Sorry this took so long! Thanks for all the kind reviews and follows thus far~
Marco steps of the hellevator, confusingly remembering the gargoyle's stunned look, and astonished questioning of, "Are you sure you have the right floor? Like positive, fleshie?", that was repeatedly said to him on the way down.
'I wonder what that was all about.' Marco thinks, as he steps up to a giant red door that is intricately carved with depictions of flames, demons, and a strange type of almost runic letters and words, some that seemed to be glowing gold faintly.
He reaches for the door handles, but pulls back last minute as he realizes are actually black, curved, textured horns, which had presumably once belonged to some sort of demon- who most likely didn't give them up freely, seeing as there's dried red blood on the ends connected to the door. Marco reasons to himself, 'On second thought...it's probably rude to just enter without knocking, anyways.' and instead reaches for the intricate and detailed ring-shaped door-knocker, knocking on the door twice, before standing back and waiting nervously.
Soon enough, Tom opens the door with a surprised look and remarks, "Huh, I can't remember the last time someone's knocked instead of barging right in."
Marco starts to feel proud of his good manners, but then Tom continues, "You know, with the door knocker being a nose ring ripped from the nose of a half minotaur half giant in combat. People seem to find the fake horns more stomach-able, especially people not from hell."
Tom shrugs, "Oh well. Double points to you for being both brave and polite. Good job Marco."
All the blood drains from Marco's face as he says, "Wait...the horns are fake?"
Tom looks at Marco and laughs, "Starship really didn't tell you anything about demons, huh? I'm slightly offended. Did you really actually think demon's blood was red?"
Tom's laughter just increases as Marco looks down disgustedly at his hands, and then starts waving his hands frantically, trying to wipe his seemingly clean hands off on his jacket.
"Oh dude, gross! Where's your bathroom, do you know how many sicknesses can be spread through contact with blood and other bodily fluids? Not including how my body and immune system might react to your unknown demon germs! Stop laughing!" Marco exclaims, as he pushes past Tom to look for the bathroom.
However Marco's valiant quest for the bathroom was halted, as Marco heard a particular sound. He slowly turned around to face Tom, with a wide grin on his face.
"...Tom, did you just snort?"
Marco turned to see that Tom had covered his mouth and nose with his hands. All three of Tom's eyes were blown wide in surprise, before they shifted to a side as he said an unconfident and questioning, "No...?"
Marco's grin got even wider, "You so did, dude. And Star says I'm the dork."
Tom removes his hands from his face, which was turning blood red, with his cheeks actually physically steaming with a blush, "I don't know what you heard, mortal," he spits out the word like a curse, "but it definitely wasn't a so called snort."
Marco just let out a laugh and said, "Tom, your cheeks are literally steaming. Any chance of convincing me you aren't a huge snorting dork just went out your creepy giant door."
Tom sputtered a bit, his cheeks releasing even more steam as he hurried to explain, "No, you see, it's a fire demon thing, because my blood - or well, body - temperature is naturally boiling, when blood concentrates in one area- uh, well, steam is a thing- I, uh, can control everywhere but my head - ah the head is finicky because of the brain being there- um."
Tom was floundering a bit in his explanation, and his cheeks might as well have been on fire at this point. Marco couldn't help but let out a laugh at seeing the demon all worked up.
At hearing Marco's laugh, Tom cleared his throat and willed his blush away to the best of his ability. "Ahem. Anyways. Don't worry about any diseases, all things that could potentially harm me in the future have been fire cleansed. Also, we were here to discuss the ball, not strange laughing your mortal ears seem to hear."
"Yeah, thanks for reminding... me…" Marco trails off as he takes in Tom's room floor.
The room was enormous, with a vast, luxurious looking living room, and tons of doors and stairways leading off of it. The living room itself was black and white, with gold accents everywhere, and what seemed to be more rune writing on the walls. The other colours in the room came from the plethora of things in it, such as a fully sized trampoline in one corner, what might as well have been a movie theatre in another, multiple couches and colourful bean bag chairs sitting around a giant tv which had more games and gaming consoles surrounding it than Marco could name, and was that-
"Tom, why is there a gold plated hot tub in your living room?"
Tom looks confusedly at Marco for a second, before shaking his head and saying, "Oh that. It's just because the pool couldn't fit, so we had to move it to another room." Tom vaguely waves at some of the doors. "You can go through my stuff later if you really want to, but let's just go to the library first, alright?"
Tom starts climbing up a flight of floating stairs, and Marco starts to follow him.
Marco stops at the bottom step and calls out, "Tom, are you sure these are, well, safe?" He tries to nudge a step with the tip of his sneakers.
Tom looks down from his step, and raises an eyebrow, "I wouldn't be on it if it wasn't. C'mon Diaz."
Marco carefully places his weight on a step, and when it stayed still, he rushes to catch up with the demon prince. At the top of the stairway, Tom goes towards a door that had some of that strange runic language on it, then underneath it was the translation, "Library." Tom holds open the door for Marco to enter first, and once again Marco is slightly taken aback at how vast and extravagant the room is.
Tom's personal library was filled with tomes upon tomes of books, some looking to be more ancient than should be physically possible, some being newer books and magazines, mostly written in that strange runic language, but a few written in various earth languages. They were all set on bookshelves connected to marble pillars with said gold runic language seemingly engraved into the surface, and they stretched up farther than Marco could see. Marco's curiosity finally got the better of him.
"Hey Tom? What's with all the symbols everywhere?"
Tom hums as he browses a bookshelf, and he looks up, "Oh you mean our language? It's called hellish, that's what most of these books are written in. Well, some are in ancient hellish and some are in the more common spoken modern hellish. I even have a few written in future hellish. Hellish is the common tongue down here, though every type of demon have their own language and dialect. Hellish is just the language known by everyone down here, and thus is the most spoken and written, so that books can be understood and available to everyone, rather than a small niche that speak a different language. Though there are many books still written in demon-specific languages."
Marco hums, "Ah, that's really kind of cool. So what did the glowing hellish on your door say? Were they protection spells or something?"
To Marco's surprise Tom blushes - thankfully a small one this time so barely any steam escaped -, and rubs the back of his neck.
"Ah, well, most of them are, but the protection runes only glow when a threat is near or tries to enter my room or, should I say floor. The one's that were glowing..." Tom blushes a bit more and looks away, scratching the back of his head, "Those are just some stupid things I carved in when I was like twelve. Silly twelve year old things like, 'Stay out or die,' or, 'welcome to my twisted mind,' or, 'I will feast on your mother's dead corpse,' or even, 'Come at me scrublord I'm fucking ripped,' which I overheard someone saying, and thought it was the most badass thing. I swear I should have been slapped." Tom laughs a bit embarrassedly.
Marco couldn't help but laugh, even as his brain sang, 'One of these things is not like the others.'
Instead of voicing his thoughts however, Marco just says, "Yeesh. Don't worry Tom, we've all been there. Those cringeworthy years of twelve and thirteen."
Marco shudders as he remembers his own behavior at that age, and pats Tom reassuringly on the arm. However this causes a jolt of pleasant energy to run up his hand, causing him to remove it immediately. He looks at Tom and sees by the look in his three eyes, that he must of felt it too. Marco starts rubs the tingly feeling off his palm onto his jeans.
"So." Marco says in a slightly tight voice, "Bloodmoon Ball?"
Tom clears his throat and says, "Ah, yes, um."
He rubs his arm where Marco had touched looking a bit flustered, then took a particularly thick and ancient looking book off of a nearby bookshelf, titled: Demonic Customs and Traditions; Vol. 667. He then flips through the pages, and stops on the page titled, "Soul Bonds and Other Soul Related Nuisances." Tom nervously skims the page a bit needlessly, as he had already memorized the exact paragraph that has the needed information. He finds said paragraph, and reluctantly gives the book to Marco, pointing it out, not looking forward to the reaction he would most likely receive.
Marco reads the paragraph out loud, "The lucky two (or more) who are chosen and bathed under the Bloodmoon's light every six hundred and sixty seven years will be forever soul bonded in this life and the ones after it, as the Moon believes them to be made for each other, and more or less marks them as soulmates (see below paragraph for more information on soul mates). The Moon is never wrong, and it's decision can not be argued with, persuaded, or changed." As Marco continues to read, his voice suddenly becomes more and more incredulous, until he's basically shouting the last word. Tom cringes.
"You can not be serious! We're supposed to be soul mates?" Marco says shocked. He goes to throw the book, but realizes it could break something, so he carefully places it on the table, making sure he doesn't crease the pages.
"Don't get mad at me! It's not like I planned this." Tom defends himself.
"No, you planned for the moon to force Star's soul to bond with you! I knew you were up to no good, demon," Marco returns the favour early by spitting out that word as if it were a curse, "and now thanks to your little scheme, we're stuck like this!" Marco shouts.
Tom loses his temper and shouts, "DON'T SHOUT AT ME HUMAN," catching on fire. However, he then notices how Marco seemed to shrink on himself and had put up his hands up as if he thought Tom was going to attack him, and Tom forced himself to calm down, and leaves the room and returning with a bunny.
"I only took Starship to the ball to see if it was possible that we were soul mates. The book literally says you can't persuade the moon, and I certainly have no control over who it will bond, so your little theory of me trying to force Star into something is not even possible. That was actually my last chance to see if we were even compatible, and believe it or not, I was actually going to try and be friends with her if it didn't work out. But, you had to come in, ruin everything, and make me lose my temper in front of her in order to scare off the demons. Starship probably won't even look at me now, and I'm soul bonded to a guy who seems to think I'm the root of all evil. Just my luck." Tom looks down, and pets his bunny, "You can leave. I don't know why I expected anything different."
Marco rubs his arm and feels bad for once again jumping to conclusions.
"Look, Tom. I, uh, I actually wanted to apologize for all the accusations I've thrown at you, and, well, karate chopping your hand off. And what a perfect way to apologize that by throwing more accusations at you, huh? But you kind of are the prince of hell," Marco laughs nervously, "I see that this whole soul bond thing as a demon tradition means a lot to you and I can respect that. How about we just start over, and try to be friends? I mean soul bonds can always just be intense friendships right?"
Marco clears his throat, and sticks his hand out with a smile, "Hi there stranger, my name's Marco Diaz. I'm mexican, my favourite colour's red, and I go to a high school that used to be boring and predictable. Nice to meet you."
Tom looks down at the hand extended, then back at Marco. He smiles a bit in return, and puts down his bunny on the book, in order to shake Marco's hand.
"Hey there, I'm Tom. Uh, I'm the demon prince of hell- though there are other princes for each tier, I'm basically the overseer of them all. I'm home schooled by various tutors, and I have anger issues that I'm working on. It's nice to meet you too."
Marco shakes the hand and says, "Okay, now that we got that out of the way, is there anything I need to know about this bond? Like will we have to stay joined at the hip or something?"
Tom opens his mouth to speak, but then closes it when Marco continues, "Cuz that would suck wouldn't it? Having to be around each other twenty four/seven? I'm sure you must have better things to do. And I have school, and it would just be a huge inconvenience right? Especially as we can just talk through Star's mirror instead."
Marco doesn't notice how Tom's face falls at his words, or how Tom seems to internally struggle with something, before he replies, "Yeah, the mirror should work. Actually, let me just-"
Tom runs out of the library, and returns with a small red handheld mirror, that had two small horns coming from the top, and a handle that looked like a demon's tail. "Here, this should be easier to carry around, and now you don't have to use Starship's. You said you liked red, right?"
Marco takes the mirror from Tom, "Uh, yeah. Thanks a lot Tom, this is actually pretty cool. I feel like I should give you something in return now, but something as fancy as this probably costs more than I do," Marco laughs, then offers with a smile, carefully placing his mirror in his hoodie pocket as he speaks, "Instead, how about one day you stop by my house and I can make you some nachos? Star says they're really good."
Tom smiles softly and says, "You totally don't have to do that, but I do appreciate the offer, and will probably take you up on that. I guess you want to be going back to your dimension now?"
Marco nods, "Yeah, not to say your realm isn't cool - or well, hot -, but i should really get going."
Tom leads Marco out of the library, and asks, "You still have the hell-bell right? Keep that, in case you ever need to come down here for any reason. As my soul bonded, the runes will automatically let you in, so feel free to, like, hide from parents or responsibilities in here. It's what Starship used to do when we were good friends."
Tom waves his hand around in a 'mi casa es tu casa' motion, and accidentally knocks over a vase. "Oh shit." Tom mutters, and he bends to pick up the shattered vase pieces, when Marco reaches over and drags his hand back.
"Woah there, careful! You could cut yourself! Do you have a dustbin and a broom or something?" Marco says, looking around frantically as if expecting a broom and dustbin to materialize themselves out of midair.
Tom looks down at the hand Marco's still unconsciously holding, and smiles fondly. "Marco. You do realize I'm a demon, right?"
"Demon or not, glass splinters and cuts still hurt! And then blood will get everywhere as well, or what if you slip up and a glass shard cuts a vein?" Marco says looking into Tom's eyes earnestly.
Tom couldn't help but laugh. "Marco Diaz you are a strange human. But fine, you win." Tom gets up, and exaggeratedly steps clear over the broken vase. "Is this better?"
Marco steps over the mess on the floor and mutters, pouting a bit while crossing his arms, "We'll see who's laughing when you get hurt and have to get stitches." Marco continues onto the door with Tom before stopping and saying, "Wait, aren't you going to clean that up?"
Tom says with exasperated fondness, "It'll be fine."
Marco starts, "But what if-"
"It'll be fine Marco. And if it's not, you get to gloat all you want, alright?" Tom interrupts as the two reach the door.
"So yeah. Thanks for everything Tom, and sorry again. I'll, uh, try to call you sometime during this week?" Marco pulls out the hell-bell and rings it as he speaks.
A pained expression fleetingly passes over Tom's face, before he replies, "Ah. Yes. The call will totally suffice. I'll be looking forward to it then. Later Marco."
Marco gets on the hellevator once more, and waves at Tom, before the gargoyle shot up into his dimension once more.
I am never mad to receive fanart~ *cough cough nudge nudge wink wonk* Reviews, follows, and favorites always brighten my day, and make me want to write faster!
