Past Lives Could Never Come Between Us

82

"Come in." Luigi says to the knock on his bedroom door as he keeps looking at all the writing on the walls, only turning to see it's Mario.

"Who let you in?" Luigi asks.

"Who pissed in your coffee?" Mario says back cheerfully. "Spike let me in."

"Didn't know he was still here." Luigi says, not really caring.

"Well he is. And he's just as worried about you as I am." Mario says.

"Can you just not?" Luigi snaps.

"I don't care about you going Pepe Sylvia on your walls." Mario says quickly. "I care that you haven't said a word since what happened to Destiny. How are you holding up?"

"Me?" Luigi shrugs. "Fine. Why wouldn't I be?", then turns back to his walls. "The one chance I had of finding my uncle was petrified. What else is new?"

"Little harsh, Weeg." Mario points out.

"What the fuck is my uncle doing?" Luigi shakes his head in confusion.

"What about Marilyn?" Mario asks.

"She's not part of this." Luigi waves it off. "Especially now that Destiny's a purple statue."

"Why don't you two meet up again?" Mario suggests, prompting Luigi to look at him. "She might be more willing to help if you make her think it's not just about finding her dad."

"All I care about is finding him." Luigi says. "Me and Arthur are in complete agreement that Marilyn is to be left alone. So I'm gonna find that bastard and see to it she never has anything to do with it."

"Better get a move on then." Mario says. "Because the further into the rabbit hole you go, the less I see of the Luigi I know."

"What do you think I'm doing all this for?" Luigi slaps a hand on the wall. "If I don't find something, there's a good chance I'm gone for good."

Clark notices Spike step out of the main part of the lab, right as Pauline comes through the pipe.

"Pauline?" Mario greets her as she comes over to her station. "Are you okay?"

"My dad's odds are 50/50." She says grimly. "Nothing I can do about that, so I'm here. Same as I am every damn day since I was recruited."

"Well if you'd rather skip out--"

"No." She cuts him off. "Like I said, I can't do anything there, but I can here."

"Good." Mario says. "Because I don't know how I'd survive this one without you."

Pauline smiles, "Thank you.", then pulls him into a hug.

"We're about ready to Dreamwalk." Clark tells Spike.

"I don't feel like trying with this one." Spike says.

"This is about Destiny, isn't it?" Clark asks knowingly.

"I knew how to save her, and I said nothing." Spike says flatly.

"You were told to--"

"Not petrify her." Spike interrupts.

"But she was." Clark says. "That's the job, whether we like it or not."

"Not that I don't appreciate the attempt to make me feel better about my fuckup, but I can't do that until I've just let myself sit in it until I make up my mind on whether or not I deserved my stupid promotion after all. So if it's all the same to you, fuck off."

"No." Clark crosses her arms. "Tell me how any of this could've played out differently if you'd interfered."

"I could've let it slip that people Luigi's uncle hires tend to end up attacked or hurt, and that includes her." Spike says. "And what was I actually doing again? Hooking up with her."

He shakes his head, "I can't do this again. I can't watch us load another I know into that glass box and thinking they wouldn't be in there if it wasn't for me. I don't have the stomach for it."

"Yeah you do." Clark disagrees. "You think I would've bothered keeping you around if you don't?"

"Shut up." Spike says.

"You didn't shut up when it was me in the hospital, did you?" Clark says.

"Is that what this is?" Spike rolls his eyes. "Revenge?"

"No." Clark says. "It's paying it forward."