Lots of angst in this one.. It really isn't very nice and cuddly. You've been warned.

As always the weekend flew by. There is just never enough time to get everything done in the weekend that you want to. It doesn't matter if you live in Auradon, the Isle, or some magical land called New York City. Weekends are just never long enough. Monday started out okay. Classes went reasonably, everyone managed to stay out of trouble some how and Fairy Godmother managed to be less annoying than normal.

" You guys want to head over to the lake?" asked Mal.

Jay shook his head "Away game today, I've gotta head over to the locker rooms. It's all the way in Neverland so I'll be back late. See ya."

"I've got remedial history with Willerstein." Carlos muttered.

"Oh yeah I forgot about that, will you be at dinner after?" Mal asked.

Carlos shook his head sadly "Probably not, I have detention with Boyle after, who knows how long that will take." Carlos adjusted his book bag and started to head off.

Evie watched Carlos leave her expression didn't even try to hide the worry she was feeling for the youngest of the group, then turning to Mal, "We have a test tomorrow anyway, we're going to the library."

Mal huffed but muttered a "Fine" as the two girls headed off to work on school work.

Carlos had been dreading this first remedial history session with Willerstein. Anita had told him Willerstein wasn't allowed to paddle him anymore, but that brought little comfort to Carlos who knew the man was still capable of making his life horrible. As he entered the classroom Mr. Willerstein looked up from his desk. The man gestured to a desk near the front, Carlos took it as his cue to sit there. He wasn't sure what to expect in these sessions but didn't have high expectations that it would be decent.

"You'll be rewriting each of your failing essays to my standards." Mr. Willerstein began as he handed Carlos his essay on Cinderellaberg. Carlos sighed, even Anita thought this was an excellent paper, he wasn't sure what kind of revising he needed to do to make this acceptable. Carlos had been expecting this and had stopped by the library yesterday to get a variety of books on the kingdom as reference material.

"What do you think you're doing?" Mr. Willerstein snapped as Carlos pulled a fourth heavy tome out of his bag.

Carlos looked up confused, "I got them from the library, to reference."

Mr. Willerstein looked furious although Carlos couldn't understand why.
"No need for those De Vil. Use the texts in the corner."

Carlos shrugged and went to the bookshelf in the corner of the room to find some material, but after selecting a few books ended up falling back on the books from the library which seemed to cover a more in depth history and wasn't nearly as biased.

Twenty minutes later, when Mr. Willerstein noticed that Carlos had ignored his instructions and was using the material he brought the man completely flipped out.

"Sir, I'm just trying to do my work, it's just different references, you're being ridiculous" Carlos finally argued unwisely.

"Pardon?" Mr. Willerstein asked, his tone should have thrown red flags up like there was no tomorrow, but Carlos was frustrated and didn't notice.

"He's as crazy as my mother." He mumbled just loud enough for his teacher to hear.

Mr Willerstein roughly pulled Carlos out of his seat and instructed him to kneel. Carlos groaned, not this punishment again, he thought bitterly.
"I didn't do anything wrong!" Carlos protested.

"We're going to get something straight right here and now, De Vil. I'm in charge, not you. When I say not to use these, you don't." here the man started piling the heavy books onto the boys outstretched arms. "You want to use these, this is how you'll use them. Next time I hope you'll follow my instructions a little closer and learn a little respect while you're at it."

Carlos couldn't believe this, he wasn't one for trying to get out of a well earned punishment, he typically took those without complaint (like his mother would have let him complain anyway), but kneeling here holding out these heavy books because why exactly? Oh yeah because Willerstein didn't like that he used reference material that contradicted the man's own narrow kingdom view. If only Anita where back today he was sure she'd not be happy when she found out about this unjust situation Carlos found himself in.

40 minutes later when Willerstein finally let Carlos leave he realized how sore he was, muscle fatigue had set in and Carlos didn't think he'd be able to even lift up his bookbag, but he managed somehow and dragged his feet over to the biology classroom for his detention with Mr. Boyle.

"Your late." the normally well disposed Mr. Boyle said with a frown.

Carlos dropped his bag by his normal chair, "Sorry, Mr. Willerstein only just let me leave." he muttered. Mr. Boyle pressed his lips together.

"Your job is to wash all these." Here he gestured to an array of beakers, flasks, test tubes, petri dishes that all needed to be cleaned. It looked like it would take a while to get through. "And these" he pulled out a rolling cart with boxes filled with more of the same.

Carlos' jaw dropped open, "But sir that will take hours."

"Yes, it will. Waste my time not doing a lab, and I'll waste your time too. Turn off the light when you leave for the evening." The man said as he left the room.

Carlos wanted to cry, he hadn't had much for lunch, and he'd definitely be missing dinner now. His stomach protested loudly. And to top it off he had homework that had been assigned today that was due tomorrow. There'd be no time to do it and he'd get in even more trouble tomorrow. His evening was not going well at all.

Carlos, never one to just sit back and pout, rolled up his sleeves, filled the sink, and got to work.

Several hours later Carlos put away the last of the clean beakers, his arms were so tired he didn't think he could even lift them any more after Willerstein's horrible punishment and then lifting boxes of science equipment and washing everything. All Carlos wanted to do was climb into bed, screw the homework that he hadn't even touched yet, he was too tired to care. He pulled his hoodie on and grabbed his book bag and headed across the quad towards the residential buildings, the weather was starting to chill in November and with the shorter days it was already dark even though it was only 8 o'clock.

"Well well well, look who it is. The runt of the villain pack." A deep voice said and Carlos quickly looked over to where its owner was. It was one of the older boys that he thought he vaguely remembered from his first day of regular classes, he'd managed to stay clear of them for weeks now, but now apparently his luck had run out.

Someone quickly snatched his bag away from him.
"Hey, give that back" he protested and tried to grab it but it was quickly tossed to a third youth, who now tossed it back to the first. Perhaps if his arms weren't so tired already he might have been successful at getting his things back and now Carlos was surrounded. "Come on guys, just give it back."

The older boys snickered "I don't think so, puppy."

Carlos lunged at the boy currently holding his bag and managed to connect his fist with the boys jaw. Carlos' eyes got wide, he clearly hadn't expected his punch to land so well. The boy narrowed his eyes at the smaller boy. "You're going to regret that."

"Just give me my stuff back, assholes."

At that the boys grabbed at Carlos who managed to dodge their reach and giving his bag up for lost ran towards the nearby building, as he was about to round the corner another boy stepped out and grabbed him.

"Going somewhere?" he mockingly asked as he pushed Carlos back to the group, one of the bullies was able to pin Carlos' arm behind him and the boy who had gotten hit in the jaw came up and suckerpunched the smaller white haired boy.

Carlos gasped for air and felt like none would fill his lungs as the four larger teens dragged him away from the school. Carlos was completely helpless when they dropped him on the ground on the far side of the tourney field and just when he thought he managed to get a lung full of air the kicks began. Someone kicked him in the gut, an other on his back, someone stomped on his fingers as he tried to protect his head, and then a pain in the back of his head and all went black.

/

Evie looked up from the gown she was detailing, "Mal, did you hear Carlos come back yet? He should be back by now. It's after curfew for the 9th graders."

"Nope." responded Mal, not looking up from her drawing.

Evie frowned at Mals disinterest, "I'm going to check his room in case he went by and we didn't see him." Evie couldn't help but feel like something wasn't right, although she couldn't tell what. Evie headed down the hall and opened the boys room, it was unlocked which was a little unusual but certainly not so much that she paid it too much mind. The room was dimly lit with the small nightlight in the corner that automatically turned on when dark, being tossed into small dark spaces was a regular occurrence for isle kids and when Mrs. Radcliffe had discovered Carlos adverse reaction to the dark she had gotten him and Jay, and Mal and Evie little nightlights for their dorms.

"Pup?" Evie whispered into the room, she didn't hear anything but then noticed a boy shaped lump under the blankets on Carlos' bed and his bookbag tossed in the corner. Evie smiled in relief, Carlos must have been really tired to be asleep already, then again he was always the first up. She gently closed the door and went back to her room, the knot in her stomach going away. She smiled at Mal, "He's out like a light already."

Mal gave a little chuckle and went back to her drawing.

/

"Way to go, Jay!"

"That was awesome, the way you jumped over that guy, and then bashed the other guys face!"

"Twenty points in one game, that must be a new record!"

Several teammates gave him high fives or pats on the back. Jay couldn't help grin from ear to ear. They had crushed the Lost Boys 45 to 8. What a way to finish up the season with their last game of the year. They'd know if they could get into the end of year tournament by the end of the week, but with this win their chances looked much better.

"Hit the showers boys!" Coach Jenson called out to his team. "Jay, come see me when you're done." The Lost Boys, were good enough sports to let the visiting team use the showers first knowing they had a 2 hour drive back to Auradon, ok, their Coach Michael Darling made them let the visiting team go first, but that's besides the point. Jay grabbed one of the individual showers like he always did, still not wanting his teammates to see the scars littering his back, and quickly washed up and changed before heading back out to meet Coach Jenson.

"Whats up coach?" Jay asked as he strolled over to where coach was sitting waiting for the team to finish up.

"Have a seat, Jay." Jay did and now felt a little worried as Coach Jenson didn't exactly look happy.

"I got the team's report cards this past weekend, we need to talk about your grades." he started "Now I know you're passing everything at the moment, but you're very close to failing in a couple of subjects. If you want to play any other sports this school year, or be on the team next fall, you need to work harder on getting them up so you're not so close to the edge. As it stands now, one failing test could pull down your average enough to pull you from a team temporarily."

Jay furrowed his brow and frowned, he nodded "I understand, Coach. Is that all?"

Coach nodded and Jay headed back onto the bus, great, just what he needed, more pressure, as if Jasmine and Colin weren't enough.

Jay slumped down in the far back of the bus and pulled out his bookbag, he had a test in chemistry the next day that he wasn't nearly ready for, but with a 2 hour drive ahead of him he figured he could at least try to get a decent grade on it. He pulled out his text and notes to study, when his book fell open there was a folded piece of paper wedged in, Jay curiously opened the paper and read it over, his eyes grew wide and he exhaled in relief as he studied it further.

When Lonnie got on Jay quickly closed his chemistry book and pulled out history to work on his paper. Lonnie smiled and did the same.

"I can't figure out why Carlos has such a hard time with this class." she commented "All Willerstein wants is for us to rephrase what's in the text book and some of the supplemental books he has in his classroom. Almost no thinking involved."

Jay chuckled "Maybe that's the problem. Carlos is smart, sometimes too smart for his own good. On the isle he always got in trouble with the teachers for being smarter than they were. And it doesn't help that Willerstein has it out for him."

Lonnie made an affirmative sound before bending over her notes and writing away. Jay was glad for the long bus ride back to Auradon Prep, he managed to finish the history paper and Lonnie helped him with math. He was feeling a little bit better about it all even if the entire rest of the team kept trying to distract him, and if it hadn't been for coach's warning he probably would have let them as he typically did.

As the team got closer to Auradon that distinct rumble of a storm approaching could be heard. Jay was not a fan but was thankful he was in the bus and soon would be inside the dorms at school where the cold November rain wouldn't bother him.

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