ment to be (mario x bowser !!!EMOTIONAL!!!)

a hope for forgetting

(A bit of a warning for alcohol use in this chapter, but nothing too intense as I made this whole thing as a joke, also timeskip to inside the bar lol)

The air is sticky, and the familiar tang of alcohol is setting in. Baldi told me a story, one of a love he lost, and now I'm watching him closer, just noticing the beauty in his eyes. His face is sculpted into a perfect expression of slight confusion, and I wonder if he wants to forget too. His features swirl together in my vision, the pink light illuminating them perfectly. I feel for the collar of his shirt, and pull him closer. I know how to do this, from my younger days with Bowser. Bowser, his eyes pained, sinking into the lava further- Peach. Peach, that bitch, she manipulated me. Why was I so blind? No. I can't start thinking now. Especially about him. So I pull Baldi in closer, press my lips against his, and then we're both forgetting. We don't want to remember, and the air is sweet. His tongue feels for mine, slipping in. It tastes like the shrimp he'd been pulling out of his socks all night, and it's awful but maybe I like it. Maybe this is what I've needed, a fresh new something that will keep me safe from what I don't want to remember. I pull away. "How about we take this home?" Baldi nods, gently caressing my baldspot with his moist toes. In my younger days, Bowser would massage my now graying hair, and we'd laugh. I try to pretend the lights inside the taxi we called are the bright sunlight bouncing off our faces back when things were perfect. I loved him.

Baldi is awful at this. We lay in bed, and I stare at him. The entire night, he's felt like a sock full of rice, or cereal left in milk for too long, and I'm not wondering anymore why his girlfriend left him. He rubs my inner elbow, his long nails scratching. "S-s-she was beautiful." The lights are dim, but I can still see his outline. "M-maybe as much as you." What is he saying? Does he think- "Come closer." The bed creaks as I roll towards him. We've been at it all night, and I'm getting tired. "What is it?"

"I want you to know- that-", Everything is going black, I haven't done this in so long. His alpha stick was so small I had to do all the work, unlike with Bowser. Baldi is gripping me now, leaning in to whisper the same words I'd heard years ago from another mouth, and I don't know if I can take it anymore. I feel his breath in my ears as he hisses the words:

"I love you."

I woke up alone. Baldi must have left during the night, and his final parting words followed me into my dreams. I saw Peach first, telling me she loved me after I had pulled the lever, shouting at me, as I ran further away, tears streaming down my face. Bowser next, whispering the words as he hugged me in that stupid fantasy I've had about saving him before. But instead I just watched, and that fantasy was just a fantasy. I realize that now I'm crying. Baldi left too, god, can I get anyone to stay, just once? Just once can I live a happy dream? I know I won't ever again, staring down at the mark on my wrist that matched with his. My true soulmate, dead. Soulmates were a lost tradition for me now, not even bothering to try and find someone else, just a bunch of one night things. I thought, for a drunken moment, that me and Baldi might last a while. But no one would ever last for me.