Chapter 11 – A Line Between

GENERAL WARNING – Low Self-Esteem. I know it's somewhat of a constant presence in this story, but it especially flares up this chapter.

WARNING – Breakdown – Gil has an emotional breakdown in the second scene that covers some of his past abuse, see endnotes for more details.

GENERAL WARNING – Referenced abortions. Brief references to theoretical abortions in the third scene. Again, it is nothing graphic, just part of a conversation that covers the current status of the Isle. It's like a sentence, but I didn't want anyone to get caught off guard.

-:-:-:-:-:-

Gil never really got a break. After the polka was an Atlantian group dance that involved linking together in a long chain and a lot of hopping (Gil was sad that Jay missed it because he loved all the Atlantian dances, anything that required a lot of cardio was a win in his book). He somehow got wrangled into swing dancing with the heir to Maldonia, the young prince letting out a cheerful cry when he realized Gil could do lifts, and then it became a competition to see how many times he could swing his dance partner upside down before King Adam had an aneurism. The answer was four.

Music from Atlantica had been played out of what was probably politeness because those dances didn't translate well on dry land, but Gil and Queen Ariel gave it their best shot anyway, inadvertently leading an impromptu class on the finer arts of ocean dancing (which Gil really wasn't that good at, but the queen gave him points for enthusiasm, which he appreciated).

He finally got to rest with a slow dance, Jane appearing out of the nether of people to shyly request a swing around the floor – as though she even had to ask, and Gil got to cradle her against his chest, feeling more grounded than he had since he'd first put on his flashy suit.

He left the dancefloor when music from Corona began to play, Jane dragged into the mess by Marsaili (thatwas the name of Merida's daughter), pretending he didn't see the few individuals who were waving for his attention, beckoning him to join. He slid out onto the balcony as soon as he got the chance, desperate for a breather, for a chance to be alone. Dancing was fun but the crowds were beginning to get to him. He'd been trained by the Isle for too long to ever really like them, and before he'd had Jay to watch his back. Here, he had Ben and Doug and Jane, but they didn't know about the world's cruelties, and were fortunate enough that they didn't always have to be on alert.

It wasn't bad; it just made some things harder. So Gil wasn't ashamed when he tucked himself into the shadows and leaned against the balcony, staring out onto the sea.

The barrier that surrounded the Isle of the Lost looked just as sinister as it always did, though that night it seemed especially prominent, standing out against the evening sky despite its murky essence, unapologetically bold. It seemed almost spiteful in its nature, the very last rebellion the villains could offer to the rest of the world, and Gil ached to see it. Uma was out there. Uma and Harry and the rest of the crew were scrambling to survive while Gil danced in garments that cost more than he could ever earn, rubbing elbows with royalty and pretending everything was okay. Granted, his past self was out there too also fighting to stay alive, but Gil still felt guilty.

It was stupid though, like him. The barrier was going to come down. They were going to get out. It just hadn't happened yet.

"You don't have to be scared of them." Ben strolled out of the shadows as though it were second nature, as though crown princes were just as accustomed to stealth as they were riding in parades. "The barrier will hold."

"I'm not scared of them," Gil said as Ben settled in beside him, both hands resting on the railing. "At least, I'm not scared of most of them. I'm sad."

"Sad?" Ben's brows furrowed. "Why?"

Gil had to look away. "For the children," he admitted. "They've done nothing wrong, but they're trapped there." Trapped and furious at their helplessness. "It's worth being sad about."

"You're wasting tears on villain kids?" Chad broke into the conversation as if he'd always been there, Gil's multitude of dance partners and a few other young royals following after him, flooding the balcony. "You shouldn't bother, they wouldn't cry for you."

Gil had to keep himself from tensing. "Those kids had no more choice in who they were born to than you had in being a prince," he said, and he could see Chad struggle through the accusation, but beside him Fairuza – the princess of Agrabah – got a thoughtful look. "As in, they didn't."

"Do you think the Isle is a mistake?" Fairuza asked – a gentle probe in an effort to get a feel for the situation, just like when they were dancing.

Gil could feel the weight of their stares on him. He chose his words carefully, doing his best to quote Evie's arguments, because she made everything seem so reasonable.

"I think the Isle was a well-intended measure of defense that was better in conception than it is in execution." A few of the kids' eyes flew wide at the statement, Chad rapidly blinking, as though he were trying to start the conversation over, but they all stayed silent. "At least, as far as the kids are concerned. The ultimate goal of incarceration should be rehabilitation, but instead we shoved a bunch of villains onto a small area of land and allowed them to run free because they weren't our problem anymore. Which is…" Horrible, really horrible. "Which leads to them preying on the petty criminals sent over from smaller kingdoms, which leads to children being raised by murderers and kidnappers. I mean-" Gil swallowed, trying to remember the thread of Evie's argument, of Mal's. "Parental rights are important, but those people-" He motioned towards the Isle. "They're citizens of Auradon too. The kids are citizens who have committed no crimes, but we leave them on the Isle because for whatever reason we think genocidal maniacs deserve to have their parental rights respected. It doesn't make sense."

"They're the ones that chose to have kids," Chad pointed out. "They wouldn't have had them if they didn't want them, right?"

"They love them," one of the Atlantian heirs pressed. "They have to. It would be cruel to separate them."

Gil tried very hard not to frown. To shake.

Somehow, he managed to look at Chad. "Did Lady Tremaine love your mother?" The prince didn't respond, clearly taken off guard. "Mother Gothel-" He said her name and he didn't choke on it. "-raised Queen Rapunzel for eighteen years, but even then, she had no love for her. I…" He turned to Ben, focused only on him, on the prince, who seemed so lost and very confused. "Do you think Gaston would love his children? He supposedly loved your mother, but he tried to hurt her anyway. I-" Gil let out a shuddery breath. "I'm not saying all villains are past the point of redemption, but maybe we should consider the severity of their crimes, consider their psychological profiles and then maybe just – not leave helpless children with them, depending on the results. Children who don't know better, because they have no reference for the outside world. For how things are supposed to be."

There was a pointed moment of silence, Anna's daughter fiddling with her skirt while the Maldonian prince frowned, sharing quiet whispers with some kids from the Imperial City.

"It can't be that bad," Chad pressed, struggling for some kind of defense. "We send them supplies."

"We send them leftovers," Gil corrected. "Things that couldn't be of use here so they get sent where we don't have to see them anymore. The Isle is basically Auradon's garbage dump."

"That's not true," Ben said, but his brows were furrowed because he didn't know that for sure, like Gil did. "We wouldn't do that."

Gil sighed. His chest felt tight and unhappy again, and the feeling got worse when he noticed Doug and Jane hanging out on the outskirts of the group that had gathered on the balcony.

"No one cares about villains, Ben," Gil said it quietly, but the others maintained such a strong silence that the words carried. "And I'm not saying that we should, but their kids…" He frowned. "They deserve a chance and no one's giving them one. They're going to live and die on the island and for what? What crime did they commit other than being born to their parents?"

"What are you saying?" Chad sputtered, charging in close. "That we should let those villain kids, what, off the Isle? Set them free to wreck Auradon?!"

"Those kids have been struggling to survive all their lives." Gil kept his tone even because grace in the wake of adversity was Evie's way of proving her superiority. "It wouldn't be an easy transition because they've been doing what they had to in order to get by – but should they be allowed off the Isle? Absolutely." This instigated an immediate commotion, but Gil talked over it. "They deserve the chance. They should have the choice to be good, instead of having the odds stacked against them and the rest of us being surprised when they don't know what good is."

"You're a lunatic," Chad declared. "No wonder Ben kept you hidden away; I would have too."

Even taken off guard as he was, Ben's response was immediate and protective, sliding in front of Gil with an easy sort of grace. "That's enough, Chad."

"Do you hear what he's saying?" Chad pressed. "It's treason! He's talking about your dad-"

"No one is without faults," Ben began to say, but others were talking now, one on top of the other, and they were drawing in to state their arguments, because it couldn't be that bad and who the hell was Gil, anyway? What did he know?

Gil should stay and clean the mess he had created, but he felt raw and broken inside, shaken from how badly he wanted to scream that he knew, of course he knew, who the hell else would know better about Cruella De Ville using her son as a slave or Jay sleeping on a pile of carpets after being forced to steal all day or Evie being held up to ideals of perfection and being punished for falling short. For children who wanted so much to be loved that they gave up part of themselves – their will to read or their will to explore the ocean instead of work in a Chip Shoppe or forcing a desire to get their hand bitten off by a crocodile because maybe then their parents would look on them with something like affection.

It wasn't fair. None of it was fair.

So Gil stepped back into the shadows, ducking behind a large potted fern until he could slip over the edge of the balcony, landing in the gardens below.

-:-:-:-:-:-

He made use of the secret passages Doug had reviewed with him earlier, hand pressing hard against his heart as though it could keep it from fracturing in pieces. It wasn't fair that people looked at Mal and saw her mother instead of a caring and devoted queen, it wasn't fair that they saw her green eyes and thought dragon and not slender girls obsessed with strawberries, who waited outside of bushes for wayward friends that fell asleep in the mulch.

Tears were dripping down his face but Gil ignored them, because there was no Gaston here to yell at him to be a man. There was no rival pirate crew holding him hostage, laughing at his hope that Uma would come for him (she always did, but not after the blood and the pain). There were no roving gangs looking for an easy prey or hunters obsessed with their glory days ready to drag him by his seemingly indestructible hair. Gaston hated his hair; Gil hated his hair.

They all just hated. That was what the Isle was.

He ended up in the library, tucked behind the couch where Queen Belle read to them. His knees were drawn close to his chest, face buried in the soft material of his pants as he tried to settle his breathing. He'd already secured his bandana back into its proper place on his head, but he kept the mask and hood on too because he wanted to hide, even though he knew they'd come for him soon. It would be the guards, he guessed. Maybe Gil should have saved them the work and just taken himself to the dungeon, but he wanted a few moments of normality before he was locked up again. It wasn't something he deserved, but the Isle had trained him to take what he could get, to revel in these moments of happiness so he could ration them out later, when he really needed them.

It was hard to tell how much time had passed before he sensed someone walking into the reading nook, soft clicks on the wooden floor indicated heeled shoes, which meant Jane. He wondered if Ben was still stuck playing peacekeeper with his peers, of assuring them that Gil's words held no value, that he was just a nobody. He wondered if Doug was hanging back in the doorway or if he was with Ben or if he had given up on them all because he had gone to the ball for science and had gotten far more than that. Gil wouldn't blame him, if he decided to leave. If Jane decided to room with her mom because Gil broke everything, even people.

A hand settled on his shoulder, its grip sure but warm. And it was grounding for all of two seconds before Gil realized it couldn't be Jane, because Jane would be shivering, now, wouldn't be able to be this certain and would have made more noise sitting down, and if it wasn't Jane-

Gil looked up slowly, peeking over the curve of his knees to see Queen Belle settled in beside him, her mask abandoned in her lap.

He tried not to sob. "I'm sorry," he hissed around the lump in his throat. "I'm sorry I ruined your ball."

"You ruined nothing, Flynn." Her voice was so soft and understanding and why? Did she not know what Gil had done? Didn't she realize what he'd said? "You introduced some new ideas, but they were things that needed to be said." She was sure to hold his gaze while she explained this, her hand never falling from his shoulder. "I'm proud of you for saying them. That took a lot of bravery."

At that point, Gil did sob. "Please don't think I'm good. Chad was- he was right, about that. I don't know anything."

Queen Belle's hand, which had been rubbing small circles into the meat of Gil's shoulder, stilled. "Is that what they told you back on the Isle?"

Gil couldn't even be surprised, because Ben's mom was smart. Crazy, smart. The prince had to have gotten it from somewhere. Maybe she had always known.

"I'm sorry," he whispered again. "I'm sorry for what my dad- well-" Gil squeezed his eyes closed, dragging in a rough breath of air. "He's not even really my dad but he claimed me and I- I'm sorry, for what he did. For-" Gil shrugged. "I'm sorry that I- I wanted to be just like him, because then-" It was getting hard to see through the tears. "T-Then he might- he might love me. And even though he- he'd hit me or lock me up or t-try to drown me in the t-tub I still- I wanted him to love me." Gil's hands clutched hard at his knees, the pain grounding him enough to keep him from falling into a panic attack. "Because parents are supposed to love you. And if they don't-" Gil sobbed. "There must be s-something wrong with you."

"Flynn." Queen Belle had an arm wrapped around his shoulders, had him cradled against her side before he even realized it, her lips pressing against the hood of his jacket. "There is nothing wrong with you. Not a single thing wrong that would make you unlovable." She was rocking him now like a mom would, he guessed, like his Uncle LeFou had when Gaston hadn't turned his rage on him too. "Gaston is a horrible man, and I'm sorry that you were ever left with him. That we turned a blind eye to his fatherhood."

"To be fair," Gil sniffed. "He does like Junior and Trois. But um- they are his, so I guess that makes sense."

"I'm glad you're not," Queen Belle said, and she- she meant it, was the thing. "I'm so glad you're you, Flynn. You don't need to be any other way."

"I uh…" Didn't know what to say. "They don't know, about. I haven't told them."

"And I won't either," Queen Belle promised, like it was- like she could do that, even though Gil had confessed to being a traitor. "This is ours, but Flynn…" She urged him to look at her with gentle nudges, and when he did, he could see the tears in her eyes, the ones she had managed to stifle just to keep a level head. For him. "My son, Jane and Douglass – they like you just as you are too. Don't hide from them." Her hand traced the edge of his bandana. "You'd be surprised what could happen, if you gave them a chance."

"Is this your way of telling me to go back to the room?" Gil asked, trying to clear tear tracks from his cheeks with his palm. It didn't really work, but he had to give it a shot.

"You don't have to go anywhere you don't want to." It was a promise, and not one given lightly. "We can stay here as long as you need."

"But-"

"I am exactly where I'm needed," she interrupted, anticipating his protest. "There's not a queenly duty more important than this right here."

"T-Thank you," Gil whispered, leaning into her hold. She didn't shirk away from him, didn't flinch because her comfort wasn't conditional. She hummed a quiet tune instead, rocking Gil gently. "I'm glad you're Ben's mom."

"And I'm glad Ben met you."

It wasn't even a lie.

This time, when tears burned in his eyes, they were derived from happiness.

-:-:-:-:-:-

The secret passage that went from the library to Ben's room didn't actually have a slide, but Gil was okay with that, using the flashlight Queen Belle had pressed into his hands to guide him to the back of Ben's bookcase. He shouldered it open, hoping the lingering dust wouldn't cling to the special-made suit as he made his way into the safety of the prince's room. He should pack a bag or something. Gil could hide out in the passageways until morning, then ask Cogsworth for the room he was originally supposed to get.

He would have been out of Ben's hair in ten minutes tops, but fate immediately threw a wrench into his plan when he realized Jane and Doug were already there, waiting for him.

Jane was curled up on one of the couches, distractedly flipping through Gil's sketchbook. She had abandoned most of her accessories on a nearby table, but her hair was still twisted back in Gil's neat braid, save for a few stray tendrils that seemed to be trying to escape that framed her face.

Doug had been pacing the length of the room, some kind of ledger held in one hand while the other combed through his hair. His mask and jacket had been abandoned and his bowtie was undone, leaving it to precariously dangle from his neck as he made his loop. Both of them stopped what they were doing when Gil slid into the room, and both of them immediately abandoned their books in favor of bolting to Gil, as though they were afraid he was going to run away again.

Which, to be fair, had sort of been the plan.

"Flynn!" Jane latched onto his right arm and Doug took the other, both of them seeming desperate to hold onto him to make sure he was really there. "Forget what Chad said," Jane urged. "He's-"

"Stupid," Doug hissed, his voice dripping like venom. "You're not crazy and you're definitely not just a pretty face-"

"He still said I was pretty?" Was what Gil's mind decided to latch onto, because dread was building in his chest again.

"He said a lot of things," Doug snapped. "Most of them moronic and slanderous."

"Ben yelled at him," Jane offered, tone quiet but insistent. "Well, Ben dressed him down, but you could tell he wanted to yell at him which normally doesn't happen so everyone was pretty worked up about that."

"Ben," Gil said, beginning to feel panicked. There it was, his old friend, clawing at his throat. "Is he-"

"Yelling at his dad," Doug said. "Actually yelling."

"The thing you said about the Isle getting our leftovers…" Jane took her bottom lip between her teeth, worrying at it as she urged Gil towards the couch. "That's all true. Doug pulled the records-"

"The ones available to the public." Doug muttered. "There's not much because they didn't expect anyone to care, but it confirms that the Isle basically lives off of charity donations and what items Auradon markets cannot sell."

"There's barely any records of medicine going over," Jane said. "Vitamins. Water purification equipment. It's just whatever we end up sending them."

Everything loaded up onto barges that landed on the Isle twice a month. Barge days were a war, and if you didn't have a crew to help gather supplies you were almost guaranteed to starve. The only people who purposefully avoided the barges were the ones who knew they could steal what they needed later, who could mark it up at a higher price to scalp those who were too weak or scared to brave the horrors of distribution day.

"We don't think about the Isle," Doug said as they settled onto the couch, Gil cushioned between them. "You were right about that. None of us did. I just- I didn't think-"

"They just run free there?" Jane pressed in, her thin brows scrunched with worry. "There's no restrictions besides the barrier? They can just hurt whoever's inside?"

Gil shrugged, forcing a nonchalance so carefully that it pained him. "That's the way the Isle was designed."

"But those kids-" Doug leaned into him, one hand braced on Gil's shoulder. "You said they had kids. Would they have really gone through the trouble of raising them if they didn't want them?"

"Without medical care, theoretically-" Uma was the one who taught Gil the power of that word, that helped him build up his conversational arsenal so he could be respected. "-it would be more dangerous to terminate a pregnancy than to keep it to um… term. That's probably why they had kids. The magic from the barrier would keep them alive for the first few years no matter what anyone did, so…" He had to purposefully not look at them. "By that point they probably liked the idea of having a legacy. Even if that legacy was trapped on the Isle."

"They left them there without any kind of supervision so they could…" Doug scowled. "It's just villains making more villains."

Gil flinched, trying to ignore Jane's muffled gasp. "They're not-"

"Sorry." Doug was rubbing his arm now. "That came out wrong. I meant- you were right about how if they didn't have any way of knowing what was good, then of course their kids would follow in their footsteps. It's all they know. I'm not-"

"He means," Jane interrupted, clutching Gil's arm carefully. "That they're not predisposed to evil. That's not what he was saying."

"Right." Doug nodded. "They're just kids. Like us but less lucky."

"It's horrible," Jane sighed. Her grip had gotten less demanding and more gentle, a soft reminder of her presence that didn't hurt. "And we didn't even know…"

Whatever she was going to say got cut off by the twin doors to Ben's room flying open, slamming against the wall with a resounding crash that had all of them jumping, eyes widening at the sight of Ben stalking into the room and tossing his mask to the side with a careless growl, his jacket following seconds later.

"I can't believe this!" he snapped, tugging at his hair. "I feel so stupid just blindly trusting my dad, trusting the council to have put together a functioning incarceration system, but there are so many flaws-" He paused upon seeing the three of them, and immediately his expression of anger melted away into one of regret and sorrow.

An apology lodged in Gil's throat, words cascading over each other until his tongue was unable to determine which should go first, but in that time Ben crossed the room, falling to his knees before the three of them, one hand bracing itself on Gil's thigh.

"Flynn," he gasped, and this was it, this was- he was going to start crying now and Gil was going to have to leave. "I'm so sorry. I- you took me by surprise and then Chad-" He shook his head. "It's not an excuse, but I should have stepped in sooner. Shouldn't have let them make you feel like you had to run away. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"What?" Gil didn't know what to do with his hands, felt comforted and cared for by the contact each of them shared with him but overwhelmed all at once because of the attention. "I'm the one who talked about such ugly stuff during a celebration. It was my fault. I-" He swallowed. "I didn't even know they'd be on that balcony. If I had, I would have gone somewhere else."

"I don't think that would have helped." Ben seemed to solve Gil's hand problem by taking them in his own. "They were there because that's where you were. You uh… left an impression."

Gil shuddered. "I wish it had been a good one."

"What did we say about listening to Chad?" Jane spoke up, seeming more authoritative than before. "Don't do it. He's stupid."

"And he certainly didn't speak for everyone," Ben pressed, a smile tugging at his lips. "You started quite the conversation. A good one, though. I know Princess Fairuza appreciated the opportunity for an ethics debate. Kennet – Princess Anna's son, did too, and his sister Princess Agot wasn't quiet about speaking in your defense. Neither was Marsaili or Aziz, and you didn't even meet the prince of Agrabah."

"I…" Gil didn't know what to say. He had expected Ben to be angry and he was, but not at Gil. "I thought you'd be um… upset with me."

"Flynn," Ben was leaning forward now, his eyes shining with a painful kind of honesty. "You didn't do anything wrong. You surprised me but this shouldn't have because I- we know how big your heart is. Of course you'd care about people on the Isle, you're too kind not to."

Gil took in a shaky breath. "Don't…"

"Flynn." Jane had a hand wrapped around his shoulders now, and Doug did too, seemed just as determined to settle in close like the others. "Don't sell yourself short."

"Because we haven't," Doug added. "And we won't."

"Not ever," Ben promised, smile spreading wide. "Flynn… do you- I know you're not supposed to talk about it, but in the future, do you know any villain kids?"

Gil should lie, but he knew he'd already played his hand.

"Yeah, I do," he admitted. "They're… they're my friends and-" He frowned. "What they have been through is… was horrible. And they didn't deserve it because-" He turned to Doug. "Because they might be rough and hard through necessity but they're also loyal, and they can be so kind and fierce and passionate and-" He swallowed. "Scared. They'd never admit it, Ben, but if their parents are terrifying to people they don't know, think of what they could have done to them."

"I can't…" Ben's expression turned pained. "I can't imagine it. I'm sorry that it- that this even happened. I- I have to fix it."

"You will," Gil said before he realized that he shouldn't, but Ben seemed so relieved, Jane and Doug looked so hopeful, that he couldn't say anything else. "You will. It will take time, but when you do…" Gil managed a grin, and this didn't even feel forced, it felt light and happy and true. "It will be a glorious day."

"I can't wait," Ben said, his eyes shining bright. "I really can't wait."

-:-:-:-:-:-

Gil wasn't sure what had woken him up, but something had tugged on his survival instincts in the comfort of Ben's room, which hadn't happened during his stay – nightmares excluded. He blinked awake slowly, eyes struggling to make out the intruder in the faint, pre-dawn light that spilled through Ben's windows. There were more shadows than light, but eventually he recognized Mrs. Potts' silhouette leaning over Doug's sleeping body, her hand resting gently on Gil's shoulder where she must have shaken him awake.

His head felt fuzzy, eyes dry and logged with the scraggly remnants of sleep. He was hot because they had passed out in their fancy ball clothes, and the scents of stale sweat and silky perfume were beginning to sting his nose.

She pressed a finger to her lips when it looked like he was going to speak, and motioned for him to get out of bed. Mrs. Potts had always been kind to him, though she didn't seem to understand him much, so Gil didn't think much of following her lead. She closed the bed curtain behind him and then just as silently led him out of the room, letting the footmen close the door with exaggerated care.

She didn't speak to him until they were safely down the hall, and her smile seemed different, somehow. Forced.

"Hello, dearie. King Adam thought with all the excitement from yesterday that maybe you and the others could use some time apart," she explained as she led him down a different hallway, then up a set of stairs. "Master Ben has grown very fond of you, and King Adam's afraid that when the time comes for you to go-" She cut herself off with a smile. "Well, he doesn't want that to be harder than it needs to be."

They ended up taking yet another staircase, then another, until Gil realized they must be making their way up some kind of tower.

"So we've had a new guest quarters prepared for you!" she chirped, bustling along like everything was fine. And Gil supposed it was, because everything she'd said was true. Gil didn't want things to be hard on Ben either, even if he would eventually see him again. "Cogsworth was able to create an art studio just for you, and we stocked the shelves with books from the library. I can send one of the footmen down for something specific later, if you'd like."

At the top of the winding staircase they drew to a halt outside a large, foreboding door, and Gil had no doubt in his mind that the 'footmen' outside his room where actually guards.

"I'll be up with breakfast shortly, Mr. Flynn." She gave him a kind smile, likely because she knew Gil had nothing, and she could offer him that much. "Please ring if you need anything."

Anything but freedom, Gil thought as he entered the room, the massive door shutting with an ominous click behind him.

He walked over towards the windows – locked, of course – and felt the distant curls of hysteria digging into his mind because- well, it was kind of funny. Here he was with magic hair, locked inside a tower.

Fairytales really did repeat themselves.

He laughed because if he didn't, he'd cry, and he had no more room for tears. The room was nice – certainly nicer than anything back on the Isle – all tall ceilings and open spaces and gold leaf furniture. There really was an art nook, complete with canvases and every paint color he could imagine. There were pastels and pencils and a collection of sketchbooks. There was a couch surrounded by bookcases that were half-full (because they had probably started this last night and hadn't been able to finish) and a dresser full of clothes that would fit him and anything he could ever possibly need.

It was lonely, but he'd had worse. He'd had much worse.

This, he could live with.

-:-:-:-:-:-

Endnotes:

Thanks to everyone for your feedback! It's great to hear from you guys, and I'm glad you're enjoying the story so far!

Story notes:

I based the Atlantian dance on a Mesopotamian group dance I found because apparently the Atlantian language is based in Sumerian, which was in Mesopotamia? Quote me on literally none of this, I know nothing.

I know. I KNOW. I made Chad the badguy. This was before I ever started on 'Life is a Masquerade', so he seemed like a good enough antagonist at the time. To uphold past Paisley's wishes, I kept the confrontation as it was, though I did some tweaking later in the story to make it less painful for me ;)

WARNING – Breakdown. In the second scene, Gil lists some of the stuff Gaston did to him when he was younger. It is not graphic by any means, but it might still be upsetting for some people. If you would like to skip the specifics, please look for this line:

Gil couldn't even be surprised, because Ben's mom was smart. Crazy, smart. The prince had to have gotten it from somewhere. Maybe she had always known.

You can skip the next paragraph and jump back in at the paragraph that starts with:

"Flynn." Belle had an arm wrapped around his shoulder…

Until next time :)