#factor takes asks

Mario - Possession🙏

"You just don't give up, do you?"

In any other context, such words would be encouraging, especially with Mario saying them. As things stood right now, with Luigi facing a twin possessed, he knew fully well what his opponent was trying to do.

Like thrice before, King Boo was trying to disarm him.

"You've dispelled our fused form when you slammed us around," the Boo snarled, moving Mario's mouth down into a frown unbecoming of his brother. "You've parted me from my crown. What else were you hoping to accomplish here?"

Luigi said nothing as he tightened his grip. This wasn't Mario, but it was still him—durable and dependable, at least from the outside, but overridden by the most malevolent of spirits within.

"I want you," Luigi demanded, "to let go of my bro."

"Hmm, let me think about it." King Boo moved a hand as though to tap out an idea, his borrowed finger tapping against darkened eyes and purple irises. "I haven't exactly been taking good care of this one, have I? Of course, he wouldn't be so roughed up if it weren't for you…"

Luigi narrowed his eyes.

"I don't think I will." King Boo crossed his vessel's arms. "You're gonna have to tear Mario apart to get rid of me."

"Is that what you think?"

Luigi took a step forward, his finger on the switch as King Boo raised a brow.

"Little note about the human body," Luigi said. "We're not made of pure energy. You might be the king of ghosts, but Mario's been awake for over twenty-four hours."

"S-So what?" King Boo sneered, though Luigi could see the facade begin to crack. "It's not like you've slept, either!"

"True," Luigi noted, "but E. Gadd makes a mean cup of coffee. What do you think's been in my thermos all this time?"

If King Boo had a retort, Luigi didn't care to hear it. With a pop and a flash, the ghost gave up his puppet, ascending up in a daze as Mario crumpled to the floor. Without a moment to lose, Luigi switched the Poltergust over to capture, seizing King Boo by his tail as he gave it all he had.

"NO!" King Boo screeched. "I will NOT be captured again! You can't do this!"

Luigi dug his feet in.

"You can't! I won't let you! This isn't the ennnnnnnd!"

Like thrice before, King Boo vanished into the tube with a squelch and not much more than a shake in protest. Luigi stood still as the Poltergust shuddered on his back, settling down as the room returned to normal, before shouldering it off onto the floor.

"Mario!" He practically slid onto his knees, taking up his brother's weary head in his lap. "Please be okay, oh, please be okay!"

"…Lu?"

Tired blue eyes stared up at him, wavering with wonder and another emotion Luigi couldn't quite place.

"It's okay," Luigi said, pulling him up into a hug. "You're okay."

"You got him?"

"Of course."

"I could've done more…"

"Don't say that," Luigi said with a shush. "You were possessed. I'm just glad you were able to come back."

They sat like that for what seemed like ages, with Mario holding onto him like a lifeline and Luigi reassuring him.

"You're safe now," Luigi kept saying. "I promise you that much. No more ghosts are gonna hurt you."

Mario could only shiver as Luigi kicked open the Pixelator.

Luigi and Peasley - One with Nature 🌺

Of all the things Peasley could ever want, he desired Luigi's happiness the most. It was why he made every visit to his homeland special, why he always attended to his emerald's every need.

It was why, at the moment, they were at a particularly sacred spot of the kingdom.

"That's it, darling. Just sit back and let the sun work its magic."

To say that his love's recent transformation had surprised him would be an understatement. Had he not seen the blossoms bloom in those dark curls for himself, Peasley would've arranged for an overnight stay at the hospital to see what was amiss. His worries had been set mostly at ease as Luigi explained what had happened—a lab accident, a metamorphosis, had made him into some sort of plant-human hybrid. As things stood, he was having trouble adjusting to some of his new needs.

Therefore, Peasley had taken him somewhere special.

"Peasley?"

"Yes?"

"What if this doesn't work?"

"Well, we haven't gotten into the meditations yet," Peasley said, reaching over to lay a hand on Luigi's knee. "We've just been soaking up the sun."

"It feels really nice," Luigi admitted. "It's just…"

Peasley scooted over, planting himself in front of Luigi as he leaned a little closer.

"What's wrong?" Peasley asked.

Luigi sniffled as he glanced at his hand, as green as the grass beneath him. He tried to turn away, but not before Peasley cupped a hand under his chin to look him in the eye.

Dark eyes where there'd once been white, green where blue had once been. It was startling, but entrancing, the more Peasley held eye contact.

"What if the spirits c-can tell," Luigi stammered, "t-that I'm not…that I w-wasn't always like this? W-What if they don't say anything, or worse…"

Luigi began to shake, with the various sprouts and vines that he kept company trembled and writhed along with him. Peasley took the opportunity to hug him, scooting back to his side as he kept his arms around him.

"Any sort of plant," Peasley assured him, "is welcome here. This place is meant to heal, to help you find your way."

"What if it's not with you?" Luigi mumbled into his shoulder.

"I highly doubt that," Peasley chuckled. "Who was the one who sent you a sunlamp?"

"You," Luigi answered.

"Who was the one who bought you those swim trunks so you can soak up as much sun as possible?"

"You did."

"Aside from your brother, who's made sure you've never wilted?"

"Still you."

"And you think we're incompatible?"

"You've done so much more for me than I've ever done for you."

Before he could say another word, Luigi found himself in a kiss—passioniate, grounding, and affirming. Peasley drew back from him, but kept his arms looped around Luigi's neck.

"I have never been so enamored by anyone as I've been with you," Peasley said softly. "No one has ever been as entertaining, as caring, as kind, as you've been. You know what I appreciate the most about you?"

"What's that?"

Peasley smiled as he traced a finger up a steadily growing blossom beside his lover's ear.

💭 - Do they believe they're worthy of being loved?

💼 - What do they always carry with them?

He comes to believe it eventually. It takes a while to get to that point, and his outbursts and "surprise new power" moments don't exactly make for smooth sailing. Though Peasley excels at building him up, it ultimately takes opening back up to Daisy for Luigi to truly accept himself as something—someone—worth adoring.

☂️ - Do they crave touch or fear it?

A flashlight, some plasma fruit, and protection from the sun. This can be an umbrella, Daisy's sunshine badge, or both, depending on the weather.

🐾 - Do animals like them instinctively?

Fears touch right after transforming, since all his senses have been amplified. Slowly starts to get back into it because he really can't say no to a warm hug, and his partners are more than happy to assist. The only no-go spot is the bite scar.

Traveling might not have been wise, but it was the right thing to do—especially when your closest allies succumbed to the passage of time.

The Mushroom Queen's funeral had been splendid for a sordid celebration, with a procession through town and peach blossoms scattered through the streets. It was certainly far more pomp and circumstance than when Mario had gone out—not that it was a competition, he chided himself. He certainly wasn't immortal; nobody was, except the gods.

Still, the usual crowd he saw for these occasions had dwindled greatly over the years. Daisy was still hanging in there for a human, but her time would come far before his or the likes of Bowser.

Then again, if this damned disease had its way, he might very well be the next to go.

His illness was a chronic one—his body had turned against him, using its faculties to produce blooms that ultimately made their exit in a mess of blood and bile. The Beanish had many a name for this affliction, but the underlying cause was always the same: an unrequited love that was best to get to the root of, lest one expire from the expulsion of the many flowers that came with it.

Therein lay the rub—Peasley hadn't sought out another love since Luigi had passed; in the sixty-plus years that had flown by since, there had been no one else that could quite capture his heart like his little emerald could. If something had fallen out of favor between the two of them, why had he only contracted this illness within the past decade?

The only possibility was that Luigi was still here—perhaps not in the castle, but somewhere in the realm, oblivious to the fact that he'd spurned a prince's affections. That had to be it. The question was, how was Peasley going to reach him?

The answer, like many, came in the form of a surprise visitor.

"Oh my stars, it can't be. Polty?"

The ghostly canine didn't look a day over…well, he looked more or less the same. Bright as a light and as energetic as a lightning bolt, the creature had brushed up alongside him on a stroll out to the edge of town. Who was Peasley to deny the dog a follower, a bit of company?

"Just where are we going, boy?"

His only answer was a cheerful bark as Polterpup bounded along in the air. Peasley wondered, for a second, whether anyone would notice his absence. Such pondering wasn't meant to last, however, as prince and pup came to a stop in front of a place Peasley hadn't seen in years.

"Oh, dear," Peasley murmured, laying a hand on top of the peeling paint of the picket fence as the gate swung open. "Nobody's come by in a while, have they?"

Just what would his advisors say, seeing him stroll up to a cottage that had begun its descent into decay? Most likely, they'd be at his side as he took a knee, the better to rid his throat of a round of blossoms. Out they spilled onto the ground, a cheery yellow against bracken earth, drifting off in the breeze as Polterpup sniffed at the errant current sweeping them off.

He ought to turn back. Instead, he got to his feet and kept going, letting himself through the door instead of waiting around for a host that wouldn't.

The interior was much as he remembered it—modestly decorated with sturdy wood furniture and green trim. What was different was the disarray—knickknacks knocked from the shelves, papers scattered across the floor. Peasley drew in a breath when he caught sight of the den, with its comfy armchair knocked aside and the old television smashed in.

He had to know what happened here—who could've dared to desecrate his lover's abode long after his death. Before he could, he was seized by another coughing fit, hacking up rosebuds and petals as he sank to his knees.

"Polterpup, it's okay," Peasley managed between coughs. "Just…been under the weather, that's all. No need to be my crutch, boy. Just let me…"

He wheezed as he struggled to clear out the last of it. A single yellow rose, all in bloom, landed on the dusty carpet before him, its ichor glowing especially bright as he caught his breath.

Except it wasn't only his blood glowing. The space before him had taken on a greenish tinge, alight with an energy that beckoned his gaze upward, to fidgeting hands and wide eyes that he knew all too well, even now.

"Luigi?"

The specter before him was missing his cap, and his legs had fused together into a ghost's telltale trailing tail, but Peasley knew that there could be no other before him. The fact that Luigi had persisted beyond his death, to this very day, explained part of why Peasley had been coughing up flowers for nearly ten years.

There was, of course, another question that had to be answered—one that Peasley wasn't sure he wanted to hear, and one that, naively, he hoped he could turn around.

"Peasley." There was no rush to sweep him up in his arms, no gushing or tears or anything of the sort. Instead, Luigi remained rather still, clasping his hands together like he was encountering an acquaintance at most. "I wasn't expecting you to visit."

"I wasn't sure what to expect," Peasley answered. The room was getting chillier the longer he sat on the floor. "If you don't mind me asking, how long have you—"

"Stuck around?" Luigi cocked his head. "Ever since I fell off that balcony."

"All this time?" Peasley got up to took a step closer. "Oh, my darling, if I had known—"

"It's fine." Luigi was now across the room, the result of an abrupt phase away from Peasley. "I-I really didn't want anyone to find out. Can't really have a-a funeral with the dead looking over it, can you?"

"I suppose that makes sense," Peasley admitted. "Might've been harder to accept what happened had you been there—no offense!"

"None taken."

"I guess what I'm trying to say is—"

He couldn't get much out before he doubled over, his airways overridden with another series of painful coughs.

"Peasley?"

Of all the times, why here and now? Peasley's hacking nearly became retching as he forced the flowers up and out of him, spilling out ichor-stained roses before Luigi as Polterpup whined and nudged him.

"Peasley? What's wrong?"

There was the concern Peasley was familiar with, manifesting in a bit of panic and the placement of ice-cold hands on his shoulders. He would've been stunned had he not been battling for breath.

"Just a condition, my dear," Peasley finally said. "It flares up from time to time."

"H-How long have you been—"

"Managing it? A few years or so now." Peasley let the damp petals drop from his palm as he stood back up, assisted by the specter. "A funny thing, really."

"Hm?"

"Though it's a physical ailment, it manifests out of a psychological reason—a one-sided love, as silly as it sounds. There's never been a case where one has died and their surviving partner's body began to destroy itself."

Golden roses, golden heart, surrounded in green. Why hadn't he seen it before?

"Either my case was an unforeseen variant," Peasley said, "or you were somehow still here. Now that I know which is which, I must ask you why."

"Why what?"

"Why have you fallen out of love with me?"

It was then that the temperature fell by at least seven degrees. The chill that could've easily been his age catching up to him was now a steely drop in the local atmosphere.

"You know why," Luigi said slowly. "You know fully well why."

"I don't believe I do."

"Don't play dumb, Peasley. It really doesn't work for you."

"I can easily say the same when it comes to you and denial."

"Can't you just leave?"

The air between them was practically icy; Peasley could see vapors of his breath exit his mouth. Luigi's expression had gone stormy, his entire being pulsing with inner flashes of angry light.

"I've had to watch everyone I love grow up without me!" Luigi screamed. "I didn't get to leave like they did! Something's kept me around, and I could never figure out what it was. Can you really blame me for thinking it might've been you?"

Somewhere in the house, a door slammed. Polterpup was keening beside Peasley, whimpering as his master seethed.

"You didn't think about that, did you? That what we had could've been what kept me from moving on?" Luigi loomed over him, his eyes narrowed as his voice took on a supernatural depth. "Just admit you didn't!"

"My dear, please—"

"SHUT UP!" Luigi had his hands clasped to his ears. "Just shut up! I've spent years trying to forget what we had! Why'd you have to keep holding on?"

His lover's words cut like a knife, but Peasley could see past the anger. He saw his darling Luigi scared, frightened of what he'd become, fretting as a maelstrom formed at his feet.

"Oh no. Oh, nonononono."

It was heartbreaking to watch his green bean fall apart like this.

"What are you doing?" Luigi shrieked, with a glare that pierced Peasley like a flurry of daggers. "Get out of here!"

"I'm not going to leave you like this!"

"You have to!"

"Just let me help you! Please!"

The room was alight with Luigi's energy, manic and erratic in its intensity.

"I won't LET YOU!"

There was no time to brace himself from what came next. With a ferocity and force that rivaled the sort of foes Peasley had fought in his heyday, he found himself shoved to the wayside in his own body.

"If you won't show yourself out, I will."

There was nothing warm or familiar about the ghost taking the wheel. Peasley found himself in the dark as everything around him shook, sending him careening from wall to mental wall as he tried to get his bearings.

"Luigi?" It would be a lie to deny that this turn of events had been jarring. "Luigi, what's going on?"

If his love could hear him, he didn't respond. Instead, Peasley continued to brace himself against the sudden, jerking motions of his mortal vessel acting on someone else's accord.

"Luigi, please! I just want to talk. I just want to know why—"

"I already told you!"

"Darling, if I can barely stand to let you go—"

"Stop it! Just stop it!"

"Then I know you can't stand the idea, either. If we could just talk—"

"Don't you get it? You're in love with the ghost of me!"

Peasley found himself falling through his subconscious, tripped up by a sudden shove forward.

"You're in love with the idea of me."

An invisible force kept him pinned down.

"You had no idea if I was actually still here."

Peasley found his face being pressed into the floor, the dark nothingness that somehow still hurt.

"Why are you trying to tell yourself otherwise?"

In a rush, Peasley found himself back in his own shoes, the sensation of touch returning as he found himself kneeling in the grass of the royal garden. A glow at the upper edge of his vision implored him to look up, but not before a particularly severe spat of coughs made him curl back in on himself.

In the distance, Peasley could hear the clamor of a crowd deep into a search.

"I don't need your help."

He could hear Luigi loud and clear, despite the tremors racking his body as he desperately tried to purge the flowers from his throat. A cold hand lifted his chin upward, to a glare that could turn someone to stone.

"I never want to see you again. Got it? Whatever we had…it can't happen. It never could happen. You shouldn't be hanging on to me."

Without warning, Peasley was dropped back to the dirt, to the pile of roses brought about by the one spurning him.

"Don't come back," Luigi said, dispelling into a ball of light. Peasley watched as it zipped away, hanging his head as his advisors caught sight of him. They carried him back inside, tending to the ichor at the corners of his mouth, too fretful of his current condition to implore him for answers.

Peach - Acid Tears 😭

She needed to stop crying. Whatever was afflicting her was burning itself into her cheekbones, no doubt etching permanent paths down her face where a river's worth had long since fallen. At the same time, she couldn't hold back from the corrosive spillover, which had eaten away at her silk gloves and the skin beneath as she tried (and failed) to keep her composure.

She wanted to call down to Mario, fighting ever so steadfastly, to tell him that there was more to this than they could've ever imagined. Bowser had been nothing more than a red herring in this whole ordeal; their efforts would be best conserved for later on. Her attempts to shout left her reeling in pain, stumbling back against the bars in utter frustration.

Down below, Mario and Bowser continued to fight. She knew fully well they wouldn't stop until somebody was knocked unconscious, and they were running out of time. She got to her knees and bowed low against the floor of her cage, trying not to wince as her burned skin brushed against the cool iron.

She took a breath, one that hitched in her throat, and called forth her tears one last time.

Mario - Burst Ear Drums 🎧

His ears had been ringing long before the fight. It made it hard to guess what was coming, but Mario could work with it—especially when it came to a square-off with Bowser, who was nothing if not somewhat predictable.

It all came down to timing—making his moves before the vertigo could take hold. He wasn't even looking down like when Luigi was struck with the spins; too many steps to the left would do it, so he ducked to the right whenever he had the chance. One chance would lead to another, eventually giving him an opening.

When the opportunity finally showed itself, he took it, socking Bowser right in the kisser. As the mighty dragon Koopa fell to his knees, Mario directed his momentum into one last jump, clambering up the bars for the mechanism on top. With a twist, the chain clinked around an unseen pulley, hurtling down before Mario pulled them all into a far slower descent. He climbed down when the cage settled against the cobblestone, prying open the latch as Peach rushed into his arms.

He sank to his knees, stroking her hair as she cried into his shoulder. Her tears ate through the cotton, but he paid them no mind. In his pockets lay the solution to all their problems—the first of which would be the neutralization of his Princess's acidic tears.

Once he got home, he'd sort out the rest.

Luigi - Alien Infection 👽

It hurt to be alone, but he knew it was for the best. Whatever was ailing him had forced him into bed long before Mario had set out, snaking its tendrils down the bedposts and up the walls once the door was locked.

It was getting harder to stay put, to keep himself away from others. The infection was crying out to the living things outside these walls, trying to ease Luigi's loneliness with the promise of togetherness.

Luigi was scared of what it promised, what that would entail for his friends and family. To share a mind, to be everywhere at once, even as his decaying body hung from the rafters, his growths emitting infectious spores?

No. He couldn't let this thing win. Never mind how alone he was, with no one to share the experience with. No one to sympathize with, to feel the life seeping out of him, feeding something greater than himself—

No!

So long as he could help it, he'd hold down the fort. Let the sickness ravage him, so long as he kept the kingdom safe.

Luigi had been the one to find him, to carry him home from a search long since completed. The lost Toads had been found rather quickly, whisked away to their warm homes before they could get so much as frostnip. Mario, on the other hand, had trudged on up the mountain, his pace slowing as melted snow soaked through his shoes and the wind stung his face.

He should've known better when he stopped feeling all of those things.

"Feel anything yet?"

Luigi was leaning up against the tub, his arms wrapped around his knees as he faced away from the warm bath he'd drawn. He'd been quiet since Mario had sunk himself in, blowing bubbles from his nose until it started to sting.

"It burns," Mario hissed. It wasn't the steady and pleasant flame he normally maintained, either. This was searing, like hot pins, digging into his waxy fingertips and prickling the rest of his pale skin.

"That's better than nothing." Luigi relaxed a little, turning to face him at last. "Why didn't you tell anyone you were going in deeper?"

"I thought it'd be quick."

"You should've let someone know."

"I know, Lu."

"Then why didn't you?"

He couldn't explain it. The further he'd gone, the more he'd gotten numb, reduced to a shivering heap that needed his own rescue.

"I should've met back up with the search party," Mario admitted. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"Would've saved you a lot of hassle, you know."

"Believe me, I know." Mario sunk back under, popping back up once his nose began to prickle. "This isn't exactly a warm hug."