Markdoka Magica! An Elders of the Creek Fanfic

Headbands and Snapchat Filters

After the nail polish incident, Mark was more careful.

He made sure to keep enough nail polish remover and cotton balls to last through a zombie apocalypse. Hidden under his bed in a plastic Pirates of Dark Water lunchbox, was a rainbow of pastel and glitter colors in tiny glass bottles.

Mostly purple. David had been right. It was his color.

He did eventually "remember" to bring his favorite polish to the Creek to give to David. Since then, he noticed David wore the color almost exclusively for the past 2 weeks. It KILLED HIM to see the shoddy paint job David did with it, but he never said anything. Even though he now knew David liked to paint his nails too, and Barry clearly didn't care...he couldn't explain why it was ok for David but not for himself.

David was just being David. He liked sparkly shiny things. He wasn't a closet cross-dresser like Mark was.

Still, painting his nails in secret became part of his night time routine. He'd barely give them enough time to dry before admiring how they made his hands look more slender and feminine. He'd could lie back on his bed and stare at his own fingers, sparkling under the blacklight, and imagine being a magical princess, or a defender of the galaxy. Either way he'd have a kick-ass transformation sequence. Sometimes he'd fall asleep like that.

But in the morning, he always remembered to wipe it away with acetone. Or paint over it with black.

But today his nails were only decorated with cheese dust and dirt - the glitter of the creek and Elder Rock. Which is where he sat, while losing miserably to David at Power Punchers...again.

"NNngh..." At least this time he had an excuse (besides David being freakishly good at this game.)

His hair kept getting in his eyes.

"Dammit!" Mark blew his hair out of his face for the 30th time that day, just in time to see his health take a hit after David's last power move.

When he made the conscious decision to grow his hair out, he imagined long, soft, easy to style hair he could play with alone at night. He imagined being able to braid it, make space-buns and maybe even decorate it with barrettes and bows.

But the grow-out process was awkward, and greasy. He didn't know what to do with it. And it was the middle of summer - too hot to just stick it under a hat and call it a day.

"Dude, you could have blocked that." Barry pointed to the screen as David's Samur-Eye kicked his Blastronaut in the face again.

"I WOULD have if I could FREAKIN' SEE anything!" Mark whined, before throwing the controller and pouting like a 4-year-old. Barry gave David a look and David paused the game.

"Yeah, we noticed your hair's gotten kinda long...want us to cut it for you?"
"What?! NO!!!" Mark shouted, a little too loudly.

Barry and David froze, eyeing each other in a way Mark didn't like.

"I-I mean...you guys will butcher it! Like I'm letting either of you near me with scissors..."

Barry rolled his eyes before rummaging through the many pockets he had on his cargo shorts.

"I have an extra hair tie I think...hang on let me look..."
"Wait I got something!" David threw his own controller down and scrambled to grab his backpack. Mark and Barry watched as a flurry of candy wrappers, chip bags and crumpled homework assignments he never turned in flew into the air.

"Dude. You gotta clean out your backpack." Barry whined, as he picked up an old energy drink can. "This one's STICKY! What are you even looking for?"

David finally stopped dumping the contents of his garbage can of a backpack all over their secret hideout and turned around. Holding something behind his back.