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Peasley finally understood, he realised, what the word "exhilarating" meant.
After all, could it get more exhilarating than this? The high after adrenaline, the sort Peasley had heard of, read of, reached for the stars in pursuit of - he'd assumed it was slightly exaggerated.
Well, it surely had to be the case that it was, by some people – because Peasley was quite sure that not a whole lot of people got to experience rushing out of a collapsing building with the impending threat of an explosion, soaring through the (frankly abnormally gorgeous) blue sky. That, that was an adrenaline rush, and Peasley was laughing endlessly and smacking his hands against his own thighs or his forearms or each other just to satisfy the fizzy, stinging sort of feeling under his skin.
And it was all to save his own Kingdom, and it was all thanks to those Mario Brothers! It was pure elation, pure explosion of relief and excitement and joy and whatever else!
Sometime, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps this evening, when the sun was no longer free to embrace Peasley’s body and throw his brain to lightness, he would no longer feel this way. Sometime, he would sink back onto the ground and feel the soles of his feet against it as he walked.
But for now, Peasley was twirling, dancing through the exhilaration – riding the high, one might say. Hahaha! Riding the high! Get it? Because he had a flying bean, and… hahaha! Peasley had never heard anything so hilarious! Everything was just so funny!
His face had all but begun to crack from his smile by the time he had landed back to his own castle. Townspeople, he noticed briefly, had already begun to set up fireworks, and their expressions and exclamations as they did so were virtually carbon copies of his own. Oh, it was all just so good, how splendid, what a thrill!
It was true that, upon entering the castle, the reprieve from the sun gave the cognition just behind Peasley’s eyes a slight clarity, as did the otherwise dull sameness of being once more in his home. Everything else was still on the same setting, though. Which meant that when he turned the corner and found his favourite Mario Brother staring at paintings on the corridor’s walls, he felt a clear, sweeping excitement again. Maybe Luigi was a bit like the sun, himself, though Peasley had more internally compared him to a Moon that was deeply abashed to be one.
Along the path of his giddiness, Peasley swung out his sword and sung a melodious “heeey!” as he poked – lightly, probably, it was just the right amount of pressure, it was instinct, you understand – the side of his abdomen with it and swiped just enough to get him to turn around.
“Luigi!” Peasley cheered. Luigi’s face underwent a second of shock, of course, but then he smiled brightly and tipped his hat. “That was fantastic! Thank you so much for your help!”
“Ah! Thank you! I mean, um, you’re welcome? But also thank you!” Luigi chuckled, rubbing his cheek with an index finger. As though to more blatantly point out the blush Peasley was looking for – Luigi’s little quirks were so perfectly timed, truly. “I can’t believe we’r’a win! It’s’a amazing!”
“It is your victory to enjoy! Say, where’s, ah, whatshisname?” Peasley winked. “Your brother?”
Luigi giggled a little too hard, in a way that quite easily betrayed his guilty happiness to hear Peasley “forget”, and then said, “he’s’a go ta-buy souvenirs! Just before we’r’a hafta go.”
Peasley felt that exhilaration once more. He had, he realised now, felt that same sensation the first time he and Luigi had been alone together, but it had been dampened by, well, Peasley’s less than impressive self-presentation at the time. He’d done his best to do what he could with what he had, but he’d sort of messed it up.
In the high of right now, though, Peasley could not be happier that he had. This was better, this was perfect. Maybe even more perfect than a perfect escape from an exploding castle. Mario, gone? The Brothers, getting ready to leave? Peasley, in the perfect state to do what he knew, he knew he could simply nail, given circumstances that did not involve Piranha Plants and stuttering flirtations?
Oh, it was all just so good! How splendid! What a thrill!
Peasley tapped Luigi’s chest with the end of his sword, this time far more lightly.
“You know what that means, then?” Peasley grinned. “If we don’t do it now, we never will!”
Luigi raised his eyebrows and smiled awkwardly. “Um, if we don’t do what?”
“If we don’t kiss one another goodbye now! What else could I mean?”
Luigi jumped. “S-seriously!?”
“Naturally!” Peasley gestured dramatically and swiftly, enough for the swipe of the thin blade to make noise as he moved.
Luigi’s face was slightly curious, in Peasley’s view. His smile had doubled down on itself, as did the redness on his face, but he also looked more stunned than he tended to whenever Peasley tried these tricks on him. It was where his “aw, shucks” face met his “oh, mamma mia!” personality, perhaps.
“You’r’a…” Luigi nodded rapidly, “you’r’a right!”
“Of course I am right, Luigi! What do you say to that?”
Luigi gave him another more dazed look, and eventually, instead of actually answering with words, he brought his hands to his mouth and began to laugh – quietly, then with a hasty crescendo.
“You agree?” Peasley smirked.
“Ooh, it’s’a just so – wowie! We’r’a finally defeat Cackletta and now, now! It’s! It’s! Exhilarating! I think that’s’a what it’s’a called!”
“I was thinking the very same!”
“Er, how do you! How do you-!” Luigi began, then went much redder, causing him to stop.
“How do I what?”
“How do you want’ta kiss-!” He started giggling madly. “Kiss me! Hahahaha! Wow!”
Peasley finally brought his sword down at this, and blinked a few times. He could feel his feet pressing against the tiles rather suddenly.
How?
Peasley was not entirely sure how he wanted – how he should – go about doing this, actually. He knew this. He had forgotten this. He had been bluntly reminded of it when he’d so spectacularly failed in trying to flatter him, and then again when he’d so spectacularly failed in trying to carry him, and then been so easily carried away in the inertia of the exhilarating that he’d forgotten.
How do you even kiss someone?
“…Your Highness?” Luigi tilted his head.
“I- I would like…” Peasley stuttered. Stuttered, of course, of course! “I would like you to take your famous heroic initiative and decide!”
“My initiative?” Luigi smiled sweetly and twirled a bit of his hair on the back of his head. “You think I have heroic initiative?”
Sure. That could work. If Luigi had really never had anybody tell him something so obvious, anyway. “…Why, of course I do!”
“Oh wow, oh wow!” Luigi started to bounce on the balls of his feet. “Thank you-! Then I’ll’a, I’ll’a definitely thinka something!”
Peasley did his best not to laugh. He did not want to interrupt Luigi’s train of thought any further beyond “you do it”.
“But I’m just’a bit, ahem…” Luigi twitched a slight, “it’s’a bit nerve-wracking! Please just excuse me a moment!”
“Take your time,” Peasley smirked.
Luigi jumped. There appeared to be a small explosion of thought in his head, one that jolted him upwards by the cranium. “Oooh! Ooh, I have an idea! Let’s’a take turns! Then it’s’a easy!”
That seemed even more exposing. “…Take turns kissing?”
“No, no, not quite! So, you see, if I go first-! Hehehe! Okey dokey, if I go first…”
Luigi, without so much as attempting to hide how he was shaking, reached out with one hand and placed it, timidly, then more firmly, on Peasley’s right shoulder.
“…Thereyago! That was my turn! Now it’s’a your turn, your Highness!”
Peasley felt his face go hot – which was a miracle on its own, but he did not have the time to unpack it – the moment Luigi made contact. It was, Peasley realised, the first time Luigi had initiated it, and it was so simple, so endearingly intimate. Certainly more than twirling him around as Peasley flew away, or poking him with a sword. And Peasley had to figure out how to match it.
What do I do?!
“Hah! I see! So it’s a sort of competition, yes?”
“What! No! It’s’a just… it’s’a easier this way! Not as scary! You’r’a agree?”
“Well, if th-this were even scary to begin with, perhaps!” Peasley snorted. Another stutter – al-right.
Luigi pouted ever so slightly. “Take your turn!”
Peasley looked Luigi in the eyes, exhaled deeply and, in the spirit of the high he had been so jovially riding, latched his right hand right onto the side of Luigi’s face.
His face was really hot. Much hotter than the sun outside. Which Peasley had no excuse to not expect, but to be so directly in contact with it made him very nearly leap. And indeed, in his stomach, something was leaping.
It was so simple. So endearingly intimate. Pretty damn scary, if Peasley permitted himself to plagiarise Luigi’s original thesis.
Whatever. Not his problem, not his problem. “It’s your turn!” Peasley grinned. Luigi was certainly right, though he couldn’t yet admit it; this turn-taking idea really relieved the pressure.
“Oh gee! Okey dokey!” Luigi nodded. To feel him moving under his hand made Peasley twitch a little. “Hm… maybe…”
He moved his free hand and placed it, firmly and boldly, on Peasley’s hip. “There! That’s’a my turn! Hahahaha! That’s’a big one!”
If it wasn’t a competition, Peasley felt resolutely beaten, already. His stomach had stopped leaping and started backflipping, bungee jumping with a broken cord straight into the ocean. It was only heightened by how Luigi’s hand, still shaking somewhat, was effectively in sync with the flutter.
“And now it’s’a your turn!”
If Peasley had been grateful for Luigi’s little turn-taking idea when it meant he got to put the ball in Luigi’s court, he conversely became very unimpressed with it when Luigi hit it back to him.
He didn’t have any clever ideas, and he had to put his other hand somewhere – and he could not fathom, unlike the mighty and courageous Luigi Mario, apparently, on his hip. So he stuck with something a good forty seconds more familiar to him; the other hand went straight to the other side of Luigi’s face.
“What do you think of that, Greenie?” Peasley said, aggressively, for no reason.
“Hehehehe!” Luigi squeezed his eyes shut and let his laugh turn into a sort of squeal. “Wow! I keep saying that! But! Wow!”
“Your turn,” Peasley responded.
“Yaknow,” Luigi said, with a bit more clarity in his voice, “this reminds’a me of this game me and my friendses play at parties.”
Stalling, huh? Sneaky guy. “Hm? How so?”
“We’r’a get a bomb and we all have to blow on the fuse at least’a little bit, and try to make it explode on the next player’s turn!”
Peasley blinked, and the ground pressed into his shoes.
“A bomb?”
“Yea! It’s’a kinda like this! Cuz we both hafta try ta’get the other one ta’do it!”
Peasley nearly choked at how deliberately – or, at the very least, Peasley had to assume it was deliberate – Luigi was plunging into Peasley’s thoughts and telling them back to him.
“Pfft. That’s not what this is! The only reason I’ve not done it is because it’s your turn!”
“Oooh, yes, it is,” Luigi nodded seriously. Oh, Peasley wanted to keep his hands on his face for a long, long time, now that he’d been compelled to close that distance. “Okey dokey! Let’s’a see…”
His face became slightly analytical, and then with no warning he pulled Peasley towards him, so his nose was only one inch or so from touching Peasley’s face.
“Hahaha! Ooh, that’s’a hard one! Alright! Your turn!”
Peasley wanted to kill him, a little, instead of kiss him. Ooh, he was clever. Maybe he had decided to see just how serious Peasley had been about “the only reason I’ve not done it is because it’s your turn”.
He tried to cook up something that would allow him to wriggle out of that commitment, but it was pretty difficult. For not only was there virtually no other distance to be closed besides the obvious, but also, Peasley’s face was so warm that his brain had started to turn to mush under the skin.
“That’s ch-cheating!” Peasley tried to laugh. “You pull me in a little bit, but not all the way?”
Luigi just laughed along without answering.
“Be like that!” Peasley scoffed. He moved his left hand from Luigi’s right cheek further backwards, so that instead, it ran through his exposed hair. “That’s my turn done!”
Luigi had widened his eyes to glance in the direction of the movement, which granted Peasley a few seconds of freedom from the piercing electricity of nerves.
“But that’s’a nothing!”
“Hah! Now you think that’s not fair?!”
When Luigi looked back at him, he trembled a little more and, finally, whispered with a small smile.
“I see. I’m’a sorry for cheating, your Highness!”
“You should be! Now, what are you doing to d-”
He wasn’t able to finish his sentence. Luigi was kissing him.
There was an explosion of tension, Peasley felt, and he could sense himself being swept in a sort of exhilaration. Or, that was what it had felt like – before he realised Luigi had pulled Peasley in so excitedly that Peasley’s feet had been lifted a tiny bit off the floor.
Peasley made a noise of excitement – he sounded a bit like Luigi, actually – and greedily started kissing him back. Luigi’s lips were a little patchy, for lack of a better term, and they were so enthusiastic. Peasley could hear, could feel, a little laugh in his throat, and searing heat where they made contact.
Was it easy? It felt sort of easy. Luigi guided, and responded, in equal parts, to how Peasley moved; the kiss was in all honesty somewhat separated into lots of little ones, like little sparks of exuberance.
Oh, it was all just so good! How splendid! What a thrill!
And eventually, Luigi “put down” Peasley back onto the ground, and though he didn’t move his hands off Peasley, the breaking off of contact between their lips let Peasley see he was breathing very hard and fast, eyelids vibrating.
“Hehehe… Wow!”
“You keep saying that!”
“I’m’a not have anything else ta’say, your Highness!”
“What about “that was fun”?”
Luigi smiled wider and glanced away. “It was fun! But -” his face suddenly changed “ -ar’a’you, um, ar’a’you also have fun?!”
“Why, I found it so good! Splendid! Quite the thrill!”
“That’s’a excellent!” Luigi nodded. He seemed to truly mean it.