This update happened quicker than expected. (And there was some left over stuff I couldn't squeeze in, so I already have some of next chapter mapped out.)
This chapter is dedicated to shazzygirl, fhrulz21, MarvellouslyWondrous, un-known savior, pinksakura271, ckg96, Darkmaster of the arts, SoccerKnight5510, PixelHD, Black-Autumn-Rose, Blackjack the Nargle, kjay15, redhoodfan, Guest, Make war not love. war is fun, Guest, Ziu, biankies, Ency Peterson, 31 Light's Lady and TokioJapon. Sorry if I'm missing anyone, I was checking reviews at school this week and that messes with my notes.
I hope this kicks things up a notch. Enjoy! =]
I do not own Descendants
"The Golden Flower Hospital's higher staff allowed visitation for friends of patient Carlos de Vil to begin today." Most of the group in the waiting room looked up at the television screen to see Snow White was reporting from just across the street. The group looked amongst themselves as their friend's picture came up on screen. The sight was enough to make them miss some of the broadcast.
"He hates that picture." Mal said, disgusted.
Evie, who had just returned from her visit, walked over to take the seat Mal was leaving. "I know." She agreed. "He doesn't even look like him. You know what I mean?"
Mal nodded, as did a few others. Then the purple-haired girl went on her way.
"I bet Mal could've drawn a better one." Jay thought aloud, looking over at Evie. She noted that he'd been looking anywhere but the TV.
Instead of asking about that, she nodded. "She wouldn't need to though. Audrey probably has tons of pictures on her phone."
Jane had her attention split between the broadcast and her friends' discussions. She couldn't help letting out a little giggle at that. Evie took the sound as confirmation.
Evie's focus went back to Snow White when she realized Jay had nothing more to say on the subject. She caught the last half of a sentence, but guessed the reporter was talking about Carlos and Chad.
"...neither of the boys showed up for tourney practice. We're told now that both boys had been excused," Once again, the group exchanged glances. They had known that about Carlos. Everyone assumed Chad had neglected to show up to practice, not that he had permission to skip it. "but they were expected to play in the game. The game was postponed due to the alleged attack, and will play out this Friday. Without Chad, the Knights still have many star players on the roster. But Auradon students and faculty consider Carlos-the underdog-to be irreplaceable. For Auradon News Network, I'm Snow White, Wishing Carlos a healthy recovery."
The woman many considered to be the fairest in the land had a voice that carried. It didn't help that someone in the castle had the television set to what sounded like the highest possible volume.
Snow White's words dripped down to the dungeon, and seemed to cover the walls in Chad's cell. Her voice filled the air and made it feel thin. Every sentence said spread the smile on the prisoner's face wider. The broadcast was a good addition to his constant state of discomfort.
Still, he knew it wasn't enough.
"Jay, you're up." Mal informed, Her voice was lower than before she went in for her visit. She wondered if maybe he didn't hear, because he didn't move. He didn't even look at her.
Mal's glance moved to Evie. Both girls looked concerned. Until their friend stood up.
"How was it?"
No one had thought to ask. For the most part, the only time they talked was when the news was on.
Before she answered, Mal rested one loosely closed fist on her palm, and titled her her head a bit. "It was quiet."
Jay nodded, and she gave him the gentlest of pushes to send him on his way.
He had one clear destination, and wasn't expecting a detour. Along the way, he caught a glimpse of a familiar face.
He hadn't noticed that she'd gotten away from the group. Most kept close, so he felt a pang of hurt knowing she left.
Before he figured out she'd only done that so she could get a drink of water.
He adjusted his eyeline, looking down at her. "Hey, Cadence." Her name fell from his lips in that flirty way. The voice he used on most of the girls he knew.
He watched her eyes roll behind the black frames of her glasses. The movement was playful, though. He could tell. "Hey, Jay."
"How're you doin'?"
She spoke through a sigh. "As good as everybody else is doing." She would've responded that way any day. The difference was, while the group was at the hospital, it felt bad to feel good. "Am I holding you up?" The way the kids divided their time, their wasn't much time they could let go to waste.
Jay was sure Cadence wasn't the reason for his hesitation. "No." He insisted, as he saw her rest her hands on the wheels of her chair. He took that as a signal that she was ready to head back to join the others. He looked toward the door to Carlos' room.
Suddenly, he felt like he had no voice to give the thought that entered his mind.
Cadence couldn't let it go unspoken. Not after seeing the look on his face. Because of where they were, she could only think of one way to phrase what she asked next. "What else is wrong?"
Upon Jay's return to the waiting room, Ben knew he was next to visit Carlos. That he could handle.
What he couldn't handle was Mal's encouragement, since she thought it was a new experience for him..
He kept his glance on her hands, fearing his expression would give him away. The couple's fingers laced together.
Her whispers were aimed at his ears. "Whatever you see, it isn't on you." The way she phrased that told him two things: She knew everyone looked at Carlos through different eyes, and she knew Ben was still questioning if he was truly fit to lead Auradon.
For Mal, there was no question.
Ben managed a slow nod, though his head felt like it was meant to be moving in a different direction. He looked at his girlfriend, surprised when she moved to press her forehead against his. As if they didn't have an audience.
The moment dissolved when she let go of his hand, so he could go off on his own.
Ben had been down this stretch of hallway before, but the walk seemed longer the second time around.
"This is getting us nowhere." Dr. Porter said, close to seething. She looked like she was ready to throw the book in her hand at the nearest wall.
"I figured that Charming kid fought dirty," One of her team admitted. "but this is ridiculous." Resources were dwindling, and now there was only one book left for each member of the small team to read through.
They'd scoured for even the smallest clues, but couldn't add those clues up into anything that would help explain the scar.
Another team member tried to lighten the mood with a joke. "It would be easier to just ask Chad what he did." No one laughed.
Dr. Porter had something to say about that, though. "If we're still lost on this by tomorrow afternoon, I'll honestly consider doing just that."
She walked out of the room to go check on her patient. He was still stable. He was recovering from a confirmed concussion. He was responding told of his treatments well, but that scar told the doctor her job was far from done.
Something kept hope alive for her, though As with every night before, Carlos' brain activity continued on its steady climb.
The treehouse didn't keep hold of Carlos' interest once Mal, Jay and Evie arrived. He climbed down and followed them back to the Bargain Castle, where he found something not technically lost. It was buried in the back of Maleficent's freezer.
"What's that?" Evie's voice chimed in from behind him.
"Like he knows." Mal dismissed with a scoff.
"I do know." Carlos countered. Though he wasn't sure how. He turned to face his friends, who each eyed him with what he perceived as mild suspicion, "Here, it's a cookbook." Along with being tired, he was awfully hungry. Though he was used to that.
"What do you mean 'here'?" Jay asked.
The small boy shrugged, moving around the kitchen. He could feel the weird looks on his back again. Even before he said: "Over there, it wouldn't be."
"Why do you care about over there?" Mal asked. Her voice was hardly harsh, but for some reason that question brought on a wave of pain.
He turned to look at her, but his energy was still elsewhere as he turned his hand to switch on the oven. (To his surprise, it actually worked.) "Never said I did."
Every so often, he glanced back at his friends. They looked as lost as they tended to when he worked on the majority of his projects.
When it came time to open the oven again, he watched their eyes go wide. The noses took in the smell of something foreign to them. Their mouths watered for it.
Carlos let the cookies cool before dividing them up into fair shares.
This only earned him more looks.
"I could take these all for myself." He teased, hardly getting through the sentence before the others' hands started swiping at the different corners of the tray.
He put the tray down, wanting to soak in the moment they took the first taste. How else was he to know he was a good baker?
"How'd you know how to make these?" Mal asked. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was half full.
"I read the instructions." After that, they didn't ask anymore questions. He guessed they just wanted to enjoy their treat, without wondering where he found the ingredients. He was glad they didn't ask. He couldn't really remember. "Sorry they don't have any chips." The word felt funny on his tongue.
Evie let out a laugh. It sounded strange, like he hadn't heard it in awhile and forgot what the last time was like. "First you share, and now you're saying 'sorry'? What's up with you?"
Villains weren't supposed to act that way. Carlos didn't say so, but he supposed he'd forgotten that, too. How was that possible?
Apparently, chocolate chips weren't the only thing he was missing.
It was like being caught in the act of stealing, but the only thing Jay stole was time. His walk was interrupted when he made the mistake of going past Fairy Godmother's office. He stopped when the light turned on inside.
That was all he needed to know that she was watching him.
He took his hands out of his empty pockets, and made his way back to his dorm in the dark.
Chad had to act fast, before someone dropped off his breakfast Thursday morning.
Before he did anything, though, he had to build up the courage. He looked down at the apple in his hands. He barely wanted to touch it. It had gone soft with rot, and he couldn't let it be completely destroyed.
The apple was his only way out.
That thought sparked a memory. Something that happened on this day, the previous week.
"Are you following me? Or do we just happen to be going in the same direction?" Chad hadn't bothered to turn around. Instead, he barked at the open air in front of him.
His shadow took a third option. "I'm trying to make sure you're not lost." Carlos replied. "There's nothing out here. You should get back to school."
Chad turned on his heel, surprised by the expression on the younger boy's face. His eyes looked almost pleading. Even from halfway across the bridge.
"I'm not needed there." Chad said with a small scoff. He didn't even think about how he was wasting breath.
"Jane needs you." Carlos countered.
"She's perceptive. She can handle a stupid scavenger hunt. Besides, she probably doesn't even want my help." A twisted smile formed on his face. "Who would?"
Carlos seemed unsettled, and he wasn't shy about that. "You're scaring me." He said, walking slowly toward Chad.
That twisted smile turned into a frown full of mock disappointment. "Probably wasn't smart to admit that." Chad exaggerated a shrug. "Guess you're just lucky I don't care enough to exploit that fear."
"Come back to school." A command was something he'd never heard from Carlos.
He tried to play it off like it was no big deal. "Are you gonna drag me there if I don't?"
"If I have to." By this point, Carlos was so close he could've stepped on Chad's foot.
He was sure he tried to laugh, but nothing happened. That pleading look from before had intensified. Chad narrowed his eyes. "If you're so scared, why are you stil here?"
"I don't have to say it." Carlos told him bluntly. "You do."
Chad hadn't gotten the chance to speak. He wasn't even sure if what he had on his mind the day before this all went down was still an issue. But things like that didn't just go away.
His latest problem wouldn't just disappear, either. His only hope of seeing beyond the bars in front of him rested in his hands.
His grip had tightened just slightly. After a controlled breath, he did what he'd planned on doing since Friday night.
He sunk his teeth into the rotten apple.
The taste filled every inch of his mouth, threatening to kill each taste bud. It was worse than he had imagined, but he couldn't care. He had to keep eating.
He wouldn't stop until he reached the rotten core.
Darkness surround Mal. She tried to open her eyes, but the scenery didn't change. She felt a presence beside her, but had no reason to panic. She knew who was next to her. She knew that sense of warmth.
"What's down there?" She meant besides Chad's cell.
"Nothing I wanna face." Ben told her, with reluctance in his voice.
"A monster." She decided.
He laughed. "You mean like a beast? Like me and my dad?"
"No, you're lovable. I was thinking more like a dragon."
Ben sighed heavily as one of the lanterns flickered back to life, hanging lower than the prisoner's head. "I wish. A dragon would be easy to face."
After what felt like a blink, Mal had to adjust her eyes to the light that filled the room. She knew she had been dreaming.
She'd never been in the dungeon before.
Mal sat up to find Evie applying makeup in the mirror. "Another restful sleep?" The blue-haired girl asked her reflection.
"Yeah, but a weird dream."
"Weirder than the last one? That turned out to be true?" Lonnie told the group where she found Carlos, but hadn't spoke about it much beyond that.
Mal nodded. "I was with Ben again. In the dungeon. And he basically said that Chad is worse than a dragon."
At this point, Evie was done with her makeup and turned to face Mal. "Probably because he was frozen when we went up against one."
With a laugh, Mal said: "I'll have to ask him what he really thinks once he gets here. He's coming to school today, right?"
Since Evie tutored him from time to time, she sometimes knew about Ben's attendance before Mal did. "He didn't say he wasn't."
"Why do this? Why miss school to do this?"
"I won't miss much." Ben assured his mother. "I'll go as soon as I'm done. Besides, leaving the cell like that is undignified." Seeing the look Belle gave him, he didn't retract his statement. He just added to it. "And unsanitary."
He went down to the dungeon. Chad was waiting there, with vomit in the corners of his lips. "Shame the bucket can't fit through the bars." The prisoner said, wearing a self-satisfied smirk.
Ben reached for the key. Before turning it in the lock, he warned: "Don't go too far."
Chad scoffed, slowly making his exit from the cell. "Like castle security would let me."
"Shouldn't you be cleaning up your own mess?" The former king asked Chad, who was too busy browsing the library to look at him when he talked.
There was a pause, like the prisoner had to process the question. "Oh, you mean down in the dungeon?" Chad made his selections, then turned back to face the former king. "Your son's way too nice for that. I guess he figured I suffered enough." Another smirk graced his now-clean lips.
"Can't imagine where he got that idea."
Chad found the man's dark tone amusing. "I'm a pretty messed up kid for an Auradonian, right? It's like I was born in the wrong place." The beast in front of him looked like he was in agreement. "Here's a million dollar question: Why didn't you advise the king to send me to the Isle as punishment?"
"We have to hear the whole story." Adam reasoned. "That includes your side."
"Oh, come on. Everyone knows there's three sides to every story." Chad held up three fingers for emphasis. The dirt under his nails from nearly a week ago remained. "As long as Carlos is in that coma, you don't care about my side. And I'm fine with that."
The man didn't see why any sane person would be. "How?"
"The longer I'm down there, the clearer I think. It probably comes as a shock to you that I think at all. But now I don't have much else to do." Somewhere in the middle of that explanation, Chad dropped his cocky attitude.
Which prompted Adam to ask: "Is that why you want those books?" His index finger was pointed at the stack of three Chad picked out.
"No," Chad countered. "these are for you." He passed the books over, ignoring the confused glance he was given. "I only have a few more minutes above ground." Chad smiled again, but something was more off about it than usual. "Besides, there's bad lighting in the dungeon. It'll hurt my eyes." He said, pointing to the one that still had a smudge of purple around it.
"I know these villains' stories." Adam argued, not seeing the point of reading them.
"You know what you've heard."
"What am I supposed to do when I finish reading, present you with a book report?" The man asked flatly.
The conversation was interrupted when the door swung open behind them. It was time for Chad to go back to his cell.
The prisoner's parting words to Adam were: "Speaking of books, I'm sure the super-smart doctors have put this together by now, but… they've been looking in the wrong ones."
Doug and Evie walked hand-in-hand, on their way to something the group had put off for a week. "Do you feel up to it today?" He asked her.
"If everyone else is." She decided. "I might just have to take it slower than usual. I didn't get much sleep last night."
That came as a surprise to both of them. "I thought once you saw him getting better, it would be easier."
"So did I. Did you hear me yesterday when I said that picture on the news didn't look like him?" He nodded. "Seeing him like that, I got the same feeling."
"Me too."
By this point, the school's olympic-sized swimming pool was in sight. Along with all their closest friends. Except two.
One absence was accounted for. The other was questioned. "Where's Jay?"
"He had to go talk with my mom." Jane informed Evie, seeing concern creep into her brown eyes. "It shouldn't be a problem anymore." The headmistress' daughter tried to make that sound assuring. But at this point, she could only hope.
"My reputation probably tells you otherwise, but I'm not a flight risk."
Fairy Godmother thought Jay's late-night walks around campus would stop after his first visit to Carlos' hospital room. Unfortunately not. "That's not what this is about. You're losing sleep. Your grades are suffering. That's a pretty clear indication that you are, too."
Jay disagreed. "We didn't suffer. We aren't now."
The woman seemed sorry she misspoke, but she wasn't changing her mind about him breaking the rules. "I won't punish you, Jay. But I strongly suggest you find something that doesn't just help in the moment. Something that won't hurt more than it helps."
"Like learning to swim?" He'd wanted lessons to be over with already, but maybe it was better that they took some time.
She nodded. "I won't keep you, but that doesn't mean I won't keep an eye on you." Her tone was somewhat stern.
He understood why. Jay nodded back, then went to go join his friends.
Mal's voice sounded strange to her own ears. Since her ears were partially submerged in water. "Where were you this morning?"
"Aren't you supposed to be focused on floating?" Ben asked teasingly.
She brushed that off. "I'm doing great."
"You have three people holding you up." Audrey pointed out. She was one of them, at the daughter of Maleficent's feet.
Doug, whose hands cradled her head, let out a laugh that didn't match the look in his eyes.
"I'd float better if I had an answer."
"I had to take care of something in the dungeon." Ben explained.
"Facing your dragon? Or whatever's worse?"
Ben blinked. When he opened his eyes again, they were filled with bewilderment.
Evie was getting the hang of floating a lot quicker than Mal. Which is why she had two helpers instead of three. "That's great." Lonnie encouraged. "We're gonna let go, but we're right here. Try kicking."
She did just that, and ended up splashing Jane in the face.
She tried to stifle her sound of distress, which should've been easy with a mouth full of chlorine.
"Sorry." Evie told her. She wanted to move to see if Jane was alright, but couldn't steer herself well.
"Occupational hazard." Jane insisted, as Jay came into view.
Mal didn't need to question the look that remained on her boyfriend's face, but she wanted to yell when she felt her feet drop. "Audrey!"
"I'm not going far. If Evie can hold her feet up, so can you." She was on her way to Jay, but her eyes moved to Jane for a moment. The girl gave her a reassuring smile. "You gonna jump right in?" She joked.
The boy standing at the edge of the pool laughed silently, shaking his head. "I don't think I'm that brave."
The words surprised Audrey, but they struck a chord with Jane.
She remembered standing inside, looking out at the pool a week before. The others had gone out two by two, each villain's kid paired up with a hero's. Mal with Ben, Evie with Doug, Jay with Audrey, and Carlos with Lonnie. Since Jane stayed behind, he came back in to check on her.
"This is a funny way to celebrate a victory." He pointed behind him. "Shouldn't you be out there taking a lap?"
"That sounds dangerous." Jane dismissed.
"I meant in the pool," Carlos clarified. "not around it."
"Oh. Well, it was just a scavenger hunt."
"You didn't have a partner for awhile."
She didn't see how that made it any more impressive. So she tried to respond with a joke. "Neither did Audrey."
Carlos took it the wrong way. "Hey… I had something important to do." He informed. His voice was low.
"Did Chad?"
For a split second, he was silent. "I don't think Chad's okay." Before she could ask him to elaborate, Carlos changed the subject. "Are you?"
"I don't want the attention." She explained, knowing she didn't sound like a winner. "Especially not like this." She moved her hand to rest on her opposite shoulder, thinking the cover up she wore wasn't fulfilling its purpose.
"You deserve to be celebrated, and not just 'cause of this."
"I know it's stupid," Jane said. "but it comes back to me." She watched as Carlos stepped closer.
"Do you think being raised around terrible people, we didn't think we were ugly?" Hearing that word from his mouth made Jane feel even worse. "I know I did. I know better now, but I forget sometimes, too."
"How do you make yourself to remember?"
"Different ways."
"What would you do right now?"
He looked down at the shirt he was wearing, then out to where their friends were waiting, then back at Jane. "Let them see. They're not gonna lie to us."
Her expression brightened, realizing he was right.
Carlos smiled back, then turned away. He didn't start walking again until he pulled his shirt off and threw it in the corner of the room. In true villain kid fashion.
Jane's eyes widened. She didn't think she could be as bold, but found herself following his lead with the cover up. It landed in the same heap.
The two kids picked up the pace. Jane wasn't far behind. She expected Carlos to stop at the edge of the pool. That's what everyone else had done.
Her eyes bulged again when she figured out that wasn't his plan. He was already in the air when the other hero kids realized what was happening. Their splashes followed his in quick succession. He found his way back to the surface, but couldn't keep his head above water for long. Luckily, he had plenty of lifeguards.
"Why would you do that?!" That question, and some variations, came flying out of many mouth.
Carlos chose to answer Jane directly. She was in front of him, while the other hero kids guided him to shallow water. "Sometimes it feels like drowning. Sometimes you have to save yourself." In this case, he couldn't do that. He didn't have to.
"Look at everyone who came in after me." Audrey, Ben, Doug and Lonnie looked relieved that they had the situation under control, but smiled. Even though they knew they'd missed a moment.
"Look at everyone who wished they could." Jane turned to see the villain kids nodding in affirmation, then looked back at Carlos.
He echoed advice he'd given moments before, and she understood it better the second time around. "Let them see."
When the phone rang in Fairy Godmother's office, Jane was instantly on edge. The two of them were supposed to leave for the second round of hospital visits in a matter of minutes.
Jane noted that her mother's tone was a mix of curiosity and concern. "Dr. Porter? ...Yes, I'm sure I do. ... Absolutely. I'll pack a box before we head over. ... See you soon."
"What are you packing?" Jane asked, the second the phone was hung up.
"Spellbooks." She said, looking directly at her daughter. "That's where they'll find their answer, according to Chad."
"Chad used magic? I didn't even know he could."
"Perhaps he just came across a magical object."
"He didn't steal your wand, did he?"
Fairy Godmother shook her head. "We would know." She started clearing shelves in her office. Every spellbook she came across found its way into a box.
"Are you still angry with me about this morning?" Ben asked as he approached his mother outside the hospital.
Belle showed to make her own donation, and ended up dogsitting afterward. "I was never angry with you. I just don't understand why you didn't let him handle it himself."
Ben sat, and Dude immediately nuzzled his hand. Asking to be pet. The king did not meet this request. "He wouldn't have."
"I don't see how that's a show of defiance." To Belle, it was simply disgusting.
"He wouldn't let it spread. Just sit long enough until it made him sicker."
Intelligent as she was, his mother couldn't see the logic in that. "Why?"
"...Remorse."
"You really think Chad feels that?" It was a simple question, but it felt like criticism. Enough to get Ben to stand up again.
"Everyone is so quick to believe he committed the worst crime the kingdom has seen in two decades, but I'm the only one who thinks he could feel sorry about it?
"No, I hope you're right." His mother told him.
"About all of it?" Ben hadn't realized he'd spoken his thoughts until Belle responded.
"What else is there?"
Her son averted his eyes, thinking an answer would be worse than his silence.
Not for her it wasn't. "Benjamin Florian."
His emerald eyes were shining, glazed over with tears. "I don't think Chad's as guilty as he looks."
Mal drew from memory. Her model would've stayed still for the entirety of her twenty-minute visit hours earlier. He didn't have a choice. But there was no life in his eyes as long as they were closed. So she imagined them open.
Evie felt her own imagination wouldn't help her. She watched as Mal sketched, the faint smile on her face showing that she found comfort in each pencil stroke.
The daughter of the Evil Queen felt that her own hands could never create an image that did her friend justice. Unless that image wasn't drawn.
She fetched her magic mirror and whispered to it. That way she wouldn't disturb Mal. "Mirror, mirror in my hand, let me see Carlos as he was before tragedy struck the land."
The memory that unfolded before her happened to take place in front of another mirror. She saw a smile grace Carlos' reflection, while he modeled a new design she'd been working on. It had been over a week since then, and Evie forgot about that.
The next memory was something she'd witnessed many a time. Carlos was building something, and she knew that even he hadn't figured out what it was yet.
The next flash wasn't something Evie had seen herself. At least not from the angle her mirror presented. Carlos sat with his back pressed up against Mal's bed, looking back at her.
Evie's eyebrows drew together, and the scene changed. Carlos' eyes were wide with excitement, setting sight on the science and technology section of Ben's library.
In the next glimpse, his eyes were covered by sunglasses. As he lounged by the pool.
After that, his eyes were hardly seen. He turned away from the tourney field. Which seemed empty apart from him. Evie almost questioned that aloud, but she had a feeling there was more to take in.
After all those happy memories, Evie was sad to see his smile vanish. As he left Dude behind. That was a rare sight. He took that dog practically everywhere.
Evie could only imagine the sarcastic tone Carlos' sour expression alluded to in the next memory. The mirror's playback had no sound, but she could see in his face that he wanted to scream.
The last glimpse Evie got was of Carlos' fear-stricken face. The world around him blurred as he took off sprinting.
The movement was so quick it seemed to jolt the mirror, making her drop it.
After what she'd seen, Evie wondered if it was worth it to pick it up in the first place.
Each passing minute felt an hour long as Jay lied awake, staring at the ceiling. It was easier to sleep when he had a late-night walk to waste energy on.
He had more or less promised to find something else to put his energy into. So he decided he wouldn't even get up. If he got up, he was almost certain he'd get out. Lying still was an act of rebelling against himself.
An act he couldn't keep up for long.
Once on his feet, he found himself heading to the window instead of the door. He could hear Lonnie's voice in his head as he looked out. Find anything good out there, yet? He never did.
So why did he keep looking?
It wasn't worth the trouble it caused. It was keeping his headmistress awake. He could tell her watchful eyes were tired. Didn't she have enough to deal with without him adding to the list?
That thought was enough to get Jay back in his bed, but he didn't go empty handed.
A pillow with crossbones on the face of it lied within easy reach.
Carlos wasn't sure why he ever left the Bargain Castle for Hell Hall. There was nothing for him there. Nothing he wanted, anyway.
His mother's car was parked out front. Which meant she got bored of being away from him, and had some more hell to raise.
There was no point in sneaking in the door. She would be waiting right behind it.
"Looks like it's been a lonely day for the both of us."
He was expecting to be met with demands, not a harmless observation. "Not for me. Not for long, anyway."
Cruella smiled, but he didn't take it as genuine. He never could. "You're out of their league." Only she would think that was a compliment. Carlos didn't plan on taking it to heart. He'd found three friends for life in the most unlikely place. He wasn't going to let them go. Ever. "You know that old saying misery loves company?" He nodded. He didn't know where his mother was going with this, and he didn't care. She was calm. By now, he had the signs she was going to snap memorized. "I think, for a long time, we were both afraid to stop being miserable."
Then they'd be alone.
"Miserable's the only way to be here." Carlos argued.
"I question that every time I see you smile." She said, stepping closer. Out of instinct, he inched backward. She didn't seem to notice. "This place could be a fairytale, too. If there were more people like you in it."
"What do you want?" Carlos asked, surprised how blunt the question came out. She had to be buttering him up for something.
"I want to spend some time in my fur closet. And then spend some time with my baby."
He scoffed. "Of course," He gestured to the stuffed dog. "if you took that thing to the spa, the steam would probably shrink it."
"Oh, Carlos." Cruella suddenly cupped his face with her hand. He flinched, even though her grip was gentle for once. "I was talking about you…"
Thanks for reading, PLEASE REVIEW! For those curious, Cadence's name is inspired by the theory that she's Ariel's daughter. Which is Melody is canon. Hope you don't mind the change.
Speaking of names, I forgot to take a poll on what you guys want the girl with the apple's name to be last chapter.
Ideas, questions, theories and corrections are greatly appreciated. As always, feel free to let me know if there's anything you want me to elaborate on.
I'll update ASAP! =]