Be Our Guest

Ms. Gabriella waved to get their attention from the front of the classroom. The six students taking ASL cut off their conversations and turned towards her. Her interpreter Ollie stood on shaky human legs that should have been octopus tentacles to take his place at her side.

"'All of you are doing very well,'" Ollie translated. "'I'm proud of you.'"

Una got an odd feeling in her stomach. Proud. No one was ever proud of her, except sometimes Uma and Harry.

Ms. Gabriella smiled. "For homework," she signed, "I'd like you to make a list of at least ten more signs you want to learn and have at least five conversations with someone else in the class. You have the weekend, so I expect all of you to complete this."

Estelle, daughter of Rapunzel and Flynn Rider née Eugene Fitzherbert, raised her hand. "How do we prove we had conversations?"

"We'll work on an honour system. I suggest seeking out each of your classmates at least once, to make it easier to keep track," Ms. Gabriella told them.

A couple of the other Auradon kids eyed Jay and Una with unconcealed suspicion. Estelle wasn't one of them and neither was Aziz. Those two had accepted the villain kids in their midst rather than merely tolerating them like the others in the class. Una was sure that their fathers' criminal pasts had a hand in that.

"Any other questions?" Ms. Gabriella asked.

There were head shakes all around. Ms. Gabriella dismissed the class.

Aziz came over to Jay and Una while they were packing up. "Yo, Jay, you busy now?"

Jay shrugged. "Not really. Why?"

"William backed out of the swords and shields demonstration next Sunday," Aziz said. "Lonnie thought I should ask you to replace him and her brother wants to see what you can do before he'll let you be my partner. You game?"

"What demonstration?" Jay asked.

"The one for Parents Weekend, dude." Aziz's eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline. "You didn't know about it?"

"I didn't know about Parents Weekend." Jay turned to Una. "Did you?"

Una shook her head. It felt like something she should have heard about from Lanlei or the cheerleaders, but she hadn't. She wasn't the Undertakers' information collector—that was Helen Horseman's job—but she was still annoyed with herself.

"Oh, uh, shoot." Aziz rubbed the back of his head. "Nobody told you? I guess your parents can't come anyway but still."

"Your parents visiting here?" Una asked in careful ASL.

Aziz nodded. "Yeah, for all of next weekend. It's a chance for us to show off a bit. Swords and shields, cheerleading, ballroom and I think the drama club's doing something too."

Cheerleading, huh? It seemed like Audrey should have mentioned Parents Weekend a while ago. She was kind of distracted with trying to make sure all the social positions she held were secure despite Ben dumping her, but a little warning would have been nice.

"Huh," Jay said. "Sure, I'll help you out with your demo, if Shang's okay with it. Is he waiting in the gym or something?"

Aziz said that he was. They headed for the gym, Ms. Gabriella and Ollie waving goodbye as they left the classroom. Shangzhou was sitting on a bench inside the gym when they got there.

"Hey. You must be Jay." Shangzhou stood and shook Jay's hand. "And Una, right? My sister told me about you."

Una shook Shangzhou's hand. He was taller than Jay and had a wiry build like most fighters on the Isle, though he had more fat around his middle that his skin-tight t-shirt made visible. His palm was as callused as Lanlei's.

"All good things, I hope," Jay said.

Shangzhou's laugh was big and bright. "Of course! Little sister can't stop gushing about how cool you guys are. So, swords and shields. Have you every competed before?"

"No, but I can win a sword fight. That's basically what it is, right?" Jay asked.

"Humble, Jay," Aziz said. "No pressure on me or anything."

Jay grinned. Una elbowed him, raised her eyebrows and tapped the inside of her right forearm where her many knife tattoos were hidden by her sleeve. Aziz wanted to talk about pressure? He wasn't fighting for his life. Jay nodded.

"Ugh, advance couple sign language. Unfair. Can we get started before they come up with a plan to totally destroy me, Shang?" Aziz asked.

Shangzhou laughed again and pointed them towards the safety equipment. The metal mesh mask, canvas gloves and padded jacket seemed unnecessary to Una and Jay, but Jay put them on anyway. They had to at least pretend to play by Auradon rules for a while yet since it was looking like stealing the wand would have to happen at the coronation. That was in nine more days, the Monday following Parents Weekend actually.

"Let's go to three points to start. I want to see your form, Jay," Shang said.

"Sure thing, coach." Jay picked out a sword and grimaced at the dull blade before joining Aziz in the middle of the gym.

Aziz made the first move. On the Isle that would have been the smart thing to do when fighting against Jay. Someone with a lot of luck might be fast enough to get a hit in. Harry had managed it a few times when he and Jay got into a brawl rather than a sword fight. With swords the scale tipped in Harry's favour. Aziz wasn't Harry.

Jay batted Aziz's sword aside and struck like the king cobra he wore as his crest, stabbing Aziz in the chest so hard that Aziz stumbled backwards. He politely waited for Aziz to catch his balance before pressing forward, hitting Aziz's arm a second later. Shangzhou called for them to stop when Jay sliced across Aziz's stomach in a move that would have spilled his guts on the floor if Jay's sword had been properly sharp. When Jay stepped back, Una could see how tense he was. She would be too if she had an opponent that wouldn't die.

"When you said you can win a sword fight, you really meant that you can win a sword fight, huh?" Shangzhou said.

"Well, yeah," Jay said. "Is that a problem?"

Aziz took off his mask and looked at Jay with wide eyes. "Dude, you've got to join the team."

"I agree," Shangzhou said. "But for now, let's work on making your spar more of a demonstration than a slaughter."

The next week passed surprisingly quickly. Audrey upped their cheerleading practices and had them running through their routine for Parents Weekend every day after school. Una barely saw any of Mal's gang outside of meals and classes, except for when Jay played the dutiful boyfriend. He went about it Auradon style, which mostly meant meeting up with her after practice (once with a box of chocolate) and walking her back to her room. Lanlei kept fawning over Una whenever he did that.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me you were dating!" Lanlei complained for about the millionth time.

Una shrugged. There wasn't anything to tell, not really.

Well, not anything recent.

Lanlei made a sound of annoyance and turned back to her wardrobe. "I wish we'd had time to go shopping. You should have something pretty to wear on Saturday."

Una shrugged again even though Lanlei couldn't see. Cheerleading had kept her busy.

Lanlei emerged with a pink dress that she held up in front of Una. She shook her head and put the dress back. The next dress was a bright turquoise. Una vetoed that one. Turquoise was Uma's colour.

"That one would've looked good on you." Lanlei dug around in her wardrobe. "How about this?"

"This" was a purple skirt with a pattern of white stars that would be about knee-length on Una. It looked easy enough to move around in. Una nodded.

Lanlei then offered her the loan of a white ruffle-trimmed blouse to go with the skirt that would make her look especially non-threatening when they were worn together. Una accepted that as well, making a mental note to do two nice things for Lanlei later. It wouldn't do for Lanlei to have debt to hold over her head.

On Friday, Fairy Godmother ended Remedial Goodness class early. Una and the Rottens were immediately on alert.

"Since your parents are unable to be here, Prince Ben and I have arranged a treat for you," Fairy Godmother said, obviously choosing her words carefully.

Mal raised an eyebrow. "What does that mean?"

Turned out that it meant that Fairy Godmother was giving their parents a licence to yell at them through a computer screen and expected to be thanked for it.

Una hadn't seen her mother in three years. She was pretty sure Ursula though she was dead, actually. She had been in the process of bleeding out the last time they were in the same room together.

The video call didn't last long, but it was something of a miracle that Ursula, Maleficent, the Evil Queen, Cruella de Vil and Jafar could be in the same room for even that amount of time without attempting to kill each other. Mal updated her mother on their progress with careful wording, the Evil Queen insulted Evie's weight (and her hair, and her clothing, and her makeup), Jafar said something in Arabic that made Jay curl his hands into fists, Cruella talked about turning Carlos's tag-along dog (Una had no idea where or when he'd gotten the thing) into earmuffs, and Mal ended the call at the same second Ursula realized that it wasn't Uma she was talking to. Una winched when Ursula calling her a bitch was cut off. She hoped that Uma wouldn't have to deal with fallout from that.

Fairy Godmother cleared her throat. "Well, that was—"

"A mistake?" Mal scoffed. "We could have told you that if you'd bothered to ask. Come on, guys."

Una didn't hesitate to fall in line beside Jay and leave the room with Mal's gang. For that moment, they were a united front. They had to be, or someone would end up bleeding.

"What did your dad say?" Carlos asked Jay once they were in the comparative privacy of the boys' room.

Jay scowled. "The usual…and some other stuff. It doesn't matter."

Una really wanted to make someone bleed. Unfortunately, they still had mandatory attendance at the opening of Parents' Weekend to get through.

The Auradon kids' singing was painful, and not in a fun way.

"Why did they do that?" Jay asked when the for-once-not-magical music stopped.

"Torture," Mal said flatly. "Ben wants me to meet his parents. Try not to draw any attention while I get that over with."

"Will do, Mal," Evie said.

Mal turned to Una and raised an eyebrow.

"I'm going to work with you for now," Una signed.

Not drawing any attention lasted all of five minutes. They were lurking by the snack tables when Aziz came up to them.

"Hey, so, my parents want to meet you," Aziz said.

"Why?" Evie asked slowly.

Aziz gave a lopsided smile and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "I might have told them a lot about you. Like, a lot."

"You and your big mouth." Jay looked around at Evie, Carlos and Una. "I'm good with it if you are."

Given that Jasmine and Aladdin were Jay's father's enemies, if Jay was okay with meeting them then so was Una. Evie and Carlos seemed to agree. They nodded.

Aziz led them to a table over by the croquet field. Ms. Gabriella and Ollie were sitting there talking with a woman who could only be Sultana Jasmine. There was a silver crown glittering in her black hair and she had jewels trimming her pale pink dress. She was beautiful in the way half the girls at Auradon Prep tried and failed to be—poised and effortless.

"Hi, Mom. Hi, Ollie," Aziz said. He signed, "Hello, Ms. Gabriella."

Ms. Gabriella smiled and sighed hello back. Ollie gave an awkward little wave.

"Where'd Dad go?" Aziz asked.

"Genie dragged him off somewhere," Jasmine said. "He'll be back, eventually. These are your friends?"

Aziz nodded. "Yeah, Mom, this is Jay, Carlos, Una and Evie. Guys, this is my mom."

Evie gave a dazzling smile that made Una's heart skip a beat. Damn succubus powers.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty," Evie said.

"The pleasure's all mine," Jasmine said. "Aziz gushes about all of you so much that I couldn't wait to meet you."

Aziz was too good to them. It was almost a pity that they could only disappoint.

Jasmine's gaze drifted away from Evie. Carlos smiled and ducked his head when she looked his way. Una gave the Sultana a slight nod, almost a bow but not quite enough of one that she couldn't deny it if anyone asked. Then Jasmine looked at Jay.

"Uh, hi," Jay said.

"Jamil." Jasmine's voice was heavy with an emotion that Una couldn't place.

Jay flinched like…well, not like anything because Jay never flinched. Una hoped that none of the Auradon people noticed the sparks flickering from his fists.

"How do you know that name?" Jay asked.

Ollie and Ms. Gabriella looked at each other. They quietly got out of their seats and headed out of earshot. That was smart of them. The less of this—whatever "this" ended up being—that they saw, the less chance there'd be that Jay would have to kill them later.

Names were important. Jamil couldn't have been Jay's Name, but it was close. He wouldn't be so tense if it wasn't.

"It's the name I gave you before they took you away," Jasmine said softly.

The first person to realize what Jasmine meant was Evie. She gasped. Una put two and two together a second before Evie started speaking.

"You're saying that Jay is your son?" Evie whispered.

Aziz made a choaked sound. "Mom? Mom?"

Jasmine gave a single nod.

Jay studied Jasmine's face. After a moment, he exhaled slowly. "That makes too much sense. Anyone on the Isle he'd call a soft-hearted bitch got there after I was born. Er, not that you're a bitch."

"Nice save," Carlos said.

"He would say that," Jasmine said.

"And Lady Facilier could poison him easily, so he's obviously an idiot," Evie said.

Mama Mors was one of those who Jafar would call a soft-hearted bitch and she could definitely kill Jafar before he knew what was happening if she wanted to. Una agreed with Evie. Jafar was an idiot. A dangerous idiot, but still an idiot.

Jay chuckled softly. "Thanks."

Evie patted his shoulder. "Any time."

There were a few seconds of silence. Jasmine and Aziz seemed stunned.

"Not what you expected?" Una asked.

Jasmine shook her head. "No, no I—We should talk about this in private."

"Should we, Mom?" Aziz asked. "You never told me that Jay is—You never said anything. Why is now different from the first time I told you he was here?"

Maybe because it wouldn't be surprising if the Beast King and his minions were monitoring phone calls? Carlos had found enough spying software on the computers they were allowed to use for that to be entirely plausible.

This was Auradon. It was probably illegal for a Hero to have a kid with a Villain.

Jay and Jasmine wouldn't have had long to talk anyway. Audrey's grandmother picked a fight with Mal on the croquet field and everything went to hell.

When the yelling started, Jay hurried to provide back-up for his gang leader. Evie, Carlos and Una followed him. The odds that the fight would turn physical weren't good, but Una wasn't going to miss it if it did.

"My daughter was raised by fairies because of your mother!" a woman who had to be Audrey's grandmother Queen Leah was shouting. "Her first steps, her first words—I missed it all!"

"So what?" Mal demanded. "That's your own fault! My mom's curse didn't kick in until Aurora turned sixteen. You chose to send her away. Maybe if you were the good person everyone here pretends to be you'd have found a way to work around the curse, and there were ways around it! My mom laughs about them."

Queen Leah gave an affronted gasp. "How dare—"

"And," Mal raised her voice to cut off the dowager queen, "I was raised by a faerie too. I'll bet Aurora's were better. They probably never tried to kill her."

Oh. That was news. Una had never heard any whispers that Maleficent ever came close to killing her daughter.

The crowd of Auradon people spectating went silent. Mal showed her teeth in a snarl that made Una wish for her sword.

Ben cleared his throat. "Your mom tried to kill you?"

Mal exhaled sharply. "It only happened once. I got better."

Mal could have meant that she healed, but Una was pretty sure that she was talking about making whatever had driven her mother to murder a nonissue. Lucky faerie. Una had never gotten that option. Her existence drove Ursula to murder.

"Mal, your mom should never have tried to kill you," Ben said.

"And?" Evie asked. "It's the Isle. It happens."

Ben looked from Mal to Evie, and then to the other three Isle kids. "It…what?"

"Our parents are villains," Mal said. "The Villains, not the criminals you started sending to us because, what, we needed more chances to starve to death? I can count on one hand the number of villains who actually care about their kids."

There was movement behind Ben and a boy in a pale blue suit pushed through the crowd to stand beside Audrey. That was Chad Charming, Cinderella's son. Una wanted to slit his throat on pretty much a daily basis. Now, when she was on edge for any number of reasons, it was only Audrey stopping the stupid prince from speaking that kept all his blood in his body.

"Don't be ridiculous," King Beast said. "You're children."

And now Una wanted to kill the king more than usual. This was shaping up to be a great day.

Mal's eyes flashed acid green. "You say that like it's supposed to mean something."

"When I was six my dad locked me out of the house and told me not to come back until I had something good to stock the shelves with," Jay said. "The Coachman was in our neighbourhood. If Anastasia hadn't given me a ring, I'd probably be dead."

A blonde woman in a white lace dress noticeably flinched. That would be Cinderella, who didn't stop her sister from being sent to the Isle.

"My mother only cares that I'm beautiful, but she'll punish me if she thinks that anyone thinks I'm more beautiful than her," Evie said. "Bruises fade."

This was getting weird. Jay's story could be extrapolated from Jafar's usual behaviour, but Mal and Evie never let anyone see them be other than flawless. Mal would never have let it be known how close she'd come to death, not on the Isle. Una wouldn't do that, and she was only a gang leader's sister. No, there was something going on.

Una was entirely unsurprised that Mal had a plan she hadn't been told about. She just hoped that whatever it was didn't blow up in their faces.

King Beast still looked unperturbed. Belle on the other hand looked like she might start crying, and she wasn't the only one. Good.

Carlos took a deep breath before pulling up a leg of his pants, revealing a massive scar on his calf that looked like one of Scar's hyenas had tried to take a chunk out of him. That was something Una should have seen before. Gaston had killed the last of the hyenas years ago. Surviving one of their attacks when he was eight at most would have made Carlos someone to avoid.

"My mom keeps bear traps in her closet," Carlos said. "When I got caught in one, she was upset that I got blood on her furs. Jay was the one who let me out."

Not a hyena then. It was still an impressive scar.

Queen Leah leveled a stony glare at the Rotten Four and then addressed Una. "And you? What's your sob story?"

Una looked Queen Leah straight in the eye and gathered up her blouse until everyone could see the puckered scars between her ribs. Queen Leah paled.

"What—" Ben stuttered. He paused to clear his throat. "What happened?"

"My mom," Una signed. "Knife."

She owed Mama Mors her life and soul. She would be dead if it weren't for her. Céline Facilier was still a trained trauma surgeon, even though her medical licence had been stripped when she was sent to the Isle. She knew how to fix stab wounds and a collapsing lung.

"Ursula stabbed her and left her to die." Jay clenched his jaw. "Like Evie said, it happens."

Then Mal laughed. It wasn't her usual cackle but something sadder, like she'd ever feel sad. The Auradonians didn't know that though. Una had to wonder how long it had taken Mal to perfect the act.

"You know, I wish all of you could see what it's like on the Isle," Mal said.

Una was standing right next to Jay. She felt it when his magic flared and sent a burning ripple of power through the air, spreading outward until it disappeared from her perception.

A wish. Mal had made a wish and Jay had granted it and somehow they'd managed it without Jay becoming a slave. There were no cuffs around his wrists.

When Mal turned on her heel and made Una play part of their united front again as they stormed away, Una didn't complain. She couldn't wait to see what Jay had created.

Secret 6

All djinns are born free. Humans went around putting them in lamps and bottles, and now they've forgotten that djinns exist in any other way. Is it a secret when it's the result of willful ignorance? Jay isn't telling.

A/n: I got the idea for Parents' Weekend (rather than Parents' Day) from Natasja's "Stand By Your Friends (Don't turn your backs)" (on Archive of Our Own).