A/N: Pointless, meaningless fluff.

Title: Early

Characters: Luigi, Daisy

Genre: Romance

Rating: K+

Warnings: None

Daisy stirred awake. Luigi knew that, even though he had his eyes closed, because they were lying on a bed together – a very narrow single-person bed with barely enough room for both of them – and his head was nestled in the crook between her neck and shoulder. He would have liked to actually be holding her, or for her to be holding him, but it was July, and the heat was so bad it was verging on painful.

He kept his eyes closed while she shifted around, letting out a quiet yawn. 'Hey, Weegee,' she murmured, voice thick with sleep. 'Golfing tournament today.'

He considered trying to make a coherent response, but his vocal cords seemed to have gone on strike. 'Mhmm.'

Though he wasn't looking at her, he could practically hear Daisy rolling her eyes.

'C'mon, wake up.'

'Too early,' he mumbled.

It really was, in his opinion. The golf tournament started at noon and all the participants were supposed to be gathered at Peach's castle at least half an hour before that. Luigi was actually a morning person (unlike Mario, who would be lucky if he was awake when the tournament ended), but he hadn't been sleeping well lately – as Daisy was aware.

He didn't dare open his eyes to glance at the clock.

'Come on,' she said again. When Luigi didn't bother making a response, she sighed, and her fingers crept up to brush through his hair, left messy by the absence of his cap. 'Luigi, we have to get up.'

'What time is it?'

'It's...' She paused and leaned upwards slightly, trying to see the little digital clock on Luigi's bedside cabinet. 'Nearly ten o' clock.'

'Too early,' he repeated.

'We have to leave in an hour!'

'We could skip.' He kept his voice slurred and sluggish, even though he was almost fully awake by then. 'Pretend we were sick.'

'I don't want to miss the tournament...'

'Go without me.'

'Luigi.' She really sounded frustrated now. He cracked open one eye to see her propped up on her elbow, turned to the side so she could glare down at him. 'Come on,' she said yet again. 'As soon as you're up and have had some coffee, you'll feel fine. You don't really want to miss the tournament. You'll probably regret it if you do.'

He sighed. He'd known all along that his plan to stay in bed would never have worked, but it still came as a slight disappointment to know that Daisy read him much better than he could ever read her. 'Alright, I'm getting up,' he mumbled, rolling to the side and reaching out for his cap. It was sitting on the bedside cabinet next to the digital clock, where it usually rested at night. He felt stupid admitting it (which meant nobody except Daisy had ever gotten the truth from him), but he didn't like having his cap too far away from him while he slept. It was a part of him. In his opinion, any moment he wasn't wearing his cap was a moment when he wasn't entirely happy – though he would never admit that either.

He scooped it up and pulled it down over his untamed bed-hair, made worse by Daisy's earlier probing. He then realised that she had already left the room and made her way towards the kitchen, undoubtedly to find something for breakfast. Finding himself alone, he sunk back against his pillow, relishing the last few moments of rest before he was unceremoniously dragged out of bed.

Just as his eyes were drifting shut, Daisy came crashing back into the bedroom.

'I'm awake!' he yelped, jerking upright so fast that he made his head spin.

'Oh, don't worry,' she said, sounding a little sheepish. 'I just got a message from Peach – apparently the tournament's being postponed an extra hour. Some kind of technical delay up at the castle.' She grinned and sat down on the edge of the bed, looking down at him. 'So I guess that means you don't have to get up just yet, after all.'

'Now you tell me...' he mumbled.

'Hey, it's not my fault. It was supposed to start at noon.'

Luigi muttered something incoherent in response, and pulled the brim of his cap down to shield his eyes so he could get some more rest. Normally he didn't wear the cap in bed, but taking it off and putting it back on the cabinet seemed like too much effort right now. Besides... the brim made a wonderful light blocker.

He heard Daisy huff out a quiet laugh. 'How are you this tired? Normally you're up way before I am...'

'I told you,' he mumbled. 'I haven't been sleeping that well.'

'Yeah, I got that. But why?'

He shrugged, as best as he could while lying down, and subsided into silence in the vague hope that she'd stop asking questions. The subject of Luigi's sleeping problems – which were, more often than not, caused by nightmares – had been touched upon before, but he was sure she wanted to discuss it more thoroughly.

'We should talk about that sometime,' she said thoughtfully, confirming his suspicions. 'But not today. You look like a zombie, and besides, the tournament's still on later.'

He groaned at the reminder. 'Yeah... later.'

To his surprise, she snuggled down beside him. 'We still have to get up soon,' she said insistently. But then her arm snaked around his neck, pulling him a little closer to her and resuming their earlier positions. 'But for now, you should probably try to get some more sleep.'

He made a noise that was supposed to be words but definitely didn't sound like it, and subsided into silence once again, drifting off on a comfortable tide of sleep.

Daisy looked down at him, smiled a little sadly, and took his cap off so that she could replace it on the bedside cabinet. The golf tournament hadn't really been postponed. She'd just messaged Peach to tell her that the two of them were going to be an hour late. She could never tell Luigi what she'd done; he would have a fit if he realised she had sacrificed doing something she wanted to do for his sake. But that was alright. He never needed to know.

'Who cares, anyway,' she murmured, brushing his hair back off his face. 'You're more important.'