Sicktember Day 5

Back Home to Rest
It’s the morning after a crazy adventure, and Mario had forgotten to bring his back brace with him when he’d been out traveling.

Fandom: Super Mario
Rating: General Audiences
Characters: Mario, Luigi
Relationships: Mario & Luigi
Additional Tags: Sickfic, Fluff, Brotherly Love, Chronic Pain, Nonverbal Mario
Length: 1,480 words
Sicktember prompts:Preventative Measures (Not Taken), [2022] Chronic Illness

Very excited to be able to finish out the Sicktember 2022 prompt list! Now I’ve done every prompt they’d had for that year.

I was inspired by a Tumblr post I’d seen where Mario was headcanoned with back pain. What an interesting concept, especially paired with movie!Luigi’s bad knees, haha. And the bros’ house in this one is based on Sueprstar Saga, with the loft. Because I wanted Luigi to run up the stairs and fall, haha.

I wanted to hold back on the details of Mario’s adventure, but what I’d had in mind for it was an adventure starring a pair of brothers that were eerily similar to Mario and Luigi, except something went Wrong and it ended very bittersweetly for them. That’s why Mario had gone straight home afterwards; the ordeal had hit a little too close to home and he wanted to make sure his brother was alright. I doesn’t know if that came through in the fic, though.

And I dunno if Peach actually has a pool or not for Mario to use, but also I feel like if she didn't and Mario went up to her like “Hi, I need a pool for Back Pain Reasons” she'd be like “Yeah of course, come back tomorrow!” and he’d come back tomorrow and she’d be like “Soooo, my garden has a big pond now, as you can see ☺️”. It’s the same difference, really. Alternatively, she sends a bunch of workers to build a pool or a pond or something similar in Mario and Luigi’s backyard and Mario has to be bodily prevented from going out to help them. Maybe they let him sit and hold stuff as a compromise. Luigi cooks them all lunch. It’s a very cute time.