Work Text:
Evie isn’t Cruella, but sometimes her nail polish smells the same and sometimes the way she pops her lips after putting on lipstick sounds just like Mom and Carlos can’t help but flinch. It’s so stupid, he knows it’s stupid, knows they’re safe in Auradon and their parents can’t ever get to them again, but he can’t help it.
He’s so scared.
Evie isn’t Cruella, but sometimes when she calls him hermanito it reminds him of the way Mom sometimes called him baby when she apologized for the cigarette burns on his shoulders. Mom would hold him close and stroke his hair and tell him she just wanted him to be tough and strong so the vicious dogs wouldn’t devour him, she couldn’t bear to lose him, she said.
Evie isn’t Cruella. She keeps a little bowl of dog treats on her sewing table for Dude. One day, Carlos reaches for one to give the dog but his hand slips and he knocks over Evie’s sewing machine. It crashes to the floor of her bedroom and the sound reminds him of Mom’s hoarse shouting and no , no , it’s probably broken and it’s all his fault and she’s going to be so furious with him and he shouldn’t have touched her stuff at all and no, no, no .
The world splinters around him.
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” he cries, bunched up into a ball on the floor in front of Mal’s bed, hands shielding his face. Beside him, Dude whines in concern.
“Carlos.”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I c-can fix it,” he stammers, his words running together as he trembles like a leaf. “I shouldn’t’ve touched your stuff, I was bad, I’m sorry, I’ll do better and I’ll be better I’m sorry, I’m sorry .”
“ Pobrecito , hey, look at me.” Evie crouches in front of him, and she tries to tug his hands away from his face but he starts sobbing so much louder, flinching so hard he knocks his head back against the box spring on the bed. Evie swears. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Carlos drags in a few rattling breaths, too fast and too shallow. With his eyes shut, he hears Evie stand up and back away. The dorm sink turns on, and then off, and then Evie returns to sit beside him against the bed.
“Here,” she says, holding a cup of water out to him. “I got you some water. You can drink it when you’re ready, okay?” He doesn’t move. “I’m going to set it down right next to you and you can just have it when you want it.”
Carlos’ eyes finally focus on her after about two minutes. “Evie?”
“Hi.”
“I broke your sewing machine.”
“Shh, no you didn’t,” she promises, pointing to where it’s still lying on the floor. “That thing can take a hit. I’ve dropped it so many times, I swear. You didn’t break it.” Carlos nods a little, and distractedly starts petting Dude. “Is it… can I touch you?”
Carlos stiffens up. “Bu-- um, it’s… no, not now, not…”
“It’s okay,” Evie says quickly.
“I’m sorry,” Carlos says, eyes glassy. His fingers tighten in the fur behind Dude’s ears. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Evie says again. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
Carlos pulls Dude into his lap and holds him close, trying to ground himself. He’s in Auradon, and he’s safe, and Evie is there, and it’s okay.
In Remedial Goodness class one day, Fairy Godmother reads off practice questions from the board, just like always. She steps away from the board and starts to speak, and Carlos is staring down at the doodles of puppies in his notebook and he doesn’t see the words on the board. “If a child asks you for help with a problem, do you A, yell at them to go away, B, give them helpful and safe advice, or C, strike them?”
Mal and Jay are deeply involved in a game of paper football between the two desks, so Evie’s the only one to notice Carlos’ hands start to shake. “Class is over,” she says coldly to Fairy Godmother, and she takes one of Carlos’ shaking hands and leads him back to his room. They eat extra cheese pizza and don’t talk.
Evie isn’t Cruella. Her closet isn’t stuffed with mink stoles and fur coats, it’s filled with unique designs, painted pleather jackets and tulle skirts and flowy blouses with too many sequins. Carlos likes the feel of the materials; he catalogues the fabrics in his head as he runs his hand through her hangers. Silk, velvet, leather, cotton. Everything smooth and soft, not the hot-prickly-itchy-thick feeling of fur.
But she closes the door without thinking, going to put up a poster of Rapunzel’s work on the other side. Alone in the dark, Carlos feels the walls of the closet close in on him, and it’s like he can smell the rancid cigarette smoke that always drenched his mother’s clothes.
“Hey,” he tries to say, but his throat is too dry and it’s too dark, too tight, there’s not enough room and he’s spinning. It’s dark and he can’t breathe, and any second Mom’s going to come in and tell him to get to work on her hair or the dogs will get him. “Hey!”
“Carlos, sorry,” Evie says quickly, opening the closet door again. “Forgot you were in there…” But she trails off when she sees his face, drained of color and terrified. “Carlos?”
He shakes his head, pressing one hand against his chest to keep himself centered. “I’m fine,” he lies, trying not to think about the cramped closet back on the Isle where he spent every night. “I’m… I’m… Evie, we can’t ever go back there.”
“We won’t,” she promises. “We’ll be here forever and ever and you’ll never have to see her again.”
Carlos nods. That’s it. That’s what he wants. Forever and ever.
They go back to the Isle.
They go back for Mal, and really, there’s not a lot the four of them won’t do for each other. But when it comes to Mal, well, Carlos wonders if she realizes that going back to the Isle for her is so different compared to what it is for Carlos, Jay and Evie. She’s got her mother trapped in a little box, unable to do any damage.
But their parents are all still there, right back where they left them, waiting for their children to come home and fall right back into place.
When they’re trying to explain to Ben how to behave like a VK, that’s alright, that’s something to focus on. After that, though, he can’t help but look around every corner, his ears alert for the familiar clack of heels, the high-pitched harsh laugh. Evie sewed a marble and a ribbon into his pocket for him to fidget with, and that keeps him from completely losing it as they make their way through the dark streets.
But then he smells the cigarette smoke, and it all just comes rushing back.
“It’s not her, it isn’t her,” Evie tells him, but it doesn’t matter who it is; some stranger smoking around the corner is enough to launch him into a full-blown panic attack. “Go ahead, we’ll meet you at Mal’s,” Evie tells Jay and Ben, and then she helps Carlos sit down on a wooden pallette in the alley behind Le Fou’s Brewery. “It’s okay. I’m here, kiddo.”
“I wanna go home,” Carlos says, hating himself and hating Mom and hating every inch of this disgusting, hard, painful place. He sounds like a little kid, except when he was actually a little kid, if he cried he got slapped. “I’m scared, I’m scared, I wanna go home.”
“We will,” Evie says, voice strained. “We’ll go home. We’re going to go see Mal, and we’re going to tell her to come home. And everything’s going to be okay.”
“Sh-she’s here,” Carlos says.
“Yeah, Mal’s here and we’re going to bring her back.”
“Not her,” Carlos says, staring down at his feet. “Mom.”
Whenever Carlos mentions his mother in front of Jay and Mal, their responses are always pretty much the same: threats of violence. Jay makes his hands into fists and makes a big show of bravado, tells Carlos he’ll mess up Cruella if she ever touches a hair on his head again. Mal gets that dangerous look in her eyes and says Cruella won’t ever get near Carlos, won’t dare, or she’ll be in danger.
Evie just holds his gaze, her eyes big and wet and worried. “Carlos,” she says slowly, “I won’t let anything happen to you. Ever. Do you trust me?” Carlos nods, but he looks dejected, deflated. His anxiety drained all the energy from him. “And I love you. You know that? I love you more than all the clothes in all the boutiques in Camelot Heights. And I always will, hermanito .”
He looks up at her, grateful. “Love you, too.” Evie kisses him on the forehead and holds out a hand to help him up.
When they lived here, there was never enough of this . All four of them were starving: for food, for attention, for affection. But instead of trying to show how much they cared about each other they retreated into themselves, terrified of showing weakness.
They’ve changed since then, grown, and Carlos is glad that he has someone to lean on, someone who won’t mock him for needing the support at all.
Evie isn’t Cruella.
And Carlos is still the same scared boy he was a year ago, but someday that’s going to be okay.