Chapter Text
~Marco~
Standing in front of Stars mirror he adjusts the skull mask on his face. He’d already doused himself in rose scented perfume, hoping it would mask his undoubtedly human scent. He’d also already rung the bell and was waiting for the carriage to show. It was slow to show up and it gave him time, too much time, to overthink and second guess himself.
He knows Star can handle herself.
Something pulls him to go, something he can't place.
Worry?
Maybe.
A soft ding pulls him from his thoughts and he turns towards the window.
The carriage there looks to be straight out of cinderella. It’s pumpkin shaped with large windows and flowy curtains inside. The windows are stained red and black with gold detailing on the edges. The outside is obsidian black and made out of some sort of dark material, maybe painted dark oak? The inside, in contrast, is blood red. The curtains are a sheer ruby red. Intricate gold patterns line the entire outside of the carriage with a large silver crown at the top. At least he thinks it’s a crown. Actually, it might be horns.
The door pops open and he gulps. Nows his last chance to back out.
He steps inside.
“Where to, sir?” the driver, a raven demon, asks, glancing at him in the mirror in front of him.
“The Blood Moon Ball,” Marco says, trying hard to keep his voice steady. He doesnt feel very steady.
He feels like his world is turning upside down.
The driver simply nods and the door snaps shut and Marco sits down in the plush seat.
The ride down is shorter than the thing took to come up to the window. He grips the dimensional scissors in his pocket, making sure they're really there, and takes a deep breath.
Get in. Find Star. Make sure she's ok. Get out. Simple. Easy.
The door opens back up with another soft ding sound. The driver nods at Marco as he steps out and the door snaps shut behind him. It does nothing to calm his nerves.
The hallway he steps into is straight out of a greek nerds fantasy. It’s gorgeous. The floors are made of a smoky black marble and have veins of gold and silver through it. The walls are a sleek red color, with black grecian columns lining them. The columns themselves are embedded with rubies and diamonds. There might be other gems in there but those are the only two he can easily identify. Lining the walkway on both sides is lava, its red like it was colored for the occasion. At the end of the hallway sits an open set of double doors. They are smoky grey with gold trims.
The ballroom itself was beautiful. It has marble floors too, like the hallway, but these ones are emperador marble. The walls are a rich chocolate brown color, with the same columns from the hallway dotted around the room. Sparkling chandeliers hang from the ceiling, which is domed and split down the middle. They fill the room with light, like a rainbow almost. Along the walls are windows with depictions of what he assumes is demon history, he cant see most of them from this point of view. Tables full of silver and gold platters line the walls, with som empty tables here and there for people to sit down and rest for a bit.
He slips inside and down the stairs. A few people look at him but mostly just go back to what they were doing.
Find Star. Make sure she's ok. Leave. He repeats in his head, like a mantra.
“Hey!” someone grabs his wrist and whips him around. She has long, curly pink hair, pastel pink skin and a bright smile. “You’re new! I haven’t seen you around here before! And I'm here a lot!”
“Uhm… Yes?” he says dumbly, blinking at her wicked sharp nails.
“I’m Lala! I’m the party coordinator for the royal family! What's your name?” she asks, fluffy pink tail, that he just noticed, swaying excitedly behind her.
He freezes, wracking his brain for an escape. Her grip tightens.
Find Star. Make sure she's okay. LEAVE.
“Rose,” he says, giving her a smile. “Named after my mother Rosalina.” The lie rolls off his tongue easily, and he prays it’s convincing.
“Awww! That's so cute! Rose isn’t usually a boy name though….” she hums, thoughtfully.
“How do you know I’m a boy?” he quips, automatically, sucking in a breath as he realizes what he said. He tries to correct himself. “Anyways, mama died giving birth to me and dad wanted to keep her memory alive, hence the name Rose.”
“Oh you poor thing!” she says, suddenly crushing him in a hug. “I couldn’t imagine living without my mama! OH! Let me introduce her to you.”
Without waiting for him to say anything she drags him off to a woman with the same hair as her but with blue skin.
And thus begins an hour and a half of her dragging him around and introducing him to people. She shows him all the coolest spots of the ballroom, telling him lots about their history. He meets so many people in the middle of seeing these spots that his head spins.
“Attention!” a voice booms through the room. “It is almost time! Please clear the floor!”
The two were already off to the side of the room towards where the steps lead to the royal family, who are now standing proud near their thrones. They were sufficiently out of the way, so they simply stayed put.
“Fuck,” he mutters to himself, silently apologizing to his parents for the foul language.
This was not how this was supposed to go. He hasn’t seen Star once the whole hour and a half he’d been dragged around by Lala.
So much for getting in and out.
A large area of the ceiling opens suddenly. Well probably not suddenly but he definitely wasn’t paying enough attention. It opens enough to give them a good view of the moon rising. Watching the blood red moon rise leaves Marco breathless.
He finds himself mourning the fact that he’ll never get to see something like this again. Star said it happened every six hundred sixty six years. He'll be lucky to live another sixty years with Star around.
It takes about five minutes for the moon to reach its peak, he thinks. They are agonizing to Marco for some reason. As the moon reaches its peak, everyone takes a collective breath.
Two beams of light filter into the room. One lands on the demon prince himself and the other on… Lala?
“Lala?” he whispers, and she backs away grinning.
The light stays.
The light was on Marco, not Lala.
Oh.
Oh
Oh no.
He turns slowly and behind him stands the demon prince. Tom. his best friend's ex . They stare at each other, wide eyed for a moment, blood red meeting chocolate brown.
“I-” he gulps, but Tom cuts him off.
“Dance with me.” he says, holding out a hand for Marco to take.
He takes it, hands and legs trembling.
The other teen leads him straight to the middle of the dancefloor.
The music starts soft and slow and so does their dance. It starts as a simple waltz that slowly morphs into something… looser. More free, more fun as the music picks up.
Slowly people started to join them on the dance floor. Marco barely registers them, the world melting away to just be him and the demon prince.
It’s just them, the music, the light of the blood moon and the ballroom floor.
Tom dips him as the music crescendos, lower than he thinks is normal but he can't bring himself to care. Their eyes meet again and Tom smiles at him and something clicks into place inside of Marco.
As he comes up from the dip, though, he catches sight of Star for the first time all night. She's off to the side with her mother, watching them sadly. He can see tears in her blue eyes and he’s not sure what to think.
Doesn’t she not like Tom?
A realization hits him as the song stops. He can’t tell Star. He can’t tell Anyone .
It crushes him.
His heart hurts as he looks back to Tom, who's leaning towards him. In the fading light of the blood moon, Tom kisses him and it feels like he’s being set on fire. In a good way. Light a hot shower after a long day.
The crowd erupts into hollering and cheers, converging on the two the second they pull away from each other.
He uses the crowd to make his escape, slipping through the people as fast as he can. It’s admittedly not very fast, but he hurries as much as he can through the dense crowd, sprinting out of the room into the hall he came in from.
Once he hits the middle of the hallway he throws his mask behind him haphazardly. He rips the dimensional scissors from his pocket and a sob spills from his mouth against his will.
He opens a portal to his home. A hand grabs his wrist again.
“Rose,” Lala says, suddenly behind him. “I know you’re lying. I don’t understand why you’re running, but take this.
She hands him a compact, much like the one star has, but this one is black and gold with pink fluff on the front and back. Dozens of charms hang off of it.
“I’ll get a new one and call you tomorrow. You’d better explain everything when I call, got it?” she gives him a serious look before sighing. “Now get out of here before someone else sees you.”
“I will,” he promises clutching the compact close as he steps through the portal. As it closes he sees Lala grab his mask off the floor and run back the way they came.
He puts the scissors back where he found them in Stars room before stumbling to his own. He strips out of the suit and puts it back in the box it was in and slides it under his bed. Throwing on one of his hoodies, he collapses into bed. He’s suddenly ice cold and he doesnt know if its the tears or the cold that has him shaking more.
What's he supposed to do now?
He feels something in the back of his mind.
Worry.
Pure, raw anger.
Fuck.
He should have just stayed home.