He was suffocating in the darkness. There was nothing he could do, nothing, everyone was gone and he was alone. The door refused to budge no matter how many times he pounded on it. Peach had always told him there was power in the stars if he wished upon them, but she and the stars were out of his reach, and he was alone. Everything else may have ceased to be. All that existed was his brother, alive or dead, on the other side of that door, and he was on this side, alone-
And all at once, he wasn't. Mario was surrounded by a less suffocating and more familiar darkness. He realized he was sitting up in his bed, breathing heavily and reeling from another nightmare. His heart threatened to beat out of his chest, and for a second he was actually afraid he might have a heart attack until his panic began to plateau and slowly diminish. He didn't seem to be in any immediate danger, so he decided the best thing to do was untangle himself from his blankets and go get a glass of water.
He opened the door an almost screamed again when a tall, dark figure blocked his path. He flung on the lights. Luigi. He exhaled, clutching his chest with a shaking hand. "Hey."
Luigi furrowed his brow while Mario searched for a reason he would be at his door at - he checked the clock - 4 o'clock in the morning. He hadn't woken him up in the middle of the night since they were kids, in Brooklyn. "Are you alright?" Luigi asked, looking more awake than Mario had felt in weeks.
"Why wouldn't I be?"
Luigi looked even more confused. "You- you were yelling for me! At least, I think you were, you were yelling a bunch of stuff."
It was Mario's turn to be confused. Sure, it was definitely possible for him to have been yelling, now that he thought about it. Pieces of the dream were starting to come back to him, and that's when he noticed how upset Luigi looked. God, he'd probably looked that upset the whole time. The only thing he could say was, "I was yelling?"
A few minutes later, Mario was sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of tea Luigi had whipped up. He focused on his guilt, how he should be the one making Luigi tea, if anything. Mario wasn't the one who had been possessed. Actually, he was the only one who hadn't been possessed. The Shadow Queen got Peach, Dementio got Luigi, even Bowser had been brainwashed once.
God, he had no right to feel like this.
"Do you wanna talk?" Luigi was sitting down across from him with a steaming mug of his own. Mario could just make him out; the sun was beginning to rise and neither of them had bothered to turn on the light.
"D'you need to talk about something?" Mario asked.
"Mario-!" Luigi stopped, sounding frustrated. "I thought Bowser or someone had broken in and was murdering you or something. I got scared."
"I'm fine." There was an uncomfortable pit forming in his stomach, which he tried to fill with tea. That only made it worse. He hadn't seen scale nor shell of Bowser in months, which just added to his unease. It seemed like things were never going to go back to normal.
Luigi took the tea bag out of his mug and placed it gingerly on his spoon. "You've been having nightmares about Super Dementio."
Mario looked out the window at the rising sun, willing a little light to come into the room. Something broke inside of him and he couldn't stop any more words. "I should've done a better job of keeping you safe. I should've stayed with you and fought Dementio!"
Luigi exhaled heavily and shook his head. "I didn't want y-"
"It doesn't matter," Mario said, standing up.
"Look, I know you don't think I'm capable of defending myself-"
"No," Mario said loudly, raking a hand through his hair. His panic spiked for a moment as he wondered where his hat was, before he remembered it was 5 A.M., he was at home, and he didn't need to have it. "I-I never really thought I would lose you until that happened." He swiped at his eyes, the tears getting in the way of the point he was trying to make. "I thought I had to kill you to save the world."
He barely realized Luigi had hugged him, but once he did, he hugged back tightly. This was useless, totally useless, to fall apart like this. He tried to get a grip but found it almost impossible.
"Mario, it's okay. I've… I've been reading about stuff like this. It's okay that it's taking us so long to feel like we're safe." He took a deep breath and pulled away. "B-but neither of us are ever going to feel better if we just ignore it!"
Mario looked out the window at the sun on the horizon. He could've been wrong, but it looked a little more orange than the sun he'd grown up with. He exhaled carefully and realized that Luigi was probably right. They needed each other, and he couldn't just check out. Still, he couldn't keep his next thought to himself. "What do you think we'd be doing right now if we were still on Earth?"
"Sleeping," Luigi said. They laughed, and the sun kept rising, little by little. "Speaking of which…" He said through a yawn.
"Right," Mario said, starting towards his bedroom. He knew this was far from over, but at the moment he felt like he could sleep without any dreams. He opened the door, then turned. "Hey, if you need anything, I'm right here."
Luigi looked like he was about to roll his eyes, but he didn't. "Thanks. Me too."