Luigi felt good as he unlocked the door to the apartment his folks lived in. He and Mario still visited but their room had been mostly made into storage. Their beds were untouched and he just wanted to sleep and recoup before returning to the Mushroom Kingdom to tell Peach what was happening before making his way to the Ghost Dimension.
"Where have you been?" A rough voice said as he flicked on the kitchen lights to get a glass of water before sleeping. Luigi just about jumped out of his skin before spotting Boo looking grumpy in the kitchen which was an odd sight, to say the least. What the fuck was his ex-husband doing here?
"None of your business." Luigi hissed moving to get a glass and filled it up before drinking it down.
"It is my business! You can't just disappear like that!" Boo hissed back and honestly, this wasn't going to end the way Boo wanted it to.
"I can do whatever I want, and it isn't your business!" Boo grabbed him by the shoulder before shoving him back into the counter. Boo with his mouth opened paused his eyes leaving Luigi's to look down at something and Boo's hand yanked back Luigi's collar. A dark look passed over his face.
"Who did this?" He jabbed what was probably a hickey given how it throbbed when Boo's fat finger pressed against it. Spike probably, or if he was unlucky the former King Boo. Luigi didn't want to think about that ever again.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Because he sure as fuck didn't want to talk about it. Boo snarled and grabbed him by the throat, not choking but threatening the action at least.
"I am your husband who have you been fooling around with?" They weren't married anymore, couldn't Boo feel the void between them? Luigi pushed Boo away from him, fixing the collar of his shirt boo had stretched out even though it was hopeless, the shirt was ruined.
"Leave me the fuck alone! I'm not married to you anymore!" Boo looked confused for a second before Mario walked into the room.
"Why are you two shouting? It's nearly one in the morning!" Mario said glancing behind himself. Their family was probably asleep already, yeah, he'd like to not wake them either.
"He cheated on me!" Boo said on a more reasonable level but who cared? They weren't married anymore; magic had broken those vows, and he was a free man once more.
"What?" Mario looked worried and honestly, this had nothing to do with Mario. His brother didn't need to be dragged into his dirty laundry.
"I found a hickey!" Boo snarled in his direction and Luigi huffed, yeah Mario was going to grill him until he gave up who he'd been sleeping with which was none of his business but he was a protective older brother so there was that.
Luigi moved gathering the things he needed; a nice hot cup of cocoa would help him deal with this nightmare situation.
"Luigi, what the fuck?" Scoffing he turned on the stove and got sugar and cocoa powder into the pan enough for him and Mario. Whisking them together he leaned over and opened the fridge Thankful that the light cream was in reach and began to pour that into the sugar and cocoa mix.
"Look, Spike offered I was blowing off steam. It doesn't even matter." Luigi caught Mario's mouth dropping open from the corner of his eye and Mario shook his head like he hadn't just heard his twin brother admit to trying to get fucked by a former bully.
"That is a big deal, bro! What the fuck? What the actual fuck?" Luigi exhaled and shook his head because this wasn't something he wanted to deal with right this second, he was glad he hadn't drunk that much but gods he wished he was knocked out drunk right now. It was better than dealing with this shit.
"When I merged with the artifact it literally wiped away all my vows, everything that tied me to any kingdom. I'm no longer a knight of the Beanbean kingdom or protector of the Mushroom Kingdom, or his husband. We've divorced, thanks to magic, so I can get fucked all I like." Boo's jaw was the one to drop this time, honestly, he couldn't give a hoot how surprised the bastard was.
"You fully merged with the artifact?" Mario looked between them, and Luigi thought about that before turning back to his concoction, getting into the fridge again he placed the light cream back, pulled out the whole milk, and poured some into the pan before placing it back.
"Yes, it was a full merge...I'm not the same person I was at the start of all this madness." Mario made a noise and Luigi glanced his way.
"Yeah, you're not, Sleeping with Spike? You have got to be kidding me." Luigi snorted before breaking into full laughter.
"I mean you should have seen his face when I threatened him, I showed off a little bit of my lightning and he swore up and down that he wasn't trying to make fun of me," Mario smirked at that and finally relaxed enough to sit at the table. Boo still looked pissed off though. He probably knew what a full merge meant.
"You do realize your brother just stole my kingdom from me, right? He's a king now." Boo seethed as he said those words to Mario who probably got whiplash with how quickly Mario whipped his head around to look at him. Yeah, that was a whole mess and a half on its own.
"I didn't steal it from you, your father did. Only he expected to be the one stealing it from you rather than handing it to me." And he'd rather not be the King now, he'd rather spend sunny days in the Mushroom Kingdom relaxing and not being scared out of his mind or forced to do paperwork. God he was going to have to do some form of paperwork when he started to straighten out things.
"Remarry me," Boo said demandingly, and honestly that wasn't going to happen.
"Why the fuck would I do that?" Luigi glared at him; Mario was silent but the look of annoyance on his face helped him feel like he wasn't alone in thinking that request was fucking stupid.
"No." And he turned his back on Boo, practically could hear his ghostly teeth grinding.
"Why not?" Seriously? He'd told Boo at the start of this how loveless he knew their marriage was, why would he want to trap himself in that again?
"And be married to a ghost who couldn't give a care to how I felt about the whole situation? Be trapped in a loveless marriage with absolutely no way out of it? Get real Boo, you know I won't do that."
A massive hand yanked him around before he was painfully slammed against the counter, Boo snarling in his face. But he wasn't going to budge on this, no matter how badly his knees were shaking at that evil look.
"It wasn't-I don't want to trap you again, last time was because I was running out of time-I had no time to even think about trying to explain the situation! My Kingdom and all its citizens were going to die!"
That didn't mean anything in the face of how he was now a part of the kingdom, how he could have died if the Artifact hadn't decided that it would bond with him rather than kill him.
"I told you when it first happened, I wanted to marry for love and you ruined any chance of that. Your Father ruined those chances even more, I will not remarry you Boo-I won't put up with a Marriage of convenience for you." He shoved Boo away and focused on pouring the hot cocoa into two mugs before moving to Mario and handing him a mug before sitting down. He could feel Boo lurking behind him, but he was resolute about this, he would run the kingdom and hope that one day he found someone willing to deal with that madness.
Boo moved to another seat at the table, slumping into it.
"It was never a marriage of convenience Luigi. Yes, I did trick you and yes I was busy trying to put my kingdom back together but I should have spent more time with you than I did..."
It almost sounded as if Boo was trying to soften any blow he was about to deliver, it put Luigi on edge because he didn't want to know anything about how Boo felt about their Marriage.
"But I told you I didn't give you a chance to say no because I didn't want you to." Pain sliced through his chest, he remembered how hopeless he'd felt. How utterly trapped and alone those words had made him feel.
"You chose him because you were already in love with him." Mario breathed and Boo closed his eyes hands going to his face, swiping furiously at it before he set his hands on the table.
"It took me almost losing your brother to realize that yes." And then he'd found his husband had been with someone else...Boo hadn't known they weren't married still. Luigi sighed; this was a mess. On one hand, Boo could be lying so that he could get his kingdom back, or he could be telling the truth, and their marriage hadn't been as hopeless as he'd assumed.
"I'm angry at you for hurting me the way you did," Luigi said to his mug, not wanting to look at Boo for fear of whatever expression was on his face.
"I apologize, I didn't mean to hurt you even from the start. I was desperate and frankly quite insane, and especially obsessed with you. The moment the Kingdom began to die, I knew it was you I wanted as my Consort, as my living bride." That didn't change how he'd been treated, how he'd felt during it. Now that he was no longer obligated to be Boo's husband, he wasn't going to hold back.
"I don't accept your Apology." Boo looked taken aback.
"Lu!" Mario said in a scandalized manner and yeah their ma had taught them to be forgiving but honestly he wasn't going to do that. Not until Boo showed that he was actually sorry and not offering an empty apology.
"I love you bro, but I don't give a damn right now about forgiving but not forgetting." As nice as that was they didn't forgive Spike either, hate sex was a hundred percent a thing. He'd only been three beers in, there was no excuse for him. Luigi couldn't claim to be drunk when he agreed to sex with Spike.
"You should. It's not like you to be so vengeful." It wasn't like either of them but why was Mario defending Boo?
"You hate him, stop trying to help him." Mario blinked and shook his head, hands tightening around his mug.
"Sure, I do. But I don't agree with this conversation, I also think you should let someone look at you. You were pretty badly injured when we found you and you went all ghostly when you killed the former king." Luigi's shoulders slumped yeah he had killed him, hadn't he? He'd felt such pure rage at the ghost who had dared defy him, something rattling in his chest as he'd basically thought about putting that Boo down like a vicious dog.
He'd felt so little care for the damage he was doing like that, he probably could shift back into that form again but would he be him or would he be a crazy booigi? Mad King booigi? Honest he probably wouldn't use that form again unless he had to. It had been weird to have fangs and claws, not to mention his long hair. Though that was kind of growing on him since Spike pulled his hair and it had felt so goddamned good.
"Ma and Pa bandaged me up, I'm fine. I just shouldn't go into that ghost form because I'm pretty sure it makes me go crazy or be the Crown curse." Because he was fairly certain it had manifested on his head when he was in that form, or had he imagined that?
"Probably the cursed crown, it appeared on your head for a split second," Boo said softly, and Luigi rolled his eyes. Yeah, okay he wasn't going to do that again any time soon, or at least until he and Gadd had a conversation about a living person turning into a Boo for a moment.
"Fuck. Lu yeah don't do that again. I don't want to have to fight you like that." Mario wouldn't stand a chance unless Gadd helped him and even then, he still might not since Luigi knew all the tricks. Thinking back he wondered why his memory of the fight was so fuzzy, he knew he'd been mad as hell…Could feel how hollow he'd felt at the same time as the madness filled him with rage. The one thing that got to him was the fact his normally emerald, green fire had turned to purple.
It had been him to set that painting on fire, right?