I Said No

(Wednesday Afternoon)

When Evie opens the door she forces her smile from faltering, "Audrey?"

She hands her a sheet of paper, "These are my measurements. I'd like you to make me a dress for the spring fling."

"That's Saturday night," Evie concerns.

"Is that going to be a problem?"

Evie shakes her head, "Nope. Not at all."

"Great," Audrey quickly responds. "So, I'm thinking something green with gold touches. Oh! And make sure the fabric is hundred percent pure."

"Pure?" Evie unsurely comments.

"It should be on the label," Audrey informs. "Mixed fabrics tear easier."

"Got it," she tries to smile again.

"Three hundred, right?" Audrey asks as she digs into her purse.

"Yes," Evie holds onto the word, until she remembers that's indeed the price.

Audrey hands her a hundred and fifty dollars, "I'll give you half now so you can buy the fabric. I will hand over the rest once I've deemed you've met expectations."

She takes the money, "Okay."

"Oh, and just one more thing." Audrey points between her and the room, "You two weren't, like, planning to go together, were you?"

Evie turns around and sees Mal reading the spellbook on her bed, before she turns back to Audrey and slowly answers, "No?"

"Good." She makes a fake pained expression, "Because, as the president of student council, I'm afraid I have to tell you that two people of the same sex aren't allowed to go together. It's against the law, you know, for homosexuals to engage in provocative behavior, and as someone who helped plan this event, I could just never forgive myself if people used it as an excuse to do illegal activities." She smiles, "So, it's really good that you aren't going."

"No," Evie frowns. "I am."

"But you just said," she starts.

"That I wouldn't going with Mal," Evie finishes, before she raises her eyebrows, "Doug asked me. I'm going with him."

Audrey's eyes narrow, "Doug?"

"We're dating now," Evie smiles. "Didn't you hear?"

"No," she slowly counters.

Evie's smile widens, "Well, now you have, and if you will excuse me, I should get into the shower so that I can get to the store before it closes."

"What," Audrey raises an eyebrow, "you didn't shower this morning?"

She frowns as she glances down, "I woke up late."

Audrey looks over her, "I was wondering what that stench was."

Evie furrows her eyebrows, "I still used deodorant and everything."

"Whatever you say," she bypasses. "I have to go. You. You just take care of you, okay?" She smiles before leaving, and Evie can't help but watch her strut down the hall.

When Mal walks into the liquor store she walks up to the counter, and the brown haired man smiles, "Good afternoon."

"So," Mal lets out a long breath before leaning onto the counter. "Last time I forgot to mention this little problem I have with water."

"Water?" his eyes narrow in question.

"Yes. Water," she irritably confirms. "I need to know at what price I won't have to worry about getting sick again, so maybe you could tell me?"

"Well, everything has water in it," he thinks, "but if you mean only a small amount of it, then that would probably start at about fifty dollars."

Mal glances around, before she notices a shelf off to the side, takes a red wine from it, and heads back to the counter, "Here."

He rings it up, "That will be sixty dollars." Mal hands the money to him, takes the bottle, and heads for the door. "Have a good day."

When Doug opens to the door Mal asks, "Where's Ben?"

"Um," Doug's eyes moves toward inside the dorm.

"Good," Mal comments. "Now, let me in."

He shakes his head, "I can't do that."

"Oh. I think you can." She glows her eyes, "Let me in." and he steps back.

When she enters the room Doug steps in front of her, "You need to leave."

Mal pushes him to the side, and when he hits the wall his glasses fall from his face. Ben looks at Doug in shock, before he notices her stepping closer to him, "Mal."

She turns his chair towards her, "I think it's time we talk. Don't you?" before she moves one leg over to sit on his lap. "How are you going to get out of this now?"

Ben smells her breath, "You drank." and she smiles before kissing him.

He makes a noise before pushing on her shoulder, "Mal. We can't do this."

She wraps her arms around his neck, "We can't kiss. We can't hang out. We can't talk."

"Okay," Ben interrupts. "I get that, that I—" He sighs, "Can you get off me?"

"If I do that you'll leave," she stresses.

"No. I won't," he promises.

She runs her fingers through his hair before moving it down to his neck, "No. I think I'm going to stay right here."

Doug strides forward, "You heard him. Get off." but then Mal's head swiftly turns to him, her eyes a bright green.

"Go away," she smirks, and after he heads to the door Mal grins at Ben. "You're all mine, now."

"Mal." Ben whispers, "Please."

"You know," she interrupts. "I think I get what the real problem is here. I just haven't been giving you good enough of a reason to spend time with me."

He watches as she moves back, "What are you doing?" and then she reaches for his pants' button. Ben grabs her hand with widened eyes, "Mal!" She pulls his hand off of hers, and her fingers reach the button. "Mal." She leans in as the button becomes undone, and she kisses him. He tries to speak again, but then her tongue makes its way into his mouth and he finds himself unable to. He looks toward the door; however, even though it's wide open no one's bothered to enter, and when he hears the zipper his attention is brought back to her. He can't see what's going on and there's no mirrors around to help him, but he's still able to find her hand; however, then he feels her touch the boxers with her other. She moves back to see them, and Ben lets out a stressed breath as he takes her hand from it and attempts to cover the area with his own. "Mal. Stop."

She meets his eyes, "You're only saying that because you don't think I'm myself."

"You aren't," Ben yells, and he struggles to keep his hand in place as she uses both of hers to move it. "Mal," he whispers, and then she leans in to kiss him again. He feels her fingers maneuver around the button on the boxers, and his breathing shakes as the tears intrude his eyes.

"Mal," Evie shouts. She stops and looks over at her, and Ben takes the opportunity to zip his pants back up; however, the angle makes it hard to and it only goes up halfway. "What are you doing?"

Mal darts her eyes to Doug, "This all you have?" before she looks back to Evie. "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm getting his attention."

"You're forcing his attention," Evie remarks before stepping forward. "Can you even see what you're doing? Get off of him."

"Why should I?" Mal widens her eyes.

"Because," Evie loudly counters, "you would've wanted Hook to."

Mal's mouth gapes at the shock of Evie's knowledge, before she reasons, "Ben's my boyfriend."

"And you were involved with him," Evie rebuttals. "That doesn't make it okay."

Mal glows her eyes, "Get out of here, and stay out."

Evie gasps, "I can't believe you just tried to hypnotize me."

She narrows her eyes in suspicion, "And it didn't work."

Evie takes another step forward, "Mal. Just look at Ben. He doesn't want this."

"Come on." Mal furrows her eyebrows, "What guy wouldn't want this?" before she places her hand on his shoulder and turns to him. "Deep down, you want this. Don't you?"

It takes a moment for him to answer, "Mal." and the pitch of his voice is higher than usual. "I told you to stop."

She notices the gleam in his eyes and huffs, "So, what then? You don't want me?"

Ben whispers, "No. I don't." and she stares at him for a minute. "Please. Stop."

Mal shakes her head before getting off of him, "Suit yourself." before she strides past the others and Evie calls after her as she hurries after her.

Doug shuts the door and locks it, before he walks into view of Ben, "Hey." He watches as he tries to wipe the tears from his face. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know," Ben quietly responds, and then more tears fall. "I love her. I don't get it." He gulps, "Why would she…"

Doug watches Ben shake his head, before he lowers his eyes and notices the pants, "Did she unbutton those?" Ben glances down and then looks away, as he holds the two sides of the pants together. "Ben." He hesitates, "If we didn't come right now, how long would we have had until it got worse?"

Ben laughs through a pained grin, "Seconds."

"God." Ben turns his head down towards the table, but in his peripheral vision he can still see Doug come over to take a seat. "Ben. I think you should report this."

"Report?"

"Tell Fairy Godmother," Doug explains.

Ben shakes his head, "No. I can't do that."

"I know it's going to be hard to talk about it," Doug begins.

"No," Ben interrupts. "Mal got in trouble, because she tried to kiss Audrey. If I tell, I am making it more bad. I would hurt her."

"Ben," he tries to reason, "she almost hurt you." He sees more tears fall from Ben's face and corrects himself, "She did hurt you. You need to tell Fairy Godmother what she did."

He shakes his head, "No."

"Ben," Doug begins.

"I said no," Ben shouts at him, and Doug sees his pained expression. He continues in a softer tone, "I love Mal. I'm not doing this."

"Ben." He slightly shakes his head, "I'm just trying to help."

It takes a minute for him to retort, "You can help without having a big mouth." and he looks intensely into his eyes. "If you tell Fairy Godmother or anyone about this, I will never talk to you again."

"Okay. Look," Doug glances down, before he adjusts his glasses and faces him again. "I get it. You love Mal. You love your mother. But Ben, that does not mean you need to hurt yourself for them."

"No." Ben counters, "That is what it means." and he nods. "True love is putting someone else's need over your own wants."

"What about your needs?" Doug softly questions, and then Ben looks down. "What about when it's your needs against hers?"

Ben looks back up, "If Mal goes to— If she gets put in…" and then he wets his lips. "If I tell on Mal for this, she will die. Right now, her needs are more than mine."

- Danifan3000 If you have another review coming in, then maybe this is a little premature, but first off I completely forgot Aurora was raised by fairies. I only saw that movie once, and the only reason why I saw it in the first place was because I had a Disney coloring book and I wanted to be accurate with it... that was back in third grade I think... So, that's the real reason, but now onto my excuse. In the Descendants movie Queen Leah gets furious, saying how her daughter had to be raised by fairies because of Mal's mother. Now, that could just be her stressed about how she missed out on being a mother, which is the more likely option, or it could also be that she didn't want to leave her child in the care of magical creatures in the first place... It probably doesn't even matter. Just look at what happened: a fairy came and cursed Aurora during her Christening, the king and queen had their baby given to the trusted "good" fairies, and all three of those fairies somewhere didn't do their job well enough to keep Aurora safe. So, basically, the only reason they needed the three fairies' help in the first place was because of another fairy, and afterwards even the trusted fairies let them down... Aurora was raised by them, so maybe some members of the family still has sort of a relationship with the fairies (a factoid I completely missed was how Jane said Audrey was with Marryweather at the spa during the second movie)... however, it's just another one of those things that can be potentially contradictory but still okay. Maybe those three fairies are demons too, but... I'm completely confusing myself right now. I'm not good at rationalizing contradictory things. You're right. It's messed up that Audrey thinks fairies are demons if her mother was raised by fairies, but just because she's religious doesn't mean that she thinks they should be put to death or anything like that. She long as she feels like she's in God's light and knows the difference from right and wrong, then there's no reason for her to completely avoid a couple fairies her mother probably bonded with. She they whisper sin to her, she will know not to be led astray.

- A Guest made a comment on ch. 88, asking if they were the only one who felt like Ben was driving a wedge between Mal and Evie. Maybe back then. I know at that time Evie and Ben were still getting used to each other and didn't have any or a lot of rules and expectations set. Now, however, I feel like they've been almost getting along better than either of them with Mal. As far as Mal's relationship with them goes, I'm not actually too sure how that's going. Well, terrible right now obviously. But, I just mean, everyone's going through a lot right now and that itself has impacted the relationships.

- When I was writing this chapter all I could think was that if Ben was in the divergent series, then he'd probably be part of that sect that has the characteristic of selflessness. Now, of course, I'm actually going to want you to comment on the events of the chapter if you have anything to say, but as a little game I'd also like to know what people think of the characters as I wrote them. If you had to either put them in a sect of Divergent or a house from Harry Potter, then which characters do you feel like would go where and why?