Chapter Text
"Oy! Get your ass back to work you little toad!"
Luigi looks up from his arrangement to see Peach abusing their worker yet again. He looks furtively back down at his own work, not wanting little princess to turn her wrath on him. She probably will, anyways.
As if summoned, he feels a shadow loom over him. Luigi looks up to see Peach leaning over his shoulder menacingly, inspecting the bouquet he's been trying to put together for the last hour. The client wanting practically every clashing color known to botany and Luigi didn't have the heart to make Peach explain basic color theory to another walk-in for three hours and drive them out again.
"Lu, baby, what the hell am I looking at?" Peach asks, her brow furrowing.
Luigi throws his hands up, pointing exasperatedly to the list the client insisted on. Peach examines it for a second before snorting.
"Guess you'll be working overtime again, Boss." With that, she saunters off to harass Toad once more.
Luigi shakes his head. He made Peach a co-owner over two years ago after she made it pretty clear she wouldn't be leaving him in the dust for a better job, yet she still insists on calling him Boss. Maybe it's the only way she knows how to show respect.
Luigi snorts. As if.
It's at this moment when Luigi can specifically point out where his life began to take a nosedive for rock bottom. He's had a relatively peaceful existence so far; he's got a brother who loves him and sister-in-law who'd do anything for him, a business he built from the ground up, a comfortable amount of money to get by on, plenty of friends. The list could honestly go on. And he has no intention of changing any of that. Luigi is not daring like his brother Mario, or assertive like Peach; he's not getting any medals in bravery, that's for sure. But that's fine. He wouldn't have it any other way.
Of course, fate would have it differently.
A Goliath of a man saunters into the shop clad in leather from head to toe, whipping his honestly ridiculously wild flaming red hair back and forth as he checks the place out, a motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm.
Luigi decides he values his life and ducks into the back room with a small, panicked gesture for Peach to face the customer. At least, Luigi hopes he's a customer. He doesn't know what he'd do if Jolly Green Giant over there decided he'd rather wreak havoc than order some flowers.
To Luigi's surprise, Peach is more than happy to play David for him.
"Bowser! Oh my god, how are you?" Peach exclaims, bowling Toad over in her haste to get to the oversized bonfire now making his way to the register.
The guy—Bowser—rubs the back of his head and grins down at Peach as she throws her arms around his log of a neck. "Hey, Peach, heard you had a gig down here an' thought I'd stop by," he pauses, his eyes flicking to the obnoxiously large rock adorning her ring finger. "Figured you might wanna hang out sometime, catch up."
From behind, Luigi watches Peach put her hands on her hips, and hears her use her you-are-beneath-me-but-I-still-respect-you voice that Luigi finds she uses most with him and his brother. "Babe, I'd love to, but I am much too busy running this place to hang out with a ruffian like you."
Okay, that isn't going to slide, Luigi thinks, making his probably overdue entrance with a very loud slam of the office door, casting his eyes rather dramatically to the "Owner" sign nailed directly above his head when they both turn to look at him. Usually, Luigi wouldn’t interrupt Peach’s conversations, but he isn’t about to let her insinuate that she’s the glue holding his business together, even if it’s probably more than a little true.
Peach smirks. “Oh, sorry, Boss, let me introduce you,” she waves her hand halfheartedly between Luigi and the mountain kinnie. “Bowser, this is the Luigi. The building is under his name. Lu, this is Bowser. We went to high school together.” She throws a glance at Bowser. “For about three months, at least.”
Bowser leans over the counter, probably anticipating what Luigi was already thinking. “I didn’t drop out, mind you. I just moved to a different town, that’s all.”
Luigi nods, looking between the two.Satisfied with the introduction, he goes back to his discarded bouquet on the other end of the counter from where Peach and Bowser are resuming their conversation. Luigi had set up his shop with this specific instance in mind. The door to the building was on the far end of the shop with the register counter directly opposite it and stretching halfway down the room, where the display shelves started, with the office door right behind the register. Luigi made the end farthest away from the register his little workspace to put together bouquets or repot plants. Most people got the hint when he moved over there instead of staying at the register.
Emphasis on ‘most’.
Luigi had finally figured out how to arrange the flowers in a halfway decent manner, when the sun is suddenly blotted out, throwing the work area into complete darkness and completely ruining his concentration. He slowly lifts his head up to see Bowser leaning on the counter with his elbows, helmet discarded by the register, examining the flowers in front of him. He looks up at Luigi when he notices his hands still.
“Whatcha doin’?” He asks, an innocent grin cracking his face.
Luigi shoots a glance to his left, but Peach is simultaneously wooing a potential customer and throwing gardening supplies at Toad, who must have seriously offended God in a previous life. Luigi gestures to the offending list of flowers, then back at his pile of clashing colors. Bowser inspects the order, then the flowers, and frowns.
“Didn’t make it too easy on ya, did they?”
Luigi huffs a laugh and shakes his head. He sets about arranging the flowers again, having figured out a semi decent way to do it. He finishes his bouquet, wraps it up, and shuffles it over to the stand set out for orders with the client’s receipt clipped to the side, all while Bowser watches from his spot on the counter. Luigi pokes Peach’s shoulder and gestures to the bouquet for her to check and send a picture to the client before slipping out from behind the counter to the sinks nearby.
As he washes his hands, Luigi listens to Peach go about closing up shop, shutting lights off and closing the register down. He moves back behind the counter and into the office, grabbing the day’s money as he passes her and counting it quickly before storing it in the safe beneath his desk. When Luigi finishes all this, Bowser and Peach are standing at the counter talking about what they’ve been up to.
"You still in that little gang you got involved with in high school?" Peach asks, hanging her apron on a peg on the wall.
"Peach, that was so long ago," Bowser laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm not interested in any of that anymore."
"Could've fooled me," Peach eyes the spikes on his leather jacket.
Bowser glances at them and shrugs. "Just because I'm not running around destroying private property doesn't mean I can't look cool." He leans forward a bit now, peering down at Peach. “I see you got hitched,” Bowser comments, smirking a little at the ring. “He as tall and handsome as me?”
Peach bursts into laughter at that. Luigi smiles to himself. “Tall is a strong word, but he’s as handsome and sweet as can be. You don’t stand a chance there, honey,” she drawls. Luigi hangs his own apron up and walks up to them, wondering what kind of relationship they used to have. Bowser doesn't seem like Peach's type, but then again there's something oddly charming about his little bad-boy persona.
Bowser rolls his eyes. "Trust me, honey, I'm not interested in you anymore." He turns his eyes to look at Luigi as he walks up.
Bowser examines him, seemingly for the first time, his eyes roving over Luigi’s slight frame, his cuffed overalls and soft green cardigan. “You ain’t much of a talker, eh?” He probably noticed the overwhelming amount of listening Luigi does.
I mean, it's not exactly like I could contribute much anyway, Luigi muses to himself.
Luigi covers his mouth with his hand to hide his smile. Peach smirks.
“Nah, he isn’t a man of many words.” Bowser laughs at that and Luigi gives a soft wave goodbye to his partner before swooping out the door.
He hopes, desperately, that today was a one time thing.