I don't ship Luigi and Rosalina whatsoever, but this idea came to me when I woke up one morning and I decided to work on it. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: All characters and settings are owned by Nintendo.
After a bitter breakup with the Princess of Sarasaland, Luigi had vowed never to fall in love again.
He had to admit that Daisy had been fascinating at first. Always bubbly and cheerful, with a fiery temper that matched her Titian red hair and rivalled Bowser's wrath.
But things went downhill from there.
Her temper tantrums became more frequent, and increasingly directed at him. Her energy, one of the qualities he had admired so much about her, began to feel overbearing. Following that final, vicious argument, she had slapped him hard across the face and stormed off.
They had never spoken again.
He had hated women for a long time. He could see Daisy in every single one of them. Even his good friend Peach was not entirely exempt from his negative feelings. She was not like Daisy, but, being cousins, their eyes were the exact same shade of blue, yet another reminder of what he had lost.
But Rosalina had changed that.
Rosalina, with her ethereal beauty and maternal air, had become the next owner of his heart.
At first she had been just like the other girls; he knew, now, that his initial judgement of her had been unfair. He had assumed that her amiable but distant manner was a game to portray herself to men as a hard-to-get kind of person. Daisy had been a bit like that when he had first met her, letting him get close enough to fall for her, but keeping him far enough to leave him pining for her presence.
When the all too familiar feelings of infatuation, those feelings he had suppressed for so long, began to surface again for Rosalina, he had fought hard to squash them down. Her looks would be his downfall, her unavailability his ruin; he would not let that happen this time.
But he soon saw that he had been wrong, gravely wrong.
He saw the way she treated others, as though each were the most important person in the world. He noticed how she never spoke ill of either her friends or her enemies. He watched as she took care of her Lumas, tending to their every want and need. He noted her selflessness, her ability to put everyone before herself when she had every right to be selfish, losing her mother at such a young age and witnessing the destruction she had.
She never revelled in the attention or flirted for her own amusement, even when Luigi stopped being able to hide his crush on her. They became best friends, and Luigi's feelings slowly transformed into love. In love... Words he thought he would never utter again. In love, with Rosalina, with her virtues as well as her flaws.
It came as quite a shock when he realised she was not perfect. She got stressed. She suffered from bouts of depression. She was not always brave. Despite having a sense of humour, her maturity often stopped her from fully enjoying the others' childish antics.
But what was even more surprising was that he had no problem with that.
And it was then that it hit him: he loved Rosalina more than he had ever loved Daisy.
Daisy was wild, exciting. There was no doubt that if he had stayed with her, he would never have known another dull day in his life.
But Rosalina was the one who suited his reserved personality, the one who made him feel cared for. Daisy, albeit unintentionally, had made him feel inadequate, like he could never keep up with her exuberance.
Rosalina didn't. She made him feel like he was up for anything.
It took him a long time to notice Rosalina's small signs of interest, the way her gaze lingered on him, touching his arm lightly when they joked and smiling at him more than she did with everyone else. But when he did, he found it hard to believe that Rosalina might ever want him, too. Who was he? A clumsy, average-looking plumber who lived in his brother's shadow. Why would someone as beautiful as Rosalina give him a fraction of her time when a ton of worthier men were in the picture?
But her touches turned into hugs, and her smiles into contented laughs, gestures she normally kept only for her Lumas except there was an element of unconscious flirting when she used them on Luigi, which, despite his pessimism, did not go unnoticed. He still didn't understand why she liked him...
Until she told him.
She told him that he was the most courageous man she had ever met, who faced his fears no matter what the cost, who smiled when Mario got all of the praise even though Luigi deserved some credit too, who had seen her at her worst and still stayed to support her when she needed it.
And that was when they had shared their first kiss.
He wasn't sure who had initiated it, and to be frank he didn't care, all he knew was that the air surrounding them had changed and he couldn't take his eyes off Rosalina's, an alluring shade of azure that robbed him of normal breathing, then his gaze drifted to her pale pink lips, then they were kissing each other, his hands holding her face, her uncertain fingers running through his hair; it was so different from Daisy's passionate kisses, her habit of taking control making him feel like he wasn't living up to his masculinity. Rosalina took it slowly, her inexperience obvious, and that made him love her all the more, and feel better about being "the worst kisser in the world" - one of the kinder names Daisy had called him towards the end of their relationship.
Rosalina was, in every way, different to Princess Daisy. She was intelligent, introverted, calm and patient. She knew her responsabilites, and didn't try to shirk from them. She preferred staying in to going out. She taught him to forgive, rather than to hold grudges. She gave him security, as opposed to looking behind her shoulder to see if a better guy came around.
And she loved him back.
He wanted her.
He wanted to help her bake cookies and laugh when he messed up royally. He wanted to wake up every morning with Rosalina by his side. He wanted to tell her whenever possible that she was the most beautiful girl in the world.
He wanted to comfort her when she cried, help her when she couldn't handle the chores. He wanted to console her when she was homesick. He wanted to be a part of her extended family even when he knew he might lose some sleep.
He wanted Rosalina, so badly.
He fingered the small box in the pocket of his dungarees, his heart pounding with nerves. Today, hopefully, her answer would reveal to Luigi how much she desired him too. He had chosen the ring carefully, a simple silver band with a swirly pattern engraved onto it - Rosalina had no time for frivolous embellishments.
Today, despite his uncertainty towards everything in life, he had no doubts that she would become his.
Rosalina. His.
His future wife.
A silly grin formed on his face as at last he summoned the courage to leave his house and find Rosalina in a quiet spot in the local park, where he had told her to go.
He had finally forgiven Daisy; none of that mattered now.
All that mattered was that, some time in the near future, Luigi and Rosalina could spend the rest of their lives together.
Hope you liked it! I never thought I'd see the day I'd write a Luigi X Rosalina fanfic, since out of all the ships I've written about, this is the one I like the least XD. No disrespect towards anyone who ships them, by the way.
Happy holidays!