Hey everyone.
"Friendenemies" has been one of those things that you didn't know you needed until they actually happen.
It was just so beautiful.
So, naturally, I had to ruin everything with a cheesy, edgy-ish one-shot.
I wrote this trash right after the premiere of the episode, so it's a bit of a mess (more than usual at least).
It takes place right after the end of the episode and looked much better in my head than it does on "paper".
Yes, even the title.

Now, embrace the TomCo, my BROTP, because bromance brings world peace.

You know the drill: English is not my first language, so feel free to sing a duet with me (wait, what?).
Hope you enjoy!


Lonely Fire
Marco tells Tom a deep, important secret about his childhood.


Marco was by far used to most of the supernatural accidents he was usually unfortunate enough to bump into.
But it's not like he had any other choice: when your roommate is a magical princess from another dimension, it's more about surviving than a routine.

However, seeing his once-dead hero, martial artist and movie star Mackie Hand, kicking some serious butt, was an unique sight even for him.
The boy was just sitting there on the sidewalk, enjoying some cereal, his eyes glued on his undead, zombified idol, as he literally threw his ribs as if they were shuriken, easily getting rid of a bunch of goofy security guards who were clearly not paid enough for that.

"This is so much better than the movie marathon!" Marco thought, enthusiastically.

Indeed, it was like watching one of his favorite karate movies, ironically just outside of the movie theater marathoning the undead warrior's filmography he was supposed to attend to that night. He was staring in awe at Hand's extremely well-coordinated moves and was so involved into the action that he almost forgot that we wasn't witnessing that mistake of nature alone.

"Wow, you were right! This guy's for real."

Tom the demon was sitting next to Marco, eating cereal from his own bowl (a rather mundane food choice considering that he's the Prince of the Underworld) with all three eyes devoted to the zombie movie star roundhouse kicking whoever tried to attack him.
He looked genuinely invested by the karate-brawl in front of them.

"Yeah! I told you!" Marco proudly stated, chewing the root-beer flavored corn.

As much as he was happy that the demon was into his favorite kind of movies, that didn't really change his overall opinion on him, especially considering how they got there in the first place: because of Tom's lies and manipulations. Marco honestly believed that the three-eyed boy wanted to spend some time with him, as a way of making up for the terrible behavior he had in their past encounters (both to him and, perhaps most importantly, Star), so he gave him the benefit of the doubt. Predictably, however, it was all just a ruse, a way to pass some kind of anger-management test set up by the Prince's life-coach Brian, with Marco being necessary to said "anger exam" as he apparently was Tom's "most hated person".

And for Marco, friendship wasn't something you could just lie about so easily.

But the demon did try to make up for it, understanding his mistakes, by resurrecting the undead force of nature kicking butt in front of them.
The boy in the red hoodie couldn't deny that Star's ex-boyfriend was at least trying to change.
Maybe not with him, but he had to give him credit for it.

"I... I still don't like you, Tom." he just said, with a surprisingly sincere smile.

Not really the "credit" he was going for.

"I still don't like you too, Marco." the demon did the same.

"Heh... at least we agree on something..." the human boy replied, sipping some of that non-alcoholic beverage directly from the bowl. "Well, this and our musical tastes."

That wasn't a lie.
They were both big fans of a cheesy Canadian boy band called Love Sentence, the only thing Tom wasn't lying about.
And Marco was sure of it, as he couldn't get out of his head the incredibly embarrassing duet they sung moments earlier, right after he found about the ruse.
Only a true fan would do something as cheesy as that, no doubts about it.
Thank goodness the city was deserted: becoming a meme wasn't exactly Marco's dream.

"Better alone than badly accompanied. That means you. You're the badly part."

It was weird how Tom was talking in a sincere, ironically friendly tone of voice, even though his words were saying the exact opposite of that.
Not that Marco was acting differently.

"Aw... some good old alone-time... silence. Now that's something I'd lie for." he said, in a slightly sarcastic tone, thinking of the chaotic, rainbow mess he was probably going to find once he'd got back home, a mess that he would have pretended to hate as usual.

He took one more long sip of root beer, imagining what his royal roommate was even up to earlier that evening, all wrapped on those Christmas lights. He was used to magic, but to Star's mundane mishaps... that's another story.

"You... you don't know what you're talking about."

Tom's remark felt slightly off to Marco.
He didn't sound mad, more like disappointed for some reason.
A rather ironic, peculiar reaction, considering the demon's disputable moral.

"I... I don't?"

The boy in the rood hoodie looked puzzled at his rival.
He knew he was probably going to regret that question, but he was admittedly intrigued.

"It's not your fault." the demon said, in a strangely mature manner, with a scolding look. "It's not like you ever experienced what being alone means."

Tom got up, staring down at the human with all of his three eyes, towering over him, as if he was deeply offended by something.

"Say hi to Star for me. Oh, with your permission of course, hoodie boy." he said, in a deadpan tone, mockingly bowing to him, and walked back to his demonic carriage.

The horned underworld Prince was more prone to blowing up when getting mad, even about the silliest things.
This subtle, "calm" rage was something new to Marco.
And probably even to Tom himself.

"Wait, you can't make me feel bad about this!" the human stuttered, startled but also puzzled. "You're the one who lied to me and-"

But the demon cut him off, speaking calmly, without even turning around, getting inside his carriage. "I'm not saying that I was right or anything; we both don't care anyway. Just go home, Diaz."

Marco simply stood up, somehow feeling once again deceived.
Tom was an unpredictable riddle of emotions, one not worthy of his time.
The boy, hands in his pockets, walked in the opposite direction, walking past his karate hero.

"Uhm... I think I just killed that man..." Mackie Hand said, pointing at a guard lying on the ground. "No, false alarm. He's moving."

The safe-kid ignored him, eyes glued on his feet.
He was so mad at Tom. He felt so dumb for even believing that the demon wanted to be his friend, or at least not a murdering machine as always.
All Marco wanted was simply go back to his house and tell Star how crazy the evening was, both in its good and bad ways; how much Tom didn't really change; heck, maybe even brag about of how he managed to shatter that weird magically locked door of the demon's carriage with a single kick.

Just trying to get some laughs of all that mess.
And with Star that was fairly easy.
He was glad to have someone to talk about such a crazy evening.

And then it hit him, just as a loud truck passed near him, snapping him back into reality.
The whole thing was simpler than he thought.
He felt even dumber for not understanding it sooner.

He turned around and ran back to the movie theater.
Tom's carriage was still parked in front of it.
Mackie, however was gone, probably wreaking havoc somewhere else in the coolest way possible, but he did leave a trail of moaning people behind him.

The muffled words and instruments of "Too Little Too Late" by Love Sentence echoed in the empty street, the music becoming louder as the boy got closer and closer to the carriage. He didn't know exactly why we was doing that, going back to a demon who straight up hates him.

He stepped inside the fancy carriage, the interior looking way bigger on the inside, the entire place adorned mostly with skeleton-themed forniture.
Tom was sitting on his couch-throne, eyes closed, peacefully listening to his/their favorite boy band.
Marco didn't say a word and simply stood there, in the middle of the room, while Brian, again in his tiger disguise, walked past him, making some purr noises.
That sparked a different series of questions into the boy's head; questions for another time, possibly never.

"What?! How did you-" the demon noticed the human's presence and didn't look very happy about it.

"The door: it's gone. I destroyed it. That's how I got inside." Marco simply explained, interrupting what was probably going to be a series of insults.

"Right..." he scoffed, turning off the stereo, as it all went silent around them. "What do you want?"

That was a surprisingly hard question for him.
Marco didn't really know what to answer to that apparently simple question.
He didn't like him, he didn't like his root beer either, but deep inside he felt he somewhat had to come back to him.

"I know how that feels like..." he simply said.

Tom remained unperturbed, knowing what his guest was talking about. "Who cares."

"You may act like a jerk and a bad boy all the time, but there is a reason you do this." and for Marco, that reason was also painfully familiar.

He sat on the smaller, soft poof-chair in front of Tom's huge throne, as if he was going to lecture the demon.
The boy probably went into "Dr. Marco PHD" mode without even noticing it.

"I know how that feels like." he reassured, again, this time more serious.

And when Marco could even hear his own words echoing in that room, he realized how worse the situation probably was back into the Underworld.
He looked around him: the place was messy, there were snacks on the floor and empty cans of sodas a bit everywhere. But what Marco was trying to remember, however, is how unnaturally clean and "new" everything looked before he and Tom started bonding, almost as if it was the first time that somebody actually used the stuff in that room.

"Did you hear that?" Tom said, still unimpressed, referring to the echo. "This is what my royal palace sounds like. I'll let you imagine the rest."

Marco remained silent for a moment, thinking of something to say, but the horned prince anticipated him.

"There. You had your touchy-feely confession. Now leave, before I set fire to your organs." he threatened, but didn't look menacing at all.

In response, the kid didn't move at all.
On the contrary, he adjusted his position on the poof he was sitting on, getting more comfortable, ignoring the threats.

"Look, Tom. I don't like you." he admitted. "And you don't like me. Good. That's great."

"Fine. Now leave." Tom replied.

"Trust me. I'd rather be anywhere else right now. This moving piece of Underworld is literally the last place in the Universe I'd want to be."

"Fascinating. Now leave."

Marco took a deep breath, trying to stay calm, as the demon's apparently indifferent replies really tested his proverbial patience.
But in truth, he was also realizing the actual reason he got so mad at him before, besides all the lies and the overall jerkiness: Tom looked very familiar to him, in a way that he would never admit. He reminded him of a certain kid struggling to make friends outside of his known "safe" contexts.

"I do think that you need to work on your anger issues..." he saw Tom rolling his eyes, but this wasn't going to be about his anger. Not directly at least. "...but maybe this kind of therapy is not working for you, you know."

Before he could say anything else, an angered voice interrupted him.

"Hey!" Brian shouted, from the other side of the room. "I'm an expert in dealing with anger issues. You might as well show some respect, kid." he said.

"Dude... you are literally wearing a tiger suit while chilling in your own litter box!" Marco responded, trying to understand why Brian still didn't drop the feline act.

The life-coach simply shrugged under his fur-suit and reached for a ball of yarn. "To each their own." he replied, and started playing with his toy.

Marco turned back to Tom, hoping that Star could use some kind of memory-eraser spell on him later.
He focused once again on the demon, who was oddly passive about everything, even Brian's "please make fun of me"-weirdness.
The human decided to simply get to the point, before any other suit-wearing grown man could interrupt him.

"Alright... I'll just tell you something that I've never told to anyone..."

"I'm so going to pull out all of your organs..." he whispered, annoyed by Marco's persistence. "Who cares?!" he then shouted.

"I know, but I'm telling you anyway."

For a moment, Marco stopped caring about the mean things Tom did to him.
He wasn't trying to justify his bad actions or anything, but he felt some kind of connection to him, against all odds.
A very personal connection this time.

"I assume you did your research on me, so you know that we have this 'hosting-exchange-students' thing going on."

The three-eyed prince rolled his eyes, which Marco interpreted as a sign that he was listening, after all.

"Star is just the last of a long series of weirdos I had the pleasure to live with. Well... Star is certainly not like any other exchange students that lived with us... she's different, she's just..."

Tom coughed loudly, noticing how Marco was struggling to stay on topic, his three eyes glowing red for a second.
The safe-kid awkwardly resumed talking.

"The point is... there is a reason my family started doing this."

The boy gestured to all of himself, a silly smile drawn on his face.

"It's me." he chuckled. "I'm the reason."

That made him earn a puzzled look from the demon, who tilted his head a bit, looking more like a stray dog listening to some weird noises.
Now it was his turn to be confused, or at least intrigued.

"What do you mean...?" he asked, narrowing his eyes, the one of his forehead more than the other two.

"Okay... I know this may be hard to believe, but I'm not exactly the most popular kid around, you know." he joked, apparently trusting Tom with some self-irony.

Not that the Prince cared, anyway.

"First grade was a disaster. I don't really remember, but it probably was the first time I left my house and met new people, kids around my age. It was horrible!"

Despite not having fond memories of his childhood, Marco's storytelling had an ironic, optimistic vibe going on.

"I'm telling you dude, I was a mess. I always felt out of place. I just wanted to hide into some kind of shell the whole time..." he explained, pointing at his red hoodie, which was in fact all wrapped around his skinny body like a shell on a turtle. "One time I skipped school for two weeks because I was extremely stressed about it. My parents were so worried..."

Tom dropped the indifference act and looked genuinely interested in Marco's story.
He still didn't understand what his point was though.

"So they did this crazy thing." he laughed. "Since they couldn't bring me to the outside world, they chose to bring the outside world to me, get it?"

The boy stared at the demon for a few moments, as if he was expecting a reaction from him.
All he got was silence, and that weird echo again.
And some sirens blaring in the distance around the city, police cars probably looking for a certain undead karate warrior on the loose.

"I'd love to say that it worked, but trust me, I still want to curl up inside my hoodie the whole time even today." he fiddled with his trusted hoodie's zipper a bit, keeping that smile drawn on his face, amused by his own memories. "A few months ago I even believed that people hated me because they called me 'safe-kid', when in truth they were laughing with me, not at me. And the worst part is that I was dumb enough to believe to my own lies!"

Tom looked visibly perplexed by Marco's speech.
He just stared at him with a serious look, but his third eye on the forehead somehow revealed some different emotions.

"Why are you telling me this...?" he asked, shaking his head.

"Because I know how that feels like." he insisted. "I don't like you, Tom. But that doesn't mean that no one else does, believe me."

Marco finally got up, hands in his pockets, still staring at the horned prince.

"Take that from an idiot who was dumb enough to think that somebody would actually want to hang out with him."

He didn't mean to be mean-spirited or anything.
However, he was glad that this time they had a much calmer conversation.
Marco simply headed to the door after that, quite unsure of who actually needed that short speech.

As he walked towards the door, the demon joined his hands and closed his three eyes, silently processing the human's words.

"That was..." he spoke in a serious tone. ."..the lamest thing I ever heard in my life. Seriously." and then shifted to a more amused one.

Once again, Marco felt deceived.
However, he was kinda expecting that this time.
He just shrugged and ignored Tom's taunts.

"Whatever dude. It's not like I ca-"

"Thanks." the demon cut him off.

That was new.
And actually sincere.
Probably the scariest Tom he's ever seen.

With some kind of telekinesis, the demon made two cans of soda fly directly into his flaming hands; he then threw one can at Marco, who managed to clumsily catch it.
He simply smiled in return and headed back to the poof and sat again in front of the demon.
The boy carefully opened his can of soda, but it was good to last.

"Tom..." Marco said.

"What is it, Marco?"

"This is boiling hot..." he said, the beverage inside of the small can literally gushing outside of its container, the very warm soda spilling on his jeans.

"Oh... I know." he replied, with a smug smirk, blowing on his flaming hand.

The safe kid shook his head and chuckled, amused at how surreal all of that was, this time choosing to get some laughs from this mess.
Something he was going to do later with Star, anyway.

"I hate you, Tom."

"Likewise, Marco."

Despite the silence that followed, there was no echo this time.

The End


While I had something like that in mind, the one-shot's final soda-related lines are actually from one of how-lemon's svtfoe comics.
That guy is a peculiar artist. Look for him on Tumblr.

Thanks for reading!