A/N I am sooooo sorry! This chapter was supposed to be posted LAST Wednesday with no excuse other than I totally forgot to post it here to! It was up on my AO3 account so anyone who follows that could know, but I doubt many of you do to. I'm sorry, my life is a mess right now! On the bright side, today you get TWO chapters!
Mal and Evie walk through the halls at a brisk pace, having parted ways with Ben back at their room, as he had a meeting with his parents.
Mal bites her lip, fighting down her worry and remembering their time on the Isle. Whenever something bad happened to Carlos, he had always gone to Jay. They were each other's rock. She has no idea how Carlos will handle this now, who he might turn to. If he turns to anyone, she knows it will be Evie, so she's glad her best friend is with her.
Evie continues to listen to her conversation with Jay over and over in her head, looking for anything she may have missed, anything that could give her a clue as to what happened. She sighs, her heart feeling heavy in her chest. They had been making so much progress in their relationship—Carlos had finally realized his feelings—and now this setback. She prays they can come back from this as strong as ever, but inwardly fears the opposite at the same time.
She also can't help but notice that this all started when Al came to school. Of course she felt guilty with herself even thinking it, as he had been so wonderful with her and Mal, and Jay and Ben had vouched for him too. But Carlos had seemed worried about him before, and even before they'd met Al's arrival had caused Jay to avoid Carlos, hurting him for the first time. She anxiously touches the pendant strung around her neck, hoping it will sooth her.
Before she can think any further on the subject they reach Jay and Carlos's room. Mal raps quickly on the door and they wait in silence, humming with energy. A light bark comes from the other side of the door, but no other sounds. They look at each other worriedly.
"Try the door." Evie suggests. Mal turns the handle, but the door doesn't budge. She frowns, wiggling the handle some more. Evie sighs loudly and then remembers something. "Try using that spell you used at the museum!"
"Right!" Mal murmurs the incantation under her breath and then turns the knob, holding her breath. The door opens, and they release their breath in a rush.
Dude runs out wagging his tail and yaps at them before running back into the room. Mal and Evie peak their heads around the corner.
"No one is here." Mal sighs, opening the door wider and walking in.
The girls scan the room silently, each wondering what to do and coming up blank but unable to admit it. Evie glances at Dude, who is lying on Carlos's bed with his head on his paws, looking at them sadly. She walks over and scratches behind his ear, sitting down with slumped shoulders. Dude licks her hand half-heartedly.
"Hey, maybe Dude could cheer Carlos up!" Evie exclaims, perking up. She smiles at Mal hopefully, but her smile dims when the other girl frowns at her.
"We'd still need to find him first though." Mal says with a frown.
"Oh, right." Evie frowns, her shoulders slumping again.
"But…" Mal straightens, smiling at her. "Maybe Dude could lead us to him!"
Evie smiles, jumping up. "Yes! That could totally work." She turns to the dog on the bed, who had lifted his head upon hearing his name. "Come on, Dude, you're going to show us where Carlos is!"
/
Meanwhile, in Al's room, Carlos yawns and rolls over before scrunching his nose. The bed smelled wrong, making him realize he wasn't in his own room. He frowns in confusion as the day's events slowly come back to him, and then closes his eyes again, wishing for that beautiful black oblivion to come back.
He sits up with a groan, his limbs feeling heavy and useless, just like his heart. He is exhausted, as if all of the energy has gone out of his body, leaving a hollow ache and a pounding headache. He blinks his eyes open slowly, opening them only to a blurry slit. He stares at his hands in his lap for a moment, blankly taking in the fiery red crescent marks on this forearms. He focuses on the dull licks of pain they send up his arms.
Once he's fully awake, if not at least slightly alert, he looks around. He vaguely remembers Al carrying him, the vibrations of his chest as he talked to him, but he can't remember the words. He does assume this is Al's room. The boy in question, however, is nowhere to be found.
Carlos stands up slowly and stretches out his body with a slight wince, relishing the twinges of pain that come from his muscles. Anything to distract him from thinking about him.
He walks over to the door but pauses before his hand touches the knob. He can't stay here, no way could he face Al after everything he witnessed, but where else would he go? He wouldn't face Jay, and didn't particularly want to see anyone in the state he is currently in. He sighs and shrugs, moving his feet forward and out the door with no place in particular in mind. Just anywhere.
Carlos walks down the hallway to the back entrance, happy Al's room is on the ground floor. He walks out the door, across the path, and into the main school building. He knows he won't run into many people hanging around empty classrooms, let alone his friends and teammates. He walks the empty hallways and up a flight of stairs in a daze, moving like a zombie.
Carlos is wandering down a hallway of closed and dark doorways when he hears the sound of faint music, sparking some feeling back into his body. He raises his head, his eyes wide, and focuses on his surroundings.
He is in a part of the school he'd never ventured to before. Looking around he discovers that it's the arts wings, with an art class on his right and what seems to be a room full of instruments on his left. The music is coming from down the hall, where he can see a faint band of light stretching across the tiled floor from underneath a closed door. There's a window next to the door with half-closed blinds, casting slanted bars of light across the opposite wall.
The beat of the music pulls Carlos forward, music unlike any he'd expect to hear at such a preppy, elite school like Auradon. The beat is alive, moving and pulsing like the music back on the Isle had. He had danced all night to music like this, stayed up for hours in abandoned warehouses and half-lit basements wading through crowds of withering, sweaty bodies, each moving to the beat in their own ways. This music was his music, the music that had brought him alive and graced his movements. He had forgotten how amazing it had felt to be able to move to the beat, to feel like he was good, great even, when he watched the eyes of the crowd trail after him as he moved and swayed and bounced.
Even now, in the darkened hallway miles away from that place, he found his hips begin to sway, his steps become longer and more languid, and his limbs seem to float effortlessly through the air and propel him forward to the door. Carlos stops outside the door and peers in, his breath catching at what he sees.
Inside the room is completely bare save for a single person and a stereo in the far corner of the room. The dance studio has pristine wooden floors gleaming under the florescent lights, and the far wall is covered entirely by large panels of mirror. The two side walls have wooden bars extending across their length at waist height.
And in the middle of the room is one boy, naked except for the cargo pants hanging loosely from his hips. His muscular back glistens under the light as he moves with the pounding beat of the music, following his own rhythm and staring intently at his reflection in the mirror.
Carlos puts his hand on the doorknob before he even thinks about what he's doing and pushes open the door, stepping across the gleaming threshold into something entirely new.
The music shuts off and the boy turns to him.