They were Italian.

At least, they were. Back when Italy existed. The Radiation Wars left them without ethnicity.

So much land had been destroyed. So many people had been mutated or diseased.

How they weren't killed was a mystery, even to themselves. After all, they hadn't been old enough to remember that. They didn't remember their old home or their parents.

The only thing their earliest memories contained were each other and their longtime frienemy, Fear.

They hadn't been able to read, so how they had known the necklaces were important was yet another mystery. They'd kept them though, and when they had been discovered by the Yoshis, their actions had given them one thing from their fog-swathed pasts.

Identities.

Their pasts were important parts of who they were, which is why they kept them locked so deeply in their hearts and minds where no one could touch. No one but themselves.

It was why they were so close, the Mario brothers. Because they kept those secret parts of themselves to themselves.

Even the Yoshis that raised them could never see beyond the surface of their intensely burning blue eyes.

And that was fine with them.

The one everyone knew as Mario was the lead in their little tag team. Luigi had always been the shyer younger twin and Mario had always taken care of him.

He was the lead. The main Mario.

Perhaps that was why no one knew his real name.

Of course it wasn't Mario. That was their last name. Their parents weren't stupid enough to name him Mario Mario. They had been smart enough to keep them alive and mostly uncontaminated in the first years of their lives, and smart enough to engrave their identities into metal plates and hang them on chains around their necks.

So of course his name wasn't Mario.

Luigi knew his name. Not very well though, and he never called his brother by it. Mario had ordered it long ago, when they were both ten. Not many people had known them well, and they had tended to call the older twin by their last name, and Luigi not at all. Luigi had been too timid back then to interact well with people, and Mario had always been out searching for a way to improve their lives and become independent.

Mario didn't need anyone but Luigi, and he perfered to stay a private person.

So when his older brother had told him not to call him by his real name anymore, Luigi had understood, but being curious and polite, he'd asked why anyways.

"Because it's mine." He had said with a fierce look. "Because I want to go out and help the world, but I don't want to be swallowed by it. I don't want them to take me away from me, so they can't know my name. Alright Luigi?"

His brother had always been headstrong and determined, always ready to help and strong in his sense of justice. It made people overlook that he was quite an introvert.

"But... What about me?" Luigi had asked. He understood his brother's logic and didn't want the world to steal his identity either. Mario had frowned.

"You don't need to hide your name, because I won't let anything ever take you away. I'll keep you safe forever, alright Luigi?"

Luigi had nodded. He knew Mario couldn't protect him forever though, so he made an effort to stand in his brother's shadow.

No one could take what they didn't notice.

When they had finally left the Yoshis, and they had saved the princess from the mutant king, Bowser, the Princess had asked for the older twin's name.

"Mario," he'd answered with an easy smile. He'd perfected looking and acting normal.

She hadn't asked about Luigi.

The Princess had taken a liking to them. So the Kingdom had taken a liking as well.

Mario always stood in front, putting out a façade for everyone to look at and admire. The hero.

Luigi stood behind. He had no such disguise, and didn't need one.

That was good. Because he knew the strain it put on his brother.

Mario was strong enough to bare it.

Until he wasn't.

It had been a particularly stressful mission to save the world, and Mario had already been strained by his acting and previous missions.

Luigi had left the room with his dazed, haggard brother for just a few moments. When he'd come back, Mario had curled himself into a ball.

Luigi was not surprised.

He simply walked over and knelt beside him, assessing how he should comfort his twin, when Mario had spoken.

"What's my name?" He'd asked in a hoarse tone.

This had happened last time too. Last time, Luigi had answered they way he'd been told to.

Mario had muttered the name under his breath over and over, blocking Luigi out from helping him further.

It had scared Luigi. Mario had never blocked him out so completely.

So Luigi had gotten up and left him. In the morning he was fine besides being a bit sleep-deprived.

Luigi had been scared that it would happen again. It hadn't until now.

Luigi opens his mouth to reply, to helplessly echo his past answer because he wasn't allowed to say his brother's name, he'd been banned from it, but Mario stops him.

"Not Mario. Say it. Say my name."

So Luigi did.

His brother had worn the façade too long and it had stuck to his face. He needed help getting it off so he could stay not-Mario. He had to take it off, or else he'd kill his identify himself.

The polar of the two extremes.

So Luigi said his name for him and reminded him, because he hadn't realized it before but Mario couldn't say his name either, no, Mario had banned himself most of all from saying his own name.

Because that would break his perfect disguise.

So it began. After every time they saved the kingdom and were congratulated by the kingdom and the princess, they would go home. And in the silence and solitude of their home, Luigi would remind his brother of his real identity. Luigi was no longer just the brother who hid in the shadow of his twin's glory.

Mario was the hero.

Luigi was the one who held him together, and was always ready to pick up the pieces after his brother was broken yet again.

They truly were a great tag team, in body, heart, and mind.

Their lives were not nice or great, but they were alright. And that was fine with them. They knew no other way to live than to balance their pains and sorrows as they lived, always in danger of everything falling apart.

Luigi knew from the beginning that this couldn't last forever, lest it destroy them. He was good at pretending and lying (because that's what he knew. That was his life) and so he lied to himself until he almost believed that they were okay.

.¶.

Years had passed.

Both Mario and Luigi were 26. No longer vulnerable and young. No longer unsure.

They had become callus to their unstable lives and their pain, and found themselves able to be without the other for longer periods of time.

Luigi could speak to people with his own façade.

Mario could hold himself together.

It seemed like they were getting better.

Even despite the mansion setting them both back, Mario cracking just a bit more, Luigi becoming just a bit more timid, they were okay.

Then Mario got kidnapped.

They didn't know who by, might never know, but he showed up weeks later on the palace doorstep.

Luigi hadn't even needed the first look to know his brother was more than a little damaged. He had faced something horrible and had done it alone. Without Luigi. And now Mario was more fragile than ever.

Somehow, Luigi had managed to pull Mario away from worried crowds and princesses and into the dorm they had moved into last summer (they had thought they were okay enough to handle living at the palace). He had locked the door, cutting off the world from them, and had turned back to his twin.

Mario's blue eyes had gone dark to the point of midnight. He held himself so stiffly that damage inside and out was plain to see. He looked like a broken toy that had kept going, dragging it's pieces behind itself until they slipped from it's grip. He was beyond being held together by a string.

Those blank blue eyes had slowly raised to Luigi's own and asked the familiar question that, for once, his mouth was incapable of asking.

Luigi said his name.

Nothing happened.

For the first time ever, Luigi's reminder was no longer enough. Luigi knew what was happening.

Mario was breaking.

Luigi didn't know how to stop it. He didn't know how to fix it. All he was capable of was watching his brother die inside and crumble away as he knew Mario would in the coming weeks.

Luigi, the only one who had ever been able to reach his troubled brother, could no longer.

And so, helplessly, he said Mario's name again. And again. And again. Until he was on his knees, weeping it into the hands of it's owner as Luigi clung to his brother's wrists.

Mario did nothing.

Luigi was not surprised.

This is my first Mario fanfiction. I've never been a huge fan of Mario, but my brothers have. Despite this, his name has always bothered me.

I'm still considering what direction to take with this. Any ideas?