Evening Troubles

The clock struck eleven at the Diaz family household. November wind rustled the last few remaining leaves on the nearby trees, and the moon shone bright white in the sky. The house itself was silent, save for the main floors T.V. which was playing Aladdin at the moment. Two teenagers, still up after Marco's parents had gone to bed, sat on the couch under warm blankets that had a plate of nachos balanced on top of them. The light from the television was the only one in the room, and it enveloped the two young adults. Star had obviously not had seen T.V. before she had moved to Earth, but it hadn't taken long for her to come to love it. She enjoyed the ability to watch a story with all of the backgrounds fitting in rather than reading or watching a play back home. Thus, Star and Marco had spent many a night together on that couch, eating nachos and watching the magically moving pictures on the screen. Disney films were her favorite, mostly because she got to point out how wrong the princesses were acting and Marco would laugh with her.

Yet that night, Star noticed, Marco had kept mostly silent, only letting out a few chuckles here and there. She started to get frustrated after the first five or six jokes fell flat on him, and she tore her eyes away from the screen to look at him. It only took a few seconds of examining him for her minor frustration to change to uncertain worry. Marco's face, and his entire body for that matter, exuded an air of complete and utter disinterest. He was slouched over on his seat, letting his body fall down slowly across the edge of the couch. His eyes were half-lidded, appearing to stare at nothing in particular.

As Star stared at the listless Marco, she started to realize that he had been this way for the past couple of days. While at the time she had simply written it off as a passing mood, it was clearly obvious now that that was not the case. Silently berating herself for being so dense, she decided it was time to see what the problem was.

"Um," Star said, keeping her voice down. "Marco?" Marco didn't move. Star couldn't tell if he had heard her, so she spoke a little louder. "Marco? Hey, Marco!" She snapped her fingers next to him, making him blink in mild surprise. One of his eyebrows went up a little bit and he turned his head towards Star.

"Hmmm?" he barely murmured.

"Uh," Star hesitated. "Are you alright?"

Marco's eyebrow went down and he nodded at her mechanically. "Yeah," he responded monotonously. He began to turn his head back to its original position.

"Uh," Star muttered, not in the slightest convinced. "Are you sure?" She asked, emphasizing the 'sure' for Marco's sake.

He turned back to look at her and his eyebrow went even higher this time. "Of course I am," he said just a tad more emphatically than his last word. "Why wouldn't I be?

"Well," Star began, thinking out her next sentence so as not to alarm him, "It's just that you haven't said much during the movie. Or," she added after a reluctant couple of seconds, "for the past couple of days."

"Oh," Marco replied, a bit of surprise evident in his voice. "I…" he trailed off into thought, seemingly trying to remember his own behavior for the past few days. Then he shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the T.V. "It's nothing to worry about. I've just been kinda tired lately."

Star gave him a skeptical look and her anxiety grew by a few more degrees. The skepticism bled over to her voice as she said, "Yeah, because whenever you're tired, you become listless and quiet."

Marco's eye's narrowed angrily as she spoke. "If you've got a point, Star, you might as well just come out and say it." He sounded a bit frustrated and angry over Star's prodding, and it made her wince a little. It did not, however, keep her from investigating further.

"Marco, listen to me," she pleaded, more energy put behind her words. "I'm your best friend, and it's my duty to notice when you've got a problem and to help you fix it. I'm trying to help you here, bud, but I can't if you're going to keep shrugging me off."

Marco's eyes zoomed to meet Star's, showing Star a flash of irritation that went across his eyes. "It's. Nothing," he said vehemently, emphasizing each word. "I don't have a problem, besides you trying to find one that doesn't exist." The last word that he said came out hard and sharp, and it made Star wince again. Marco saw it and looked away, covering his emotions behind a mask of neutrality. He was about to apologize, but Star retaliated.

"You don't have to be such a doo-doo head about it," Star mumbled bitterly. "If there isn't anything wrong, then why'd you have to get so upset over it?"

Marco grimaced at her words, let out a deep sigh, and visibly deflated. "I'm sorry, Star, I didn't mean it, I just…" he kept looking away, too ashamed to meet her eyes again. "It's not important. It's selfish of me, and it doesn't matter anyways."

Star's expression grew pained and saddened at her friend's dismay. She put her hand on his shoulder with a reassuring grip. Marco started to pull away, but he hadn't put much force into the action. "Marco," she whispered as quietly as she could. "Please. I'm your friend." Marco looked like he wanted to argue more, but he gave up.

"I," he began, taking in a deep breath and deciding whether or not he could continue to keep his secret to himself. He decided that he couldn't, and continued his explanation slowly. "I guess I've just been a little bit demoralized over the past week or so. Or maybe I've just been humbled and haven't taken it well."

Star looked at Marco inquisitively and raised one of her eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

Marco looked back at Star for a second before turning away again. He stayed quiet for several seconds, not moving much. Just before Star was going to push again, Marco asked, "Do you remember what you told me after we got back from the Blood Moon Ball?"

Star nodded her head and replied, "I was upset that you had tried to intervene with the ball and how you were acting like a bodyguard. I told you that I didn't need a hero, I needed a friend." Her eyebrows furrowed into a confused frown. "Why?"

Marco nodded his head soberly and took another breath. "I…" he trailed off, frowning to himself. Then after a few seconds he nodded again and looked like he knew exactly how to explain his predicament. "Growing up, I haven't had a very exciting life. I grew up in the same city, the same house, the same schools, had the same crush," he chuckled softly, "Heck, the same belt rank in Karate for most of my life. And I wasn't exactly part of the, uh, cool kids or social kids group. I've kinda been a nerd, a loser, and part of the backdrop. I mean, it's not like I don't have friends who I love like family and live in a great house with loving parents, but I," he choked a little on the words, and had to swallow them down." I've never felt like I've had much of a purpose in life." Marco's eyes began to mutiny against his order to not tear up, and Star's joined them in the revolt.

Marco took a shaky breath and straighten up a bit. "But then you came. You dropped into my life from almost literally thin air, and you changed everything. My family had hosted for foreign exchange students several times before, but none of them had been like you. You were so energetic, and innocent, and insane. We've had happy-go-lucky people before, but you," he gave her a quick, small smile that had some of his normal warmth. "You were special. And you," his smile faded and was replaced by a blank, unwavering stare. "You had a life. You fought monsters and evil creatures on a daily basis, something I could only dream of. I thought that maybe it was my chance at, I don't know, restarting my life and beginning a new adventure. And at first, it was. Or at least it seemed like it. We went on adventures together, dealt with various monsters and incredible problems, heck, I've even become a little closer to Jackie. And we became good friends."

He breathed again, sighing heavily as his eyebrows furrowed downwards. "And then the Blood Moon Ball happened. I… made a mistake. I didn't trust you as much as I should've. I think I was wary of your more impulsive nature, but I shouldn't have equated that to ignorance or stupidity. I might've been right about Tom, but you probably had already figured that out. I don't think it was until afterwards when you explicitly told me that I had been acting like a hero that I realized that I had been. Some part of me was sure that you needed protecting, and I acted on that feeling. It was wrong, obviously, and I told myself that I would ignore the feeling and just try to be your friend, just watch your back as you watched mine."

Star had figured out what Marco's next stream of thought was going to be and she didn't like it. "Marco," she said tentatively.

Marco acted like he hadn't heard her. "And then after that came the incident with Toffee. I don't think I've had any experience more humiliating as that, including that awful day where I broke Jackie's skateboard. I was used, Star." His fist clenched as he said it. "Used as bait to put you in a position where you'd either have had to let me die or destroy the wand."

"Marco," Star asserted gently, placing her hand on his shoulder and giving it a tight squeeze. "There was nothing you could've done, they took you when you were sleeping."

Marco's tense shoulders relaxed and Marco deflated again. His head lowered a little and he turned to face her. Tears filled his eyes, along with a lot of bitterness and regret. His face looked like it had aged several years before Stars eyes. "You've got half of that right. There was nothing I could do."

Star's eyes widened. "What?" she asked, surprised.

Marco's face grew darker but he refused to look away from Star this time. "I was still fuming over our argument from earlier when they attacked. I fought as hard as I could, but they got the better of me." He blinked some of the tears away as he kept his hard gaze upon her. "I was less than useless that night, Star. I was used as a tool against you." He closed his eyes, letting the tears flow down his face, and turned his head away from her. Star was about to console him but he cut her off. "I'm sorry, Star. I know that I'm being selfish and foolish right now. I shouldn't have been acting like a hero in the first place, and friendships are wholly built upon ones combat skills, but," he sniffed and gulped down a small cry. "I'm sorry."

Tears were now running down Star's face as she listened to her best friends monologue. "Oh Marco," she exhaled soberly. "How long have you been like this, this upset, this depressed?"

Marco didn't look at her as he replied in a tired and defeated voice. "Since the day after we got back, when it really started to sink in." He had left out the how much I've messed up idea from his sentence, but Star could hear it in his tone.

"Gosh, Marco," Star quietly replied. "It's been almost a month since that happened. Why didn't you talk to me about this?"

A bit of frustration escaped from Marco as he replied, "What part of 'this is me being a selfish piece of crap' didn't you get? It wasn't worth you worrying about."

Star gave him a small, bitter-sweet smile and said smartly, "You've got half of that statement right." She put her hand under Marco's chin and carefully but firmly turned his face to see hers. "You. Are. My. Friend, Marco. Scratch that, you're my best friend. Sharing stupid, arrogant things with each other are one of the many purposes of friends. Friends are there for listening, for sharing, for helping, for playing, for fighting, for so many things Marco. Do you know why friends do all of those things, Marco? Because they care for each other. And, since you're my best friend, that means that I care about you the most. To be honest, Marco, I think that you're greatest error in all of this was not admitting to me from the start that something was wrong." Her face grimaced in pain as she let her hand fall from Marco's face. "Then again, how can I be your best friend if I didn't even realize that something was wrong until now?"

Marco's eyes widened in a startled surprise. "Uh, what?" he asked, temporarily shocked out of his depressed state.

Star bite her lip and returned Marco's stunned gaze with her own troubled one. "You've been upset about this for nearly a month now. An entire month, Marco. I should have noticed that something major was bugging you, and I didn't," her face grew even grimmer before she said, "I don't know why you're apologizing when I'm the one at fault."

Marco's jaw dropped a bit at Star's remark. He had been expecting her to be upset with him, or at least give some fake pity. Having her take the blame for his situation and become as self-deprecating as he was not only beyond his list of probabilities, it wasn't even on his list of possibilities. His mind scrambled for a way to reassure her that it wasn't her fault, but apparently the people working inside of his head had decided to take a lunch break. "I, uh… Star, that's not… that isn't…" he shook his head a bit to get out of the complete shock he was still in, and tried a second time. "Look, Star, you don't have to take the blame for my mistake. I'm the one who didn't give my friend enough credit for her abilities, not you. And besides, it's not like I've been moping around everywhere and refusing to eat at meals."

Star gave him an are you serious glance and said, "For the past month, you haven't eaten any Mexican food or snacks in-between meals, and you've missed all of your karate lessons that you're were supposed to go to."

Marco winced. "Really?"

Star's face relaxed and she gave him a sad smile. "Yes, Marco, really. Really really."

"Oh," Marco's face said blankly. Then his eyes lit up and he looked at her inquisitively. "Wait, if you hadn't caught on to my mood, then how had you noticed all of the changes in my behavior?"

Star began to respond, and then stopped. She blinked a couple of times and then changed her smile into a miniscule frown. "Huh," she said as blankly as Marco's response had been. Then she scrunched up her face and argued, "But that just makes it worse. I saw what was happening but didn't do anything to help."

Marco gave her a small, friendly smile. "Or maybe it's because you were just as upset as I was after the battle?"

Stars eyes widened. She was about to rebuke his statement, but she paused to think. Had she been as downtrodden as he had? After all, it had been one of their worst battles. Marco had been captured, and despite all of her attempts to free him herself, she had been forced to give in to Toffees demands. In the end, her wand got destroyed and they had just barely escaped with their lives. And as Star remembered the battle, she started to remember how throughout the month, she hadn't tried to contact pony head or any of her other friends. Maybe she had been just as upset as Marco had.

"Well," she said, comically emphasizing her words, "I guess I might've been a little upset."

"Oh really?" Marco replied with humor in his voice as well as a short chuckle.

"Really really," Star replied in a small, cute voice.

Marco chuckled again, this time a bit more hearty and lively. "Well that settles that," he joked. Then his smile died down to a small worried frown. "Star, this doesn't change the fact that I-"

Star cut him off with a wave of her hand. "What, proves that you aren't perfect?" she said gave him a wry smile and continued, "That you make mistakes? That you're mew- I mean, human?" she let out a small sigh and her smile grew larger and more compassionate. "Marco, occasionally you're going to make bad judgement calls or mess up, it happens. Heck, if I got upset over every little mistake I've made, I would be in a nervous breakdown right now." Her smile stayed the same, but her eyes showed more empathy as she softly assured him, "and I understand why you were upset. I can't imagine living a life without any adventure or mischief. I don't know if its jealousy or envy or whatever you were feeling, but I'm not going to judge you for it. Why? Because you're my friend, Marco. My best friend."

Marco's eyes started to reactivate their tear ducts. Marco sniffed and whispered, "Thanks, Star. I think I might've need that." He took in a deep breath and then let it out slowly. "Thanks."

"No problem, mess-up twin," she said jokingly.

Marco smiled widely at her before his face became serious. "The wand is broken, Star."

Her face grew grim but she nodded.

"And Toffee's probably not gone for good."

Star gave him a confused frown. "Why do you say that?"

Marco shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know why, but my instincts are telling me that he isn't gone."

Star thought for a few seconds before nodding. "He did seem like the type to always have a few tricks up his sleeve."

Marco nodded with her gravely. Then he smiled, the warmest and happiest smile he'd ever had with Star. "But when he comes, we'll face him together. Cause that's what best friends do."

Star beamed up at him. Marco was happy again. Her job was complete. "Yeah," she replied. "Best friends."

They stayed in that wonderful moment until the grandfather clock suddenly chimed twelve times, signaling midnight. It startled both of them, causing them to land in a small mess of themselves. The nachos that had long since gone cold and overlooked hit the ground, making a mess of themselves. They took one look at each other and started to laugh. They laughed loud, hearty laughs that were good for the soul. The movie ended, and the T.V. screen went black. Star yawned a heavy yawn, and it soon became Marco's job to get her up the stairs back to her bedroom. After the incredible effort of getting her up the stairs and unceremoniously dumping her into bed, Marco had planned to get to his own bed. But those plans were cancelled as he ended up falling beside her in bed, passing out almost instantly. They dreamed of happy dreams together.