Sorry this took so long. Despite the quarantine, I was actually super busy last week and didn't have a chance to edit this last chapter.

1:00:45

Janna looked at her watch.

I don't believe it. There's no way. They have to have found some way to cheat, it simply isn't possible that they could have gone this long without smooching or-

"Only one hour remains!" The countdown update from the Box of Truth interrupted her thoughts. "I must say, it doesn't seem like your friends needed an intervention at all. I only detected erroneous traces of affection once, and it was definitely not enough to trigger an instant loss."

"You sure they aren't cheating somehow?" Janna asked.

"Quite certain."

Janna's eyes drifted over to her dresser, which obscured the hidden wall safe. Inside the safe was her vacuum-sealed box of authentic 1992 Choco-X-Treme Admiral Blanche's Sugar Seeds.

"Come on, guys, you have to be going crazy by now," Janna muttered under her breath. "Lose already!"

00:04:17

"Where could they be?" Tom asked.

He sat at the same table outside of Britta's Tacos where the group had eaten lunch the previous day.

Pony Head was with him. She flew up above the table's umbrella for a better look. "Well, I don't see B-fly or that dork she's always hanging off of, but here comes Janna."

Indeed, Janna was hurrying toward Britta's, the Box of Truth tucked under her arm as she crossed the street.

"Hey, guys," she greeted as she reached them.

Tom looked at her quizzically. "You don't seem very happy."

"Well, Star and Marco still haven't lost the bet," Janna said as she took a seat beside Tom. "Which means we'll have to put up with their cutesy lovey-dovey stuff for the rest of eternity and I'll have to give up my box of Admiral Blanche's cereal." She angrily crossed her arms. "I'm not used to people getting the better of me. That's my job."

"Where are the lovebirds, anyway?" Pony Head asked. "Time is almost up, right?"

"They will be here in approximately two-point-eight seconds," the Box of Truth informed them.

"Hey, guys!"

The trio whirled around to find that the handcuffed couple in question had somehow materialized directly behind them. Star and Marco both seemed to be very smug.

"There you guys are!" Tom exclaimed. "The countdown is almost at zero!"

"Oh, is it?" Star asked, feigning innocence. "We had absolutely no idea. Right, Marco?"

"Right, Star. How much time is left, Box?"

"I was actually just about to start counting down. If you'll give me about six more seconds..."

"Oh, okay, then."

So they waited.

"Time will be up in thirty...twenty-nine...twenty-eight..."

"I can't believe you guys!" Janna cried. "You haven't been able to go without physical contact for more than ten seconds for the last year and you were able to last an entire day completely cold-turkey!"

"Nineteen...eighteen..."

"Well, actually, Janna, we couldn't last a whole day," Star explained.

"Well, we thought we couldn't, but then we actually did completely by accident," Marco explained.

"Twelve...eleven..."

The pair looked at each other and smiled. "What do you say, Star?"

She batted her eyelashes at him. "I'm ready when you are."

"Seven...six...five..."

And Star and Marco slowly leaned in and kissed each other gently on the lips. Janna, Tom, and Pony Head gasped.

"Whoa! So close to the end and Star and Marco have broken the terms of the intervention!" The Box of Truth slowly rose up off the table, beginning to crackle with electricity. "Now recompense must be paid!"

"Ohhhh, snap!" Pony Head groaned as she flew around behind Tom's back for safety. "You guys really did it now!"

Star and Marco slowly backed away as Janna and Tom quickly stood up from the table.

"Marco?"

"Yeah?"

"When we came up with this plan, we forgot to take into account that the Box is a total psychopath!"

"Yeah, this was probably a bad idea."

The Box of Truth glowed brightly, shouting at the teenagers. "Now! Prepare to-"

A huge, green fist suddenly slammed the Box back down onto the table,shattering it into tiny fragments. The savior fist was attached to-

"Buff Frog!" Star and Marco chorused.

"Hello, Star Butterfly and Karate Boy!" Buff Frog greeted. "Looks like I am arriving, how you say, 'just in the nick of the time!'"

"Totally!" Star said happily. "You really saved our corn!"

"Yeah!" Marco agreed. "Thanks for the save, Buff Frog!"

"Not a problem! By the way, I am honored that you would ask me to officiate!" He spotted Janna, Tom and Pony Head a few feet away. He leaned closer to Star. "Do friends know about plan yet?"

"Not yet! We were about to fill them in, but then the Box here tried to...I don't know, kill us or something."

Janna frowned. "Um, hey, hi, just gonna interject myself in here. What's this about a plan?"

Star giggled. "Right, right, right! So last night, Marco and I couldn't take it anymore. We were gonna give up."

"Throw in the towel!" Marco added emphatically.

"Call it quits!" Star alternated.

"Go out with a-! You know what, I don't think I should say that one."

Star continued with her explanation. "But we also didn't want to lose and have to go completely without affection around you guys until we got married."

"Because, much as we hate to admit it, you guys were right. We do have a problem. We are completely addicted to each other," Marco said. "But we promise, we will work on toning it down when we're hanging out with you guys."

"You'd better work on not doing it at all because you lost the bet," Janna reminded them, crossing her arms.

"True, we did. But we planned on that," Star went on. "We were going to lose last night when we couldn't take it anymore and came up with this plan to basically nullify our punishment, but..."

"Turns out the only thing that could successfully distract us from how badly we craved affection was, well, planning this...plan," Marco explained. "And we sort of..." He shrugged. "Forgot to lose."

"So we figured we would just lose at the last possible second," Star finished. "We just, uh...kinda forgot that the Box is...nuts."

Tom raised an eyebrow. "Ummm...why not just not lose?"

Marco cleated his throat. "Because, uh...we really wanted to go through with the plan."

"Uh, excuse me?" Pony Head said loudly. "You still haven't actually told us what this plan of yours actually is!"

Before either had a chance to reply, StarFan13 suddenly ran up, holding two large garment bags. "Star! Star!"

"Hey, Starfan!" Star greeted excitedly. "Did you get it? Did you get it?!"

"I did exactly what you said to, Star!" Starfan handed one of the garment bags to Marco. "Here's your suit, Marco!"

"Thanks, Starfan!"

Tom, Janna, and Pony Head looked between each other questioningly.

The other garment bag StarFan presented to Star. "And here's your dress!"

"Suit? Dress...?" Tom wondered aloud. His three eyes suddenly popped open wide. "Wait a second! Don't tell me you're...!"

The involuntary grin on Star's face was so wide that it made her jaw sore as she said, "Since the punishment for losing the bet was that we would have to refrain from showing each other affection around you guys until we got married..." Star and Marco looked at each other, their mouths curled into ear to ear grins, and they told their friends the news in unison.

"We're getting married!"

"WHAT?!"

Last night...

"So..." Marco said, "Have you ever thought about getting married before?"

Star leaned on her arm. "Not really. I mean, I've pretty much known for the last year that you're the only one I'll ever want to marry."

"Awww!"

"But...I've actually never even considered what I wanted it to be like."

Marco chuckled. "It's funny. Most Earth-women say they want to feel like a princess on their wedding day."

Star made a disgusted face. "Why in the world would anyone want to feel like a princess on their wedding day?" She sat up. "Do you have any idea how horrible royal weddings were on Mewni?"

"How horrible?"

"So horrible!" She imitated her mother's voice. "You have to have this stupid thing at your wedding! It's tradition! No, you can't do that! It would be breaking tradition! This happens first, then this, then this, then this, and yes, it has to be in that order. Why? Because it's tradition, of course!" Marco laughed at his girlfriend's comical over-exaggerated impression of Moon. Star went on. "Well, I'm not a princess anymore, and you know what I want my wedding to be like? The least-princess-y wedding possible!"

"Well, if you could have anything in the world at your wedding, what would you have?"

Star thoughtfully put her fingers to her lips. "Hmmmm..." She thought hard. What did she want? She'd never actually envisioned her own wedding before, mostly because she didn't want to imagine being forced to act regally and put up with royal tradition instead of doing things her way. "Let's get married in a giant bouncy castle! No, wait! In a submarine!" She sat up excitedly, wildly waving her arms with enthusiasm and causing Marco's tethered arm to flop wildly in the air. "No! Let's make the whole thing float- oh, wait, I'd need magic for that. Okay, we should definitely have some skee ball lanes at the reception! And a mariachi band! And-and-and..." She looked into Marco's warm chocolate eyes. He was gazing at her with a dopey grin on his face. "What?"

"Nothing. You're just adorable when you get excited."

For a moment, neither spoke. They just gazed into each other's eyes, Star feeling an involuntary smile as big and as dopey as her boyfriend's stretching across her face, a few happy tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She laid back down on her side next to her boyfriend. "You know what I want for my wedding? I want to marry you, Marco."

Marco's eyebrows furrowed, confused. "Um...isn't that the point?"

"Exactly. The only that really matters is that all of our friends and family are there to share the best day of our lives with us, and that at the end of the day, you're mine forever, and I'm yours. The rest...who cares?"

Marco felt joyous tears of his own welling up. "Star..."

"Oh, and we have to have a giant cake."

Marco laughed. "There's the Star I know."

"Is that cool?" she asked.

If it were possible for Marco's smile to get any bigger, it did. "It's perfect, Star."

Star and Marco barely heard a word Buff Frog said during the short ceremony. They were too distracted by each other to listen, involuntarily smiling the biggest, dopiest smiles either had ever smiled just looking at each other, finally free of their handcuffs but still holding each other's hands anyway.

Pony Head had greatly protested them getting married at a taco stand, furious that they hadn't asked her to plan the wedding. Neither cared. They promised Pony she could throw them a ridiculous, massive party later.

The attendance was small; StarFan13 and Buff Frog were the only ones not associated with the original bet who had been informed of the impromptu wedding. Star and Marco didn't think their families would understand their children marrying each other at age sixteen just to avoid having to adhere to the penalty of losing a bet. "We'll have a big ceremony with all our friends and family when we're twenty-five or something," they explained. "You know. For show."

"And legality," Marco added. "We don't actually have a marriage license."

"But as far as we're concerned," Star insisted, "this is the real wedding."

Buff Frog gave a short and sweet ceremony, having to remind Star and Marco multiple times to say "I do" because they were too busy staring at each other deliriously to remember. The entire procedure was conducted while sitting at one of the tables so as to not attract unwanted attention.

Marco wore the suit he'd worn to the Blood Moon Ball, minus the hat and mask. It just seemed the most appropriate. Star's dress had been ordered online and picked up by StarFan13 on her way to Britta's: Just a simple white dress, ankle length, sleeveless, and with a cute unicorn embroidered on the hem...because obviously.

And when Buff Frog finally proclaimed, "I now pronounce you man and wife," while sniffling through joyous tears, adding, "Karate Boy, you may kiss the bride," Star and Marco dove toward each other's mouths as if their lives depended on it and kissed for four and a half minutes straight.

"You guys, Marco and I just wanted to say that we're sorry," Star said as StarFan13 excitedly sliced up the overly decadent cake and passed out slices. "You were right. We've been completely oblivious to you guys for the last year. We didn't realize we were always making you late, and hungry, and uncomfortable, and embarrassed."

"And we don't want you to think that we got married just to spite you, either," Marco added.

"Are you sure?" Tom asked. "'Cause it kinda feels like spite."

"Uh, no, yeah, it's definitely spite," Pony Head said, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, I guess it actually kinda was," Star said, nervously rubbing the back of her neck. "Sorry about that, too."

"Especially since we purposely lost right in front of you," Marco interjected.

"Look, the point is, we're really sorry and we promise we won't be overly affectionate in front of you guys any more."

"You could have just not lost the bet," Pony Head reminded them.

Marco accepted a cake plate from StarFan13. "Yeah, but we'd already planned out everything by then and at that point we were both really excited to get married. Wouldn't have made much sense if we had won the bet and then gotten married, anyway."

"Mm, makes sense," Tom said.

Pony Head snorted. "Does it, though?"

"Anyway, you were right and we were wrong, and we're sorry, and this wasn't just to spite you, and we promise we won't be overly affectionate in front of you guys anymore. Okay?" Star finished.

"Apology accepted," Janna said, sitting down on the table bench beside Marco. "Now feed each other some cake!" She grinned evilly, but neither noticed.

The newlyweds happily each held up a slice of cake and prepared to feed each other, neither planning on following the old cliche that typically occurs at weddings where the bride and groom smash the cake in each other's face. Janna, on the other hand, had her own ideas. As they slowly leaned in to take a bite, she nudged Marco forward by the shoulders, the abrupt closing of the distance between them causing both he and Star to unintentionally shove their slice of cake into the other's face.

"Are you proud of yourself, Janna?" Marco asked slowly as crumbs of the smashed confection peppered his suit and chocolate icing dripped onto Star's new white dress.

"Oh, yeah." She smiled as she folded her arms and leaned back. "Extremely."

"You know what the most disappointing thing about all this is?" Pony Head interjected at a random interval as the gang strolled home from Britta's Taco's.

Star felt Marco's grip on her hand tighten slightly as he cringed. "I'm almost afraid to ask," he said.

"We never got to try out the 'Bachelorette' setting on the Truth or Punishment Box!"

"Oh, yeah," Janna said. "Everyone knows it's not a real bachelorette party if everyone present don't fear for their lives at some point during the festivities. I imagine with the Box of Truth we definitely would have."

Star laughed. "Well, when we have our other wedding in a couple years, you guys can throw me a bachelorette party then. That oughta give you enough time to think of some way we can fear for our lives without the Box."

Marco rolled his eyes. "Oh, boy. Please don't give Janna any ideas."

An evil chuckle from just beside him sent a chill down his spine. "It's far too late for that, Marco. Far too late. In fact...maybe I'll plan your bachelor party, too, Marco."

"Um, that is the best man's job," Marco reminded her. "And you are neither 'best' nor 'man.'"

"Yeah. Like that's gonna stop me."

He quickly turned to face Tom, who was walking behind him. "Tom, as best man, your first and most important duty is to protect me from anything Janna plans."

"Nah. I wanna see what she comes up with. I was gonna outsource the job to her anyway."

Marco's shoulders drooped in defeat. "Well, Star, looks like there's a very good chance I'm going to die at my bachelor party, so it's a good thing we're already married."

He wasn't expecting her reaction. She threw her arm around her shoulder and jostled him affectionately. "Aren't you lucky? You're gonna have so much fun!"

"Bye, guys!" Star called. "See you soon!"

"See ya, B-fly!"

"Later!"

"Goodnight!"

The newly minted "married" couple waved goodbye to their friends from the Diaz's front porch. Marco called something to Tom about meeting up for a ping pong game on Tuesday when he suddenly realized that Star was no longer beside him.

"Star?"

Figuring she must have gone into the house, he turned around to look for her, closing the front door behind him. The instant the door closed, Star ambushed him, throwing her arms around his neck and aggressively pressing her lips into his. Marco barely had any chance to reciprocate.

"Star, what're you-?"

"Shut up," she said breathily before quickly kissing him again. "We lost an entire day of affection." Another hard kiss. "We have to make up for it."

Now Marco understood. He smiled. "Ohhh, oka-!"

"Less talk, Marco, more kiss." Before he could say another word, Star pulled Marco towards her, hungrily kissing him as she held his body tightly against hers. "We had to spend a whole day apart-" Kiss. "Now I'm not letting go of you for a whole day."

"Really, a whole day, Star? Are you sure you-? Actually, I'm totally fine with that." And he pulled Star back to him, resuming the kiss. Star responded by roughly shoving him against the living room wall.

Mrs. Diaz happened to be coming down the stairs, cradling Mariposa in her arms. Her son and his girlfriend had never been even slightly apprehensive about affectionate around her and Rafael and she had grown accustomed to seeing them hanging off each other, often with their lips locked together. This, however, was a different level of affection entirely. She chuckled. "I see you two are handling the withdrawal from the bet well."

"Can't talk, Mrs. Diaz," Star said quickly so as not to interrupt the make-out session for any longer than necessary. "Very busy."

Mrs. Diaz laughed again as Star and Marco resumed kissing and she headed for the kitchen. "Don't forget to breathe once in awhile, you two! Dinner's at six!"

Late that night, Star and Marco lay on the living room couch. The rest of the Diaz's had gone to bed and they had the room to themselves. Star had dozed off about an hour ago, having finally worn herself out from the bestowing of nonstop affection, but she still had her arms wrapped around him tightly, nuzzling her head into the space between his chin and chest in her sleep. Marco likewise held her near, just enjoying the feeling so being so close.

He flicked off the tv and set the remote on the coffee table. Without the television on, the living room was almost completely dark. He turned his head sideways, happily nuzzling the top of Star's head with his cheek. She let out a soft, contented sound in her sleep and burrowed her face even further into Marco's neck.

"Love you, Star," Marco whispered.

"Luh...yu...t..."

And they lived happily and affectionately ever after.

The end

And that's it. I'm not too crazy about the ending. I didn't have an ending in mind when I set out to write this so I had to come up with something. I thought it would be funny to have them get married just to avoid the penalty for losing, but I should have done it differently. It's kinda stupid the way it turned out.

Oh, well, I don't feel like rewriting it.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little tale. I'll hopefully be writing more Starco standalone short stories in the future, probably when I need a break from that (yes, I'm gonna mention it again) SVTFOE/Star Wars crossover fic I'm writing. (It is a Starco story, by the way, just set in the Star Wars universe.) So, uh...look for more in the future, I guess.