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Auradon made him softer (weaker, weaker, weaker, Jafar would have said).
The pretty, gentle, kind place evened out those rough, volatile edges on the surface of his face and muscles and voice, and it got easier and easier to pretend the change was all true and all over him.
There were still little things: he’d still have to hold back in training, when somebody said something that didn’t matter but struck a chord that mattered to him, because he’d start seeing red and start feeling his hands tremble and ache and itch to lash out before the “lash out” was directed at him; he’d still show up in his and Carlos’s room, pockets heavy with pilfered items he didn’t even remember taking, at the end of a day; he’d still have blinding flashes of panic if he was miraculously devoid of stolen treasures when the night came, standing at the door of his new home, frozen and burning and breathless, until he remembered that his dad wasn’t inside.
But he never said anything.
Because there was Mal with her new hair and new dresses and new spells—oh yeah, she could never fool him with that magic crap that so easily tricked Ben’s trusting, busy mind and eyes and heart—and she was trying so hard. Because there was Carlos with his newfound voice and confidence and barely-frightened—he still heard him crying and whimpering and begging in his sleep, so he knew the shell was thin during the day and nonexistent during the night—eyes, and he was trying so hard. Because there was Evie with her perfect-for-her business and her life she’d always wanted and almost everything—he knew she thought of the Isle more than any of them because there were people she felt she’d left behind, and Evie was the unfailing and unflinching and unapologetic mother of many—piled together in pretty colors to design everything she’d always deserved, and she was trying so hard.
So Jay tried hard, too.
He learned to dance, and he learned to kiss girls’ hands before he kissed anything else. He learned to fight with rules and codes and chivalric influences, and he learned to bottle up and fasten down the moves he’d learned on the Isle because breaking a jaw or whipping out a concealed knife or knocking someone flat from behind was frowned upon on the good side of fairytales. He learned to control his voice and language, and he learned to forget the words they didn't like in Auradon. He learned to fix his hair without Evie going to work on it, and he learned that only villains looked and sounded and behaved sloppy and rough and indecent.
Jay would do anything for his family—the little band of misfits and lost kids and shattered pieces he called “friends” on his best days, though they were so much more in his silver thief's heart because they'd chosen him and were the first things he'd never had to steal to earn—even become someone he’d never been.
And he could be happy because it was all for them.