So I know I'm super late with this - work has been absolutely crazy and I've barely had time to sleep, never mind anything else!
Ben.
Seventeen. Junior Year.
Ben had barely slept after his talk with Mal in the library.
He should have fired off a quick message to Lumiere confirming that Mal did have plans and, no, they didn't involve him at all.
He should have told his parents about Mal's true parentage, because he was pretty sure they were unaware and that it would have some significant political implications.
He should have called Doug and actually talked about any one of the dozen trains of thought running through his mind.
He did none of that.
He went back to his room, and he moped.
Her father could buy and sell them like cattle and no one would blink an eye.
Was this how the other VKs felt around him? Like they were an ant at the mercy of a boot?
He'd thought that he could sway public opinion into accepting a VK as his girlfriend. But a demigod? Would Olympus ever accept him as a suitable match for the daughter of a Tier 1 Olympian?
Ben wasn't used to feeling hurt. Or blindsided. Or not getting what he wanted. Or things not going to his plan.
These feelings coming from whatever was going on between him and Mal, it was entirely new territory. And he wasn't quite ready to deconstruct it with anyone just yet.
Which meant he had flopped onto his bed fully clothed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about the fact that the gulf between them had just shifted irreversibly. And when that didn't help, he sat in his office and pretended to work.
It meant he heard the slamming doors around 9pm.
That he saw the lone red beanie sitting out on the tourney field. And the flash of a white halfway up a tree. He saw Evie heading out to play peacemaker around midnight. And he saw her heading back alone not long after.
He saw Mal deflate at breakfast when she and Evie entered the dining hall and realised the boys were nowhere to be seen.
He saw the way she wouldn't even look in his direction. And the way Evie leaned over and whispered something that looked like 'at least he doesn't look mad'.
But because he was still entirely unsure of what to do with anything that had happened in the last eighteen hours, Ben took the cowards way out and got his breakfast to go.
He found Jay in the gym not long after that, beating the life out of a punching bag.
Jay, on high alert, rounded on him the moment he stepped on a board that was a little creaky.
Ben held his hands up in a non-threatening manner, shocked by the transformation. There was a wild look in Jay's eyes that he had never seen before, but one he instinctively knew came from a lifetime of never knowing where the next attack would come from.
Jay was hurting more than he'd ever let on. Whatever had gone down the night before had undone months of progress in Auradon.
The only saving grace was that Jay seemed to have an outlet for his mood, and didn't seem to be spiraling towards evil.
When Jay realised it was Ben, that there was no threat, he dropped the offensive stance and stepped back into a defensive one. He didn't relax, but it was a de-escalation. And Ben mentally added that to his list of improved behaviours he could pull on if asked.
Jay folded his arms as he glared, studying Ben for a long moment. His scowl deepened. Whatever he saw, he didn't like.
Fixing Ben with a look that should have turned him to stone, he spat, "Of course she told you."
Then he growled and turned back to his punching bag, attacking with renewed vigour.
Realising that the worst thing he could do right now was try and talk Jay down, Ben backed away slowly.
Once he was outside, he shot Lonnie a message letting her know that Jay needed a sparring partner. If anyone could kick Jay into shape, it was Lonnie.
And it wouldn't be a figurative ass-kicking either.
…
If the revelation of Mal's parentage made Jay revert back to violence, it had made Carlos disappear.
It was exam season, so after completing his 10am history exam on autopilot, Ben went searching for his friend.
There were a few study sessions still happening, so Ben easily found the ones Carlos had signed up for and made an appearance. It wasn't successful. Ben didn't notice him arrive, and Carlos always managed to slip out before Ben even got his books packed up. When Ben tried to catch him at his locker or between classes, he only ever caught a flash of white heading in the opposite direction.
It wasn't until dinnertime that Ben managed to corner Carlos out by the track - and the amount of misdirection and manoeuvring that had required was kind of scary.
"Dude, are you always this persistent?" Carlos asked dryly when Ben dropped onto the bleachers next to him. He didn't outwardly react otherwise, instead keeping his elbows on his knees as he stared at the empty field.
"Kind of have to be." Ben shrugged, handing Carlos one of the take out containers he'd grabbed from inside. It was Italian night, and Ben felt like meatballs and pasta was the safest bet. His Aunt Cindy swore that carbs fixed everything.
Carlos was silent for a long moment, studying the container with a sad smile. Ben didn't know what was going through his friend's head, he probably didn't want to. Was he thinking about how different this was to the Isle? Was he thinking about how it was Ben who followed him instead of Mal?
"You know you only found me because I let you, right?" He finally said, opening the lid and taking the cutlery from Ben's outstretched hand.
Ben sighed heavily, leaning back against the bleachers. All that effort, and he hadn't really made much progress, "I am well aware I'm no match for the Isle."
"Doesn't stop you taking on Mal." Carlos laughed, shooting Ben a knowing look, "I caught the start of your little argument last night, before she bippity-bobbity-boo'd everyone."
"I didn't know you were there."
"I blend in and I notice everything." Carlos' tone was pointed, knowing, and Ben didn't meet his eye.
He knew exactly what Carlos was implying. But although Carlos was his friend, he was like a brother to Mal. Ben didn't want to hear his disapproval. And he didn't know where he stood with her, if anywhere. Especially now she outranked him by lightyears.
So he didn't say anything at all.
"I had to, if I wanted to survive." Carlos continued when it was clear Ben wasn't going to say anything. He sounded reflective. Bitter. And Ben knew he had to do better for the kids still over there. "Back on the Isle, I was a ghost. Maleficent used me as a scout because I could blend in anywhere. What she didn't realise is I was always watching."
Ben just sat there, giving Carlos the space he needed to get it out. This wasn't about fixing it. There was nothing he could say that could make this any better - hell, even he hadn't spoken to Mal yet - but he could help his friend work his way through his feelings and that was better than another night in his dorm staring at the ceiling.
"I should have put it together." Carlos sounded angry at himself. Like he'd missed something obvious. Like he'd overlooked a trap that could have gotten him or someone he cared about hurt. It was like he was questioning his very being - because if his skill was noticing everything, and he didn't notice this, then was he really an asset?
"I've seen Mal do magic under the barrier. It shouldn't have been possible, but she could. Just little things. And Maleficent was always twitchy about the subject of her dad, and we knew we never ever mentioned our second parents. Ever. Jay's mom turned up at Dragon Hall one time when we were nine or ten, trying to see him. Mal's mom ran her through with the sceptre. We got the hint."
"That sounds...horrific." Ben tried not to sound strangled, but all he could see was some faceless woman being murdered in his mind's eye over and over. There were younger versions of Jay, Carlos, Mal and Evie standing in the background, trying not to show any fear. They'd know better than to cower. But to see that...
"That was nothing." Carlos scoffed, clearly undisturbed by the whole thing. "I mean, in comparison." He paused. "You know, I only ever saw Maleficent look afraid three times in my life. And that scared me. Because she was the scariest person I knew. And if something scared her…"
"The first time was when we were eight and we'd been playing near the mineshaft. She was so angry. Do you know what could have happened? The gods eat naughty children!" Carlos imitated her shrill cry, and Ben shuddered. He didn't know if it was uncanny or not. And he didn't exactly plan on finding out.
Ignoring his reaction, Carlos continued, "About a year ago, Mal borrowed Evie's jacket when her T-shirt got ripped in a fight and her mom lost it. We couldn't work out why she was so pissed over a jacket, but Mal just stood there looking at the floor and took it. And then when we came here, when we were in the limo, I looked back. I don't know why. I just...did."
Ben said nothing. He could understand leaving everything you'd ever known, even if it was terrible. He could understand turning your back on something you'd been loyal to your whole life, without ever questioning why. But he couldn't understand missing the Isle. And he didn't want to hurt Carlos more by saying something insensitive.
So he just listened.
"Our parents...they knew we weren't coming back." Carlos sighed, as if he was admitting some dirty secret.
Ben didn't admit that he knew about the cookies. Too much time had passed. He didn't need them to think they had to convince anyone that they'd definitely chosen good.
"Mom looked annoyed, EQ looked like a peacock and Jafar looked like an angry toddler. But Mal's mom...she was up on that balcony and she looked scared. And I never understood why."
He was silent, probably running through a million memories, viewing them in a new light. Then he sighed angrily, stabbing a meatball with much more force than was necessary.
"Well. Until last night."
…
Ben had absolutely no reason to be hiding in the library. At all.
Exams were finished. Teachers weren't setting homework. But for the first time this year, when Ben told Doug he had stuff to do in the library...he was actually in the library.
And funnily enough, so was Mal.
Not that he'd talked to her.
It had been a few days since he'd found out who her father was. And things were still...tense.
Carlos and Jay still weren't talking to her. Evie was standing in solidarity with Mal and giving all three of them the silent treatment. Doug had no clue what was going on, but had enough self-preservation that he didn't ask.
Lonnie knew after talking to Jay, and she made it painfully clear at Swords and Shields training last night that she thought they were being assholes. His ribs still hurt from that hilt to the side. Jay had a black eye. And Carlos had only avoided injury by taking to the rafters and refusing to come down.
But Ben was pretty sure that Mal didn't want to talk. He knew she'd heard him come in, they were two of only five people in the library. She hadn't looked up from her sketches when he'd entered, so he'd taken the hint.
If Mal wanted space, he'd give her it.
Because even if they did talk, he couldn't promise it wouldn't turn into an argument.
His Beast and her Dragon. All teeth and claws.
It was incredibly un-Princely.
So he pretended to read the Art of War instead. But he might as well be reading the Classical Chinese version for all the sense it was making.
At some point around Chapter 8: Variation and Adaptability, Carlos stormed into the library with his arms full of paper and made straight for Mal.
"This doesn't mean I'm okay with any of this." He announced, unceremoniously dropping the papers on top of Mal's sketches. "But I can't make you make sense at all."
Mal just blinked up at Carlos, the confusion clear on her face. Ben tried to focus on the need for flexibility in an army's responses. He felt like he should be getting something from the chapter on responding to shifting circumstances successfully, but it wasn't happening.
"Your family is so big and complicated and Auradon History class does nothing to explain how everyone links in." Carlos held up a piece of paper with criss-crossing lines everywhere. Even from where he was sitting, Ben could tell it was completely useless. "It's a migraine. That's what your family tree is."
They looked at each other for a long moment, before Mal slowly grabbed a fresh piece of paper. Carlos dropped into the seat across from her. A tentative truce.
Ben expected Mal to spell the library like she did last time, but when she waved her wrist, he could still hear her perfectly. "I'm not an expert. At all."
Ben chanced a look up from his book, and noticed Mal kept glancing his way. She held his gaze for a moment, as if she was trying to tell him something, and then looked down, as if she hadn't actually been looking at him at all, drawing a line across the middle of the paper.
"First, there was Heaven and Earth. And then came Chaos." She drew a circle on top of the line, taking up most of the paper. "Capital C."
...
It was the final day of term.
Everyone was packed up and ready to go. Parents would be picking up their kids - or sending a car to collect their kids - all afternoon. Jane would be the last to leave, shutting up the school with her mother for the summer.
Ben's parents were due about 2pm, and they'd be taking Evie, Carlos and Jay with them. Mal would probably be long gone by then. If Ben knew Hades - and all he knew was from what he'd seen in the Council Meetings he'd sat in on - the God of the Dead would revel in the spectacle.
Normally, Ben spent the last day of term doing the rounds. Making nice. Being Princely. But today he just couldn't muster the energy.
He was wandering the corridors of the dorms rather aimlessly - his things were in his room, ready for whichever driver was on duty today to put in the limo. He had a backpack ready to take straight to his room when he got home. He didn't feel like braving the lunch crowd, not yet, even if it meant double duty later.
Spotting a flash of purple, Ben noticed the only person he actually wanted to see at the end of the hallway. Speeding up to a jog, he caught up with her at the doors out to the quad, "Hey. I thought you'd be at lunch."
"I wasn't feeling it." Mal shrugged, leaning back against the doors nonchalantly. "Thought you'd be doing your...prince thing?"
They hadn't had a chance to speak this morning at breakfast. It was an indication of how the rest of the summer would go, and he wasn't sure he was going to like it.
"I think people will survive without me." Ben laughed, moving so that he was leaning against the wall, facing her side on. "Are you looking forward to the summer with your dad?"
It was mindless small talk. It was a little awkward.
Things had been...strained for the last two weeks. And most of that was on him.
They were talking again, but they weren't okay.
And now, faced with the prospect of a summer apart, Ben was not okay with that.
"Yeah...yeah I am. I just…" Mal trailed off, uncertain. He waited, giving her the space to work it out herself - feelings were new to Mal, he'd discovered, because villains had less self regulation than toddlers - and then a moment later she sighed, "I've never been away from Evie...ever. Our mom's lived together and we've never not shared a room. I feel like I'm leaving her behind. And, well, you know the boys are still pissed."
"The only person getting left behind is Lumiere." Ben smirked, and when Mal laughed he knew he'd gotten through to her. Even if it was only with the image of Evie and Cogsworth running rings around Lumiere for the entire summer. Reaching down to grab her hand, he gave it a tentative squeeze, "Never feel bad for doing you. Really doing you, not doing your mom and pretending it's you."
He knew he should have had this conversion with her sooner, once he'd calmed down about the summer programme and processed her parentage. But it was better late than never, he supposed.
Deciding to push his luck just a little, he changed the subject, "You miss anything else?"
He was teasing and she knew it. Grinning, Mal wrinkled her nose at him and leant in conspiringly, "No, no I don't think so."
"Well that's really a shame." Ben mused. He stepped closer, wrapping his arms around her waist, "Because I think I'm going to be that busy I won't miss anything either. What a boring life we lead."
"I'm sure we'll manage to amuse ourselves somehow." It sounded completely dry. But she was running her hands up the lapels of his shirt, leaning up so that her lips were just hovering over from his. Like the last two weeks didn't happen.
"It's only eight weeks."
"Self control is a life skill."
"The papers could do with speculating on my love life."
"It makes for entertaining reading." Mal mused, now playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. Entirely too sweetly, she added, "Did you know you're secretly dating Melody? Her grandfather's my cousin."
"Then you probably shouldn't tell either of them that I'm about to do this."
He didn't give her time to reply, cutting off her retort with a kiss.
Ben tried not to think about how this kiss felt different from the rest.
They'd started off slow. It wasn't a goodbye. It wasn't a promise.
But then something shifted. It became charged. A little desperate. Mal nipped his bottom lip as he pressed her back into the wall.
The chirping of his cell phone cut through the quiet of the hallway. Ben pulled back reluctantly, searching his blazer for the offending item. He took the call while still pressed up against Mal, his eyes never leaving hers as the limo driver let him know that his parents were, apart from incredibly early, only ten minutes out.
It was time to go their separate ways.
Maybe the summer apart will help cool things, Ben thought as he dropped one final kiss to her lips.
Even if he felt like he hadn't done that nearly as often as he should have this year.
...
It wasn't until almost an hour later, when he was standing in the courtyard by the fountain talking to Doug and his parents that Ben understood the emotions behind their goodbye.
He caught sight of Mal standing off to the side of the driveway, away from everyone, clutching her backpack and checking her cell.
He already knew her tough exterior was a mask. He saw glimpses of what he liked to call 'the squishy Mal' every so often.
In her kindness to small children who thought her hair was magical - not a sign of evil. In the way she wanted to be a good student, right before she reminded herself it wasn't 'cool' to let on how smart she was. In the way, once she was comfortable, she'd curl into his side instead of holding herself separate.
And right now, when she thought no one was looking, he could see the girl who was still scared her father wouldn't want her.
With a stab to his heart, he wondered just how many times she'd waited for her mother to turn up for her, only to be let down. To find her own way home. To find her own dinner. To put herself to bed.
He wanted more than that for her.
Wanted to give her everything.
Okay, that was new.
His gut told him to go to her. But his brain was still catching up with that last unbidden thought.
They were just messing around, weren't they?
Mal didn't want a relationship.
She didn't want him. Not permanently at least.
God, they hadn't even been on a proper date.
Dopey said something that drew Ben's attention back to the conversation, and with one last glance at Mal he answered, "Oh I don't know, I'm not really looking to get into anything after Audrey."
Doug snickered, and Ben resisted the urge to elbow his best friend in the side.
No doubt, on the drive home, Doug would fill his parents in on Ben's sudden spike in library time. And about the curious fact that whenever anyone looked for him he wasn't in there.
Before Ben could say anything else, another car pulled into the driveway. There had been a steady stream for the last twenty minutes or so, but this one caught his attention because he didn't recognise it.
Not that he knew every car. But those who weren't royalty tended to be picked up in their mom's SUVs or their dad's mid-life crisis. Minor royalty tended to be some kind of big brand - expensive but easily protected. The major royals, except Audrey, always travelled in Auradon Guard standard vehicles - bulletproof towncars or spec'd out Range Rovers. Audrey was in a carriage. Always. Queen Leah's propensity for pageantry was a headache for the Guard.
This was different.
It wasn't a make that Ben recognised, but he didn't need to. The car screamed power, authority. Between the sleek lines of the body, the tinted windows and the almost silent approach, you knew the owner was someone important. Someone dangerous. And there was only one person who would own a car like that.
Hades.
Ben watched as the confusion rippled through those in attendance. He saw his parents exchange a concerned glance.
Before anyone could say anything, the car slowed to a stop and the door opened. The boot came first, then the leather, and then the God of the Dead was standing outside Auradon Prep wearing a pair of shades.
Unlike everyone else, Ben's focus never left Mal. He saw the way relief passed over her features before she pushed it down. A glance at Hades told him the god had seen it too, judging by the anger that flashed behind his eyes.
Ben obviously wasn't the only one who had an issue with Maleficent's parenting.
"Ready to go kid?" Hades called, opening his arms in an invitation. Surprising Ben, Mal didn't hesitate. She took off and almost launched herself into her father's arms. Definitely relieved he'd shown up.
Then the whispers started.
Doug threw Ben a look that said 'this is what you guys were arguing about?' and he only shrugged in response. Doug's exasperated eye roll told him they'd be having a long phone call later.
Waiting a beat longer, Ben decided to take initiative and head over to say hello. He'd been leading by example for a year. What else was new.
When he'd offered Mal's father his hand in greeting, Hades had simply judged him coolly over Mal's head, as if he knew exactly what was going on - or not going on - between the two of them. Then he took Ben's outstretched hand with a nod that seemed like approval. Evie, Carlos and Jay were brave enough to approach after that, even if Carlos still looked a little green.
It was a brave new world.
What were another few mythical creatures?
Ben chanced a glance Audrey's way, and had to bite back a laugh when he saw Queen Leah looking positively ill. King Stefan was glaring at Hades. It was the kind of rage Ben recognised from the Court, when the jilted spouses were faced with their partner's latest lover.
It would take a bit longer to verify, but Ben was pretty sure that whatever plans for dissent had been brewing just died in the water.
After all, no one wanted to anger the God of the Dead.