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“It is through that brokenness that we find courage and strength. It is what empowers us to do great things.” ― K.S. Ruff
Carlos is three years old when his mother lays a hand on him for the first time, and it is an event that is burned into his memory forever.
He’s three years old and his mother is slamming her hand into his cheek, her eyes dark and furious with an anger that he’s seen before when she’s looking some of the other people on the island, but never at him.
He feels as though something inside him breaks as his head snaps to the side, the wailing emitting from his mouth abruptly cutting off; he’s shocked into silence as he tumbles to the ground, one small hand jerking up to his cheek. Lying there, Carlos looks back up at the woman who had just delivered his first dose of abuse, and he doesn’t know what to do. He can’t even remember what he was crying about; he can’t think of anything really, other than the pounding pain on the side of his face that is growing worse with each passing second.
Carlos stares at her, wondering what his mother is going to do next; he half expects her to apologize, to maybe beg him to forgive her – but then she glares down at him with that wicked gaze of hers, and he knows that she never will. He knows that she isn’t going to do anything of the sort, because that simply isn’t her nature; it isn’t her way to atone for something that she sees no wrong in doing, and he’s terrified that she is going to hit him again.
She calls him a burden and a brat and I was once a name that everyone feared, and look what I’m doing now. I’m taking care of you, a pathetic little child – a child that I didn’t even want in the first place! Each new blow comes with a new insult, until the words meaningless and stupid and irreverent sink into his skin and linger there, reminding him that he brought this on himself, because he is simply not good enough.
He is three years old, and he remembers thinking that his mother no longer loves him.
(He isn’t far from the truth.)
/
On his sixth birthday, he learns about science, and thinks that it’s magic.
Logically, he knows it isn’t; he knows that all the magic was locked away a long time ago on Auradon and that it isn’t accessible here, but when he thumbs through manuals and How To books, it feels as though he’s tapped into a part of the island that’s never been touched before.
He’s only in first grade, but one night, he sneaks into one of the high school science classrooms. It’s a worn down room with worn down equipment, but he swipes a periodic table from the wall to take home and a couple of beakers from the side cabinet, and has the time of his life that night.
(So what if the school ended up with a hole in the side of the building. They couldn’t trace it back to him.)
His teachers notice his ability to build things and his attraction to chemistry, and they praise him. They suggest apprentices for when he’s older, or guide him towards minor villains on the island who could help him harness his skill, but Carlos refuses. He likes learning on his own, and besides, if his mother discovered her son’s gift, she would either a) harness it for her own good or b) force him to stop using it.
So building and tinkering stays his secret, and he constricts himself to doing small projects, like making the old lamp in the living room that’s never worked run again or rebuilding a clock that had always made a funny ticking noise when midnight came around.
It’s only the little things, but it feels as though Carlos has magic at his fingertips. He feels brilliant for the first time in years, and it feels amazing.
/
He’s eight when he learns how to fly, and he thinks that he’d never like to stop.
Well. It’s not flying, exactly – the ability to fly, to have pixie dust, had been stolen away the moment the magic barrier closed around the island before he was born – but it feels like it. He learns to twist and turn and jump and leap over buildings and onto rooftops, and it feels wonderful. He learns to bend his body just so in order to make the perfect arc through the air, putting those nimble limbs of his to use; he has never been the strongest or the fastest on the Isle, but that’s not to say he didn’t have other attributes. He’s clever, for one – he uses his brain to think up a thousand different scenarios for one problem, and that’s always useful. In school, or tinkering with the little things that he digs out of the trash heap that comes from Auradon, he learns to build things that other children only dream of.
Carlos puts his flying to the test – first, stealing things. He discovers that he’s quite good at being a thief when he tries; he’s small enough to slip through doors and windows, but not so big that everyone suspects him. Carlos learns to pick locks and how to walk so softly that no one ever hears him coming.
He teaches himself to be a glorious thief, and it feels spectacular. Because he is good at it – and not mediocre, like the minor villains are, but very, very good. He uses his talent to his advantage, swiping food for when his mother refuses to feed him and jewels to get him on her good side. He learns to fly and steal and run, and he supposes this is what freedom feels like.
(There were only three villains that he learns never to steal from: Jafar, Maleficent, and Captain Hook. He had learned that very early on. No one stole from those three – otherwise they ended up dead in a gutter somewhere, or worse.)
For the first time in years, Cruella strays from her regular schedule of torture, finally somewhat satisfied with the things that her son is providing for her. But then she begins to expect more and more and more until one day, he gets caught; that ends with a black eye and a slash to the ribs – the first from his mother, the second from the character he’d had the unfortunate encounter with.
She screams at him all those old words, how he’s meaningless and useless and weak, and brings a knife to his skin. She carves worthless into the skin of his forearm, and he screams.
Carlos thinks, that if he were braver, his mother wouldn’t do this to him. If he were braver, she’d be proud of him; she wouldn’t be hurting him, because she’d finally be satisfied with the kind of son she has.
From that day on, he only wears long sleeves – even when he’s alone.
/
When he’s nine years old, his mother takes him to the marketplace for the first time in forever. Carlos knows that Cruella has kept him hidden as much as possible, though he doesn’t know why – he just knows that he hasn’t been to the marketplace since he was very little, but Cruella needs him now to pickpocket a few of the people there while she shops.
It’s a crude method of working; he’s got no preparation, no planning, instead relying only on his nimble fingers and sly skills to get the job done. But Carlos focuses on snagging loose change in people’s pockets, bumping into body after body as he swipes various items from their person. He had learned long ago that his mother’s wrath was far worse than any villain could inflict, so he goes about the task quickly.
Carlos had just slipped his fingers into someone’s pocket and pulled out a small ring when a shout rings through the marketplace. He whirls around, his body going into a defensive position, but then he realizes that the shouting isn’t meant for him.
There’s a girl on the far side of the marketplace with a man Carlos assumes is her father – a minor villain maybe, because Carlos doesn’t recognize him or her. The man is shouting at the little girl, who couldn’t be more than eleven or twelve, but the little girl is screaming back; she’s hollering terrible things, about how her father is dirty and mean and a thief and I want my mother back! Carlos watches the duo, and seems to be the only one doing so; this must be a common occurrence, because none of the people at the stalls even look up from their work.
Then, he watches as the man raises his hands and pushes the girl to the ground before stomping on her toes. Her scream is terrible and it sends chills down Carlos’ spine, but still the other people pay no attention to this. He knowsit’s wrong and he’s only nine years old, so why doesn’t anyone do something?
Because no one cares, he thinks, drawing his own hands into fists. Because we’re all in the same boat. No one cares because they are all trapped on the island; no one cares because they are the villains. They are the bad guys, and nobody cares about the bad guys.
Carlos braces himself, because he does know this: no one else may help, but he can’t watch that little girl get tortured by her own father. He makes a step forward, but before he can move any further, a hand yanks back on his shirt collar. Carlos swallows thickly, the sounds of the little girl’s shrieks fading to sobs as his mother curls her hand over his shoulder, bending down beside him.
“Don’t you dare,” Cruella hisses in his ear, moving her hand up to rake her nails along the side of his face. Her breath is hot on his neck, and Carlos feels spirals of panic shooting down his spine. “You are not a hero, you stupid boy – so don’t go trying to be one.”
Carlos’ eyes flicker back over to the little girl. Her hands are curled into her fists by her side, and her dress is dirty from the mud that she had been pushed into. There’s still wetness on her cheeks, but when she finally manages to stand, she wipes it off with the fabric of her sleeve. The man is long gone, having stalked away while she was down, and she is alone.
Almost as if she can tell he’s staring at her, she jerks her head towards him; her eyes are a brilliant blue, but her hair color is hidden underneath a threadbare cloak. She scowls at him, eyes narrowing, but he simply stares back. After a moment, she turns away, vanishing around the corner with her cloak flowing behind her.
He wonders why the people of Auradon would condemn them to this– a life of torture and pain and evil at the hands of the very people who were supposed to protect them from the world.
Carlos is nine years old when he realizes that he is not alone.
/
He’s thirteen years old when he tries to kill himself.
Carlos had done something critically wrong; tripped up a heist, brought home the wrong piece of jewelry, and Cruella had been furious. She’d hit and screamed and had come after him with a knife – and he’d run. He was older now, and knew better than to assume that she would simply stop at carving words into his skin.
(He’d stopped calling her his mother a long time ago. She didn’t deserve that title – not after everything she had done.)
He runs and he runs and he runs until he can’t breathe anymore. His footprints are pounding into the streets, and every warning he’s ever heard about wandering around the island at night (stray dogs, men with sharp teeth, claws and knives and things that go boo in the night) is spiraling around in his thoughts, every sound he hears sending complete and utter panic spiraling underneath his skin. Carlos must make a dozen twists and turns, his fingers clutching at the knife he keeps in his pocket for emergency situations.
The moon is high above as he skids to a halt, his heart pounding in his chest and a lump bobbing in his throat. He’s stopped right at the edge of the island, behind the area where the shops are. Before him, the moonlight glints off the water, making it look as though fairy dust was gathering below him.
Carlos swallows, his chest heaving from both emotion and physical exertion. His eyes dart around, as if to see if he is alone, and he is; for once in his life, he is completely and utterly alone, only surrounded by the night sky and silence.
He looks over the edge of the water, and wonders what it’d be like to step in. He wonders what it’d be like to simply step over the side and let go of everything; he’d escape from his mother, from all of her agony and torture. He’d be free. As far as he knew, there were no sharks surrounding the island. It’d simply be him in the water, sinking like a stone – because after all, no one had ever taught him to learn how to swim.
There were easier ways to stop the pain – the knife in his hand, for one, but Carlos had always been too much of a coward to take a knife to his skin. Fear surges within him, and he steps forward; his mother’s face flashes through his mind, her voice screaming into his thoughts. Worthless, he remembers her screeching, and the words on his arm burn.
He lets out all of the air on his lungs and takes one more step, his foot tilting against nothing – only to feel someone jerking back on his arm, pulling him away from the edge. Carlos shouts as he tumbles towards the ground, all of the warnings about monsters flashing through his mind in one horrible, terrible second. His head hits the ground hard, and his vision goes blurry. He’s got no time to react though, because someone jumps on him then, knees pressing against his hips and hands pinning down his wrists.
Carlos reacts, screaming as he tries to twist out from underneath his attacker – or savior, he realizes. The other person grunts, low enough for Carlos’ mind to vaguely recognize that the person is male.
There’s another set of hands now, a flash of purple in his range of view. His vision is still clouded, but it’s getting better; he can now see the outlines of two people, one girl with violet hair and a boy with long, dark hair – the boy is the one that’s straddling him, that’s preventing him from getting up.
It’s then that Carlos registers that he’s crying – huge, thick tears splatter down his cheeks as his chest heaves, panic building inside of him. He goes limp, slamming his eyes shut; he doesn’t know who these people are, but they had just prevented him from jumping over the edge of the cliff. He doesn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“Let me go,” Carlos chokes out, opening his eyes again and lifting his tear shrouded gaze to meet the boy’s eyes – chocolate brown ones, dark and layered with worry. “Please.”
The boy looks at him as though he’s lost his mind – and he probably has. He’s just so tired.
The girl tilts her head to the side, looking down at him. “Hey,” she says. “If you wanna kill yourself, go right on ahead.”
The boy jerks his head to the side, his hair slipping over his shoulders as he glares at the girl. “Mal,” he hisses, pressing down harder on Carlos’ wrists as if he cannot believe that his companion – Mal – had just said that. “What is wrong with you?”
She shrugs, her own purple hair shifting around her ears. They can’t much older than me, Carlos thinks. Maybe a year or so. He strains his eyes to look at the girl; she looks vaguely familiar though, and then it dawns on him – she’s Maleficent’s daughter.
Carlos jerks up, panic settling in his middle. She going to tell her mother, who’s going to tell my mother, and then oh god oh god oh god – he screams again, and the two react in unison. “Stop it,” the boy hisses, grasping Carlos’ wrists tighter as the girl slams her hands over his mouth. “You’re going to get us caught.”
Mal looks up at the boy, glaring at him. “Jay,” she half-whispers, “let’s just go. If this kid is stupid enough to try and jump off the cliff, we should just let him.”
The boy has a name – Jay, Carlos thinks, and he jerks his eyes back Jay’s expression. He looks angry; angry with who or what, Carlos doesn’t know, but he suspects that the boy isn’t angry with him.
Jay meets his eyes. “Are you alright?” the other boy asks, and Carlos swallows thickly.
“No,” he whispers, and Carlos’ throat bobs as he tries to hold back tears.He’s thirteen years old, far too old to be crying in front of people, let alone two strangers that he doesn’t even know. “Let me go.”
“Can I help?” Jay asks, and Mal snorts. The boy jerks his head up, glaring at his partner. “Shut up,” he snaps at her, and she crosses her arms. Jay looks back at Carlos. “What can I do?”
“Nothing,” Carlos states. “Just – leave me alone.”
Jay bends down then, his knees pressing harder against Carlos’ hips. It’s then that Carlos can clearly see the other boy’s face; he’s gorgeous, Carlos realizes, and feels heat start to spread across his cheeks.
This situation would’ve been far more awkward after a few more moments, but Jay releases his grip then, rolling off of Carlos and onto his feet. For a moment, Carlos does nothing; but then he gets up, watching as the two mirror each other in stance, their arms crossed and eyes narrowed. Carlos doesn’t think they realize that they’re doing it.
Carlos turns back towards the water, staring out at the scene before him; out of the corner of the eye, he sees Jay tense, as if the other boy was going to come after him if Carlos tries to jump again.
He thinks about it. He thinks about trying to end it all – again.
But that courage – that one, tiny, brief moment of courage that he’d had just before he had taken that step – was gone. Fatigue slips through his bones as he stands there, staring at what could have been his watery grave.
Carlos turns back to look at Jay. “I’m sorry,” Carlos calls out, and Jay tilts his head.
“For what?” the other boy asks. “You were going to do something stupid. I stopped you.”
“It’s not stupid,” he snaps, bring his hands up and curling them into his jacket. “I wasn’t – it wasn’t – you don’t understand.”
Jay looks up at him, his mouth parting to say something, but it’s Mal who speaks first. “Kid,” she retaliates, “you have no idea. All of our lives suck. You think you’re the only one who wants to kill themselves? No. But you don’t see the rest of us hurdling ourselves off the island, do you?”
“You don’t understand,” Carlos bites. Now he’s angry. He scrambles for the fringe at his wrist, pulling his the sleeve of his jacket upward. He jerks his arm towards them, moonlight spilling over the word carved there. “I’m worthless,” he screams hoarsely. “She thinks I’m worthless, and she’s right.”
Jay tenses up, but Mal simply steps forward, eyes shining. She reaches down, jerking up her shirt halfway; a large bruise lies there down by her hip, big and ugly and wide, but there’s a scar next to it: evil, it says, the word braded onto her, burned into her skin like she is a piece of cattle, and Carlos meets her eyes.
“Parents suck,” she laughs, but there’s no humor in her words. She releases the piece of fabric and it falls down, covering back up her wound. Mal steps forward, lowering her head and cupping his chin. “But we don’t give up,” she states, eyes dark. “Because we sure as hell aren’t going to let them win.”
He stares at her for a moment, before his gaze flickers back to Jay. The other boy hadn’t done anything while Mal was speaking, but the hardened look on his face means that he already know of the girl’s mark – and has stories of his own about abuse by a parent.
Carlos can’t help it, but the slightest shimmer of hope flickers through him – because just like all those years ago, he is reminded that he is not alone, and he thinks that maybe, he might have just found his first friends.
/
His first kiss comes when he’s fifteen, and it’s rather disappointing.
There’s this girl that’s been giving him giggling glances during class; he’d ignored it at first, but then Jay had elbowed him (they’d ended up in the same class when Carlos had gotten moved up a year) and whispered, “Dude, go after that.”
He doesn’t know exactly what Jay means by those words, but he supposes that it’s time; he knows that Jay’s been charming girls since the son of Jafar was old enough to talk and he knows that Mal’s been flirting with someone (she refuses to divulge this person’s name) so maybe, it’s his turn now.
So Carlos gathers the courage, and talks to her. She’s a nice girl – Rosie, her name is, and she enjoys chemistry and science like him. They talk for a bit during the lunch period, with Jay making kissy noises on the side, but Carlos makes her laugh.
After school, she kisses him in the alleyway behind the shops of the marketplace. It’s a short kiss, with teeth awkwardly clanking against each other. He’d never kissed anyone before and she hadn’t either, so it was more of a learning system for both of them than anything else.
When they’re done, she shrugs. “Huh,” she says to him. “That was – different.”
Carlos doesn’t know what that means but when he tells Jay what the girl had said later that day, while him and the other boy are searching for scrap in the junkyard for one of Carlos’ inventions, Jay laughs so hard he falls off a junk pile. Carlos turns scarlet red and shoves him back off when the other boy manages to climb back up. He thinks that maybe, it was a one-time thing. Maybe, it was only the first kiss that was supposed to be awkward and passionless and weird.
But it happens again and again and again; Carlos isn’t the most attractive boy in school, but he is asked out a few times. Well – not asked out really. He doesn’t think that asking out someone means inviting them to kiss in various places around the island. Carlos learns that this is how it is on the island; he learns that attachments are seen as weak and that there are no real relationships, just – arrangements. He learns that when a girl invites him to kiss her, she expects that he will simply leave her alone the next day. He learns that when he kisses any of those girls, he feels nothing. They’re all lifeless kisses, and he starts to reject those few that ask him – eventually, all of the girls learn to leave him alone.
But then, everything changes. He doesn’t know exactly when it starts to happen, but it’s in the little things.
It’s the way Jay brushes his hand over Carlos’ shoulder; it’s the way Jay presses his palm against Carlos’ when he’s passing him something. It’s the way the other body makes him feel whole again, and most of all, it’s the way that Jaysmiles at him – warm and broken and energetic and kind.
He learns that boys aren’t supposed to like boys, just like girls aren’t supposed to like girls. (He thinks Mal didn’t get the hint on that last one – he’d caught her behind Jafar’s shop once with a girl with blue hair and a kind smile, but then again he’d also seen the way she had looked at a few of the boys in their classes, so he really didn’t know what was going on in her mind.) He learns that it is only acceptable that boys like girls and girls like boys, and that is simply the only way.
But Carlos also learns what it’s like to laugh. He learns what it’s like to feel warmth humming beneath his skin, to feel the allure of another’s touch. He learns the difference between friend and more;he learns that his heartbeat can quicken in a pattern that he’s never felt before, one of joy and worry and pure unadulterated delight. He learns that happiness comes in a many different forms, and he learns that the world is beautiful when seen through rose-colored glasses.
He discovers a great many things during his fifteenth year alive, but one hovers above them all: he falls in love with a boy with a mischievous smile and mesmerizing eyes, and he doesn’t know how to make it stop.
/
A few months into Carlos’ sixteenth birthday, news of the Auradon proclamation comes to the island, and his entire world twists and turns until he can hardly tell the difference between realities and dreams anymore.
(He does know this though: for the first time in his life, he is away from his mother – and it is a glorious feeling.)
He, like the rest of the children, has never left the island, having been condemned to grow up there before he was even born, and being in Auradon is an entirely different experience. Carlos quickly learns his way around a real school, not like the half-hearted one they had on the Isle of the Lost. He navigates his way around science classrooms filled with all sorts of objects and equipment that he had never even heard of before, and absolutely flourishes in this princess/prince dominant environment. He notices the looks that the other students give him – dirty ones, like they know he doesn’t belong – but he doesn’t care.
But then that night in the kitchen comes, during the making of the love potion, and out of Lonnie’s poor, innocent, naïve little mouth comes, “I thought even villains love their kids,” and it hurts. The question spins out of Lonnie’s mouth and curves down Carlos’ spine; he swallows thickly, his fingers tightening on Dude’s fur a little tighter.
The word on his arm stings and reflexively, Carlos draws his hand back over it, rubbing it with his thumb to cure the phantom pain. It wasn’t her fault – she didn’t know, and it was only the fact that Jay had been flirting with her just moments ago that Carlos felt any ill will towards her at all. He looks up, taking in the other children’s reactions: Evie’s got that distant look on her face, the one she only gets whenever her mother is mentioned, and her fingers are twitching by her side; Mal looks positively crushed, because only something like this could evoke that kind of emotion from her; and Jay –
Carlos feels Jay’s hand curling over his shoulder, and Carlos’ mind flashes to all he knows of Jafar and his treatment of his son. He closes his eyes for a moment, desperately trying to prevent the lump in his throat from growing, before looking back at the boy he had come to fall in love with.
Jay rubs his thumb there briefly before drawing it away as Lonnie begins to speak again. “Oh,” the daughter of Mulan whispers, her voice suddenly drop-a-pin quiet. “How awful.”
Carlos watches as Mal tries to recover herself, acting as though it didn’t bother her as she swipes the tear from Lonnie’s cheek. They all let out half-hearted chuckles, and the other girl slips out the door, leaving them all strangely solemn.
Mal snaps her fingers then and they all jump to attention, following her orders; but that mood of playfulness had vanished the moment that Lonnie had spoken those words, and they all could feel it. They move through the motions with a steadfast silence, and when they part for their respective dorms later that night, Carlos can still feel grief emitting from Jay.
“Hey,” Carlos says softly, back when they’re back in the safety of their dorm. Jay pauses in his motion of pulling his shirt off, his hands grasping at the fabric at the bottom of article of clothing. Carlos steps forward, daring to brush his fingers up against Jay’s arm. Only when they’re alone does Carlos dare to touch the other boy, even brief moments like this. “You okay?”
Jay looks towards him, mouth tight with anger. “No,” Jay bites, shoulders sagging, and Carlos adjusts himself to face the other boy. “I just –“ Jay looks at Carlos then, worry seeping from his gaze, and Carlos can feel that familiar humming flicker beneath his ribs. “I just didn’t think that Lonnie would say that.”
Carlos shrugs, drawing his hands back to his sides. “Yeah,” Carlos says quietly. “But are you okay?”
The other boy tries to throw him off with a half-smile, clapping a hand down on Carlos’ shoulder. “C’mon Carlos,” Jay states, drawing away from him. He draws his tee shirt over his head, but Carlos doesn’t shift his gaze from Jay’s eyes – as much as he would want to, because good god, how did that boy get those arms – and instead reaches a hand out to touch Jay again.
But Jay flinches away and Carlos freezes, a tumbling feeling thumping in his chest. “Carlos, I’m fine,” Jay snaps. “Besides, I’m not the one who should be asking. I’m not the one who had the violently abusive mother.”
Carlos recoils, his toes curling in his boots. “Low blow,” Carlos bites, and he can feel the goose bumps spreading along his arms – and not the good kind. “If you didn’t want to talk, you could’ve just said so.”
He can see regret flashing over Jay’s features, but there’s deep, dark seeded anger curling in his belly. Jay has no right to bring up his mother – none of the villain kids did, but especially not Jay. “Carlos,” Jay whispers, and this time he’s the one reaching one reaching out, but Carlos jerks away from the other boy’s fingers, his legs bumping against the foot of his bed. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re a jerk,” Carlos says harshly, and watches as the other boy’s eyes darken. “Just a stupid jerk. You don’t know anything.” He digs his hands into his jacket, feeling cold all of a sudden as he averts his gaze to the ground.
He doesn’t exactly hear Jay’s footsteps, but when he sees the boy’s boot-clad feet come into his vision, Carlos looks up; Jay’s gaze has softened just a bit (and it isn’t pity, because the four of them had all agreed a long time ago, there was no room for pity where they were concerned) and he reaches a hand up, brushing his thumb up along the curve of Carlos’ neck and down his collarbone.
They’re close enough that Carlos could move forward barely an inch and bump chests with Jay if he so dared to. Jay’s finger hooks down on Carlos’ collar, bringing the fabric down just a few inches and revealing the top of a rather nasty scar that Carlos knows trails down his chest. Carlos’ breath stills, his stomach clenching at the motion as the other boy meets his eyes again.
And then Jay’s pressing his lips to Carlos’, warm and wet and soft, and Carlos’ pulse flies beneath his skin. It’s a proper kiss, and it feels unlike nothing Carlos has ever felt before – it feels a thousand times better than any of those girls’ kisses ever did, and it is as though everything falls into place.
He likes me, Carlos thinks as he presses back against Jay, his own lips hurriedly capturing Jay’s bottom lip and sucking there, feeling as Jay’s chest hitches beneath his palms; Jay’s got one hand fisted in Carlos’ collar and the other fumbling with the fabric on the bottom of Carlos’ shirt and pushing underneath, running a palm against the skin that lies there. Carlos gasps, feeling heat flash through him, and Jay takes the chance to tease his tongue in between Carlos’ lips.
It’s euphoric, because he’s craved this for so long. He touches and tastes and feels and it all seems as though it’s a dream, even though he knows it isn’t.
Carlos breaks away from Jay then before reattaching his lips to the space just below the other boy’s earlobe, and he feels Jay shudder. He kisses down that path, nipping and teasing, and Jay positively growls, arching against him and grinding their bodies together.
He thinks that just maybe, perhaps, he could get used to this.
/
On the night of his seventeenth birthday, Carlos holds a bottle of wine tight in his hands as he climbs onto the roof of the school; he had swiped it from the marketplace earlier that morning, ignoring the sting of guilt in his chest. Even after a year of being away from the island, old habits die hard – but he was improving, they all were, to the delight of the headmistress.
Carlos takes a place up there against one of the brick panels (a chimney, he thinks) and stares at the moon, the reddish-purplish liquid swishing in the bottle as he twists it around. He takes a few sips, the liquid spilling down his throat with a refreshing ease; it has an odd taste to it and he’s heard from the other boys that he’ll get sick if he drinks too much, so he doesn’t go too fast. Carlos paces himself out, making a game of it – taking a sip every time he catches a glimpse of something in the clouds that could vaguely resemble something from the isle.
He’s feeling warm now, the liquid thrumming through his veins and the glass cool beneath his fingertips. It’s an odd feeling, he supposes – to be drunk, that is. He knows he’s not fully drunk yet, probably only half way there, but it still feels nice. It feels like it’s fulfilling his purpose – to make him forget, if only for a little while.
Just yesterday, Carlos had had a panic attack again; he’d been at the tourney tournament, cheering Jay on from the sidelines (although Jay had stuck up for him that one time when they’d first showed up, Carlo had never been very good at the game, and was usually stuck on the bench) when he’d caught a glimpse of someone in the crowd on the opposing side that looked like Cruella. It’d only taken that tiny mistake for him to feel as though the world was spiraling around him, and it had only take a few minutes more for someone to realize what was happening.
It had been embarrassing, yes, but what was more embarrassing was the looks of pity on his schoolmate’s faces. Since they’d come to Auradon, he and the rest of the villains’ children had been careful to keep details about the island hidden, but things had slipped out. The team had gotten Jay drunk a few weeks ago as a celebration for the end of the season, when Carlos was back at the dorms studying, and the other boy had accidently revealed a few things – both about his own home life and Carlos’. Carlos had been furious when he’d found out.
The past few days – few weeks, really – have simply been full of pressure and memories, and the only thing Carlos wanted to do tonight was to get drunk and fall asleep on the rooftop.
His head jerks up then as he hears the sound of someone’s footprints coming up the path he had just taken. Carlos leans forward a bit, trying to look over the edge to see who it was. He knows that if he gets caught, he would more likely get a warning rather than be expelled – as a child of no home, and an abusive villain at that, the administrative people of the school were more sympathetic towards him – but he still didn’t fancy the idea of detention for two weeks.
The person comes into view then as Carlos shifts the bottle behind his back, trying the hide the item despite the fact that he knows it would do little use. Moonlight flickers over the newcomer, and Carlos rolls his eyes, bringing the bottle back in front of him as he knows there’s no use to hide it anymore.
“What do you want, Jay?” Carlos asks, calling the other boy’s name with a slight hitch in his voice. He knows that he’s being harsh, but he still hasn’t forgiven Jay for what had happened with their teammates. Carlos wants to leave the island behind, not have the memories of Cruella brought up every time someone gets a little curious.
The other boy makes his way across the rooftop quickly, balancing with his arms out and curving his feet away from the little discrepancies in the bricks. He stops just before reaching Carlos, crossing his arms.
“We were worried about you,” Jay says, his voice quiet, slivers of worry and anger darting through. “I was worried about you.”
Carlos feels a ripple of anger surge through his body. “Do you now?” he states, bring the bottle back up to his lips, taking a long sip. He rests the bottle between his knees, looking back down on the ground. “Really. Because I thought you only cared about spilling highly personal secrets to people who have no right to know them.”
In the moonlight, Carlos can see Jay’s throat bob. “Carlos,” he starts, but Carlos cuts him off.
“No,” Carlos snaps, jerking his head back up. He meets Jay’s gaze. “You know how I feel about the island,” he continues. “You know how I feel, and you told all of our teammates about Cruella. About how she –“ Carlos slams his eyes shut, feeling panic building up in his chest. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, his fingers clutching the bottle tighter.
Jay sits down then, his feet rustling against the loose stones as he matches Carlos’ stance from shoulder to hip, their thighs pressing together. Carlos feels Jay’s hand on his knee, brushing against the jean fabric there. “Hey,” Jay murmurs, his warm breath washing over Carlos’ cheek. “Look at me.”
After a moment of hesitation, Carlos does; he opens his eyes, Jay’s palm warm and soft against his skin, his grip loosening from the bottle. Jay doesn’t hesitate, reaching his other hand over to grab the offending object, setting it on the far side of the pair of them.
It was funny – when they’d first started dating, everyone had assumed that Carlos was the cuddly one. It turned out to be the opposite; Jay had always been rather physical, but it had only increased when they’d gotten together. He was the one who had always taken care of Carlos, and Carlos had done his fair share of comforting too, but more often than not it was Jay.
“Does that feel better?” Jay asks, bringing his hand up to cup the back of Carlos’ neck. Carlos nods, feeling a lump begin to form in his throat. After a few seconds, and with little hesitation, Jay leans forward, capturing Carlos’ lips with his.
It’s a gentle kiss, slow and sweet and kind, and it sends spirals of warmth down Carlos’ spine. He moves his hands, one curving against Jay’s knee while the other brushes against the soft slope of the back of Jay’s ear, and he feels Jay’s breath hitch. Carlos holds back his huff of a laugh – that was one of the only weaknesses that Jay had, and Carlos used it to his advantage whenever necessary.
He closes his eyes for a moment, enjoying this – the two of them, together, kissing underneath the night sky. It’s rare that they get the chance to be alone, despite the fact that they share a dorm. Jay is always busy with tourney and Carlos has long since given up on his dedication to the sport, instead choosing to spend most of his time in the science labs. He feels his anger fading away in the back of his mind until it’s a mere whisper.
Carlo pulls back then, and lets out the huff of a laugh at the look of disappointment that forms on Jay’s features. The other boy’s expression twists into one of false anger, his hand still firm against Carlos’ neck. “C’mon,” Jay whines, his voice echoing across the rooftop. Carlos’ hand jerks forward on almost a self-preservation instinct, pressing it against Jay’s lips in order to keep the other boy silent.
“Quiet,” Carlos hisses at him, raising his eyebrows. “And nice try, but you can’t just kiss me until I’m not angry anymore.” Jay’s eyes narrow at this, and he removes Carlos’ hand from his mouth as his finger comes up to touch his chin as a gesture of mock thinking.
“Yes,” Jay nods, eyes shining with mischief. “I believe I can.” Carlos curls his fingers into a fist, putting little force into the playful punch he sends towards Jay’s arm. The other boy pretends to be wounded for a moment, pressing a hand to the spot.
Jay leans back then, the pretense of play fading from the atmosphere. “I’m sorry,” the other boy states, and Carlo leans his head back against the brick. “I didn’t mean to tell them about the island – about any of it, but especially not about you and Cruella.”
Carlos flickers his eyes down towards the ground, shifting his foot. “I know,” he says quietly. “But that doesn’t mean it hurt any less. And that, combined that that panic attack –“ Carlos stops, swallowing. “It’s been rough.”
Jay reaches his hand down, his palms warm against Carlos’ as he curls their fingers together. “Our lives aren’t ever going to be perfect. Villains raised us, for god’s sake. We’re not perfect. We won’t ever be perfect.” Jay hesitates for a moment. “But we’re free now – you’re free now. They can’t ever hurt us again – she can’t ever hurt you again.”
Carlos tilts his head, meeting the gaze of the boy he’s come to fall in love with; ever after being together for so long, Jay always manages to surprise him.
The other boy stands up then, dropping Carlos’ hand. “C’mon,” he motions, jerking his head back towards the route he’d come up. “You have to go and eat the birthday cake that Evie made for you – and don’t worry, I only ate half of it.”
Carlos snorts. “You’re a jackass.”
“You’re a terrible tourney player,” Jay shoots back.
“Thief.”
“Nerd.”
“Bully.”
“Nerd.”
Carlos links his hand with Jay’s as they step across the rooftop. He steals one last kiss, the other boy’s lips wet and smooth against his. This is nice, he thinks, leaning his head against the curve of Jay’s neck.
/
When he’s eighteen years old, Carlos walks across the graduation stage, is handed a diploma, and kisses his boyfriend of two years within an inch of his life in front of the entire student body.
This - this is right.
Finally, he’s happy.