with Danny when his French teacher blessedly (and unknowingly) aids him on his mission.

“Find a partner, everyone!” she instructs with a clap of her hands near the end of class. “This is a translation project, and you’ll be doing them in pairs to check each other’s work and decide how to best interpret something into English. If you don’t have a partner in the next minute, tell me and I’ll assign you someone.”

The class is a flurry of movement just as the last word leaves her mouth, friends turning to each other or running across the room to make sure they’re partnered up before anyone else can butt in.

No one looks at Danny. Which means Duke can just skirt along the wall of the classroom until he’s next to Danny, gently knocking on his desk to get his attention.

Danny looks up, and Duke sees a flash of blue before Danny averts his gaze, tilting his head down again. “Yeah?” he says, and his voice is much softer than what Duke imagined. He expected something hoarse and rough, a little deep, intimidating. Instead, it’s gentle and quiet and smooth.

It’s a nice voice. It’s a shame that no one else has really heard it.

“Wanna be partners?” he asks, as if he’s offering a choice. They both know no one else is going to ask Danny, and if he wants to avoid talking to the teacher, then he has to work with Duke.

Danny sighs. “Sure.”

And then he puts his head back down on the desk.

Duke backs off. This is the best he’s going to get right now. Now that he’s got an excuse to spend time with Danny, he can take his time breaking down his walls and getting to know him. He watches as a figure from the usual group that hangs around Danny breaks away and gently brushes a hand against Danny’s arm. Then they turn to Duke and reach for him.

He moves without thinking, stepping out of the way. The shadowy figure fades back, almost invisible even to his eyes, and Danny’s turned his head to lay his piercing gaze on Duke.

…There’s no way that blew his cover, right?

He didn’t just reveal one of his meta abilities from taking a single step to the side. No way.

But Danny’s eyes are a deep blue that seem almost endless as he keeps his attention on Duke. It feels as if he’s staring into Duke, seeing more than what he wants to reveal.

“Alright, looks like everyone’s found a partner! As you head out, be sure to grab a practice packet from my desk to work on some translation. There are due the next time we meet, and I will be handing out your individual passages once these have all been turned in.” Their teacher sets a large stack of papers onto the corner of her desk, then gets to work erasing the whiteboard just as the bell rings.

Students grab their bags and rush to take one of the packets before heading out to their final class of the day. Duke stays behind with Danny, waiting for most of the class to leave before swinging his backpack onto his shoulder and grabbing a packet for both of them.

He hands one to Danny, who takes it with some hesitancy and a quiet, “Thanks.”

He leaves before Duke does, and though it’s only a second between his leaving and Duke stepping out the door, Danny’s already vanished from sight.

As soon as school ends, Duke heads for the Hatch, hoping a quick evening patrol will help clear his mind. It’s a quiet evening, though, so he’s left with his thoughts more often than not, staring out over the city long enough that Oracle asks him if he’s alright.

Against his better judgment, he says, “I’ve been looking into something, but I’m not finding much. Can you do some research on Danny Fenton?”

Oracle is already typing before he finishes asking. “What am I looking for?”

“Anything. He’s… strange. I don’t know if he’s a meta or just lightly haunted. But there’s something up with him.”

“Do we need to be keeping a closer eye on him?”

Duke considers. None of them ask Oracle to look into specific people unless they’re dangerous. But danger is not the sense Duke gets from Danny. It’s more like he’s hiding, shying away from the world, constantly on edge. “No. If anything, he might be in danger. Something happened to him, because no one ends up like that by living an average life.”

“I’ll let you know what I find. Turn in for the night, it’s quiet out and you’re too distracted to patrol properly.”

“You got it, O.” He salutes the nearest camera, knowing she’ll see it, and makes his way back to the Hatch to change back into civies and get started on his homework.

When he next goes into his French classroom, all the desk has been rearranged so they’re all in pairs, side by side. Already, patterns are filling up the desks, so Duke heads for the back and sits down where Danny usually hides away. He’s not here yet, which is making Duke realize that he’s never actually seen Danny walk into the classroom and head to his seat.

Did he just never pay attention? Has Danny always just slipped in unnoticed until attendance was taken? How did Duke miss that?

There’s movement in the desk next to him. Duke goes to say that he’s waiting for his partner, so please sit somewhere else, when he realizes that it’s Danny who managed to sneak in yet again.

“Hey,” he says after a moment, hoping his surprise is hidden.

There’s a pause, and then Danny returns, “Hey, Duke.”

That’s all they have time for before class is starting and their teacher goes around to collect homework. She then hands out new packets, each one a different section of L’Ecume des Jours, and gives them the rest of class to begin working on translating it.

Duke is already dreading it as he flips through the three pages they were given to translate, stapled to each other beneath the two page instructions of how to format the final translation, how to document their previous translation drafts, and what to include in the reflection essay.

There’s no way he can get all of this done in a week.

On the other hand, it gives him a week to learn more about Danny. He needs to make the most of it.

“This is a lot,” he comments, hoping to prod Danny into conversation.

Danny shrugs.

“Can we work on this together after school today? Or do you have plans?”

“We can work on it today,” Danny says, voice barely louder than a whisper. He’s already scanning the pages, underlining certain words and phrases.

Duke hurries to get to work as well, trying to parse out meaning from the text through single words scattered on the page.

Qu’est-ce que vous faites dans la vie, vous?

J’apprends des choses, dit Colin. Et j’aime Chloé.

Duke nods to himself. He definitely doesn’t know French. Well, he knows qu’est-ce que. He knows vous. He know j’apprends and j’aime Chloé. Also dit Colin. Fairly simple, but with the missing pieces to the rest of those sentences, he really doesn’t know what’s going on beyond the fact that it’s a conversation and Colin loves Chloé.

When he glances at Danny’s desk, he’s shocked to see that his partner is already translating the first few lines into something that reads like normal English.

“Oh, wow,” he says, leaning over to get a better look, “You’re definitely better at this than I am.”

“I just like languages,” Danny replies, turning his paper so Duke can read it more easily.

“Have you been hiding your French skills this entire time? I could have definitely used your help before this.”

Danny goes still for a moment, eyes flicking towards his right where a shadowy figure has placed a hand on his shoulder. Then he turns to fully face Duke and says, “Better late than never. What do you need help with?”

“Everything.”

His immediate answer makes Danny smile, and he begins talking in that soft, soothing voice of his. He talks about not trying to translate everything into English immediately, but to understand the French and take it in as a whole language itself. He talks about getting the idea of the text first, the feeling of it, before trying to fit it into English. He talks about splitting up the text into sections to make it easier.

And then he reads the text, entirely in French, and Duke did not have a thing for voices or multilingualism before this, but he sure does now.

“Qu’est-ce que vous faites dans la vie, vous?” Danny reads, reaching the end of the first page. The syllables come to his easily, his French smooth and steady. “J’apprends des choses, dit Colin.” His eyes dart up, off the page, and fix Duke in place. “Et j’aime Chloé.”

Duke has never been happier that he doesn’t blush so visibly with his dark skin because he feels downright romanced. It’s a mix of the French, of Danny’s addictive voice, of their closeness, of how intimate this dark corner of the room feels, tucked away from the rest of the class.

“We can work on the other pages after we finish translating this one,” Danny says, leaning back at bit.

Duke nods, swallowing to chase away the dryness of his throat. “Sounds like a plan!”

They work in silence for the rest of the class period, and once the bell rings, Danny says, “I’ll wait for you by the bus stop down the street,” before he slips out of reach and disappears into the throng of students heading to their last class.

He’s beginning to think that he’s in way over his head. Duke can handle being in the middle of all the action, risking his life, fighting for others. He can handle staring down rogues and criminals and Gnomon. He can’t handle feelings and romance and other such things. Those are much scarier than a criminal shooting at him. At least with the criminal, he knows what to do and doesn’t just freeze up like he did with Danny.

The school day ends faster than he’s prepared for. As promised, Danny waits for him by the bus stop down the street, where other students are also waiting.

They don’t wait for a bus, though. Danny just meets his eyes and begins walking away, leaving Duke to follow after him, matching his pace so they can walk side by side.

The shadows in the alleyway seem to reach towards them as they walk down it. Something about it doesn’t feel right, so Duke tries to quietly use his powers and force them back.

He only has time to think, Oh, that was a bad idea, before Danny is shoving him against the wall, getting them both out of the way as a shadow solidifies and lashes out at them. He’s kept in place by strong hands on his chest, and Danny’s eyes are glowing lightly as he hisses at the shadows, making them rear back and settle down once more.

As if given permission to reveal themselves, more shadowy figures and strange movements in the shadows emerge, surrounding them.

“Danny, I don’t mean to alarm you, but—”

“I know,” Danny says. “I thought you might be able to see them too. Which is not good.”

“Sorry, man, it’s not like I can turn it off.”

“It’s fine. Just be more careful. They like me because I’m like them, but you just register as a threat. Either that, or prey.”

“Great,” Duke replies weakly, “Those are my favorite things to be. Are we… are we safe to move?”

Slowly, Danny steps back, no longer pressed right against Duke. Nothing moves to attack him, but it might be due to the glare fixed on Danny’s face, eyes still glowing.

“They’ll leave me alone, so…” He reaches a hand out, looking away. The hoodie isn’t able to hide the way his cheeks go red. “Don’t let go and we’ll be fine.”

“I hope this isn’t to lead me to my doom,” Duke jokes nervously as he accepts Danny’s hand, holding it tightly.

Danny wiggles his fingers, making him loosen his grip, and then their fingers are lacing together. Duke stares down at their hands, wide eyed, and hopes he doesn’t look as flustered as he feels.

“Not to your doom,” Danny reassures. “Just a coffee shop I thought you’d like.”

“Well, then, lead the way!”

“Allons-y,” Danny replies.

Stealing glances at him as they walk, ghostly figure and shadow shrinking away from them, all Duke can think is that he doesn’t need to worry about Danny being evil. His immediate instinct to protect Duke has proved that. He’ll keep the investigation going, though, to make sure Danny is safe from others that could hurt him.

Strange and unsettling as he may be, Danny’s also a smart, kind person who deserves more.

Duke is determined to make sure he gets it.

And if he gets a crush along the way, that’s his business and his business only.

It looks like Step Two: Befriend Danny is finally complete. He’ll figure out the other steps later. For now, he has an evening of French in a coffee shop to look forward to.

#ghostlights #dc x dp #dp x dc #dcxdp #dpxdc #dc x dp fic #prompt fill #my writing #im glad youre enjoying my ghostlights fics so much!!! im having a blast writing them #thank u for giving me more propaganda to spread for the ghostlights agenda <3 #this could easily continue into a much larger fic that goes into danny relocating to gotham for his protection #and start mixing in dc's spirit world with danny phantom's ghost zone/infinite realms #its kinda two stories in one tbh #1: danny trying to protect his kind classmate from ghosts and gotham spirits leading to supernatural shenanigans #2: duke trying to protect this clearly hurt and lonely person which leads to getting him accidentally roped into superhero shenanigans #both are the protagonists of a ya novel where they stumble into a secret for the sake of protecting one person #idk if im getting that across well but if u know the vibes then u know what im talking abt

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peaches2217 · 7 days

Text

There’s a door on the right wall of Peach and Mario’s bedroom, just a few meters from the entryway. It’s an entirely unremarkable door, really; it matches the doors to both the private chambers and the restroom, white with gold trimmings and a polished brass doorknob. Such a door normally wouldn’t give Peach any pause whatsoever.

There is, however, one strange thing about this door in particular: it wasn’t there this morning.

She repeatedly looks from the door to her husband, who’s casually unlacing his boots by the dresser. The door to her husband, who’s rummaging through the third drawer down. The door back to her husband, who’s unhooking his overalls and kicking them onto the plush carpet floor. If he’s aware of this anomaly in an otherwise familiar setting, he’s not showing it.

“Mario.”

Mario hums lazily, not even looking at her as he pulls on his softest, most worn nightshirt, its red cotton faded and fraying. Peach is almost certain she’s dreaming right now. She was so certain she had been awake just minutes ago, laughing with friends and family over dinner, cheerfully accompanying her husband to bed after a long and eventful day of baby shopping with her best friend (though it's still a bit early to be buying any clothes, she’d tried saying a few times, statements that Daisy had immediately brushed off). But everything suddenly feels far too… off.

“What is that?” she finally chances, gesturing to the alien door. Mario finishes peeling off his socks and gloves before looking to where she’s gesturing, regarding it with all the mundanity he might regard any other door.

“It’s a door,” he answers easily, giving her a patented I have no clue what you’re getting at but I love you and cherish the words that come from your mouth anyway grin.

Peach sucks in an uneasy breath. Maybe this is that Pregnancy Brain thing she’s read about? Perhaps her memories are being rearranged, her senses tricked? Toadessa did warn her that she might become increasingly forgetful as the months progressed. It’s a more logical explanation than any other she can conjure up. If something were truly amiss, then surely Mario would notice too. Right?

“I… don’t remember it being there this morning,” she confesses, a blush creeping into her cheeks. She remembers, or at least thinks she remembers, that there was once a small storage unit just behind that door, filled with old broken halberds and spears and other assorted equipment that was too valuable to trash but too broken to repair. Yes, she remembers it now with greater confidence; she had been terrified of that dark, cluttered room, unable to sleep for fear of whatever monsters might be lurking within, and so Toadsworth had ordered it sealed when she was age seven or so.

Or maybe he hadn’t?

Mario chuckles, and though the corners of his eyes crease in good humor and his smile is filled with warmth, her face burns hotter still. “Fog’s already setting in, huh?” He taps a finger to his temple to hammer home what he’s implying, and though Peach knows his words hold no malice, the teasing still fans an unpleasant flame in her chest; she can’t help but cross arms in front of her and huff, half in hopes of exhaling that flame, half to make her displeasure known.

Suddenly Mario’s face reads a bit less amused and a bit more ashamed, and that just makes her feel even worse.

“No,” he croons, approaching her with his hands loosely extended, “tesoro mio, I’m so sorry. That was mean.” His tone doesn’t quite match his words. He’s clearly sorry to have provoked such a reaction, Peach doesn’t doubt his sincerity there, but there’s nevertheless a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, like there’s still something terribly amusing about her predicament.

So this is the thanks I get for carrying your child, she considers pouting, but something in Mario’s eyes sparkles so brightly that she feels her annoyance melting away, like an icicle brought into the sunlight. Damn him. She sighs and unfolds her arms to take his hands; for her silent pardon, he brings her knuckles to his lips and kisses them one by one, and suddenly she’s overcome with the urge to giggle like a lovestruck schoolgirl.

She resists, if only to spite him one last time, then she lets the grudge slide from her shoulders.

“You know,” Mario says once he’s done with his ministrations, his thumbs rubbing little circles into the backs of her hands, “I don’t have any right to poke fun. I don’t even remember what’s behind that door, either.”

Peach blinks. No, okay, now she knows she’s dreaming. This entire scenario is making less and less sense by the moment.

But before she can pinch herself awake, Mario’s guiding her towards the unfamiliar door, letting go of her hands and drifting behind her. Almost like he’s pushing her forward, she feels.

“Maybe we should check it out,” he suggests all too innocently, and if not for the way he lingers behind her, she might not find the suggestion too strange. But Mario always insists on taking the lead any time there’s unfamiliar terrain to be trekked. He would never let her be the first in the line of fire, no matter how mundane said terrain might appear on the surface, especially not in her present condition.

Unless, of course, he knows what she's stepping into.

Staring at the white and gold door, reason begins to resettle in Peach’s head. How had he known she was referring specifically to the door itself? If she were to gesture to the bathroom door and say "What is that?", he wouldn’t say “That’s a door,” he would say “That’s the bathroom.”

She’s not dreaming, nor is she going crazy. There is definitely something going on. Some sort of conspiracy that he’s in on and she’s not.

Unaccustomed to being left in the dark by her own husband, she grasps the doorknob, takes a breath, opens the door… and gasps.

The room behind the door is, in fact, the room she remembers, or is at least roughly the same size. But where she remembers dingy hardwood, there’s now carpet, luxuriously plush like the carpet in the bedroom. The sterile gray walls that once spooked her are now a soft and lovely blue, decorated with empty floating shelves and cheerful paintings of Biddybuds and Fire Flowers and scenes from familiar mushroom forests.

There's no trace of the broken weapons that once littered the room. There's instead a dresser flush to the wall, and a tall table of some sort, and a small chest in the opposite corner... and in the center of the room, on a round and ornate rug, are two pieces of furniture on smooth, curved rockers. One is a chair, adult human-sized; the other is much smaller, a horizontal hollow contained within smooth, round bars. A crib.

“Oh yeah,” Mario chimes in somewhere behind her, “now I remember! I knew there was a reason I asked Daisy to keep you out of the castle today.”

His words slowly sink in as Peach approaches the rocking chair, reaching out to brush her fingers over the dark red wood. Cedar. The whole room is filled with the dry and resinous aroma of fresh cedar, a scent she typically associates with the workshop in the castle's western wing. The workshop where Mario tinkers with metal and wood whenever he tires of royal monotony and needs to keep his hands occupied.

The workshop that's been suspiciously locked every time she's approached it the past couple of months, even when she could hear saws cutting through raw materials and the tap-tap-tap of chisels in experienced hands within.

All pretense is gone. When she turns back to Mario, she finds him bristling with pride, that teasing smile wider than before.

"You did this?" She looks back to the chair, fastened with fluffy pink silk cushions, and the crib, a matching cushion tied to its bars and emblazoned with the royal mushroom emblem on its headboard, an emblem that's been carved into the chest a few steps away as well. Something in her throat feels impossibly tight. "All of this?"

Mario finally leaves the doorway, his hand brushing against her back as he steps past her. "Well, not all of it, no. Just the furniture." He taps his right foot a few times against the statement rug beneath their feet. "Weeg handled the layout and the decorations and the swatches and all that fancy stuff. He's got a better eye for that sorta thing! Then he helped me get everything moved in and set up and the door re-installed while you and Daisy were out shopping. Of course Toadsworth's the one who told me about this little room in the first place, so he helped us get it unsealed, and Daisy—" He laughs now, scratching the back of his neck. “Actually, she wasn’t even part of it originally! She just barged in one day — I had the door locked, Peachy, but she just waltzed right on in! I don’t know if she had a key or if she just forced it open with her bare hands — and she said the only way she’d keep quiet was if she got to be involved and take credit for her part in the whole ordeal, so that’s how that happened, and—”

His face grows darker as he prattles on, until at last he’s forced to take in a sharp gasp, his color returning to normal as oxygen once more fills his lungs. “But! The rest of it! Yeah, that was all me! Looky here—” His fingers curl around the bars of the crib, giving it a few demonstrative rocks. “Remember that night you called me into the bathroom and I thought you were hurt and I panicked but actually you were just excited because you could finally see a little baby bump in the mirror? I couldn’t sleep at all that night because suddenly it all felt so real, so I spent the whole next day making this!

“And then I thought, ‘Well, we’ve got a place for them to sleep, but where are we gonna change their diapers? And where are we gonna put all the diapers and wipes and all that good stuff anyway?’ And that’s how I got started on that one!” He darts now to the table against the wall, gesticulating around it with the enthusiasm of a used kart salesman. “Perfect little platform, plenty of storage space, I’ve been thinking about making a mobile to put over it too in case she gets fussy, because the last thing we need is a dirty diaper and a fussy baby, right? And then—”

And this continues on for a good few minutes, Mario darting around the room to show off each hand-crafted piece of their new nursery. The dresser to store non-diapers, things like blankets and onesies and a few changes of clothes for both of them because babies are messy and ruined clothes are inevitable, and the chest to store everything else, like toys — he throws the lid open and shows Peach a few delicately carved wooden blocks and dolls, because what's a toy chest without any toys?

The information comes at Peach too quickly to absorb any of it, because an excitable Mario is a Mario at full steam that won’t stop for anything or anyone, so she blindly follows him, brushing her fingers against each piece’s cool cedar, examining the smooth-gliding drawers, dragging her thumb nail over the ridges in each toy she’s handed.

“And then the bookshelf! I’m… still working on that one.” He scratches his neck again with a nervous chuckle. “But I couldn’t wait any longer! Gimme a few days and it’ll go in that corner right over there. Weegee’s already got a whole library lined up for her, so we should have enough books to last us a while at least. And then I was thinking we could put some flowers and vases on the shelves, maybe? So they look sad and empty now, but pretty soon they’ll…”

Peach dutifully admires one such shelf on the wall, right next to a painting of a Fire Flower field in full bloom. Yes, a live Fire Flower on the adjacent shelf to compliment the painting. It’s certainly a good idea. She’s so caught up in the automatic thought process that, as soon as it runs its course, she turns to take on whatever bit of information Mario throws at her next, effortless and thoughtless.

Only then does she realize he’s gone silent.

“...You okay, Peachy?” Suddenly there’s no bravado in his voice. It’s softer, gentler, quieter. He closes their distance and takes her hands in his, warm and strong. “Sorry, I… I know this is a lot. Of course, if there’s any part of it you don’t like, you can tell me! You know I won’t take it personally. Well, not too personally.” He couples this statement with a playful wink.

Another automatic thought crosses Peach’s mind: how could she ever criticize any of this? He’s made an entire nursery with his own two hands for their child. She could never…

And for the first time since she opened that strange new door, it hits Peach. Not in words, but in images: Mario in his workshop, wiping sweat and sawdust from his forehead as he consults his blueprints, making certain his vision is coming to life exactly as he’s planned. Mario crammed into a booth at Tayce T.’s with his brother, thick brows knit in confusion as Luigi gives him a crash course on color theory and interior design. Mario in a football-style huddle with Peach’s steward and brother-in-law and best friend, giving everyone their roles sometime late last night or early this morning while she still lay blissfully unaware in bed.

Mario kneeling beside the completed crib, rocking it a few times with a peaceful smile, staring down at the plush pink cushion and imagining a little blonde or brunette bundle of blankets sleeping soundly within.

The stagnant tightness in Peach’s throat erupts in the form of a sob, a rush of raw hormones heightening her every emotion until it almost hurts, and once she starts, it’s impossible to stop.

“Ah— Peachy—!” She hears Mario offer a few uncertain words of comfort beneath her shrill breathing, and he starts to pull her in some equally uncertain direction (uncertain to her, anyway, because her tears are falling too hard and too fast to make out anything other than abstract shapes). She lets him guide her steps, until suddenly he hoists her into his arms and lowers both of them. He’s settled in the rocking chair, she realizes from the way they both jolt as he adjusts her in his lap.

Her belly is larger now than it was the night she called him into the bathroom, though not so large that she can’t wrap her arms around him and hold him tightly, burying her face into the crown of his head. Even his hair smells of cedar, a fine dust that tickles her nose, and laughter bubbles in her chest alongside the tears.

“You’re amazing,” she manages to choke out. Her Mario, her thoughtful Mario, her hard-working and mind-bendingly devoted Mario. He cradles her, his left hand against her outer thigh, his opposite arm supporting her back, his right hand stroking the side of her belly ever so gently.

“So,” he says into her chest, and she can feel him smile against her, “does this, uh, does this make up for the teasing earlier?”

Peach sniffles and laughs again, drawing him in closer. Even if she hasn’t forgiven him (which she has, she’d like to believe she’s not that petty), she supposes drenching his hair with tears and mucus is payback enough. Maybe they can shower together tonight. Maybe she can wash his hair, and he’ll press kisses to her sternum the whole time, like he always does.

Though for now, she’s equally content to remain right where she’s at, secure in his arms in this cozy little nursery, their baby nestled safely between their bodies. It’ll still be a few more months before this space is put to proper use, after all. What’s the rush?

#well! this was corny even for me #but I enjoyed writing it so you won't be hearing any apologies from me. 😆#I love the thought that mario simply Cannot Shut Up when he’s excited so this is my propaganda as well #bonus points if you remember the post this was based off of! it was from december I think?#super mario bros #smb #mario #princess peach #mario x peach #mareach #peaches' fancy fics #tw pregnancy

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