Boys Will Be Bugs ( Tomco )

Part 1

"I-Is it gonna hurt?" Marco stuttered, sitting on his bedroom floor in Star's castle. Tom sat across from him, a grin across his face.

"It shouldn't." He replied, standing up and moving over to his friend. "But if it does at least I'll be here." The demon held out his hand for the other boy to take it, after a moment of hesitation he did. The two walked to the bathroom together.

"I'm having second thoughts about this. I mean what am I supposed to tell my parents? Or my friends? Or-or Star?" Marco rambled, sweaty nervously as they stepped into the bathroom. Tom closed the door behind them and laughed.

"Do you really want to let other people's opinions on you control your actions for the rest of your life?" He asked, watching Marco take a seat on the closed lid of the toilet.

"Not for the rest of my life, just a few more years, maybe more, probably more." Marco explained. He was shaking slightly with anxiety. Though it hurt Tom to see his friend so nervous he wasn't going to talk him out of it, and he didn't have much more to say to calm his nerves.

"You're going to be fine. Okay?" Tom sighed. Marco nodded and squeezed his eyes shut, and then he felt a blinding pain.

"Shit." Tom muttered as Marco kept his eyes shut, thinking that if he couldn't see it happening it wouldn't be real. "Can you pass me that roll of toilet paper? You're bleeding." He breathed, forcing Marco's eyes to shoot open.

"Bleeding?!" Marco practically yelled, scrambling to grab the toilet paper and hand it to the other boy. Tom clamped his hand over Marco's mouth trying to silence him.

"Be quiet! You're going to wake up Star, or worse, her parents." He hushed. Marco nodded and watched Tom finish the job, stepping away from him once he had completed.

Marco looked at himself in the mirror. He felt different. A lot different. Like their was a new energy hanging over his head. Tom smiled, standing behind him in the mirror. He placed a hand on his friends shoulder and grinned. "So, what do you think?" He asked.

Marco turned and looked at him, grinning right back. "I love it." He smiled. He looked back in the mirror. "You know, I thought that an ear piercing wouldn't be worth the pain at all but I guess I was wrong because I look-" Tom cut him off.

"Bad-ass." He grinned. Marco nodded.

"Yeah, bad-ass."

Tom and Marco had spent their entire night so far doing strange sleep over activities. Marco knew that it was an important night, the two of them hadn't gotten a lot of time alone since Tom and Star started dating. And with them dating Marco seemed to need to boys nights more than he ever had before.

The boys walked back to Marco's destroyed room. The previous activities were shown in the left out messes from each one. When Tom had first showed up they had spent a lot of time watching videos on Marco's laptop, but after a little bit Tom got bored. Marco knew human activities bored Tom pretty fast. So they moved on to activities Tom would enjoy. After spending a while trying to convince Tom not to dye Marco's hair, he landed on convincing him to let him give him an ear piercing. And so the bathroom shenanigans began.

"I definitely think you should do a nose piercing next." Tom stated. He walked over to Marco's bed and collapsed on top on it.

"I think maybe I should give myself just the tiniest bit of a break from shoving needles into my skin." Marco laughed, sitting on the floor in front of the bed.

"Okay, sure give yourself a break. But just know that a nose ring would look really good on you." Tom breathed, staring at the ceiling. Marco looked at his friend, he could tell that he was getting sad in the silence.

"You alright?" Marco asked, turning and scooting as close to the bed as he could've gotten. Tom shrugged. "You can talk to me you know." He assured when the demon didn't answer.

"I don't know. Things with Star have been, weird lately." He frowned. "I'm trying really hard to be a better boyfriend now but it seems like no matter what I do there's some sort of disconnect between us." He explained.

"Oh." Marco responded. He stared at the ground for a while. He didn't really know how to respond. He had a hard time giving advice in Tom and Star's relationship, for obvious reasons. But he wanted to be there for his friend. His good friend. "Have you tried talking to her about it?" Marco asked, dodging the option of giving advice as best as he could. At this point in his friendships with the two he had gotten pretty good at dodging giving any advice to them. He'd prefer them just find their advice themselves. Come up with their own solutions and then just be convinced Marco had given them the ideas.

"No, I feel like if I brought it up it would just start an argument. Or she'd dodge the conversation. Or worse, I'd end up just ruining everything." Tom explained, rolling on his side.

"You really care about her don't you?" Marco let the sentence slip out before he could realize what he was saying. He hoped that Tom wouldn't think it was a weird statement, but he knew he probably would. Marco found himself overthinking and stressing out faster than any one else could've.

"Yeah. I really do. I just don't want to mess it up like I did the first time." Tom breathed. Marco turned and leaned his back against the bedframe.

"I'm sorry, I don't really know how to help you. I know I'm supposed to be Star's best friend but when it comes to her relationships I'm afraid I'm at a loss." Marco frowned. He leaned his head back, hitting it against the frame and making a soft thunk when he hit it. It hurt his head, but he didn't want to make a big deal out of it.

They sat in silence for a moment. Tom wished Marco had more to say, but he understood why he didn't. It was hard to give advice and being in the middle of all Tom and Star's drama couldn't have helped him. After a while of just sitting there Tom finally spoke up. "Why are you sitting all the way over there?" He asked, sitting up and moving to have his head laying next to Marco's. Tom looked into Marco's eyes and grinned, showing all his teeth. Marco looked at him for a moment, but he couldn't look at him for longer than a second without smiling himself as well. After just a few moments of just sitting and smiling Marco responded.

"Okay, okay okay." He smiled, moving to the bed himself.