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After their battle with Uma and her gang, the four evils - plus Ben and Lonnie - trudge back to the limo in the misty darkness. They’re all in various states of exhaustion and terror, still coming to terms with the fact that they almost lost Ben to Uma today. As they finally reach the car, Carlos stumbles a moment before reaching for the keys in his pocket and tossing them to Jay. He groans as he gets into the backseat, rubbing his temples.
"You good, bro?" Jay asks.
"Yeah, my head’s just killing me,” Carlos replies. “I’ll be fine.”
“You’re probably dehydrated,” Evie offers, twisting the top off of a water bottle and handing it to him. “Drink this - we’ll be home soon.”
Carlos sighs, taking a sip of the cool liquid and wincing as it hits his throat. Thankfully, only Evie notices, meeting his eyes with a concerned frown. You ok? she mouths, raising an eyebrow.
Carlos weighs his options for a moment before responding, knowing full well that Evie is exceptional at catching lies. He settles on nodding briefly, punctuating the sentiment with a shrug. She nods, still wary, but doesn’t press the issue further, as the portal opens and they pass through to the mainland.
"Okay, guys," Mal says, mercifully unaware of their silent conversation. "Whatever you do tomorrow...whatever anyone asks... you were anywhere but the Isle. Got it?"
The next day, they’re all back in their classes, trying desperately to come up with answers to all the questions about their absence. While Jay, Evie, and Mal are all left scrambling for pathetic fibs (Jay claiming a special errand, Evie lying that she needed a day to catch up on homework, and Mal pretending she had duties to perform as the future queen), Carlos, however, has the perfect excuse - not only is his head still aching, but now he's coughing and sniffling his way through every class, so he follows the obvious route, saying he'd been out sick. What he doesn’t count on is everyone’s obvious concern - he hasn’t looked in the mirror this morning, so he's the only one unaware of how awful he actually looks. That is, except for the rest of the VKs, who have been in other classes all day.
“Carlos!” Mal practically shouts at him, doing a double take when they meet at their lockers. “What happened? You look like crap,” she adds, with a gentle punch to his arm. “Are you ok?”
He falters, but catches himself, faking a grin. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”
“She just said why, dummy,” Jay puts in affectionately. “You do look pretty bad.”
“It’s, uh, makeup,” Carlos fibs, casting around desperately for an excuse. He isn’t fully sure why he doesn’t mind claiming sickness to the rest of his classmates, but he knows if his friends think he's sick, he's in for it. He was small, so they tended to be a bit over-the-top with worrying, but it always bothered him being seen as the weak one of the gang - he could take care of himself just fine, thank you very much.
Evie raises an eyebrow, clearly suspicious. Wrong choice, dummy, he thinks. Of course the beauty queen can tell if it’s makeup or not.
Maybe she sees the panic in his eyes, or maybe by some miracle he’s genuinely fooled her, but either way, she nods and leaves it alone. He holds back a sigh of relief, knowing he still has to keep the charade up.
“Everyone was asking me where I’d been yesterday, so I said I was sick, but I figured they wouldn’t have believed me if I didn’t look it so I… uh, I threw on some stuff to make me look pale?” He finishes, ending in a question, praying they’ll take the bait.
"…Okay.” Mal hesitantly agrees.
"Huh." Jay nods, seemingly approving.
The bell rings suddenly, and they scramble to go their separate ways, but not before Evie brushes past him with a whispered “Feel better, C.”
Dang it. She knows.
He drags himself to his next class, barely able to hold himself up. Mercifully, they're watching a documentary, so he can get away with closing his eyes in the dark and trying to wish away the driving ache in his temples. Only when the bell rings does he jolt up and realize he had been asleep - he's just grateful no one saw. Even groggier now, he seriously considers just going straight to his dorm and skipping class - better to ask forgiveness than permission - but decides against it, knowing if Jay finds him in the dorm early he'll be found out for sure. And somehow, to him, that's even worse than being miserable.
Finally, the last class is over and he can retreat to the dorm he shares with Jay. His head is pounding, now, and he's pretty sure he has a fever. He walks as quickly as he can, stumbling a few times, stifling a few sneezes into his wrist. He glances around for any sign of his friends, but thankfully, they're not around, so he continues quickly on his way.
He reaches the door and practically bursts in, flopping on his bed with a hoarse groan.
“Ok, are you actually good?” Jay is perched on his bed, looking over at him quizzically. “You played it off earlier, but that sounded kind of miserable.”
Oh God. Too late, Carlos thinks. And as much as he hates to admit it, Jay is right. However strongly he wants - no, needs - them not to know, he’s just so tired. Today had been pretty thoroughly miserable, and he doesn't have the energy to think up another excuse. He has one rule, though. Play it cool. Don’t volunteer the s-word. Anything but the s-word.
“Yeah, I feel kind of miserable,” Carlos replies, half-choking out a laugh. “It’s nothing though. I just need to catch up on some sleep.” He stifles another sneeze, curling up on the soft covers and closing his eyes. Sleep sounds so good right about now , he thinks.
He startles when he feels a cold hand on his forehead, snapping open his eyes to find Jay standing over him.
“You’re burning up. That’s not nothing,” Jay says before Carlos can open his mouth. “I’m gonna get Mal and Evie.”
“I’ll be ok, really, I’m not-”
“Sick?” Jay interrupts. “Uh-huh. So we could bake cookies on your head why , exactly? Are you just a human furnace now, or-”
“Fine!” Carlos snaps. “I’m sick, happy?” He practically melts on the last word, giving in to the confession. “I didn’t want to say anything because you guys always worry over me. But...yeah, I feel like crap, and frankly, I don’t know how I made it through school without dying.”
Jay chuckles at that, but quickly becomes serious. “We're your friends, Carlos. I know we can get a bit over the top, and I'm sorry - but we all love you, and we worry. You scared us a couple times on the Isle, and we don’t want that to happen again,” Jay falters, his cool facade cracking for a moment, then continues anew. "I do need to get Mal and Evie, though. They're better at this than I am, and you saw how Mal freaked out earlier. I'd rather she not kill us both for hiding it from her."
Carlos grins at that, conceding. Evie seems to know already anyway, might as well let the cat out of the bag. He closes his eyes again, grateful for the darkness and silence as Jay closes the door.
“I knew something was wrong!”
Carlos wakes up to the sound of Mal, freaking out once again. Geez, she really wasn’t as stoic as she pretended, was she?
“...makeup, yeah, right… I should’ve guessed…what was he thinking ?”
He decides to make himself known then, opening his eyes and sitting up as a shiver runs through him. Dang, it’s so cold in here.
Mal turns on him, eyes blazing, but quickly softens when she sees his condition.
“Carlos - you should’ve told us! What were you thinking? What if something happened?” Evie puts a hand on her arm, and she quiets down.
“Look,” Mal begins again, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to treat you like you’re weak. I just- I do worry, okay?”
“I know,” he croaks, frowning at how gravelly he sounds, “I do know. It’s just that I worry enough myself without you all worrying too. I was there on the Isle too, you know - you were only worried about me, but I was the one who was almost dying! Multiple times!” He ends with a half-chuckle, as if trying to soften the memory.
He shivers again, wrapping his arms around himself.
“Hey,” Evie interrupts, stepping over and brushing the backs of her fingers against his forehead. “Why don’t we get you to Fairy Godmother, and we can finish this conversation when you’re feeling better? You’re still burning up pretty bad.”
Carlos complies, and they make their way out of the dorm, him leaning on Jay for some support.
After they visit with Fairy Godmother, they head back to the dorm, Evie and Mal’s arms practically overflowing with supplies - who knew there were so many different types of medicine? - and they shove open the door to Jay and Carlos’ dorm. Carlos flops back on top of his bed, too tired to do anything more than exist (and maybe sleep).
Jay helps Carlos get under the covers, seeing the younger boy still shivering, and Mal pours out some colorful liquid from a bottle.
“It says to take this every 6 hours, and it should help with your fever,” Mal reads, glancing over at him. “Then you should probably sleep, and we’ll be here if you need anything.”
Carlos mumbles something from under the blankets and rolls over. Mal pulls the blankets down and helps him sit up, shoving the medicine cup under his nose. “ Drink ,” she insists. “It’ll make you feel better.”
He takes the cup and chokes it down, gagging at the taste, then flops back down.
“Promise you’ll tell us if you need anything,” Mal looks at him solemnly. “ Anything , okay?”
Carlos cracks a small smile and nods, already feeling slightly better just at the fact that Mal - Mal, the daughter of Maleficent and former terror of the Isle - is actually fussing over him.
Maybe it’s not as bad as I thought, Carlos wonders as he closes his eyes. After all, who else gets the full attention of a scary half-dragon girl when they’re sick?