for your older mario and younger luigi au, do you have any other thoughts from pre-canon? living situation, growing relationship (dad 🥺), etc etc?
Hi! Thank you so much for sending an ask, and I do indeed! Trigger warnings apply for child neglect and abandonment
Mario grew up with his mum and dad, who were never very present. Mario had to raise himself from the age of four, and never really got to experience a childhood outside of what he did in school with all of his friends. His parents commonly were out drinking or working, and when they went on holiday they'd leave him at home for weeks at a time. He never got to experience a happy childhood, in fact he never had one at all. He did consider calling cps, but he was too afraid because of all the horror stories he had seen.
He decided he'd choose his own path in life, do what he wanted for a change. He wanted to live for himself and no one else. He wanted to be a doctor, help people who needed it, just like he had. That was until his mother had fallen pregnant again. When his little brother was born, Mario felt more love for this small baby than he had anyone else in his entire life. This was his little brother, and since he knew his parents weren't going to be there for him, Mario was.
He took care of this newborn child, he fed him his bottles, did tummy time with him, weened him into eating food, encouraged him to crawl, played with him (with the toys he bought him out of his savings), bathed him, everything. Despite what his friends would say, he didn't care that he was doing all of this. To him, he felt like he was doing something right. He wanted to do this. And being loved by this small human, more than he'd ever been loved before? It made it all so incredibly worth it.
So far in Luigi's life, Mario was the only face common enough there for him to recognise. He was the safety net that the baby needed. When one night, Mario got into an extremely bad argument with his parents because they'd spent the money for Luigi's baby food on their own selfish desires, Mario had gotten kicked out. They tried to keep Luigi there, but he broke that door down and left with his baby brother.
But obviously, the foster system is never pretty. He was already 16, he managed to convince them to keep them together in placements, but when he turned 18, he was out. And he couldn't get Luigi back in his custody until he had a stable job. He had to make the hardest decision he'd ever had to, which is abandon what he'd been dreaming of since he was a child. But for his family? It was worth it.
He found a job, the Wrecking Crew. Spike was not a great boss, he was cruel and overworked him. But, he's not a monster. He had sympathy for Mario's situation, going as far as to pay him far above minimum wage so he could get his brother into his custody. Mario felt eternally grateful for that, and despite their rough bond full of arguments, there was a deep care there.
To Luigi, all throughout this time - he just saw Mario as dad. This was his parental figure, this was who raised him. Mario insisted that he was his big brother, nothing more, nothing less. But it confused him. How come he had took care of him but wasn't his dad? All of his friends at daycare had dad's and mum's, but he had Mario. He loved Mario. When all of the other kids were making friends, Luigi was looking for Mario.
Mario loved Luigi more than life itself, he would do anything for this little boy. He loved him as his son, but that very thought scared him. He hadn't had the opportunity to have a childhood. What if he couldn't give Luigi one? Because he was too broken to know what a childhood looked like? He was too scared to give himself the role as dad, when his own dad hadn't shown him what it was like to be a father.
I do plan on writing this into a fanfic so unfortunately I cannot go into more detail than that. I am willing to answer questions from the earlier stages of their life, so example from Luigi being 0-13. Onwards from that unfortunately I cannot share as it would spoil the fanfic I am writing.
I do hope I met what you were expecting though! Thank you so much for leaving an ask, and feel free to send more if I didn't go into more detail as I'd love to talk about this au more! ♡
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