"You have to promise me that I won't get stuck there again."
He doesn't know if it's because he's seeing one of the strongest people he knows showing such a rare moment of vulnerability, or if it's his own frayed nerves from just receiving the news that Mal had gone back to the Isle, but something in that moment makes him reach out and pull the girl to his chest.
Her surprised little "Oh" gets muffled in the fabric of his shirt, and despite the situation, he lets out a small laugh. "I promise." he assures her, though at the moment he's anything but sure. "As soon as we get Mal, we're coming straight back, and then you'll never have to set foot in there ever again."
She laughs a little, despite the tension he can feel in her shoulders, bringing her arms up to wrap around his back. At the warmth the gesture brings, he starts to think that he might've needed the physical comfort even more than she did.
"Thank you, Ben."
Her words fill him with an odd sense of determination. He would set out to bring Mal back, yes, but he would also do everything to make sure that no matter what, Evie gets back to Auradon, back Home, safe.
—
"Wait."
Ben turns around, but before he can even ask what's wrong, Evie's hands are reaching up to tug at his beanie. He smiles a little at the action, at how pleased she looks after the small change.
"I had no idea that not wearing my beanie low enough would constitute as a crime on the Isle."
Evie scoffs at the remark and simply turns, flips her hair behind her shoulder, and marches off to the front of the pack. He catches a whiff of jasmine and something sweet before he's running after her.
When they're all packed into the limo, the air around them suddenly tense and anxious, she reaches over and pulls at his beanie again.
"It's not a crime," she mutters, "your bad fashion sense was just starting to get on my nerves."
Ben bursts into loud, uncontrolled laughter and Carlos looks at them both with a look of confusion.
—
This really isn't something he should be concerned about, not while he's fighting a pirate who's no doubt much more skilled with a sword than he is, but someone had cut a slit right down Evie's skirt. Normally that wasn't something he would've picked up on, especially not in the middle of a battle, but whoever Evie was duelling seemed intent on slicing at the same area. At this rate, with a few more precisely aimed cuts, her entire skirt would just slip right off.
With a startled jolt and another wary glance at Evie, Ben realised that was exactly what the pirate was going for, the sick bastard. With a new found fury and determination, he thwarts the enemy in front of him with a quick jab to the stomach and practically leaps over to where Evie is before he delivers a swift kick to the pervert's chest, sending him flying backwards.
Evie jumps slightly at the sudden appearance of Ben by her side and the sight of the pirate she had been fighting just moments ago flying backwards, before her head whips around to face Ben with a look of surprise.
"Thought you needed a hand."
Evie doesn't look particularly convinced, but thankfully doesn't push the issue as another pirate takes up the space of the last, ready to continue the fight.
The limo ride back to Auradon is as stiff and unpleasant as Ben expected, and things only go more sour for him when he attempts to comfort Mal by reaching over to hold her hand, only for her to flinch, moving an obviously injured hand away from him and refusing to look him in the eye for the rest of the journey.
"Hook managed to slice the back of her hand. It's not serious." Jay says, looking at Ben as though he should've known, that he should've been there to stop Mal from getting hurt in the first place.
Ben resists the urge to flinch from the heavy gaze Jay shoots him, and instead chooses to look over to Carlos and Evie, trying his best to put Mal and Jay out of his mind for the moment.
The two were huddled in their own little corner, Carlos holding a few pins and some thread as Evie was slowly making her way through stitching the cut in her skirt back up. He was glad that even though he couldn't make sure Mal was unharmed, that Evie hadn't gotten hurt.
After making a round of mostly awkward goodbyes, Ben looks forwards to just collapsing on his bed and forgetting the whole night, but then Carlos calls out to him before he leaves.
"Hey, uh, I just wanted to thank you for looking after Evie during the whole thing with the pirates. She's more than capable of handling herself but, none of us have ever really been involved in anything like that. So, yeah, thanks, for um, looking after my sister."
He doesn't say any more than that, and as soon as he's finished he merely walks away, leaving Ben standing there a little stunned. Sure he had stopped that one pirate from getting too far with cutting her skirt, but surely he wasn't actually looking after her the whole time, was he?
—
Everything's a mess, well, it wasn't really, not actually, but still, it was a mess.
Everyone had returned from the Isle in one piece and together, but Ben and Mal had not been more together than they were when she left. And that was almost not together at all. She was lost, he could see that, so he was giving her space. At least she's here, at least she's back in Auradon, he tells himself.
But this time he has no idea how to fix things. He can't tell every individual member of the press to back off, he can't just let Mal continue to have to pretend to be someone she's not, he can't just wish away all the pressure of her shoulders, all the pressure on his own. This was not a problem he could fix with an apology and a kiss, and maybe she had already known that, maybe that was why she had left in the first place.
And then there was the thing. The thing where he started thinking maybe he didn't need to fix things with Mal at all, that maybe he didn't really want to. But that, that was much too much for him at the moment.
"What's a king doing brooding in a place like this?"
He tenses his shoulders for a moment, readies the regular diplomatic smile, but finds that it's only Evie bending to sit down next to him, so he drops the pathetic act of a put together king and relaxes.
"Oh, you know, just got tired of brooding in my giant castle."
Evie laughs, and Ben's relieved to find that he can still laugh in a situation like this too.
"So, what's wrong?"
He doesn't know why, but it's easy to drop his guard around her. He wasn't King Ben, he wasn't mature Ben, he wasn't responsible Ben, he was just Ben. And he had always felt that she had known that, even when everyone else hadn't. It's easy, when it's her, everything's easy. So he tells her. He tells her and he tells her and he tells her until his mouth runs dry.
"You know," she says, soft and light, "it's okay not to be perfect. Everyone sees you and Mal and think 'Oh, there goes the perfect king with his perfect girlfriend and their perfect relationship.' but it's never really like that. Mal knew that, Mal knew what everyone expected of her, Mal knew what everyone wanted to see. And even if you couldn't see it, she could. That's why she left. Because she's not perfect, and she knew even if she pretended, she could never be. But she forgets that you aren't perfect either. You might just happen to be the right mix of polite, charming, handsome, nice, and a king to boot, but even you aren't perfect. Just because I can't seem to point out a flaw right now still means that you are imperfect, yes. And it's okay not to be, she just hasn't realised it yet."
It makes sense, everything Evie's saying, and things finally shift into perspective, if just for a moment. But there's still one thing troubling him, one thing stirring at the pit of his stomach. But that question is far too difficult to answer, even if he were to have Evie answer it for him, so he tucks it away for now and pretends for a moment, that things were going to turn out okay.
—
The first thing he thinks, is that things are definitely wrong. He's standing there, at the top of the staircase, and all eyes are on him, but all he can see is her. She's all the way at the bottom of the steps, but he feels as if she should be the one standing on top, like all eyes should be glued onto her like his are. She looks beautiful, standing in a dress that was no doubt of her own design.
He's walking down the stairs now, eyes still firmly attached to hers. She notices now, freezes, but doesn't look away. He stands in front of her all too soon, and he wants to say something, desperately wants to apologise for something he doesn't know, but then someone else starts to descend from the staircase and his attention is whisked away.
Ah yes, he thinks, as he watches Uma take tentative steps to reach him, if happiness could be embodied into any person, it would be her. And he had her all to himself, he was the luckiest man in the world.
The air around him seems to stale, all eyes now trained onto the new couple on the dance floor. Ben cannot imagine a more perfect moment than this, dancing with his Uma under the moonlight, even if it seemed that no one else around them seemed to share the same sentiments.
People start to whisper frantically, Ben's own parents at a loss to what was happening, when Mal finally announces, "He's been spelled."
Suddenly, following her confession, an announcement is made, and a curtain drops somewhere, unmasking a coloured panel with Mal and Ben painted on it. Something he had prepared months ago for this moment. He stares up at it and something swirls in his stomach, something like regret, guilt, dread. He didn't feel quite so lucky anymore.
He turns, to possibly the last person anyone would think he would turn to, only to find that she was already looking at him. He wants to say something, anything, feeling oddly compelled to take something back, when his thoughts are interrupted yet again as Uma enters his field of vision. In his peripherals he can see a blue, gloved hand jerk towards him, and he's tempted for a moment to reach his own hand out, but then Mal and Uma start to argue and his attention is snatched away yet again.
A miniature tug of war happens between Uma and Mal, with Ben standing in the middle, before Mal's lips are suddenly pressed against his. He's confused, of course, but that's all. There's no sudden surge of feelings like everyone had expected, and Mal looks disappointed but not entirely surprised.
Uma, angry that her plan had not worked out the way she had hoped, jumps off the side of the ship. There's a flurry of worried exclamations that follow her into the water, but soon after, she re-emerges, larger, tentacles and all. Mal's eyes flash a dangerous green, and Ben takes an instinctive step back. Before he knows it, she too has transformed, to a dragon no less. Uma and Mal start to fight, water against fire. In the end, Mal's fire and Mal's anger wins out, and Uma retreats into the sea.
"The night is saved!" Someone announces, as Mal returns back to normal. All Ben can feel though, as the spell is finally taken off him, is the twisting in his chest.
There was celebrating for a while, loud cheering and dancing. All ben could do was hover, accepting greetings and congratulations with a stiff smile, and exchanging awkward glances back and forth between a certain girl across the deck.
As the night starts to dwindle down, most of the students having went back to their dorms, he watches as Mal walks right up to him, face stern. There was a talk to be had.
—
Mal stays in Auradon, for good, even if she doesn't stay with Ben. Her hair is purple as it should be, and she is happy, if not a little heart broken.
Ben thinks he might be a bit heart broken himself, but wonders if that works, if he can be heart broken because he is in love with someone new.
His someone new walks by, as if on cue, laughing and talking and radiating an aura of delight. He watches as the jaws of all the boys near by drop, each one getting taken by her the moment she walks past. He wonders if he's like them, just a boy she'd unintentionally hooked.
He decides that even if he is, she is worth a shot. So he finds himself standing under the bleachers, waiting for her to come to him, waiting to see if his heart will be handed back to him in pieces.
"What did you want to talk about?" She asks, and really he feels as if he can barely even breathe around her so he wishes she could take this a little slower.
"Well, you, kind of. And me?"
She looks at him for a moment like she knows, but waits for him to continue anyway.
He takes a deep breath.
"This might be strange, and probably a little weird since I only just ended things with Mal but, I haven't stopped thinking about you in weeks. You just, you've always understood me in a way that no one else could, in a way that not even Mal could. And you make me feel all sorts of things that my parents used to tell me about when I was a kid, things I never thought was true until... you. I think with the time that I spent apart from Mal I started to realise how different it was, me and you, and me and her. But I realised after we had that big fight, after she left Auradon, that by choosing her out of obligation and guilt and not because I could really say she was who I wanted, was what hurt her the most in the end. No matter how much I could convince myself to just let things continue as they were, I knew I had to make a real choice, I knew I had to really ask myself what I wanted- who I wanted. So I just listened to my heart, and, well, my heart said you."
It looks as if Evie doesn't breathe for a few moments, and Ben's worried he might've temporarily paralysed her somehow, but then she opens her mouth to speak.
"Mal's my best friend. She's practically family to me. You broke her heart, you hid things from her, you hurt her. I should be angry, I know I should be. Is it wrong that my heart feels like it's about to burst out of my chest? Is it wrong that I... that I want to take this chance, with you?"
His breath catches in his throat, and he starts to feel much more hopeful than he had been just moments ago.
"No, not wrong. Definitely not wrong. This, us, not wrong. It's just a little bit of a bumpy start, that's all. And the feeling of your heart about to burst? I feel it too. All the time. Whenever you smile, whenever you laugh, right now. I can't promise you much, but I can promise you that I will put my whole heart into this chance, if you'll give it to me."
She pauses, but eventually smiles, something tentative, shy. His heart does little flips in his chest.
"Okay... then, let's give us a try?"
He's smiling now too, though his was much wider, much fuller. He gently takes one of her hands in his, noting with a certain sense of satisfaction when her cheeks glow a shade of pink.
"Yeah, let's give us a try."