Norman Whitesmith back again after about a year! Everything's too complicated to explain, but here's a story that I've been working on and it's dedicated to my dear Colorful and Free! I haven't been consistently writing, so I'm probably a bit rusty. As always, please review this story and give your opinion on it. I love reading reviews! I also appreciate any advice telling me how to improve, so please do not hesitate to do so if you feel inclined to! This story also has art drawn up by the very lovely and talented Iwatchcartoons715 on DeviantArt, so please take a look at her gallery! Truthfully, I haven't any idea if I'm going to continue writing and updating my stories now, but if I decide to, I'm going to work really hard to complete the shorter stories like A Giant Problem and If He Failed and put the longer ones on the backburner until the short ones are finished, then I'll decide if at the current time I'll want to continue them. My goal is to finish all my current stories over the next two years and if after I finish the shorter ones I decide to not continue, I will finish the stories at a later date. But enough rabble. It's been about a year, so ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, here's the LuigiXDaisy fluff entitled The Christmas Shopping Catastrophy.

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The Christmas Shopping Catastrophy

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It was every male's nightmare. Yet Luigi was there surrounded by it. The noise was nearly deafening as Christmas shoppers swarmed the mall like ants. The enormous pile of boxes Luigi was carrying alone made him feel like going into cardiac arrest would be a better fate than this. However, as soon as Luigi felt a peck on his cheek, it all seemed worth it.

"Thanks for helping me do my shopping, Luigi," Daisy said as she added another box to the already impossibly tall tower of boxes.

"A-anytime," Luigi stuttered out, trying not to physically wince from the newly added weight.

Though the box itself wasn't heavy, the pile of presents it was added to was heavy and each box, no matter how light, pushed the poor man closer to his limit. It wouldn't be too long before his hands would start shaking from the strain.

"How many more stores are we going to visit, D-Daisy?" Luigi asked meekly, trying not to upset Daisy, yet also leave the cursed mall.

Daisy paused to think. "I'm not sure exactly how many stores, but I still have 369 presents to get today."

Luigi nearly fainted. "That's a lot…"

Daisy only laughed in response, worrying Luigi further.

"That isn't really too many!" Daisy exclaimed. "Also, would you like a new shirt? I know you said you were fine with wearing one of Mario's for today, but I know you like fitting shirt sleeves and it would be no sweat to get you a new one."

Luigi didn't like how half of his forearms were visible from the borrowed red shirt, yet he didn't want to become number 370 on Daisy's list and spend a moment longer in the mall than he had to.

"No thanks."

"In which case, off to Perfumes and Lotions Plus!"

Luigi's blood ran cold. The mall always seemed to remind Luigi of Dante's Divine Comedy with the stores being the various levels of torture, but Perfumes and Lotions Plus would have to be the center of the inferno, containing even the devil himself. Unfortunately, Luigi didn't even get a chance to resist before him and Daisy were moving again, the former feeling like he was being dragged along by an invisible leash. It wasn't long before the seizure worthy glaring lights sat in front of the shopper and her assistant.

"I-I think I'll sit this one ou-"

Luigi never got to finish his sentence as Daisy yanked him in by the back of his shirt. He nearly lost all of his senses as the bright light, loud music, and malodorous perfume attacked him. As his vision cleared, Luigi looked at the racks upon racks of soaps and perfumes and wondered how women could possibly like this nightmare of a store. Suddenly, a peppy toad with glittery spots on her cap approached Luigi, holding a tray of miniature lotion bottles.

"Might I interest you in a sample of our newest men's lotion, Perry Ugrin brand, that's sure to impress your lady?" the toad asked.

Luigi chuckled sheepishly. "Well, you see, my hands are full and I-"

"I'll just put some on your nose," the toad replied, cutting Luigi off as she put a glob of the lotion on the top of his nose.

Luigi tried his best on t to wince as the sampler didn't stop there and started rubbing it around on his nose herself. Luigi pulled back after ten seconds of the personal space violation.

"I'll rub in the rest myself. Thank you, though," Luigi said, trying his best to attempt to rub in the lotion with one hand precariously balancing all the presents.

Though he only seemed to smear some of the lotion in his mustache, the action seemed to satisfy the toad and she walked away. Luigi groaned when he saw how messy his mustache looked now, but was cut off from his self consciousness as Daisy walked over with a new box and a grin on her face.

"I'm ready to go, my dear!" Daisy chirped before sniffing the air. "You know, it smells like a cat dipped in bacon grease right now."

Luigi made a light chuckle. "That's me. I was given a sample of men's lotion, but I wasn't given a choice of whether I wanted it."

Daisy giggled. "And I wouldn't expect anything else from my Luigi."

Luigi felt his face grow hot in a blush as Daisy dragged him out of the cursed store, adding the new present to the top of the stack. Upon the new present barely scraping the top of the store's entrance, Luigi realized with a silent moan that soon he'd have to duck a bit in order to make it into the stores. Though Luigi was tempted to ask Daisy to perhaps take a break, Daisy's happy whistling prevented him from saying a single word. They had recently decided to give dating g a try, however, their deeper relationship was still a bit tentative on 'Daisy's part, because though she liked Luigi a lot and they got along famously, she still had needs she wanted her future husband to fulfill.

While Luigi didn't entirely seem like he had all the essential qualities for her, she did want to give him a chance. Even though the public opinion was that Luigi was a cowardly wimp, Daisy had heard from stories through Mario that if faced with troubles, Luigi is more than capable of pulling himself together to do what he needs to and will rise to the occasion to save those he loves.

Luigi knew very well that Daisy wouldn't even think less of him for asking for a break, but he wanted to stay strong for her, so the man trudged on.

"Okay, our next stop is Forever 42, then-"

Luigi felt an itch on his arms break his attention away from Daisy for a second. The man in red nearly screamed and dropped the mountain of presents when he saw his arms were covered in a rash. It reminded him of when he was a teenager with acne so bad that it was everywhere on his upper body, not just his face, and he had to endure constant quips from adults saying he must be "extra hormonal" and elbowing him.

'I guess I'm allergic to something,' thought Luigi to himself before remembering the lotion sample. 'Oh. It must have been that Perry Ugrin stuff. I guess it's only a rash and nothing to worry about.'

Luigi abandoned his train of thought, though the itching still bothered him a lot, and, and tuned back into what Daisy was saying just as she finished her shopping list.

"And then we'll hit Everything Except Fabric Softener for a few Koce's on the way out as a reward for getting half of my Christmas shopping done! We'll go to the other mall for the rest of my shopping next week! Any questions?"

Questioning why 369+ presents in one day still doesn't finish her Christmas shopping, Luigi unintentionally gave a strained sounding response.

"Okeydokie sounds fine with me."

Daisy turned with a quizzical look to Luigi. Though she had to do a double take when she saw the stack of presents (despite buying every single one herself), her concern for Luigi made her ignore that for a second.

"Are you alright, Luigi?" Daisy asked.

"I'm just peachy keen!" Luigi replied in a less strained sounding voice. "I'm just holding back a sneeze."

Daisy looked at the stack of boxes that Luigi was behind. His top half was entirely obscured by the wall of presents, save for a barely visible pair of gloved hands. Other than that, only his legs were visible. Daisy accepted Luigi's response and dismissed the issue.

"Well, I guess let's go to Forever 42, then."

Luigi noiselessly breathed a sigh of relief. He'd have to figure out how to manage the itching later. As Daisy began to lead Luigi to the next store, the assistant shopper realized he felt a bit… bigger. Luigi looked down and had to bite his tongue to stop himself from screaming. Looking massively bloated, his gut made him look chubbier than Mario, not to mention his arms also looked puffed up too.

"O-okay," Luigi said to himself to quietly for Daisy to hear, "I guess I'm more allergic to that lotion than I initially thought. But I only look a bit chubby. This is managa-"

Luigi suddenly shrunk down to half his normal height like he had eaten a poison mushroom. Without anytime to panic over the latest change, Luigi noticed the boxes sisn't follow him down and were cartoonishly suspended in midair. As the boxes began to fall, Luigi skillfully and without a sound caught all of them. All of them, that is, except for a heavy globular shaped present that was clearly a bowling ball, that fell down and nearly crushed Luigi's foot. It was only a twelve pound ball, but it still hurt and caused Luigi to yelp in pain. Daisy's head snapped around towards her boyfriend's sound of pain.

"Luigi? What happened?"

Luigi could only guess how ridiculous he must look, but even more, he couldn't let Daisy know about his allergic reaction because she'd halt the shopping trip then and there and wouldn't get her shopping trip done before Christmas despite still having next week. Luigi couldn't let her down.

"Sorry, a bowling ball or something fell off the stack and hit my foot. Everything's fine, though!"

Daisy walked over to the offending present and stuck it into her rather large purse.

"Sorry, Luigi. That was careless of me to put that on the stack."

"No problem," Luigi said as he also felt his cheeks begin to puff up and his throat get scratchy. "I'm fine now, so we can start moving again."

Daisy could have sworn that the last time she looked at Luigi that she could also see his legs as well as his shoes instead of just the latter, but she again dismissed it. Much like before, she continued onto the next store, Forever 42 luckily being generally less offensive to the senses than the last store. Luigi could tell he was definitely getting a few looks from shoppers that could see behind the stack of presents and it definitely wasn't just because of the present stack. Luigi could only guess he either looked like a dwarf that escaped from the insane asylum or a reject cherub. A mirror was on the side of a pillar, but the shrunken plumber was almost too afraid to look. In the end, Luigi had to know how bad his condition was.

Luigi put down the present stack and stepped out from behind it, looking at Daisy as he did so. The princess was too focused on a rack of clothes to notice her boyfriend (though through no fault of her own, because nobody could anticipate what happened to Luigi, especially when they go to lengths to hide it). Feeling it was safe to do so, Luigi ran over to the mirror and faced his own vision, clenching his fists. It was about as bad and absurd as he thought, with chubby cheeks- well, a general chubbiness to his entire body. He was definitely a little sweaty and his mustache was a mess. The only upside to his appearance (if you could call it an upside), was that though his clothes shrank with him, the red shirt adjusted to his now shorter wingspan better and the sleeves on the red shirt fit him completely now.

With a jump, Luigi realized he was now a spitting image of- well, a cartoony looking Mario. Luigi rubbed his forehead in frustration, but stopped short. The only reason he looked like Mario was because he was missing his only green clothing from that day: his hat!

A sudden squeeze around his body made Luigi yelp. A random toad had started to hug him.

"I'm sorry for startling you, Mr. Mario, but I'm your biggest fan!" the toad said.

"No," a yoshi came up and added himself to the hug, "I'm your biggest fan!"

Like the floodgates were opened, several more fans of Mario suddenly gathered in the area, all fighting for even a glimpse of the legendary hero. Various shouts of "he's mine" filled the air as Luigi's strangled sounding screams were completely overshadowed. Feeling his throat seize up a bit, Luigi knew, as reality around him began to blur, that his only chance for survival was to subtly wiggle his way out of the throng of fans. Though everything had went wrong already, seemingly luck favored Luigi as he managed to successfully wriggle his way out of the mass of frantically gesticulating bodies undetected just as Daisy called to the present stack that it was time to move on.

Luigi more than happily picked up the presents and followed Daisy outside. Now knowing he looked like, and will be mistaken for Mario, Luigi knew hiding would now have to be added to the day's agenda for him. Any more crowds like the first one could spell disaster or worse.

That's when the worse happened. Daisy stopped for window shopping. That meant Luigi would have to stop too, and in the most crowded part of the mall no less. The tangible sounds of thousands of shoes hitting the ground drew Luigi's attention to the fact that a large hoard of fans were approaching from the southern part of the mall behind Luigi. Dropping the present stack, Luigi quickly ducked behind it so he was out of view of the approaching crowd. Stealing a glance around the stack, Luigi could still see his princess looking at Metroid gear at the nerdy merchandise shop called mad Jack's. Leaning slightly against the box stack, Luigi grimaced as he tried to figure out what to do. He was going to be overrun by his brother's fans in a matter of seconds if he did nothing. It was also getting harder and harder to breathe as well as think.

From all angles, he was doomed. However, a green object suddenly soared out from a store opening by the breeze of a wiggler sitting down rather quickly. It was his hat! As the hat settled on the ground, Luigi made an action plan then and there. His hat was ten yards away on the ground in the open. He'd run out for his hat and take everything else as it came. As soon as Luigi ran out from behind the boxes, he was hit by a wall of people. All the hands grabbing at him reminded him of the Underwhere, but his throat suddenly closed up completely, cutting off all air and making the man fight for breath. It was no surprise to Luigi when nobody noticed him choking and everything faded to black.

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Luigi felt a stabbing pain in his thigh and he could suddenly breathe again. Sitting up suddenly, remembering his disgraceful end, Luigi gasped. Where was he? He was lying on a hard bench in the middle of a dimly lit and plain white room.

"It's okay; you're only in an empty store office."

Mario walked into view, holding a used epipen.

"I came when I was told I had a lookalike getting mobbed by fans. I never thought it would be my own brother laying half dead in the oblivious crowd. Now I don't want to pressure you after all that's happened, but why didn't you tell Daisy this was happening?"

Daisy!? Oh no! "W-where is she," croaked Luigi.

"She's waiting outside, so don't you worry about her, but please tell me why you ignored a serious, almost fatal, allergic reaction."

"I didn't want to let her down… It may only be Christmas shopping, but if she had to stop because of me and didn't finish in time for Christmas, then id deserve to have the burden of that failure on my shoulders!"

Mario nodded in understanding. "It was stupid to not say anything, but I'll let it go for now. Let's get you back to your lady friend right now and talk more later."

Offering Luigi a hand, Mario helped his little brother get off the table before leading him to the door. Upon opening it, Daisy nearly tackled Luigi to the ground in a hug. As Daisy began to open her mouth, Mario butted in.

"Luigi didn't say anything so you wouldn't be concerned. It was incredibly stupid, but keep what you're going to say short, then give the poor man a rest."

Deciding to do what Mario said, Daisy nodded and paused for a few seconds, thinking of what to say. Daisy hugged Luigi again as she began to talk.

"I wish you told me what was going on because I could have done all this shopping online. I only wanted to spend more time around you on this shopping trip, though in retrospect, making you carry all those boxes was cruel… I'm just happy you're okay. All the presents have already been picked up by my toad attendants, so what do you say we end this shopping trip and we just get a bite to eat?"

"I-I would like that. Even though I'm my n-normal size again and less likely to get trampled, I would really like to go somewhere without any c-crowds."

Daisy planted a kiss on the top of Luigi's nose, causing him to blush. "I wouldn't expect anything less from my Luigi."

The End

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I hope you enjoyed this story! Life is complicated now, so I haven't any idea if I'll be back anytime soon to continue writing. A bit of background to this story is that I came up with the idea for this story as I was finishing Christmas Shopping with my older brother at the mall. While the shopping trip I went on was nothing like the one depicted in this story, I had the idea for this story when braving the certain store that Perfumes and Lotions Plus is supposed to be parodying. In fact, the store names are all parodies of real stores, except for Everything Except Fabric Softener, which is referencing something else. Kudos to anybody who can guess what is being referenced. I don't really have anything else to say, so Norm out. And don't forget that you're never truly in a mess until you don't have the words to describe your situation.