Hey Descendants!

I have to issue an apology. Dobby and Padfoot, I totally meant to include you in the shout out here, but I mixed up my postings and put your shoutout on another site. So thank you for following us, and for always leaving your thoughts and answering our questions. Your reviews have meant so much to us, and hearing from you makes us squee. It sounds like you've read us before and are back, enjoying the updates as we make them, so thank you for sticking with us and we hope to live up to your expectations. Again, thank you so much!

And now, another chapter :)

We hope you enjoy this update.


A week later

Carlos throws his hands up in the air as soon as the hair on the back of his neck stands up. "Okay T, I can feel you watching. Wanna just come out and hang?" He looks around, waiting to see if any shadows move. He did at least this once a day ever since T and Mal had talked. Not that he believed it was always T watching him. It was probably paranoia more than anything else; but that didn't mean he shouldn't make the offer, just in case.

T jumps down from a tree in the distance after a long moment, hands shoved in his pockets and casually walked over. "Sup."

"Oh." Carlos grins. "You actually were here this time."

"Oh, good," T smiles, "I just thought I was really starting to suck."

"Nah, I never actually see you," Carlos admits with a shrug. "It's more a feeling. Like danger sense, not that I think you're dangerous, well actually I do think you're dangerous, but not like, you know, gonna hurt me or-" Carlos rubs the back of his neck as his cheeks flush, I'm just going to stop talking."

They both stare at each other for a very long minute. "Right."

Carlos chuckles nervously. "Yeah, sorry. So uh… So my mom is gone for a few days, and I have like snacks and stuff. You wanna just-" He shoves his hands in his pockets. "I mean I'm going to be working on my projects, so I'm not sure how much I'll talk or anything, but uh, you wanna hang?"

T studies him for a moment, before he nods. "Sure."

"Cool." Carlos turns and starts walking back down the road. "I live at Hell Hall, but you probably already knew that…"

"I didn't know that was it's name." T shrugs. "But, yeah…" He was going to say he knew where he lived, but learned pretty quickly that that kind of behavior was not appreciated. Harry telling him that it was 'Creepy, I like it' was the final nail in that proverbial coffin. He found he'd been basing more of his social interactions on that pretext. If Harry liked it, it wasn't all that acceptable.

Carlos shrugs. "Just my mother being my mother. I think it might be a play on our last name." He certainly thought of her as the devil often.

"De Vil?"

"Yeah, kinda sounds like Devil, even though it's separated, I mean it's spelled kind of the same way too."

T can't help the small laugh that spills from his lips at the irony of the amount of 'devils' he'd found himself infatuated with. Her father would be devastated. Not that he would ever find out. The literal demigod of hellfire and the spawn of the devil herself. It was fitting. He was a sinner after all.

Carlos smiles. He'd never heard T laugh, and he hopped it was a good sign. He stops in front of his front door and pulls out the key "So uh, just a few things about my house…" He starts as he unlocks and swings the door open. He points to a door off to the side. "Do not go in there, don't even open it. It's dangerous, I don't want to think about it, please just don't try to go in there."

T lifts his brow. "Carlos. I promise I will not even go in that general direction, unless you tell me to. Please breath."

"Sweet." Carlos nods as he closes the door behind them and locks it. "So uh- Kitchen." He leads T away from the danger door.

T follows him quietly, his eyes studying the kitchen carefully eyes settling on the stove curiously. "It's very clean here."

"My mom is kinda a neat freak, so I have to keep the house very clean." Carlos admits absently as he grabs a tray and starts collecting things from cupboards and the fridge. "It's mostly oatmeal and sour apples, but I managed to get some chips in the last shipment. I've got some milk too. It hasn't gone to bad yet. Still more whey than curds."

Why did it seem like everyone liked feeding him? He'd never found himself wanting, other than when he was being punished, but he'd definitely noticed that on the rest of the isle food seemed to be, not rare, but certainly hard to come by. Especially good food. He frowns, but since he couldn't figure out what to say, he simply nods.

"The chips will be good at least." Carlos laughs as he takes the tray and carries it down a narrow hallway to another door.

T follows him curiously, his eyes traveling over the art on the walls. Spots. So many spots. No one could let anything go on this island. He shakes his head.

Carlos stops and again laughs nervously. "So uh… About my room-" He takes a deep breath, "I uh, kind of sleep in a closet. And it's kind of a mess."

T tilts his head to the side, and studies Carlos thoughtfully. "Okay."

"Oh, uh yeah, cool." Carlos opens the door and puts the tray down on a rickety table.

T follows him into the room, his eyes briefly sweeping the barren room with a frown. A small straw cot mattress was laying in the corner of the room with a worn pillow and an oddly plush blanket hazardly shoved to the corner of it to make space for several stacks of books, and wires. It made his chest hurt.

The rest of the room had a few boxes filled with, stuff. But what really caught his attention were the books; there were so many books! At least three on every surface, and piles of them formed a strange hedge against the wall furthest from the doors leading into the room. "This is Hyades hell. So many books…"

Carlos laughs. "Ahhhh, it's so true. She came here once when we were working on a school project and when she saw my room she just froze." He shakes his head at the memory, unable to keep himself from smiling. "Next thing I know I'm chasing her down the street trying to figure out why she's running."

"You've brought her here?" T snorts. "Thats some ballsy shit, man."

"We were still kinda young. It was third grade. She didn't catch fire all too often back then, unless she was like, having a full melt down. But she was really afraid of ruining my books, so we ended up working at her… Place." Carlos shakes his head at the memory of meeting her father for the first time.

T nods. "I noticed that. She doesn't really go into any place where she'll get someone in trouble for singing a carpet."

"Yeah…" Carlos frowns as he looks around his room. "I've been trying to think of something that might help her."

T lifts his brow. "Really?"

"Well yeah. I'm really trying to tackle it from a science perspective." His eyes get bright as he continues. "I mean her clothes don't burn when she catches on fire, so there are ways to fireproof things."

"That's really friggin' cool." T grins. "It must be so awesome to be able to be able to-" He stops himself, pausing before "Science." pops out of his mouth.

Carlos ducks, trying to hide a blush. "I like it. That's actually what I need to work on, I have this project for my weird science class that I need to finish for tomorrow." He walks over to the bed and hauls a box closer to it. "So, feel free to help yourself to the snacks and if you want to read," He waves his hands to the piles of books, "I'm sure you'll find something you like. Though I mostly have books about science."

T nods as he scanning the piles of books, careful to make it look like he was reading the titles before taking one from the top of one of the stacks. He settles down after moving the books off the chair. He opens the book. His eyes bouncing from it's pages to Carlos often as the symbols on the page didn't make any sense. But he found he enjoyed watching Carlos work.

The two sit in relative silence as Carlos tinkers with a remote looking object. He found he actually enjoyed hanging out with T. He didn't feel like he had to talk, didn't feel weird that T wasn't talking. He smiles as he looks up, but his brow furrows as he tilts his head to the side in confusion. What was he seeing?

T was sitting in the chair, reading an upside down book about thermodynamics. He hardly understood half the theories in that book, but T had just been sitting there, flipping through the pages, for the past hour or two. Carlos frowns, could T not read? That didn't make sense. He was too well spoken to not be able to read. "Hey T. It's a good book right."

T turns up and glances at Carlos before dropping his eyes back to the book. "Mhmm." Absently.

"Damn, I'm having a hard time with parts of that one." Carlos puts his finished project aside and stands. "What chapter are you on?"

T blanks. That wasn't good. What book had he fucking picked up? He frowns. "Um…" One really seemed like a reasonable number. "One."

Carlos nods as he walks over and takes the book, flipping it right side up before he hands it back. "There, that should make the equations easier to read."

T blushes.

"You can't-" Carlos frowns and scratches the back of his head, "You can't read, can you?"

"Not even a little bit." He shrugs as he puts the book down.

Carlos frowns again. He wasn't sure what he'd do if he couldn't read. Books were practically his life. Apparently with all the free time T had he ran around saving people. But still, "Would… Would you like to learn how to read?" He asks softly.

T hesitates for a moment, before he just sighs. "I'm not really supposed too."

"Why?" Carlos was horrified at the thought. Why would someone not be allowed to learn how to read? What kind of a monster took that freedom?

"It's not really my place."

"Says who?" Carlos couldn't imagine who would tell T he wasn't allowed to learn how to read.

T goes silent for a long moment. "Did you finish your project?"

"Yes, but that doesn't answer my question." Carlos shakes his head. "T, who told you that you can't read?"

T frowns in response, unsure how to defuse the situation. He really had just stumbled into that one.

Carlos sighs. T always clammed up when people asked him about his past or family. "Okay, not the point… My point is, I can teach you to read, if you want to learn."

T turns up and studies Carlos, surprised, "Really?"

"Well yeah," Carlos give him a half grin, "duh. I love reading. I can't imagine not being able to." He hesitates and shrugs. "I mean-"

Before T can stop himself, he leaps out of his chair and hugs Carlos. "Thank you!"

"Sure. No problem." Carlos responds in surprise before he awkwardly wraps his arms around T, returning the hug. He liked hugs. Liked the warmth that settled into his chest. Usually only E and Deez gave hugs though, T was one of the last people on the isle he'd expect a hug from.

When T realizes what he was doing he drops his arms and steps back. "Sorry..." He clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck.

"No big. No worries." Carlos quickly assures him before he turns to hide the blush. "So uh. Reading… Books are made up of paragraphs that are made up of sentences that are made up of words that are formed by letters. We'll start by learning the letters." He looks around for a marker.

"Cool." T smiles, as he turns back around and sits looking up at Carlos with excitement.

"So, ah, here." Carlos pulls the cap off and starts writing out the upper and lower cases of each letter in the alphabet on his wall. "Don't make fun of me, but when I was learning to read they taught us the letters with a song."

"You know I can't read, I'm in no position to tease you over a song..."

"Okay then…" Carlos clears his throat before he begins to explain the letters on his wall, and even teaches him the song that he learned.

T smiles as he listens to the song carefully, paying attention to the letters as Carlos sang them, eager to know the difference in the symbols. Learning the alphabet by song just made it all the better. He'd always loved music. Well, not all music anymore, but still. It made the whole thing a bit easier to swallow.

The fact that he also happened to be disobeying her father felt both nauseating and addicting. Like the first time he'd snuck out of the room. Or the first time he spoke to Jay. A genuine smile stays on his lips the entire time they go over the letters. It takes a solid couple of hours but he finally recognizes every letter.

As he's walking out, he realizes he can't remember the last time he'd enjoyed an afternoon so much. He'd have to remember to spend some time with the kid soon.


Hi again :)

So what did you guys think? Do we do Carlos justice in this chapter? Did it make you squee? What did you think of T's illiteracy. Any guesses to his parentage? Can you guys name T's cinnamon rolls, the people on the isle he's most interested in protecting, yet?