"Glob Glor?"

"No, I don't want to talk about it."

"Glob Glor."

"That's not true. I'm fine. Star's my friend first, my… anything else second to that."

"Glob Glor?"

"That's not-" Marco let out a groan of frustration and let his head fall back to stare at the ceiling. It had been three hours since Star had left to go on her date with Tom, leaving Marco to look after Glossaryck. After the incident at the Monster Bash, she was trying to unwind from her princess duties and get some perspective and some much needed R&R. With Tom. Marco, her loyal, dutiful, understanding squire had stayed behind to make sure Glossaryck didn't burn the castle down. He remembered her saying in passing as she left, "Don't worry, we'll only be an hour or so, nothing big." Three hours later, Marco was still looking after Glossaryck, cleaning up after his messes, pulling with all his might to keep him from running away to who-knows-where, trying to feed him, and Star was still on her date.

With Tom.

Marco clenched his teeth and flexed his fingers. He shouldn't be so jealous, he reasoned. After all, Star had already confessed her love to him a few months ago and he'd turned her down. She was dating Tom now, and seemed to really like him again. Tom, for his part, and despite everything that had happened at the party, had grown a lot in the last couple of months. They were a good couple, and both deserved to be happy. They were also his friends, and he should want the best for them. It was unfair for him to hate Tom, to want to punch his stupid, ugly, pretentious, wity-

Marco shook his head and looked up. He wished he hadn't. To his dismay, Glossaryck had thrown up again, leaving a pile of smoldering, gelatinous rainbows and glitter on his bed. For the fourth time that night, to boot.

"Oh come on!" Marco whined, shoulders drooping in despair. Glossaryck looked at him with a vacant expression before scratching his ears and bounding off to some other part of the room. Marco scowled and muttered something dark and bitter under his breath before getting out his cleaning supplies. As he started to scrub the magical bile off of the floor, he tried to keep his eyes on Glossaryck to make sure he didn't run off somewhere. He didn't, thankfully; He just kept staring at Marco with his big round eyes. They reminded Marco of a dog. "A particularly dumb dog," Marco muttered, eyes squinting at the troublemaker. Glossaryck continued his stare, unaffected by the slight. After the mess was done, Marco let himself fall back into his chair and glared at Glossaryck.

"Glob Glor?"

"No, Glossaryck, I'm not going to tell her. She's too busy right now. Maybe later." Marco's voice sounded less than convincing, even to himself.

Glossaryck pursed his lips together, eyes furrowed, body hunched up and tense. Marco rolled his eyes and gave him a frustrated, weary look.

"I can't tell her, Glossaryck. She's my friend. It'll make things… weird. And complicated. Especially since she's busy putting the kingdom back together and trying to deal with the racism against monsters and crap in her family and Tom and- yeah. It's too much. Me randomly confessing my crush for her would be the straw that breaks the camels back." Pride filled his voice, giving him more of a backbone than he usually had. "She's my friend, and I'm her squire. I won't do that to her, no matter how much it sucks for me."

Glossaryck's stare continued, but Marco didn't let up. They kept at it for a solid ten seconds before the little blue creature sighed. Marco smirked. He hadn't won many victories in the past couple of weeks… months, really, and it felt good to succeed at anything. He felt absurdly good about himself and relaxed in his chair, a cocky smile breaking out across his face.

Then Glossaryck's eyes went wide. He shouted "Glob Glor!" and jumped into Marco's pocket. Marco, who hadn't been prepared for the attack, fell back in his chair, causing the chair to fall into the ground. Marco's head rapped against the ground and stars swirled in his head. It took a second for him to collect himself and whine softly, "Damnit, Glossaryck." The little blue man wriggled and jiggled inside Marco's pocket, clearly looking for something. Marco grabbed him by his gross, hairy legs, repressed a puke of his own, and yanked the little nuisance out of his pocket. He stared daggers at Glossaryck, ready to snarl something nasty at him, until he saw what was in his hands. Glossaryck had Marco's phone in his hands, and it was ringing. Kelly's number appeared on the front alongside her face. He took the phone out of Glossaryck's hand and took the call.

"Kelly?"

"Marco!" Kelly's voice came out sharp and tense. "I need your help."

Marco's back straightened. He got up off the chair and started scrambling around his room, looking for his dimensional scissors. He pressed the phone up against his ear with his shoulder, asking "What's up?"

There was a moment of silence before Kelly replied, "It's… complicated. I can't get a hold of anyone else. I'm at the remains of the bounce lounge. I don't have a lot of time, just- please."

Marco frowned down at his phone. Kelly had sounded scared, yes, but she had also sounded… guilty? Embarrassed? He shook his head. He could sort out what issue she was in whence he got there. Besides, she was his friend. You don't let friends down.

"Be there in a second," he said, rummaging through his drawer until his hands brushed up against the cold metal of his dimensional scissors. In one motion, he drew the scissors out and ripped a portal between worlds in front of him.

He jumped through the magical portal into a dark, cold room that stank of sweat stains and half eaten food. There were no visible sources of light, though most of the room still seemed to be visible to Marco. What was once the Bounce Lounge now was only a loose collection of drink and food stained clouds, some leftover wrappers and photos, and a few tables, half of which were stacked in one corner of the depressing scene. Kelly's head popped out from behind the tables, then zoomed back down. Her hand shot up and waved at him to come over. Marco jogged over and leaned over the tables to find Kelly balled up against the side of the improvised barricade. Her whole body was shaking, including her hands, which were both wrapped around a long knife.

"Kelly, wha-" Marco started before he was pulled over the tables and landed on his belly next to Kelly. The landing knocked the air out of him and nearly cracked a rib. He let out a small sound. Kelly winced.

"Sorry, sorry." Kelly's apology was quick but genuine. Her shaking had forced her glasses to slide down her face and she pushed them back up her nose. "Keep quiet, I don't know when he'll be here."

"Who?" Marco whispered, still on his stomach.

Kelly stopped shaking. She suddenly became very interested in the ground beneath her. She didn't respond at first, but right before Marco could ask, she spit out "My landlord."

Marco blinked. "You're…"

"My landlord. Tad-", the name seemed to taste bitter on her tongue, "-had helped with paying rent. A lot. I've been trying to keep up, but…" she trailed off and shrugged. "I'm three weeks past rent payment, and my landlord is... pretty intense." She closed her eyes and leaned heavily back against the tables. "I'm sorry, Marco, this is gonna sound really lame, but- I- I need to borrow some cash."

Marco stared at the distraught young woman for a long three-count before asking, dumbfounded, "You pay rent?"

Kelly's eyes blinked open and she looked back at Marco with an equally awkward face. "Uh, yeah."

Marco's eyes squinted at her, as if trying to remember some formulae for a math problem. "But… isn't your hair like a house of it's own? Can't you just… live in it?"

Kelly blinked again, still recovering from the sudden tonal change. She'd expected him to give her a disgusted look, berate her for abusing their friendship for money, and then ask why he should give her the money. She had expected there to be a long argument where she just might be able to get the money she needed to stay alive for the day, at the expense of a good friend. She had not expected him to act so calm and curious.

She shook her head. "I mean, yeah, I can kinda go in and out of my own hair, but I sort of need a place to keep myself while I'm in there, you know? Can't just leave a pile of hair lying on the streets."

Marco thought about it, then nodded. "Never thought about it like that. Makes sense, though." His eyes furrowed in concentration and gave Kelly a concerned look. "Why didn't you ask someone earlier? We would have helped you out."

Kelly bit her lip and looked away, frustrated by the question. She knew who he was talking about: Tom, Star, Pony Head, Marco… her friends. Any one of them would have helped if she had asked (after all, Marco had just come to help), but that didn't mean she wanted to ask for their help. The idea of asking one of her friends for money felt gross and vulgar to her. And besides…

"It's Tad," she said. Her voice was full of irritation, but it wasn't directed at Marco. "This was part of me moving on from him: being able to pay for rent myself, to be able to live on my own. I wanted- no, I needed to prove to myself that I could live without him." She sighed, bags showing underneath her eyes. Marco had never seen someone so exhausted, so worn and weary, tired to the bone. Not even Star with all her princess duties and family issues had seemed so distressed.

"Kelly," Marco said in a reassuring voice. "Just because you're living without Tad doesn't mean you have to live without us." He gave her a warm smile. "We're your friends, Kelly. We're here for you."

Kelly stared at Marco for a long time before she smiled back. A tear started to fall from one of her eyes but she brushed it off. "You're a good friend, Marco. A really good friend."

Marco chuckled. "Sometimes," he admitted. "Sometimes." He got up and offered his hand to Kelly. "Come on, let's find that landlord of yours and figure something out."

Kelly took his hand and got up. Marco noticed how soft her hands were. Weird. Her body seemed to tense up by just a hair as she looked around, seemingly expecting someone to appear. "I doubt we'll have to go looking for him," Kelly noted cynically.

Marco blinked. Before he could ask Kelly why, however, a giant black portal opened in the sky. From it's dark, endless void jumped a knight and his steed, both armor and equine black as the void from which they came. The knights sharp, menacing armor looked immaculate, save for the insidious brown stains it wore as testament to it's use. In the knight's right hand was held a shield, equally as black as the knight who held it, with an unrecognizable crest shaped into the metal. In his left, he had a double-sided battle axe. Twin points of red flame flickered from where the knight's eyes should be. Marco could not see an inch of his skin, nor if he had any skin to begin with. The horse let out a puff of breath and nearly made both teenagers pass out. Marco gulped.

"Cool landlord," he said. He tried to act tough and macho in front of the obvious threat, but it came out too thready and shaky to be convincing. Kelly nodded.

"Hey Bruce," Kelly spoke to the knight, apparently Bruce, in a much more confident tone, although hers was also tainted with fear. "How's tricks? Angela still doing fine?"

The black knight inclined his head to Kelly. "My tricks are functioning flawlessly. Angela, on the other hand, is sick at the moment. Common cold, I believe. She's been in bed for the past three days. Seems to be getting better, but-" He shrugged. "You know how she is. Damn immune system couldn't keep out a virus if it was already half dead."

Kelly suddenly became much more relaxed and sympathetic. Marco, however, kept tense and frightened. "Oh, Bruce. You really need to get her to a specialist to find out what's wrong."

Bruce's flames grew dimmer. "I can't pay for a specialist when young ladies I can usually rely on for rent money don't pay their dues three weeks after their deadline." His left hand gripped the axe a little tighter. Kelly's face went pale. Marco saw it and snapped out of his haze of fear. His hand shot into his hoodie and, after a moment of shuffling around, came out with a large wad of cash.

"Will six-fifty cover it?"

Bruce looked down at the wad of crumpled bills, then at Marco. "I haven't seen you around before," he noted calmly.

Marco shrugged. After searching for it since the black knight had appeared, he had finally found his backbone. "I'm her friend. Just helping out, you know."

Bruce stared down at him, then shrugged his shoulders. He took the cash, sorted it out to make sure it was the correct amount, then removed a ten dollar bill. "The rent is only six hundred and forty dollars." He looked back down at Kelly. "I hope your job searches go better. Otherwise, I recommend that we terminate the lease soon. I won't be able to wait this long next time."

Marco had difficulty reading the knight, but Kelly got him. She gave him a small, sad smile and nodded. Bruce nodded to her, then a nod to Marco, and then his horse jumped ten vertical feet back into the portal, which subsequently closed. Marco and Kelly stood there, looking at the where the portal had been. Then Marco shivered.

"Damn," he muttered, trying his best to stop himself from shivering. "That's one hell of a landlord."

"Nice guy, though," Kelly commented. "His wife has some sort of immune system deficiency, and he works hard to keep her healthy and strong."

"Really hard."

Kelly snorted. "Yeah."

Silence. Kelly turned to Marco, eyes not quite focusing on him. "Thanks for ever-" Marco's pointer finger was on her lips before she could realize it.

"Coffee."

Kelly blinked. "What?"

"Coffee," Marco repeated, voice a whole lot firmer than usual. It was the voice he reserved for helping out friends with their issues. "You and I are going to get coffee. And over coffee, we're going to talk. Because-" He looked her right in the eyes, unwavering, " I think we need to talk."

A protest started to rise up inside of Kelly, but it died off. Marco had just blown his whole month's worth of savings on her. And he was her friend. "Ok."