A/N: You guys have ruined me, because I'm supposed to be working on the Seven Deadly Sins, but I keep getting ideas based on cannon, qnd this is the only place I can put them, goddamnit. But thanks as well, because at least I'm writing and not procrastinating 3. I hope you enjoy this piece, based on the best song in Descendants 2.
Whipped Cream & Other Delights,
TheHarleyQueen
'Let me tell you something you can really trust.
Everybody's got a wicked side.'
When Evie, Jay and Carlos stepped onto the Isle, they immediately changed. Not the way they'd changed when they'd come to Auradon- false smiles and stretched grins. This change was real, palatable. They moved more⦠sensually, if that was the word for it. Ben didn't know you could act the way the three of them did, not really. The dominated space, stood taller, glared fiercer, and stayed closer. It was nothing Ben had ever seen before-
That wasn't true. Mal, Mal sometimes did it when Audrey really annoyed her, or when another advisor was advising him against her. Suddenly, her touches would linger, her kisses would bruise his lips {but Mal never meant it, always sent him flowers and chocolates as an apology, because she was guilty, guilty, so guilty, hated turning pure Ben into a symbol, the way she did with people on the Isle of the Lost.}.
They walked through the marketplace, tattered rags and broken stalls and dirty children everywhere, and Ben was shocked, because he hadn't known that a place like this still existed {he figured that when they'd gotten rid of the villains, all suffering went away in reality, it followed the villains, and then their children} and there were kids who were stealing like they'd been raised to do it, like it was as natural to them as breathing, as walking, and how was that even possible?
And then two boys had tried to rob Evie, and she'd caught them. For a second, pure rage filled her eyes, and Ben was terrified that she'd really hurt these children {poor Evie, sweet Evie, Doug's girlfriend, who'd never shown any Isle tendencies the way Mal had sometimes he thought his parent might have liked it better if he'd chosen Evie to court} but then she looked so sad, and scary Evie was gone, and she let them go. But not before leaning down and placing a firm kiss on each of their foreheads- and turning around furiously, glaring at the onlookers, as if to make sure she had witnesses for the event. Ben had witnessed it, alright, but he had no idea what was happening.
'You need a whole lot of help.
You need to not be yourself.'
When he asked about it, Carlos's answer didn't really make sense {'On Auradon, you guys kiss to show love for each other, right? An overwhelming, true passion that no one could ever take away?' When Ben nodded, Carlos smirked, 'You'll never get that, on the Isle, so kissing evolved into something else, something completely apart from sex. It's a brand, a symbol of ownership. A claiming.' Ben just frowned, and Carlos shook his head, 'You'll never understand, not after being raised in Auradon. But on the Isle, kissing is still overwhelming passion, but it's not true love. You feel me?'
'Mal's loved and claimed a lot of people in her time, Ben. She didn't want you to know, but you're here now, and you'll find out anyway.'
'On the Isle, you look after your own. And you mark them with a kiss. They don't mean much, here, but they also mean everything.'}
'You look like you would lose a fight to an alleycat-
You gotta be wrong to get it right 'round here.'
They were trying to teach him, sure, but they weren't teaching him what they knew, they were teaching him as if from a handbook, a guide. Because no one would ever shy away from him the way they did from them {They crowded him, coming in too close. A newbie on the Isle. A newbie on the Isle of the Lost, back with the first three, and under their protection. A fucking miracle. Uma would be pissed}. And the Isle of the Lost was so different, and he kept losing his wallet. Why had he brought the ridiculous thing anyway? Jay was trying to teach him to pickpocket, and Evie was trying to teach him to smile, and Carlos just stood back, watching, smirking, like he knew- Ben would never be part of the Isle, would never fit in.
Then Evie froze, and started checking his jacket sleeves, near the shoulders. Panicking. And she gestured to Carlos, who plucked a threaded needle from his belt, and just handed it to her. And then she started sewing, frantically, and he didn't understand, what the hell was going on. {Evie was sewing a crest into the sleeve, a crest, and under that, the word Havoc, and Ben asked Carlos, but Carlos just showed him the same crest on his sleeve, and a similar one on Jay's. Just an Isle thing, Ben thought. But it was so much more. There were Four Houses on the Isle, and everyone over thirteen belonged to one. You looked after your House, above all else.}
'If you want it, take it.
And if you can't take it, break it.'
Somehow, Ben hadn't ever really put it all together. He knew Jay stole things, knew that the boy was always struggling with the impulse to just take and take and take, but he'd never considered that that had been the only way Jay had ever gotten anything. He saw, sometimes, how Carlos stocked up on food in the cafeteria, saw all of them clean their plates spotless, saw them pick up as many non-perishables (and sometimes perishables) as possible, and carry them back to the rooms. He'd never thought that it might be because they were used to not having anything. He'd seen Evie, sometimes, hanging around boys that weren't him, or Carlos or Doug {her boyfriend}, flirting and batting her eyelashes and asking for stuff, and he'd seen how those boys would just give anything to her, especially when they saw Jay, standing nearby, glaring, making sure they gave Evie something {making sure those boys didn't hurt Evie, his sister in all but blood}.
Somehow, Ben hadn't understood that they had nothing on the Isle, and what they had? They took by brute force.
'He's right, we gotta stay low-key.
Now show us how bad you can be!'
They made him show them what he'd learnt, but they just smiled all the while. A condescending, look-he's-trying smile, and Ben hated it, because this was what they'd shown him, and it still wasn't good enough for them. And in that moment, when he'd felt that, he understood everything on the Isle of the Lost. But then the feeling faded, and he was just confused and tired, and all he wanted to do was sleep, but Evie's eyes sparkled with something new, and he'd passed a test.
Then they met Gil.
For a second, Ben figured he was straight-up doomed. This was the son of the guy his parents had nearly killed, this man had been raised to hate him, hate everything he stood for, in a way Evie, Carlos and Jay hadn't. But when they spoke to Gil, Ben figured he wasn't exactly smart, so to speak. Figured that the fact that they were children of sworn enemies wouldn't mean as much to Gil as it had to Mal and Audrey.
{It's a brand, a symbol of ownership. A claiming. That's what Carlos had said to him. And on the Isle, you claimed everything you could, especially what you hated above all else, because then it was yours and it was weak, and you'd won, because what fun was killing your enemy when you could own them?} So really, it wasn't even that much of a shock {not to Carlos, to Jay, to Evie} when Gil, son of Gaston, pushed Ben {son of The Beast} up against a wall, hard and fast, and pushed their mouths together, sliding his knee up between Ben's legs, holding two of Ben's hands in one of his own, using the other hand to push against the King's throat, kissing him fiercely, kissing him to claim.
'Yeah, once you catch this feeling,
You'll be chillin' {chillin'} chillin' like a villain.'
