Jay had always been insecure about his sexuality.
He knew he liked girls, it was just that...when he started to see other guys the way he saw girls...it scared him.
Was that even normal? Could someone even like both genders? Jay had no idea and had no one to ask about this. His father wasn't exactly the kind of person to sit down and give girl advice - or boy advice, for that matter.
He wanted to talk to his best friend about it, he wanted to tell him so bad...but Jay was feeling these feelings about his best friend. And he didn't think his best friend felt the same way about him.
The best way for Jay to address the problem was to ignore it completely, and that was what he planned on doing.
But, like most things in Jay's life, that plan fell apart.
The King-to-Be of Auradon extended an invitation to the children of Jafar, Cruella de Vil, the Evil Queen, and Maleficent to attend Auradon Prep - to prove that the spawn of Auradon's vilest criminals are innocent and should not be punished for what their parents did in the past.
The only problem Jay saw with this was that he'd still be in a position to allow his feelings for Carlos de Vil to grow.
But of course, Jay never gets to make decisions for himself. It's always his father molding his life, or in this case, his father and Maleficent.
And so he was packed away into a Royal Limousine with his best friends to be sent away from everything they've known.
The ride there was the scariest thing he's ever done, or at least so far. He left all he had ever known before behind him and while he was doing so, feared for his life that his and Carlos' would end.
When the bridge off the Isle of the Lost ended, everyone in the limousine completely lost their minds. Jay tried pulling Evie, the Evil Queen's daughter and one of his best friends, to him and in the process threw Carlos into a headlock - as if the harder Jay held him, the harder it'd be for the crash to kill him. Mal, Maleficent's daughter and the "leader" of their tiny band of throwaways, was too far from Jay's reach for him to protect and yet still ended up almost in Evie's lap out of fright.
But their lives didn't end. Where the Isle of the Lost ended, the magic began and a new bridge formed. Which meant their "mission" began:
Infiltrate Auradon Prep.
Find the Fairy Godmother's wand.
Use it to open the Isle of the Lost back up to the world.
Prosper.
None of them were on board with the mission, but their honor and family legacy of evil depended on it. And so it would be a nice distraction from Jay's emotional woes.
And so far, Auradon Prep did not disappoint.
Everything Jay had pictured it would be like - grand staircases, golden furniture, anything possible - was so far true.
And while the welcome was luke-warm, the treatment was absolutely luxurious.
Jay had hoped to have his own room - or at least a native Auradon Prep student for a roommate - so he wouldn't have to continually struggle with his feelings at the sight of Carlos, but they had a roommate system and it "made sense" to keep the boys from the Isle of the Lost together.
It was supposedly to "diminish feelings of abandonment and isolation and to keep things feeling like home", or so Fairy Godmother explained when Jay asked if he could switch.
The bedroom they shared was plush and no expense was spared when furnishing it. They both had their own beds, and Jay quietly thought that it was better than his couch at home.
From the corner of his eye, Jay saw that Carlos was crying and knew immediately why. They had known each so long and knew each other so well that the answer came without a second thought: Carlos slept on the floor with nothing but a sheet back on the Isle, and the fact that he had more than that now was already making him have second thoughts about the mission.
It took every fiber of Jay's being not to comfort Carlos in his moment of need, but he didn't want to acknowledge these foreign feelings he was having. And he didn't want to hug Carlos out of fear of not being able to let go.
As they unpacked, Jay was distant...almost cold. But it didn't deter Carlos one bit. After his emotional "outburst" earlier, he was nothing but smiles as he checked the entire place out. He tested the bed about eight times, which Jay thought was cute (and immediately suppressed the thought afterwards), and laughed out loud as Carlos gasped and fell before the flat screen mounted on the wall.
"It's like all my dreams have come true," Carlos muttered as he practically worshipped every inch of the TV.
I wish you'd look at me like that, Jay thought silently and almost had to physically hit himself for having the thought.
He isn't going to feel that way about you. He has no room for it. None of us do.
"Well, if you like that, wait until you see what I swiped earlier," he didn't want to let what he was feeling be known, so instead, he pretended like he wasn't having an existential crisis over the freckled boy with knobby knees and a contagious laugh.
"...What is it?" Carlos inquired, almost suspiciously. He was always quick to think of the worst possible thing, and it was probably better that way. Jay sometimes did pull nasty pranks that fed off of Carlos' natural curiosity. Instead of pranking Carlos, however, Jay pulled out a laptop.
It wasn't the nicest one he saw, but he knew Carlos liked to look inconspicuous when he was ruining lives with his technology skills.
The look on Carlos' face was enough to know that what Jay had nicked from someone was as good as gold, and while Jay wanted to see that look every day for the rest of his life, he knew he wouldn't be able to sustain it.
Because what Jay was feeling was not right. You shouldn't feel that way about your best friend.
While Jay battled these feelings, Carlos got right to using the laptop. And it stayed quiet for awhile in the room, and Jay desperately wished his head could do the same.