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Sunny.
Unbelievable.
Miraculous.
Magical.
Exciting.
Romantic.
Summer is Marco’s favorite season. There’s no school, there’s no schedule, there’s no cold. While everyone else is sitting by the poolside drinking their sweating glasses of icy soda and chilled lemonade, Marco keeps his hands tightly trapped around a warm plastic bottle of sweet tea.
See, people constantly are trying to have the best of both worlds. Nobody moves to California to be cold, so why bother trying to cool down? Marco loves swimming and all that, but he’s the sort to take breaks to play volleyball on the beach or snack on the blanket in the sunshine. He has always been happy being warm. Besides, he doesn’t like the feeling of swallowing something freezing cold as it moves all the way through his digestive system.
Marco shivers at the thought. And also the shout of Star standing right behind…
“I need to make a new batch of lemonade. Can you help me get the cooler inside?” The music isn’t playing that loud and the people that are hanging around the sprinkler aren’t exactly making a racket. Still, Marco smiles at her and nods his head easily. Star is a good person and his closest friend. Also, she lives with him so there’s that whole obligation as well. If he doesn’t help, well, it’ll come up later. It really doesn’t bother him, though.
Once inside, Star and Marco set their bottles down on the table and get to work with the lemonade mix. Star handles the water – using her wand to permanently chill the water. The whole process is short and in no time, they’re walking the cooler back outside with a new round of red cups. Without much thought, Star pours herself a glass and takes a sip. “Delicious!”
“What about your tea?” Marco asks passively. Star doesn’t hear him, though, because Tom rounds the corner of the house and calls out her name. She goes running, naturally, because they’re dating mostly. Honestly, Marco knows they are dating but they’ve not exactly made it public information. She walks over, lazy hugs him, and then starts gesturing to Marco’s collection of warm bottles of tea.
Though he hadn’t noticed before, being inside the house is sort of stuffy and sticky, so Marco grabs the bottle closest to him from the table and races back to join his friends outside. He doesn’t drink from his bottle for some time. This person wants to talk about summer plans, this person wants to make plans for a trip to the beach, and this person wants to go to the movies this weekend. So Marco chats for ages before breaking away from the group to get a breather. One quick gulp of the tea reveals a cold that is so unfamiliar that Marco doesn’t even realize it soon enough to spit it out.
In a split second, he’s shivering where he stands. Star shows up asking if he’ll come help her again with the lemonade. “I-I-I d-don’t kn-know if I-I c-c-can m-move.”
“How do you mean, Marco?” Star tilts her head to side with a bit of curiosity tickling her voice. He thinks it is sort of cute in one of those innocent-kid sorts of ways. His mouth wants to twitch into a smile but it can’t. It wiggles in defiance of his body’s will to star in place but nothing more.
Star notices. “Oh my goodness. You literally can’t move, can you?” She pokes her hand out and touches Marco’s cheek. It is cold. She runs her thumb over his lips. They are turning white, nearly blue. Unsure what to do, Star howls over her shoulder for the only person she thinks can help. “Tom!”
Tom swaggers over in the way that a fire demon does, Marco thinks to himself. Their friendship is a strange one. As Star’s boyfriend, there’s this rivalry between them. It is petty and unwarranted. Marco isn’t necessarily vying for Star’s romantic attention in the way that Tom is, though he does like to have her attention and occupy her time. Tom also doesn’t always regard Star in the way that Marco feels that she deserves but that falls in this category of ‘neither here nor there.’ All in all, Tom swaggers and it’s not a good sort of thing or a bad sort of thing – it’s just a thing that he does.
“Yes?” He asks, eyeballing Marco suspiciously.
Frowning, Star explains what is happening to both boys. “I think I’ve given him hypothermia on accident. I’ve been charming the water for the lemonade and the ice so it doesn’t melt as fast. I tested it on my tea but I could see it was too strong. I left it in the kitchen earlier next to his and I’m thinking he might’ve picked it up by mistake.” Tom is nodding but not really paying attention. He’s eyeballing Marco as if he’s some sort of science experience, which isn’t actually accurate.
He’s a magic experiment. Though, is that really any better?
Marco decides not and chitters his reply. “S-so r-rev-vers-se it?”
“Easier said than done,” Star coughs in perfect unison with Tom’s smooth voice. Their innate knowledge of the unreliable state of her magic with the wand escapes Marco at times, being an Earth person and all. Making a noise that is probably a sigh, Star makes a temporary order until she can manufacture a resolution. “Tom, take him inside and keep him warm. Hypothermia will kill him, and quickly, if we don’t warm him up.”
“Sure. I’m not a fan of the sprinkler either way,” Tom speaks flatly. He picks Marco up unexpectedly in the same fashion as a husband might pick up a bride. Strange as it might be, the second that he’s touching Tom – he feels better. Hopelessly and shamelessly, Marco nuzzles his face closer to Tom’s cheek and his lower right eyeball.
Inside, Tom drops Marco on the couch, which he’s not incredibly grateful for, and leaves to get some blankets. Sitting in the room, which is always a pleasant seventy-seven degrees, feels no different than sitting in an icebox. There’s a settling cold that’s there but not there. It doesn’t belong but it’s been manufactured. It’s hard for Marco to still think that it’s coming from within himself but there’s much to get used to with magic all around.
“Hurry up and get back here,” Marco hesitantly commands through barred teeth. He doesn’t like the way he sounds when he stutters and he doesn’t want to sound particularly clingy, either, since it could set off Tom. His temper is unpredictable, even if it has gotten better to some degree. Marco rocks back and forth on the couch. Well, kind of. He can’t move more than an inch or two without creating a breeze.
Tom returns with his comforter and the extra blankets from Star’s room and buries both of them in layers of warmth. Adding to it, at Marco’s request, Tom uses his pyrokinesis to create more heat. Truthfully, it only makes a marginal difference, but he is desperate for it. California isn’t a cold place and Marco isn’t a cold person. He doesn’t like it so he just scoots closer to Tom and snuggles him.
At first, it isn’t clear how Tom actually feels about it, but he soon begins to prattle about how it’s nice to be needed for something good. He goes on and on about impressed he thinks Star will be that he is using his demonic powers for good. This seems really important to him but mostly in a boyfriend brownie points perspective. Eventually, Marco grows a bit tired of it and shakes his head against Tom’s shoulder. “You aren’t finding the cure, you know. She’ll be the hero of her own story.” Star Butterfly deserves her time in the spotlight, even if the spotlight is on a problem that she created and that she has to solve. Sometimes, heroes are self sufficient in all of the ways, even the bad ways, and that’s fine. It makes for a good story.
Marco feels Tom tense underneath his body. “I’m sorry.”
Tom laughs. “Apologize for what? I know I’m not good enough for her in your eyes.”
“N-n-onsense,” Marco mumbles. Never once did it occur to him that Tom isn’t good enough for Star. That is absurd. Tom has his flaws and he has growing to do, but not so much that he wouldn’t tell Star to stop dating him. He isn’t jealous of Tom at all, either, so wherever he got the idea that he’s ‘not good enough’ in some way is absurd. “I th-think you’re f-fine. No-not perfect, no-not even great, but w-well enough. Star c-can make those choices f-for herself. I just think sometimes you need to give her the credit for her own actions.”
This quiets Tom and they just sit there awkwardly in the silence while he deliberates what this reply means. He picks apart each word. Discerning each syllable, change in tone, and miniscule facial movement, Tom comes to the conclusion that something else causing his critical eye. Marco doesn’t feel like he has a critical eye for Tom specifically, but Tom feels that way, so he feels that he needs to find the answer. “Do you like me, then?”
“S-sure,” Marco says. “I l-like having you around.” It’s as simple as that. Marco likes things to be simple. Magic is great but he’s not totally used to having it around. Mundane can be magical in it’s plain sort of way. “Really, I-I do.”
“I like having you around too,” Tom replies steadily, turning his head just enough to peer down at Marco. They share an odd sort of glance. A surge of warmth spreads through the blanket when their eyes meet, which forces Tom to look away nervously. Marco wonders if the heat reflects emotions in any way. The curiosity invites a completely unfamiliar thought upon it’s passage through his mind.
What would it mean if it did reflect his emotions? How would Marco feel if it did and he knew which emotion? Which emotion would he want it to be? A different sort of shiver works through his bones and even though he wants to lean away from Tom, he simply pushes himself closer. Rigidly they share a very small space until people begin leaving and Star shows up with a cup of warm green tea, steam rolling over the rim and all.
“It took a few tries but I’m pretty confident I got it right,” her voice betrays her as it trembles the closer she gets to Marco. Tom has to peel layers of blankets away and help move his hands upward to take the cup away from Star. Then all three of them work to get the drink to his lips without spilling. Just as quickly as the hypothermia had set on him, it melted away with the charmed green tea as it soaked into his whole body. Able to move freely and speak without a stutter, Marco utters his ‘thank you’s to both Tom and Star.
Later, long after Tom has left, Marco knocks on Star’s bedroom door. She calls him in but he stars at the door, leaning on the frame. “I’m really sorry about today,” she offers tiredly. It was a long day of hosting her friends and rushing around to fix the mess she unintentionally created with his nearly dying (a bit dramatic but not inaccurate). Marco waves it off.
“I actually came with a question,” Marco counters, and details how Tom had sent off a quick heat wave during their conversation. It made him curious if his pryokinesis reflected his mood at all. Star paused to consider it very seriously before nodding her head.
“Yeah, I think a bit,” she smiles. “What were you talking about?”
Marco doesn’t want to reveal the train of thought he’d had or suggest that Tom might be anything other than loyal to her. It would be a stretch and far outside his place to suggest something so farfetched anyway. He lies, since he can’t really make heads or tails about what the heat wave meant, if anything. “We were talking about you being your own hero and all.”
“How sweet,” she whimpers the way all human girls do when their boyfriends have flattered them in some way. There’s no need in correcting her. Tom isn’t a terrible guy, even if he is a demon. Marco mutters something like ‘goodnight’ and wanders back to his room. On his mattress is a freshly folded blanket, warmer than the rest on his bed, and a handwritten note.
“In case you are still a bit chilly,” Marco reads the note in a whisper. As he crawls into bed, this is the blanket that he wraps around himself first. Cuddled inside and happy to be warm again. As he begins drifting off, teetering somewhere between being awake and being asleep, he hears Tom’s voice in perfectly clarity. “I like having you around too,” with imaginary surges of warmth reaching all over his body.