Up to the bones (Tomco)

Chapter 17- Extra Chapter: Night of the dance

The room assigned to Marco was not Tom's.

He did not know how to feel about it, but his hosts had arranged it, and he was not going to claim them, not after the ... kindness they had shown him.

During the presentation of the scissors, everything went more or less as planned. There were also no problems when they delivered the scissors to Mewni. Then dinner came and Marco discovered that he did not know half of the dishes that were served. Still, they were delicious, and when the moment of the dance arrived, he found himself surrounded by curious glances.

There were members of royal houses who asked Tom if he was okay, how much relief they had felt at seeing him rescued, that they would do everything possible to catch Snow's henchmen ... and Tom was used to that deal.

Marco, on the other hand, was not used to so much attention, and least of all the class that brought political power behind. The first to reach him was a princess, apparently from a deep-sea kingdom, because his body was bioluminescent and had guts. He started by telling him that he had seen his romantic rescue, and the boy blinked, feeling that he was blushing but trying not to show it. He answered in monosyllables, praying that they would not notice how nervous or unaccustomed to that situation he was.

Then came a prince, and a diplomat, and later a senior officer of an army, for the amount of medals on his chest. He began to ask him questions about where he came from, if he had a kingdom with armies under his charge, if it was real blood, with a voice that did not admit negatives. Marco looked at him, not understanding why he was asking, until Tom came to his rescue.

The dance was about to begin, and Tom had to open the dance with his partner, said, with a charming smile, to the princesses and princes that surrounded the boy. Marco thanked all the saints he knew for being able to escape from there.

-Thanks, Tom- he said, he could barely whisper to the demon's ear. The prince's hand tightened his waist a little more.

After that, they had danced with some other people. The princesses saw Marco as someone very attractive, and at first they tried to seduce him, but when they realized that he knew how to dance, and that he did it well, they started looking for him for something else.

"You know," said a prince who looked like a cross between a person and a European dragon. "They say that if a man knows how to dance in public, he knows how to move in private.

Marco almost tripped, feeling that he was blushing. He took a couple of seconds, looked into his eyes, serious, and told him that his heart already had an owner.

-Well, yes, but that does not mean you can not have ... company. It's normal in royalty.

-I'm not educated like that.

Marco's tone was icy, and the prince walked away when another princess came up to ask for the next dance.

.-.

When at last he was able to retire to his room, Marco was tired, nervous about the implications of what he had said and done during the dance, and so, so grateful for the bath full of hot water that awaited him. He managed to remove almost all of his physical discomforts with the hot, perfumed water, although the worries were still there.

I wanted to hug Tom.

I wanted to hug him and kiss him, feel his warmth and inhale his scent, the one that was always there, under the perfume and deodorant and everything he used to smell different from what he smelled really. Lying in that strange bed, hugging a pillow and longing for the demon's arms, he thought the night would be long.

And then he heard a snap.

He raised his head, curious. Were there traps in the room? Because something seemed to move behind one of the tapestries, something that had two feet and a pair of horns and three eyes looked at it behind the tapestry and Marco got out of bed and hugged him tightly.