It was the third time in four days Luigi had woken up screaming. He sometimes felt like he would never have a good night's sleep again, haunted as he was by visions of Mario, banging on the painting's canvas from the inside, of King Boo bearing down on him, eyes glowing red and fangs dripping with Luigi's fresh blood...

Luigi shivered as a drop of cold sweat slid down the length of his spine.

He didn't understand why he kept having these nightmares. It had been almost a month since he and Mario had returned from the site of the ghost mansion, and neither of them bore scars from that night save for the jagged bite marks on Luigi's forearm.

Absently, he noticed that he was scratching them again. He pulled his hand away and sighed.

"I just want to sleep," he muttered. "Why can't I just have one good night's rest?"

He sighed again and threw his blankets off. Sliding his feet into his slippers, he stood and half-stumbled to the door. "Might as well get a drink while I'm up," he mumbled.

Still half-asleep despite himself, he managed to make it down the stairs and into the kitchen without tripping. He pulled open the fridge, winced until his eyes adjusted to the light, and rooted around for the milk carton.

"Luigi?" His brother asked from the other side of the refrigerator door. Luigi forced himself to contain the scream that rose in his throat, though he still flinched. "What are you doing up?"

Finally finding the milk, Luigi pulled it free and shut the refrigerator door with a small clatter. "Couldn't sleep. You?"

"Same."

Luigi went over to the cupboard, found the big ugly novelty mug with his signature 'L' on it that Mario had bought him as a gag Christmas gift, and poured himself some milk. As he was putting it in the microwave, Mario spoke one low word.

"Nightmare?"

Luigi looked at his brother in surprise, noticing now in the dark kitchen what he hadn't noticed in the light of day: the dark bags under Mario's eyes, his utterly exhausted expression, the beard scruff that he had neglected to shave that only exacerbated the tiredness of his expression. Mario was suffering as much as Luigi was; he was just better at hiding it.

Luigi nodded, dropping his eyes back to the microwave and setting the timer to warm up his milk. "Yeah."

"Do you... Do you want to talk about it?"

Mario's tone was awkward, but sincere. Luigi knew that he really did want to talk about it, wanted to make sure that his brother was alright, even if he didn't really know how to go about doing so. Luigi appreciated the sentiment, but he wasn't certain that he would even be able to share the nightmare. It hurt too much.

"No, I'm fine. Thank you," Luigi murmured after a pause, turning his attention back to the microwave, which was now done.

"It doesn't look like you're fine," Mario said, looking pointedly at Luigi's arm.

Damn. He was scratching again.

Luigi sighed. He had two choices: deny it and possibly piss his brother off, or confess and endure an indefinite period of awkwardness.

He chose the lesser of the two evils. "No," he admitted, "I'm not fine." He opened the microwave and took out his mug, then grabbed a coaster and moved to the living room. Mario followed, sitting in his chair while Luigi collapsed onto the couch, running his hands over his face tiredly.

"So... what happened? What was your dream about?" Mario asked.

Luigi didn't look at him as he answered. "I was... back in the mansion. I was in the bottom of the well, watching King Boo staring a-at your portrait through the statue. You were banging on the canvas. I reached out to help you, but y- it kept moving farther and farther away—" He released his painful, unconscious grip on his knees and sighed. "Then I woke up screaming again."

"That doesn't sound at all like what mine was like," Mario said. His tone was deliberately light, but not teasing. He was trying to put his brother at ease, not rile him up.

Luigi looked at him, really looked. Past the bags, and the pain and tiredness in Mario's eyes was sympathy, and maybe a hint of self-reproach. Mario, like Luigi, had never really considered what his brother had been going through.

High time that changed, Luigi thought. We both need to heal, and we can do that better together, just like we can everything else.

"What was it like for you... you know, then?" Luigi asked tentatively. "Did you... Could you see anything?"

Mario's face turned grim, and his voice came out in a monotone. "The painting was... basically blank. It was like a plain white room. There was a window — that was the canvas — but I couldn't really see out of it. I could see a little bit," he corrected himself, the only break in the flat recitation (He's trying to stop his emotions, probably trying not to break down), "but it was kind of fuzzy. Couldn't really see much more than a few feet away. I know the room was kind of brown, and I could see King Boo when he was nearby, but I couldn't see any detail."

"The walls were just dirt," Luigi supplied quietly. "There wasn't much in there, just the portrait and a pair of incense stands."

Mario nodded quickly, a short jerk of his head. "And the window disappeared when you showed up. I was just in the room for a little while... there was nothing else. It was a bit of a relief, really." Mario looked at Luigi again, for the first time since he started talking. "That was most of it, really. The first little while, just after I showed up at the mansion... That was bad, but the rest of it wasn't, really."

"What happened then?"

Mario shuddered, almost involuntarily, but obliged. "I basically... I came up to the house, and I thought it was a little sketchy, but I wasn't scared really. I just kind of walked up to the door and knocked, and it opened, so I walked in. I thought it was you opening the door." He swallowed. "I realised it wasn't when the door slammed behind me... but by then it was too late."

He let out a short bark of a laugh. Luigi had never heard such a bitter sound come from Mario's throat before. "'It was too late.' What am I, a horror writer?" He laughed again. "I'm really just being overdramatic. There wasn't that much to it, really. They just grabbed me while I was staring at the door. Have you — have you ever had a Boo grab you, Luigi? Their stubby little hands are ice-cold. They grabbed me by the shirt and threw me around a bit. I got knocked out, and they dragged me to the King. It's kind of fuzzy, but I remember him floating over me, staring right into my eyes, laughing. He got spit on my shirt. He was saying that he was going to keep us locked in paintings for all eternity, keep him company in the afterlife or something. You know what I thought then, Luigi? As I lay on the ground, defeated by an enemy I never knew existed, while you were god-knows-where trying to find me, and probably rescue me?" He scowled at the ground. "I was terrified. I thought I was going to die, and my only thought was how I could possibly save myself. I wasn't worried about you, or about Peach, or about anyone else. I was worried about how I could save my own sorry hide."

Luigi was stunned. Mario had never broken down like this, not even when they were kids. Not the time he fell out of a tree and broke his leg, not when all his trophies and baseball cards were stolen, and not even when their Mama had died in that car accident. Never had Mario acted like this.

Mario stood up and kicked his chair over. He let out a painful sob of rage and self-loathing. "You- you were trying to rescue me, ignoring your own fear — ignoring the possibility that you could die looking for me, never mind that I could have already been dead by the time you found me — and I was just sitting there wallowing in self-pity and trying desperately to come up with a plan to save only my own ass!"

Luigi realised in that moment that his perception of his brother had always been wrong. He had thought of his brother as the immortal hero, fearless, brave, and brilliant. Impossible to measure up to. Incredible. He thought his brother was Superman.

Mario was just a man.

He also realised that Mario had thought of himself that way too. The way everyone saw him. He thought he was supposed to be the fearless leader, the man with the plan, and he didn't know how to handle it when he was proven wrong. Mario didn't understand his emotions. He didn't know fear, which made it even more destructive.

Luigi leapt up and grabbed his shaking brother in a hug. Mario stiffened, trying to get out of Luigi's hold; then, he broke. He slumped against Luigi's chest, burying his face in his taller brother's shoulder, shaking with suppressed sobs. Luigi touched Mario's back gently. Mario's hands twisted into fists in Luigi's shirt.

"Why did I do that?" Mario asked hysterically, shaking in Luigi's grip. "Why did I only worry about myself? You must have been so terrified, so hurt... and never once did I think about you. Why?"

"You're human," Luigi said simply. "It's just the way we are. I don't blame you. I would have been doing the same thing in your position."

Mario looked up at his brother. "Why are you so good? I mean, I'm... I'm kind of the hero, like... I'm strong, and brave, and I can just... I can fight... But you're just..." He sighed. "You're just good."

Luigi smiled. "I just know how you feel. You've been the hero your whole life, and you know how to be fearless... but I'm the one who knows fear. I'm the cowardly one, the one who's scared of his own shadow... but I also know how to deal with fear. You never learned how. But that's okay. I'll teach you."

Mario's head returned to Luigi's shoulder. "Thank you," he mumbled into his brother's shirt. "Thank you."

A/N: I tried to do this one kind of realistically, but I think it fell apart a bit in the end. Ah well. Do tell if there's too much purple prose, please.

To those of you who are following The Search for the One: I'm not dead! But I haven't had much time to work lately, unfortunately. I have quite a few big projects and stuff to work on at the moment for school, since we're about a month away from exams, but I plan to have another chapter ready by this weekend. Come and kick me over PM if I don't.

Also, if you liked this, please check out the rest of my work, as I've had many comments that it's quite good. Also, check out my tumblr at whatanauthorsgottado . tumblr . com (without spaces, of course). Although admittedly, that doesn't have much of my own stuff on it at the moment... And always remember to review right here! Thanks for reading!