The voice is shaking with fury, as wide eyes looked up. "I want him dead."
Dark eyes explored the face of the speaker, looking for any type of hesitance, anything to show that it was all just anger speaking. "...Dead, I can do."
Ben, newly crowd King of the United States of Auradon, was not doing too well in his love life. Apart from the media ripping his girlfriend to shreds near enough every single day, he didn't actually have much in the way of free time to be able to go around and see her. When he did? Well, turned out she wasn't handling the constant ripping apart in the news so well. He had laughed about it in front of her, surprised that she – of all the people that could have been in this situation – she was the one freaking out and taking it badly. Thinking that it meant something about who she was.
She hadn't really been pleased with that.
But they were stronger than one little upset, and they were still happy together. For as much as the media loved making her out to be the next plague on their home, they also loved praising her looks and her outfits. The way she smiled when he held her head and the way his ring shone brightly against her porcelain pale skin. Move over Snow White, one popular fashion and society blog declared, There's A New Fairest Of Them All. (Mal had hated the butchering of basic grammar, Ben had thought it sweet how much the blogger clearly thought of her.) He takes her everywhere that comes to mind, all the best places that Auradon has to offer, no expense spared because he knows that she deserves this. After everything she'd been through, he knows that luxury is something that should be given to her as often as possible.
He doesn't know what sets it off.
They had been having dinner, in a private back room of Tiana's Palace, and their conversation had been light and cheerful, filled with laughter from both of them. Everything had been cooked to perfection, and filled with firsts for Mal, her eyes lighting up in delight at the tastes, noises of sheer pleasure making him laugh under his breath. He could bring her so many firsts, they hadn't even began to look at the tip of the iceberg of what was in dinner, they had retired to his own small cottage. It looked a lot like the one where his Mother grew up, in basic looks alone. Filled to the top with everything that had been part of his daily life growing up, it was his, granted to him on his coronation that he may have a place where no one could invade his needed privacy. It was perfect, and she was perfect, and to him, the entire night was perfect.
Then it wasn't and she was gone and he didn't even know what had happened. He had been left, sitting there, jacket thrown to the side and tie undone, staring at the ground, utterly confused.
"Mal? Please, Mal, I just want to apologise!" Ben sighed, as he pressed his forehead against the wood of the dorm room door. "You can't hide in there forever, Mal. Fairy Godmother says you've already missed two whole day of classes and if you miss a third that's you on automatic detention for two weeks. Two weeks, Mal!" He called in, not really caring what any passers-by thought. Seeing their King, begging at the door of his girlfriend – his evil girlfriend – what hope that must inspire in a people? "Mal, come on, you're being ridiculous!" That got the door opening.
"Ridiculous, really?" Evie's perfectly groomed eyebrow rose just slightly. "You really think that's the best way to get her speaking to you again? By telling her she's being ridiculous?" She shook her head, an incredulous laugh coming from the back of her throat. "What do they put in the water, here?" There was something in her tone, something that Ben couldn't place, but it was nothing he'd every heard from Evie's voice before, except once. Confronting Chad on Family Day. Had... had he done something as rude as Chad had done? "She's not here, anyway. Hasn't been here the past couple of days. I'd love to know why, exactly," Evie continued, not even giving Ben a chance to speak for himself, "that instead of being happy, she came in from a date with you shaking and pale?"
"She ran out," Ben said. "Probably took a quick way back here and got lost and... I don't even know why she ran, Evie," Ben admitted, a slight whine in his tone. "We had been having a great time, it had been one of the best evenings we'd had ever, and then... she just... ran." It was the sheer confusion in the tone that had Evie looking at him, her gaze softening slightly. He didn't know. Neither did she, truthfully. She just knew her friend was upset and Ben had something to do with it. Villain kids protected their own. She opened the door wide, and Ben stumbled in, shooting her a grateful smile.
Carlos looked over from the table, shaking his head and returning to the homework that he and Evie had clearly been working on. Looked to be advanced chemistry. Oh... that would explain why they had been ignoring him, Ben realised, grimacing as he turned to apologise. "Don't bother," Carlos said, "you didn't know we had this due. You would have shut up if you had." The youngest from the Isle had an odd way of being the most direct at times. Ben nodded, and Carlos shrugged, continuing with the work. To keep the peace, Ben went over to give Dude a hello scratch behind the ears. The campus mutt – well, no, now he was Carlos' dog – growled at him, which made everyone stare.
"That's... never happened before." Ben said, looking at them with worry. Evie folded her arms and shot a questioning look at Carlos, who just shook his head in return. Whatever they were saying with their small glances and gestures, it meant that a whole conversation was happening in front of Ben that he wasn't privvy to. And judging by the glances they were giving him, he wasn't quite sure if this was a conversation that he wanted to become particularly involved in, if truth be told. "But... Evie, you're Mal's best friend," he said, turning to face the blue haired girl. "Her oldest friend, can't you..." He was interrupted by a loud snort of laughter from Carlos, and Evie biting her bottom lip, laughing herself. "Wait, what's so funny?"
"Well," Carlos put down his pen and looked up, "kind of how you're wrong, really," he said. Ben stared. Evie took pity.
"I'm not Mal's best or her oldest friend," she said, touching Ben's shoulder gently. "I'd only known her, all of them, a few months before we were brought here. It's just, well, you bond fast or you kill each other trying on the Isle," Evie gave as an explanation. "I'm fairly sure I'm her best female friend, that's an honour I can say it mine," she added, a private smile on her face. An honour? Ben didn't get it. Well, no, he did get it, but he didn't get why Evie would refer to it that way.
"So, it would be..." Ben turned to Carlos automatically, who was shaking his head. "Then who?" Ben exclaimed, baffled by the whole thing. He threw himself down on the edge of one of the beds, messing up the neat sheets but not having it in him to care as he pulled at his hair in frustration. After all Mal, Evie and Carlos were inseparable, if it wasn't one of those two that Mal was closest to then who was it that he'd need to go to get some help in working out exactly what it was he was meant to have done here to have made Mal so mad at him? "The files linked you three as the closest, Jay was just..." his voice died in his throat, and he looked up, eyes wide. "Jay?" he croaked. The two others nodded.
"Jay and Mal, or well, Mal and Jay really," Carlos said. "It's always been those two. Before any of us."
"They're the original Rotten Duo," Evie added, a shrug of the shoulders seeming one of the most graceful movements in the world when she used it. "Terrified the whole Isle and you had to hope you didn't end up in their sight. If you hurt one, the other came looking." Ben paled. Significantly.
Jay found him, just like Evie had warned. Ben didn't realise it was Jay until he looked up in shock after being sent slamming backwards into a row of metal lockers, locks digging into his back. The worst of it was that Jay hadn't even shoved him that hard, it had been a nudge. Ben just hoped that strength was all Jay had on his side, Jafar had been transformed into one of the most powerful genies that ever existed after all. Hunting him down to get him on the Isle had been a challenge, back in his Father's reign, and there was a fear that magical barrier being broken might mean the return of that power. They had never considered his son. He was a thief, a street rat. Watch your pockets, but that was it. Now Ben was wondering if watch your neck would be a better warning.
"One promise." Jay said simply. "We got you to make one promise, bro, and you broke it." There was a darkness in his voice. "She wants you dead. Dead... is something I do really well," there was a mirthless smile on his face as he continued, stepping forward, the large bulk of his frame blocking the light out from Ben's view, "or do your little files not let you into that fact?" Ben's mouth opened and closed, and he jumped as Jay's fist slammed into the locker beside him. The locker buckled, and mentally Ben told himself it was the weakness of the thin metal they used, but somehow that didn't reassure him. "One promise, and you broke it."
"I don't even know what I'm meant to have done," Ben got out, eyes wide and voice thankfully not quavering. "It was all going... she just ran, Jay, I don't even know why. I've been trying to find out and I can't find her to ask why." This didn't make the other boy seem any happier. He didn't even seem to believe him, lifting an eyebrow in mocking questioning. "I swear. I would never hurt her, not Mal. I love her," Ben breathed the words out, his heart aching with how true they were. Jay's jaw clenched and his knuckles tightened. "I swear," Ben said again, "Mal... she's... I do love her."
"Then make sure you let her know that," the words were a threat when they eventually came. "Because she wouldn't want you dead if she didn't care so damn much." That was a bit of a revelation, but not much else was said from it. Jay straightened up, and stormed off in the opposite direction of Ben, his every step a stomp on the ground. People jumped out of his way, scared of the aura he seemed to be projecting. Ben felt like he had gotten away with more than just his life, but he wasn't sure what, exactly. He looked at the retreating figure, waiting until the fearful pounding in his chest stopped. Why did he feel like Jay would have been happier to not be walking away from this?
"You... why do you think I should accept that as an apology?"
"Because you're still wearing my ring, Mal. You still love me as much as I love you."
"...Things were a lot easier on the Isle."
"I don't think love's meant to be easy."
"Don't think it'd make me so happy if it was."