So here's a story that I can't imagine anyone ever expected on . An Alternate Universe/humanized romantic/friendship fanfic between two fringe stars no one ever shipped together, both of whom are in their fifties, one of which is trans, with themes far too heavy for a story about goddamn Waluigi and Birdo to be about in the first place.

I don't care.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, regret nothing, and let them forget nothing.

"Ready?" I ask.

"Ready," you lie, but it's a start.

The garage door creaks open slowly, like it doesn't realize the emotional urgency. You lift it as hard as you can with those skinny arms of yours I still worry will fall off with the way you work yourself to the bone. I don't know how you do this for a living- sometimes I worry you're still a bad stretch away from falling apart, a subject I'm entirely familiar with.

It goes up, and there she is, your prized possession, a project and a statement all at once. A candy purple '85 El Dorado that looks like it stepped off the assembly line, but one far too many years in the making. It's taken six of them just to get to the start, turning the engine on for the first time since you dug it out of the junkyard. I'm not even expecting to even go anywhere today- miracles aren't exactly handed out on the streets. It'd be nice to get this baby down to the corner store. I know it'd make you thrilled, even if you don't think you'd show it.

I look over at you as we stand in reverence of the project. You've worked on this before we ever met, but I swear I've waited even longer than that to see the look on your face when we got to this moment. It's apprehension and impatience- a tucked in lip under your mustache, a raised eyebrow, blank eyes scanning everything unconsciously. You're already back at the drawing board.

When you start walking in, I follow, almost running headlong into the hood trying to read your expression. I step around the car right before it's too late, my skirt dragging along the surface of the hood. I'm surprised you don't whip a brush out of your pocket and clean up any possible cotton that might have sullied it. You're too far in your own world to notice me making things a little more… interesting for you.

I reach the door and climb inside. I'm moving as carefully as possible. Seeing the work put into this makes me hesitant to even sit down, but I'm sure as hell not wasting any more time. I plop down gracelessly, getting a faceful of my own graying lilac hair. It settles with a shake of the head, but I still see it from the corner of my eye. I smile, because even if it is gray and wilting, it's my own little miracle.

I spend thirty seconds in here alone before I realize you're still standing outside of the car, hand hesitantly on the seat's edge, taking a deep breath. I beckon you in with my head, my hair dousing me again. "Are you ready to do this?" I ask.

You nod once, swiftly, but don't say anything, as if you don't trust your own gesture.

"You're never gonna find out if you don't open that door, Wally. Trust me."

"Right," you say, smiling weakly like your teeth are about to fall out. You open the door and gently step in, as if your buck-fifty spread across six feet is gonna be what weighs down the car too much when I'm in it. I still am trying to learn being okay with how I look, but it all hasn't felt up to par even years later.

You grab the wheel, and I remind you "It might be best to start the ignition, honey." You nod as formally as I've come to expect and yank the keys from your chest pocket, knees already up to the dash. Your own shirt is covered in auto body chemicals and paints, but you stop for a moment to knock invisible dust off of the dash. If there's a more apt summary of you, I haven't seen it.

You grab the wheel and force a smile, but it's nervous, queasy. "It's started," I volunteer. "That's fantastic."

You nod. "It sounds nice."

Nice, you say. Adjectives with you don't waste time, meanwhile I get caught up in my own head measuring every word to make it sound proper. This car sounds strong, itching to go, awoken from a slumber, and to you, I know it sounds like the past. Clear your throat all you want, but I can feel the weakness itching to burst out. I know it, I know it so well, but it's time to go.

"It's now or never," I assure you, reaching for your hand resting on the clutch. "You can do this."

You nod brusquely, nearly tossing your hat. "It's time. I think it's been missing the road."

"I'd imagine so," I agree, and so have we.

You finally push down on the ignition and we leave the garage, slowly slinking onto the road. I notice we've left the door plumb open, but after all you've put into this baby, there's not much left to steal from you. The car rolls a little rocky, but I don't mind it. I look at you as you turn onto the road, your nerves breaking ever so slightly as the car continues not to break down- you're almost smiling. The road by the place we share is an empty thoroughfare miles from the city, but for once it doesn't feel lonely, because for once you feel like you're here.

"My Gods, Wally," I whisper with excitement, like my voice could corrupt the engine somehow. "You did it, hon."

You nod and smile, mustache twitching. I clap you on the back, and you jolt again, but keep your hands on the wheel. You don't speak until the house is out of our rearview mirror.

"Guess I did."

I smile and let my hand slide across your stained shirt, as if to remind you I'm here. "It's a true honor to join the inaugural ride."

Even quieter than usual, you reply "Of course," as if I shouldn't have asked. I let a few seconds go by, out of things to say, before I reach for the dial, looking at you for approval. You nod quietly, meeting my gaze from the corner of your eye for too long, so sharp I feel pinpricks in my skin. I want to tell you to keep your eyes on the road, but I can't deny that I love how you're looking at me, the one woman you'd ever take on the road. I smile and turn the radio on, searching for a moment to find a station suitable. When I hear some glossy 80s pop I recognize from my college years- possibly the last time I was ever okay after the transition- I stop and slide out of your view, because you deserve your moment.

As the music flows from the speakers and changes the atmosphere, I look into the side mirror. There's no cars behind us, and all I can see is myself. I instinctively reach for my hair, trying to untangle it, trying to look proper. I have to catch myself and let myself believe that I look okay, or at least recognize that if I really cared about how I looked today I'd have put a little makeup on my aging skin and worn something a little nicer. That's not who I am anymore, I try and convince myself. My days of being a princess are too far beyond me, but my days as a woman still feel far too new.

I succumb to temptation and tie my hair into a knot behind me. I still can't tolerate being anything less than clean yet, even though I just can't manage it. I leave my reflection behind and I steal another glance at you. I'm amazed that you haven't cracked yet. I would have. You and I both have experienced sorrow, but I don't know what it's like to keep mine self-contained.

I notice signs in the distance that indicate we're near the state highway- the only way out should you ever need it. Without saying a word, you take a right, stepping on the gas and cranking the clutch so quickly we're at seventy before we know it. I feel like I'm tied to a rocket, but for a few moments, not being in control feels all right. This car could take me anywhere on this endless, bumpy road, and I'd be okay.

Eventually the speed becomes a new normal, and your eyes return to the road so subtly I only now realize you were looking at me. I start singing to the radio before I even notice it, so familiar is this song to me. I don't even know how well I know it- it's just so engrained in my consciousness that it's become a meditative chant.

"You have a lovely voice" is what snaps me back to reality. The compliment flushes me in ways I didn't know this old skin could burn, and I can't believe you don't notice it. I feel like someone's always watching me- I can't shake that feeling- and I know this fictional being has to see how obvious I am and how oblivious you are. Match made in heaven, I guess.

"Thanks," I reply awkwardly, but now I'm back in reality and I stop. I hear the song and realize it's Every Breath You Take. I used to love that song, then I had the misfortune of relating to it far too much. Any ability to sing stops dead in my throat, and I stare at the yellow stripes in the road, reading them like a thousand consecutive warning lights.

"Hey…" you slowly ask. "Why'd you stop?"

I don't have a response that could take less than an hour of regurgitating things you already know, so it takes me a second of thinking to realize that you feel responsible. "It's not because of you," I reply too quietly. "I promise."

You seem to comprehend to a degree, as if you just heard the radio. "Oh, this song," you mumble with disgust. "Creepy. It's going off."

You reach for the dial, but the song's ended and another one's in its place. I don't think any song could hit me as hard as that one did, so I just say "I believe we're in the clear." Then, for good measure: "Might you keep your eyes on the road?"

"Ah, yes," you respond quickly. "Sorry about that."

I shake my head with a smile. "Goober."

I didn't mean to say it, probably because I meant it- as the highest of compliments, so endearing are your silly moments- but you chuckle dryly and my embarrassment lowers. The music becomes the only voice in the car. The sun takes up prominence in the windshield. I honestly would believe that you looked up the scheduled time for the sunset, but I don't bring it up because it would embarrass you, because you have no idea how charming I find these things. Insecurities are a blinding hurricane on the soul. I guess all we know how to do is weather them, but as I look headlong into the sun with only my hand as a visor, I want to drive into the eye of the storm no matter what it takes.

The song's familiar to me, but only vaguely. I think I recognize the song but I don't want to guess who it is and get it wrong. Luckily for me, you break the silence. "I know this," you muse so quietly it's like I wasn't supposed to hear it.

I play dumb. "May you repeat that?"

"I know this, Bird," you repeat with more intensity, and I perk at my name. I've met thousands of people yet so few use it. "Bro used to play this guy all the time when I was a kid. Had the cassettes and everything."

"Wario was a Springsteen fan?" I ask before I can stop it. You nod quietly, and I feel bad for continuing the conversation on him, but you started it, and I can tell you're itching to despite yourself. So I add "It appears he had good taste."

"Springsteen was a tough guy," you muse. "But he had heart."

"It's a perfect fit, then."

You nod quietly, swallowing, gripping the wheel so tightly I feel it on your behalf. I don't know how much you actually know about Springsteen- probably what you can remember from your brother. If you told me your brother knew every album he had even those posthumous to him I wouldn't doubt it. Still, however much you know about the guy, you sing his lyrics just like I sang the song beforehand- your voice has always had a nasally tint but your singing is comfortable regardless. Whether we like it or not, certain songs are part of us. Certain moments, certain memories, certain tragedies. Whatever our paths were before, they intersect here and now on this road into the sun with the yellow stripes that never end.

You stop singing, and you've gone bright red. "Probably shouldn't sing this," you admit. "Might be more depressing than I remember."

I've been conned by music before so I listen to the lyrics for a moment. I give it thirty seconds before deducing it's a harmless romantic song. I smile and say "It sounds pleasant." A pause, then I dare add "Quite romantic."

"Hmm," you reply. You leave it on against your better judgment- I can tell you're shaken up by the way your mouth twitches that you're choking something down. I want to turn the dial, but just like facing myself in the mirror, I leave your strength in your hands, because I want to believe there's a reason a song like this is on. He claims to be tougher than the rest trying to sway this person to a dance, and even though we don't look the part, I know we have to be tougher than the world will ever give us credit for.

Finally, you speak loud enough for me to make out your voice for the first time since we opened the garage doors.

"I think he'd have been proud."

I nod, realizing that the car is running so well I've taken it for granted, as if it'd never been destroyed, as if we really are back in 1985. I feel like a young woman in over her head with emotions she can't trust, but can't resist at the same time, riding in a car with a total dreamboat, the tall-dark-handsome type who compels her too much to let go of.

"You did a perfect job," I assure you. "It runs beautifully. It looks as it was made. You put in years of work, and nothing's out of place." I reach for your hand, which comfortably rests on the shift. You notice and smile, so small I almost don't believe it.

"The car's nice," you admit. "I'm proud of that too. It's not what I meant, though. He'd tell anyone else to just leave it in the junk heap and not waste their time. When even a little cash was a fortune, you could replace anything. Except for…"

"You?"

You swallow, and I feel the speed of the car decrease. Go figure, the first thing I do is look for a cop, but I realize that you're finally processing everything. You've been here before, and somehow I feel like I have too, and I don't know if it's good or bad. Twenty-three or fifty-three, a sunset ride with someone you're finally admitting you want in your life for as long as you can stand each other still has the same hypnotic hold on me. The only thing I can think of, though, is that I shouldn't be here. It should be him. I'm so glad it's me, but I hate that my happiness comes at such a sharp consequence.

"Wal?" I ask. I want to apologize for selfishly yearning for your affection, gleefully taking the role of someone important, so happy to heal that I haven't acknowledged what you've lost to rebuild this. I can't, though, because being honest is not what I'm good at. Instead, I say what comes easiest. "You okay, darling?"

"I'm…" you don't respond at first, and the silence drowns out the music. "I'm gonna pull over."

"That's perfectly fine," I respond, and you do. Gradually, the speed reduces to a comfortable stop as you pull out of the driving lane, leaving us in a patch of road ever the same as before. I notice once the car has stopped that you're wiping quiet, invisible tears out of your eyes with oil-stained hands, so softly as if you hope not to be caught. All I can do is open the glove compartment in hopes that there's tissue in here, and come up empty.

Instead, I unbuckle and reach for you. You hold your hand out, but instead I wrap one arm around you, pulling you to my chest, desperate to comfort you so I'm not looking at a mirror image of my own weaknesses. You expended the only few tears you'd allow, but you stay nonetheless, breathing heavily- a once stiff frame so fallen apart it's nearly putty. You're letting go, and now you're here. It's bittersweet, and it hurts, but it's where you are.

It's the result of sleepless nights in the garage where insomnia's your excuse. It's the result of only explaining your life a few words at a time while being able to process hours of tear-soaked rants as I sort through a wild mess I used to call love. It's when you admitted you just needed a friend and I dropped everything to move to the edge of the Earth because I realized that just because I lost someone didn't mean I didn't need someone, just one person, to keep me steady. Every road we travel would run off a cliff if we didn't have a place to stop and take it all in.

"This is what I meant. When I said he'd be proud," you explain after a few moments of deep breathing, your lonely grip far too polite. I sneak my hand under your cap and run my other hand through your hair. "That I was doing something. Something important to me. And I saw it through." Your words catch on your own tongue as you swallow down your grief. "That's what he'd want to see. I just wish he could."

I drop the pretenses and hug you with all of my might, and you let me, returning it. You utter an ugly sigh, but keep yourself from crying. Even though I know it's better for you I can't find it in me to tell you to let it go, even if I owe you that, because it hurts me to see you so sorrowful. You've carried so much around with you and I don't know if the rest of our lives will be enough to unpack it all.

I don't know if I believe in heaven. I can't promise you that he sees this from above. I can't even warn you if he were to spin in his own grave. So I promise you "All I can tell you is that I see this. And I know. If that's worth anything, I want you to know that."

You nod. "I appreciate that. Thank you."

"You appreciate it," I point out, "but you don't believe it."

You shrug like it's nothing, but your body language is too tense to believably match your mood.

"Remember that poverty quote?" you ask, like I've not heard you utter it so many times, like your brother was a scholar no one ever bothered to read.

"I could recite it as easily as you could," I promise. "'Poverty will, at its best, make you resourceful, and at its worst-"

"Complacent," you finish for me, eyes downcast, clouded by guilt. "That was me. Complacent. He knew, and he never condemned me. I was lucky."

The sparse details of your life that I know float past my mind's eye, as familiar to me as your brother's words. "You went through so much," I say, trying to help you achieve the self-respect I've yet to know. "I can't imagine what it'd be like to only have you two in a strange new nation, to go through so many shifts of luck and fate so quickly. Whatever it took, you're on your feet now, and that's admirable."

"He hit the ground running."

I don't know what to say to that.

Slowly, you motion for me to let go, and I trust you, so I do. You don't start driving again, and in fact turn the ignition off, but I'm okay with this, because I realize that my heart's been racing ever since you kicked up the speed and I haven't paid a mite of attention to it. I lie back and close my eyes as the sun begins to disappear beyond the horizon. I should be paying attention, but I need a moment of rest.

"I'm glad you're here with me," you tell me.

"Anything to help you celebrate the moment," I promise.

"You deserve it," you promise. I smile and shake my head, looking at the road, waiting for the sun to set.

It's quiet for a couple of seconds before I feel your hand on my leg, and my eyes shoot open. I mean, a girl has her hopes, but that doesn't mean I expected this. I feel a tightlipped smile cross my face, but flip a coin and I could probably vomit right now.

"Hello," I coo.

"You don't believe me," you point out. Your voice sounds like I've stolen the air from your lungs yet you grip my leg like you want to transmit understanding into my skin.

"Give it time," I reply absentmindedly.

"I wish you would," you nearly plead. Guilt consumes me like the chill of the air and I try and think of ways I could make you believe that I am better than I am, but this seat feels far too mighty for someone as meek as I, someone who can't even speak her own words without fearing the presence of someone she thought she'd shaken so long ago.

"I can't," I admit before I can censor myself. "It shouldn't be me here."

The words hurt you more than they hurt me. You let go of my leg and slump against the wheel, like I've left you alone. Our breath is all that can be heard, but mine catches too often to bring rhythm to the dead air. The more I listen to nothing, the more I hear your breathing- sharp, shallow, wounded- and I know I'm the cause of it. But I have nothing to say to fix it, because I'm not used to being honest when I don't want to be.

"Bird," you finally mumble, but other words stop short. I can't tell if you're angry, sorrowful, betrayed, or lonely, because negative emotions from you are so rare, and never so vivid. You shake your head and go to reach for the ignition, but surrender before you can touch the keys. Here we stay.

"I'm sorry," I choke.

"But you mean it."

It takes me five seconds to admit it with a mod.

You reach for my leg again, and I allow it- whatever keeps your hand away from the keys, whatever ends the night on a moment other than this. I'm out of political words to say, so I close my mouth before I say the wrong thing again. Maybe enough silence and we can forget this- or pretend to, at least.

It's not to be. "I wish you would believe me," you repeat.

It's okay, Wally. I wish I could too.

You keep your hand on my leg, and I feel your eyes on skin- soft, yet curious, trying to scan my emotions, trying to figure out how you can convince me, how you can make things better. It reminds me of how I'd look at you and try and fix you before I even fathomed letting go and breaking your heart in the process. It was easy to help me before, when the only one I was hurting was myself.

"Bird," you choke out again. "I want you to believe that you deserve it. I want you to believe that I wouldn't have finished this if there wasn't someone in my life like you." I shiver under your grip and I wish I could blame it on the weather, but clear skies hide nothing. "Can you promise me that you'll try?"

That is all I can promise you, because I don't know if I can believe you mean it. The idea of meaning something to someone so naturally... it sounds so nice at first. All I can do is nod, my breath caught in my throat.

"Okay," you breathe. "Okay."

Then you let go, and now I'm the one who feels alone. I don't care anymore whether or not I believe I deserve it- I just know I want to be worth it. I want your words to be truer than the last, your promises to be permanent and not circumstantial, your compliments to be for me, and not for you. I want that to be possible, but I don't know if people work that way. I just hope you do.

"Do you really mean it?" I ask.

You nod, again so immediate I can only take it as fact, so honest that it's instinct, control from something more than words. It's so much more natural than anything I've ever heard, anything ever given to me. It's humble, pained, confused, and guilty for all three of these things, but it's real.

"I believe you," I admit, and it feels nice to try and be honest.

You shake your head. "If you don't believe it yet, you don't have to say anything. I understand."

"But I do!" I insist, losing control. "I mean that, because the way you talk to me, it's so... it's real. I just don't know if I fit into something like that. I don't know..." and here come the tears. "I don't know what it's like to have someone mean it like that. I think I need to re-learn it."

You don't respond, and the silence just highlights how none of this makes any fucking sense. How can we both be so close to the thing we want but understand so little about? I'm as scared as I've been since we've met- not a shining time in my life to begin with. All I can think of is everything I've told you about how much I hated being in love with her, and how you don't even know the half of it- but I can't bring that up, because you've barely told me about anyone else and all I want to do is hold you close like I've tried to do to hold myself together.

I'm not sure if I intended to fall in love again, but that's what I did, so now I've got to live with it.

"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I just..."

You look at me while I fail to put to words the way I look in the mirror and see her in all of my flaws, picking me apart; failing to describe days as an incomplete child trying to grasp at straws she didn't know were there; how even in the radio I can hear all of these songs that make it feel like for as much as I've fought to rid myself of this burden that twenty years in and out of love with the leader of all I've ever known, I can never escape. But I remember more than anything her calling me princess. She used to be smooth. She used to talk to me like she wrote the book on how to seduce naive, vulnerable women, and even as your words are awkward, accidental, and desperate, I'm worried that your words will turn into hers.

She called me princess, and it used to be a compliment but then turned into the name that reminded me who the leader was. She acted like the king, though. That's the thing. If she was the king, then these roads we're on right now, they're roads I'm the queen of. Even if you're an immigrant to this nation, even as I've been one of the rare few to leave the king in his time as a ruler, these roads are empty, full of promise, and I don't know where they go- but I'd go through everything to lead them again.

We sit in silence for a full minute as I try and figure out exactly what I want to say to you, if I can. I think I was wrong- I've told you before every way the idea of romance broke my heart, and it just now hit home who was riding in the passenger seat of your journey- someone too wounded to be the princess, someone too hardened to be anything but the queen, one who stood alone.

It's when you pull away out of politeness, that formal, self-sacrificing respect for boundaries I've already let you cross, that I realize I already miss your presence on my skin, a piece of my heart I'd never give back, even as the rest remain shattered.

I don't know what the right words are, but I'll say these instead.

"Wal, if you turn on the keys and you drive away, I understand," I say. "If you want to go home and let this moment rest as a final moment for one part of your life, I understand. I don't want it to be that way, but I understand."

You don't move, but your hand is frozen stiff at the ignition.

"What do you want?"

I reach for your hand and you let me move it away from the and back onto my leg.

"I want to watch the sunset with you."

Somehow this says everything, and you lean onto my shoulder again, your breath lighting a fire on the side of my face. I turn to you, away from the sun, because we both know it's not about the sunset. You don't move as I lean in closer, because you know the safety I feel in having at least some control over where things go from here, but even as controlling as she was, I always had to be the one to initiate the kiss, as if I wasn't worthy of someone coming to me first.

In the minute it takes for you to kiss the side of my face, for the first time in too many years, I've already untied my hair.

Now our journey may begin.