Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Isle of the Lost, 10 years After Imprisonment (A.I) 

Mal comes home from her very first day of school at Dragon Hall with a new soulmate mark on her shoulder. 

She's six years old, and the only other soulmark that she's ever had is with her mother. The smudgy silver-black of her mother's mark is bright on her back, enormous and unmistakable as one of Maleficent's own marks. Mal doesn't understand everything about soulmarks yet, but she knows that her mother is powerful, and being marked by her mother is a good thing, because her mother is respected and being marked by her means that Mal should be respected, too.

The boy who marked her today is not powerful. 

Mal is upset about this, for reasons that she doesn't know how to articulate. She wants to tell her mother about it, but telling Maleficent about things is a dangerous game, and Mal knows enough to know that her mother will not be pleased to hear that her daughter has gained another soulmark on her skin. Especially since the soulmate who gave it to her is weak and a boy and not someone powerful and cool like her mother. 

She tells her anyway. 

Maleficent laughs.

“You, with a soulmark? From a boy? Daughter-mine, this is a wonderful thing. You have gained the most loyal minion that you will ever find. The mark you share will keep him close to you, so long as you remember that men are weak and stupid creatures, and you are better than him.” 

“I’m better than him,” Mal repeats, the words familiar on her tongue. “I’m going to rule the isle someday, and the boy will be my minion.”

Maleficent claps her hands. “Very ambitious, Mal! You’ll make a fine ruler someday. What’s this boy’s name?” 

Mal wrinkles her nose, trying to remember. She met a lot of people, but only one of them gave her a soulmark, and she’s got to remember– 

“Jay!” she announces triumphantly. “His name is Jay.” 

Maleficent’s face goes dark for a moment, but before Mal can start to make her excuse to hide, her mother’s brow clears.

“Ah! Jafar’s boy. I hear that he’s raising him to be clever. Difficult to do with a boy, but there’s something to be said for putting in the effort. Mal, darling, how would you feel about a little visit down to the junk shop tomorrow?” 

Mal touches her fingertips to the edge of her soulmark. The red mark on her shoulder doesn’t feel any different than the skin around it, but Mal knows that it is. She knows that it’s there, and that the boy who crashed into her has a matching mark, and she’s not sure yet if she likes the idea of being tied to a stranger.

But. There’s only one answer when her mother wants something. “Yes, mother,” Mal says obediently, fingers resting on the edge of her mark. “I’m excited to start shaping my minion.” 

Maleficent laughs. “Of course you are, my darling! You’ll make a fine ruler someday, so long as you remember the most important rule about your minions.” 

Mal, who is six years old and suddenly lonelier than she has ever been, nods. Her purple bangs are falling in her eyes again, and there’s nobody who would dare touch Maleficent’s daughter to cut them for her, so she’s got to do them herself with the heavy metal scissors she took from a market stall the last time her mother brought her along on her inspections. 

“Never get too attached to them.” Mal says, pushing her hair back out of her face with a slightly sticky, confident hand. “If you’re not attached, they can’t be used against you.” 

“Precisely! Wicked job, Mal. We’ll make a villain out of you yet.”

In the shop on the other side of the market square, far from Bargain Castle, and even further from the Dragon Hall playground, a little boy pulls his jacket down over the fresh soulmark on his arm, and does not tell his father what he did at school today. 

+

The Isle of the Lost, 12 years After Imprisonment 

“They’re a gift from God,” Claudine says confidently. “He sends them to us so we know where to find the good people in the world. The ones who are meant for us, for us to love and learn from. That’s why so many parents will mark their children.” 

“That’s stupid,” says Mal, who is eight years old, and has exactly two soulmarks, one from her mother and one from her future-henchman in training, Jafar’s son. “My mom’s the worst of the worst. She’d never let some silly god tell her who to mark.” 

Claudine glares at Mal from behind her thick glasses. The effect is a bit like being glared at by an especially nervous monkey, one of the creepy ones with huge eyes who sometimes come on TV in the hours-long marathons they get of the stupidest children’s shows imaginable. 

With all of the fury in her six-year-old body, Claudine sticks her tongue out at Mal. “Then you’re stupid, and so’s your mom!” 

“My mom could crush your dad like a bug.” Mal says carelessly. “And probably his god too, if he’s wasting his time giving people soulmarks. My dad’s the most powerful god on the island, and he doesn’t have any soulmarks.” 

“That’s because nobody loves him!” Claudine says, full of confidence in her own correctness in a way that only children can be. Mal would punch her teeth in, if she thought she could get away with it. “If God made somebody to care about your dad, he’d have found them by now and you wouldn’t even be here.” 

“Take it back!” 

“No!” 

“Take it back right now or I’m gonna hit you!” Mal shouts, clenching her hands into fists so tight that she can feel the tiny points of her nails start to cut into her palms. “My dad’s the most powerful god on the isle and he’s gonna hurt you if you don’t take it back!” 

Claudine frowns, screwing up her whole face. “My God can protect me,” she says, but there's a shadow of doubt to her words now, and Mal knows that she can win this. “He’s the most powerful of all time, not just here.” 

Mal, with the homing instincts of a child who has never been told to shut up, goes for blood. 

“Then why don’t you have a soulmark? If your god is so powerful and cool and loves you so much, why didn’t he make anyone who loves you back?” 

“I—“ Claudine sputters, face crumpling behind her glasses. “I— I, um, I’m waiting. For the right person.” 

Mal frowns. She’s more evil when she pretends to care about people first, that’s what her mom says. “I thought your god was supposed to show you the right person. If he didn’t give you anyone, I think it means you’re just an unlovable freak.” 

“You’re mean,” Claudine whispers, her face damp behind the shield of her glasses. “I’m gonna find my person someday, and you’re never gonna get any more soulmarks because you’re mean and  God hates you.” 

Mal laughs. “There’s no god on the island, stupid. Your dad just lies to you because he doesn’t want anyone to know that you’re a freak.” 

Claudine sniffles. “You’re mean and that’s worse.” 

Mal takes a step back. Crying is disgusting and only for babies, and at eight years old, she’s very much not a baby, and being seen with someone who’s crying could hurt her burgeoning schoolyard reputation. Making someone cry because you hit them is one thing, but standing next to someone who’s crying is a sign of weakness, and there’s no space in Mal’s world for acting weak. 

“Says who?” she demands, from a safe distance away. Bullying distance is further than comforting distance, and it should be clear enough to any onlookers which one she’s standing at. 

“My— my dad,” Claudine manages, sucking in an enormous snotty breath. “And all his followers. Being mean is the worst thing ever, that’s what they said.” 

Mal laughs wickedly. Or at least, close to wickedly. She’s still practicing her Evil Laughs. “Well, my mom says that being mean is how you get ahead in the world. And my mom’s the ruler of the isle, and yours is dead, so I’m pretty sure I know better than you.”

Chapter Text

Isle of the lost, 18 years After Imprisonment 

"You don't have a soulmate yet?" 

"Not yet," Evie echos, pulling a strand of hair out of her braid to frame her face. They're sitting in selfishness class, and she's got a tiny makeup mirror in her hand. There's something extra-complicated about her hair today. Some sort of extra woven part.  It looks sturdy, like it could be a rope braiding pattern. It makes Carlos's fingers itch to try and replicate it, and he'd really like to get a look at the underside to see how the pattern carries through, but it's not very evil to ask someone if you can touch their braid, so he's holding back. "I'm waiting for the right person, I guess." 

Evie's the prettiest girl in school, and Carlos is pretty sure that she could be the right person for whoever she wants to try and leave a mark on. That's not an out-loud sort of thought though, so he holds that back too. 

"That's cool," he says instead, swinging his feet under the desk. The stools in selfishness class are really tall, to encourage them all to sit up straight and elongate their legs and spine to look their best. It's frustrating being one of the only people whose feet can't touch the ground, but it makes fidgeting easier. "My only mark so far is one from my cousin." 

"You have a cousin?" 

Carlos kicks one foot out. Feels how it pulls him off balance, on the edge of his seat. His mark is on his left side, a smear of red-orange on one leg where he'd been picked up once as a toddler, and Diego's bare hand had brushed his leg. Their parents hadn't been as furious as expected about the mark, because apparently family marking family was okay, and not a sign of weakness like anyone else leaving marks on each other would be. "Yeah. He's older. He picked me up as a baby, left a mark on my leg." 

Evie's eyes flicker down in her mirror. "You don't keep it visible?" she asks, brows arching up in surprise. She's really pretty. 

Carlos tucks both his feet on the rung of the stool, balancing. "Nah. Not usually. S'too much like a weakness, right? If people know I have a soulmate then he could be a target too. Even though it’s just a family soulmark." 

"I don't think you're a target." Evie says, brow furrowing for a moment before smoothing out again. She's good at keeping her face smooth and pretty. Unreadable. She's going to be a great villain someday. She’s way better than anyone else in the class. 

"Well, not anymore," Carlos says, almost cheerfully. He's still proud of this one. "Not since I stole some chemicals from weird science and sort of threw some fireballs at the twins." 

Evie tilts her head this time, instead of wrinkling her face. It makes her look kind of like the robot butler who’s on the old TV shows that come in sometimes. "Who?" 

Evie's new, and a girl, and a pretty one at that. She’s probably one of the only people in their class who wouldn’t know who the twins are.  "Junior and Third. The Gaston twins. They were fine, the fire wasn't very big." 

"But they stopped bothering you after that?" 

"I mean, yeah? Setting people on fire usually makes them stop bothering me. Unless it's my mom, but she doesn't really mind what I do, so long as I get my chores done. If anyone's bothering you I could steal more magnesium and set them on fire too, if you want." 

"Thanks, but nobody's bothering me right now." 

"But they were before, right?" 

Evie frowns. "Don't--" 

Carlos hooks his feet through the rungs of the stool for balance and leans over so he can whisper more effectively. It’s not like it’s a secret who Evie has a one-sided blood feud with, but it never hurts to try and keep things on the down-low at school. "Mal and Jay were giving you shit, right? We could get them to leave you alone. I know where they live." 

Evie looks over her shoulder first, but she leans in too. There’s not much space between them. They’re not quite soulmate-close, because Evie’s basically the closest thing to a princess that they have on the isle, and she likes to be proper, but still. Friendship-close.

It’s nice. 

 “Mal lives in Maleficent's castle, doesn't she?" Evie whispers. “I’ve seen her go in there all the time.” 

"Well, yeah.” Carlos whispers back, trying not to let his voice crack. It’s been doing that a bunch lately. It’s super annoying. “Sometimes. But I know where she lives when she's not there." 

Evie’s mouth drops open the tiniest bit. "How?" 

"I followed her home,” Carlos says proudly, forgetting to keep his voice down. “She’s the worst, right, so I wanted to see if I could glue her front door shut and keep her out of school for a while.” 

Evie frowns. "You did not,” she says. “I see you leave school every day, and you run right to Hell Hall to feed that gray cat that hangs out there.  I live across from you, remember?" 

Right. "You're at school when I leave, how d'you know?" 

Evie rolls her eyes, and then remembers that she’s supposed to be proper and relaxes her face again. "Castle schooled, remember? I saw you every day for nine years." 

Damnit. Making friends is easier when they don’t live nearby and he can just lie to them.  “Right. I followed her home from the market one time, after school. She stays in one of the warehouses with her henchmen."

“Henchmen?" Evie says doubtfully. "I've only seen her with one boy." 

"Henchman, singular then.” Carlos says, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. If Evie’s going to be an ally, he’s got to learn how to work with her questions. It’s not her fault she’s been castle-schooled for all her life. “They stay in a warehouse not far from the bridge, near the apple vendor. If you wanna do something to get back at them, I could help." 

"I don't need to get back at them." Evie lies prettily. “I could live my life never thinking about them again if I had to.” 

It’s such a bold-faced lie that Carlos should respect it, but he’s too invested in the idea of taking Evie to the hideout now to back down. Between the two of them they could cause a lot more trouble than just one boy on his own, and because Mal already hates them, there’s no loss if they get caught. "Why not? Mal locked you in my mom's closet, remember?" 

"And then you let me out, and it was fine. I don't need to get back at her because of it. Maybe I just want to go to school and not cause trouble." 

"You're scared?" 

Evie whips her head around so fast that her earrings swing in a little circle. "I'm what?" She cries, but quietly, because they’re still at school and she’s not stupid enough to reveal weakness, even though everybody else is mostly talking and not paying attention to them. “I am not. You take that back.” 

Carlos isn’t taking it back, because he’s right.  "Of Mal? Seriously?" 

Evie’s cheeks flush pink. It’s hard to see under her makeup, which is probably the point. "Oh, like you can say anything. I've seen the way you hide from her in the hall." 

"I hide from her because she steals my stuff,” Carlos whispers, leaning as close as he can without falling off his stool. He’s been hiding from Mal for years, and it’s more habit than necessity at this point. Evie’s only been in school for a few months. She’s too pretty to be hiding from any of the boys, and she only has a failed blood feud with one girl, so she’s obviously hiding from Mal too. “What's your excuse, princess?" 

Evie makes a disparaging little noise in the back of her throat. "Oh look, class is starting,” she says sharply, turning around to face the front of the room. Mother Gothel isn’t even looking at them, but as conversation enders go, it’s pretty clever. 

Carlos spins to face front too, even though he’s going to spend the whole class sketching a new radio design in his head, and staring at Evie’s braid instead of Mother Gothel’s face would probably help with the wiring problems he’s been having.  "I'll meet you by the school gate later," he hisses, just in case Evie thought that he’s giving up on the plan to bring her along to sabotage Mal’s bedroom. “Don’t worry about finding your way there. I can pick you up after class.” 

Evie doesn’t move her head. Her eyes are trained fully on Mother Gothel’s face, and she’s basically the perfect picture of an attentive student, which would make her stick out in any other class. Selfishness is the only class a bunch of the youngest girls bother to come in for though, so she blends in badly enough that nobody’s staring. 

Nobody else, that is. 

Evie, without moving any other muscles, flashes Carlos a thumbs up. 

Their plan is on. 

+

Isle of the lost, 18 years and two weeks After Imprisonment 

"Get back here!" Jay shouts desperately at the kid disappearing as fast as his skinny legs can carry him, around the corner of the market street and deep into the maze of stalls. "I'm not--" 

Not what, his rational, thinking brain offers. Not going to hurt him? 

That's a stupid thought. Life on the island is all about hurting people. 

Jay hurts people for fun, and for class, and just because there are people in his way and he's finally starting to be one of the bigger, stronger kids who can get away with hurting other people instead of being the one who's hurt all the time. He's done his time as a little kid, and it feels... better to be the one in control, instead of the one who's always running and hiding and trying to avoid the people who want to hurt him. It's not like Jay can really run from his problems, not when they're all stuck on the same shitty island together with adults who want to leave him bleeding or dead or worse, but now that he's bigger, he can start fighting them instead of trying to run all the time. 

His soulmate isn't very big yet. Probably not big enough or strong enough to fight off an adult. 

Jay is not nice, and he is not kind, and he lives on the Isle of the Lost, so he doesn't, can't, care about other people like he cares about himself. He's not anybody else's top priority, so he's got to be his own number one. 

He's already got two soulmates to deal with, and a third one, especially a fast little third one who bites and squirms and has a knife and no sense of when he should use it shouldn't be something Jay is thinking about. He should make the smart choice, and swipe a new pair of gloves to cover the mark, and never think about it again. 

Yeah. That would be the smart thing to do. 

Conceal it, don't feel it, don't let it show. That's what they do on the mainland when they've got inconvenient feelings, and that's what Jay should do about this new soulmark and the inconvenient, annoying soulmate who comes with it. He should put it somewhere under his gloves, in the back of his mind, and never think about it again. 

He’s not going to, but it’s what he should do. Objectively speaking. It’s probably what Mal would tell him to do too, if she knew about this new soulmate. 

Jay should tell her. They’re each other’s first real marks. It’s not supposed to mean something on the isle of the lost, but it sometimes does anyway. They’re a villain-and-sidekick duo. Or, on their bad days, sidekick and sidekick. Sometimes everything goes wrong, and neither of them is feeling up to claiming responsibility for a scheme gone sideways, so they call themselves both sidekicks, trying to prop each other up without a proper villain to work around. Two useless lackeys with only each other to command. 

A pebble bounces off Jay’s head. 

Shit. If he were less lucky, the rock could have been a bottle, or a knife, or—

“Dude!” His soulmate shouts from the rooftop of the shitty cauldron store. The very easily accessible roof of the shitty cauldron store.  “Are you coming up or not?”

Right. 

One jump over the stack of third-rate cauldrons, and it’s an easy grab for the crumbling ladder on the side of the building. The momentum makes the ladder creak, but Jay’s been doing this for ages, and he’s not heavy enough to pull it out of the brick yet. He can’t quite get the leverage to do something cool, like backflip up onto the roof, but he can pull with his arms instead of his core, which is stupid and going to hurt later, but it makes his biceps pop. 

His soulmate probably doesn’t care what his arms look like. He’s probably some sad nerd who’s never looked at a guy in his life, and it’s just a coincidence that they’re marked for each other. Probably. Anything else would be almost good, and if there’s one kind of thing that never happens on the isle, it’s goodness. 

So, coincidence it is. 

+

Jay's new soulmate glares at him.  "You wanted to talk?" 

It’s probably not the best choice, seeing as the only reason they’re here is because Jay’s soulmate let him catch up, but it’s too fun to mess with him. “You don't?" Jay asks, keeping his face neutral. No point in giving anything away yet. He’s not above having fun with this. “Thought you’d want to get to know each other a bit. Seeing as we’re soulmates and all.” 

The kid glares back at him. Jay knows everyone at school, and he knows perfectly well who Carlos DeVil is, but they’ve never actually talked outside of school before. 

Actually, they’ve never really talked in school either. Sure, they’ve traded insults in the hall, and done their fair share of shouting at each other in class when Jay gets bored and starts throwing things into their weird science beaker, but they’ve never just…. talked. 

It’s weird, actually. 

Carlos folds his arms, defensive-like.  "Nothing to talk about. We're soulmarked, yay.” he rolls his eyes, somehow turning the ‘yay’ into the most sarcastic noise the isle’s seen in the last eighteen years. “You're still going to beat me up at school. I'm still gonna--" 

He stops, abruptly. 

"Gonna what?" Jay asks, fascinated despite himself. "Don't just stop there, man. What're you going to do now?" 

Carlos glares harder. "Nothing. Shut up." 

Jay is absolutely not going to do that. He's got another soulmate, and he's a fucking nerd, and he was definitely going to say something interesting. "Nope," Jay says cheerfully. His soulmate might be grumpy and nervous right now, but Jay's having a great time now that they're actually talking. "We're soulmarked now, so you've got to tell me. That's the rules." 

"We're on the isle. We don't have rules." 

"The cosmic rules of the universe. Soulmarks are like the one kind of magic we have over here, dude. Don't ruin the magic for me by saying you don't know the rules." 

Carlos looks pissed. "There aren't rules!" 

"Nu-uh,” Jay says, letting his voice fall into something light and almost singsong. “There totally are. The rules are that you have to tell me what you're thinking." 

"I'm thinking that you're a jerk." Carlos snaps. “And this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, and the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, and you should’ve just bought better gloves and never fucking touched me in the first place.”

"Cool.” Jay says brightly. He’s never had someone tell him when they’re thinking honestly before, and it’s sort of intoxicating. He could get used to his kind of thing. “I'm thinking that we should stick together. I'll introduce you to Mal tomorrow, if that's cool?" 

"I know who Mal is. Everyone at school knows Mal." 

“Nah,” Jay says, not even bothering to hide his smile. He’s definitely going to introduce Carlos to Mal tomorrow, and they’re going to get along like a house on fire, because they’re both assholes.  “You know about Mal. You don't know her. Nobody else really knows her, not like me. And you, cause I'm going to introduce you." 

"What if I don't want that?" 

He obviously does want it. Nobody at school except for an idiot would turn down an invite to get out of Mal’s bad graces, and Carlos isn’t an idiot. Jay wouldn’t have spent the last sixteen years taking stuff out of his locker if he were dumb, and it’s gonna be great. 

"Too bad. I'm introducing you two anyway.” Jay says cheerfully. Having a new soulmate is fun. Having two soulmates has been great for him so far, and it’s going to be even better once they get to know each other too. “Hey, maybe cause we share a mark, you’ll share one with Mal too!” 

Carlos mumbles something mostly-inaudible. Jay can’t be sure, but it sounded suspiciously unlike the words “I’m so excited to meet your other soulmate” and a lot more like “if there’s two of them I’m going to fucking kill myself.”  

So. That’s a little worrying. 

Honesty seems to be the way to go. At least when he’s with Mal, honest questions about the gaps in their plan usually lead to less stabbing of their essential body parts, and more of them stabbing the other guys. So there’s that, and also the refreshingly honest answer he got out of his new soulmate last time, soo….

"What?” Jay asks. He’s still trying to keep his expression normal, but it’s hard to focus on that when there’s so many other things to worry about. Like how he’s going to explain to Mal that they’ve got a new gang member, and how he’s going to drag the two of them into the same space long enough to like each other. Maybe he should treat them both like the feral cats that he caught for his cousin, and lock them in rooms next to each other for a while so they can both shout at him until they get tired and decide it’s better to ally together.

Carlos sighs. It’s almost like Jay’s starting to wear down some of his prickly edges already.  "I said, I don't want to get to know Mal. You two have been tormenting me since kindergarten. Nothing is going to change just because you have a mark on your hand." 

Jay taps the new mark with his fingertips before he even realizes he’s doing it. It’s technically on his wrist, not his hand, but it’s going to be hard to hide either way. "You've got one too."

"Yeah, and my mother is going to try and cut it out of me as soon as she finds out,” Carlos says. He’s not glaring anymore, which would be cool if his face hadn’t gone totally blank instead. Like a mask, or like the thing that Evie, the pretty new girl that Mal’s been obsessed with since she showed up to school does with her face when she’s not thinking about it. “It'd be cool if you would stop fucking up all my shit at school, but I don't actually expect you to like, change or anything. We don't have to be anything because of this." 

Ouch.  "We don't fuck with that much of your shit."

"You soulmarked me by accident because you were trying to shove my head in a toilet," Carlos says, patiently. He's standing just out of arm's reach, with his back to the open rooftop. They're within easy sprinting distance to three other houses with low roofs, and Jay can count a handful of small, open windows that Carlos could probably dive through without issue, but are small enough that Jay, with his wider shoulders, would have to slow down and slip through more carefully. "I don't think you'd be able to stop fucking up my shit if you tried." 

"Hey!" 

"Just being honest. And hey, if you want to try, be my guest. I'd love to actually keep some of the shit I make for myself."

There’s a weight in Jay’s pocket that feels a lot like a handmade crossbow pen. And another one in his boot that might be a handful of tiny button batteries, and okay, maybe a third weight shoved in the secret pocket in the back of his vest that’s stuffed full of the wire contraption that he snagged without thinking right after his hand slipped and the soulmark showed up. 

It’s not something he’s gonna keep doing now, obviously. 

"We do take a lot of your shit, huh.” Jay admits. “I uh, I have some of your stuff. If you want it back.” 

Carlos’s face is still blank. "Yeah. I know. And I also know that Auradon psychology textbooks say it's because nobody loves you at home, but it'd be really cool if you could stop taking it out on me."

Ouch. That one lands, and Jay has to work to keep his face blank over the instinctive spike of hurt that wells up in the dark depths of his chest. He's not exactly his dad's favorite person, but there's the other two girls who work in the shop sometimes, and they're friendly enough. Someone to help clean the dust off the junk and swap jokes with while they're handing over their weekly cut of the earnings is almost like having a friend, and Delphine even sticks around to flirt sometimes after her shift ends.

Delphine is nearly thirty, and keeps more knives on her person than Jay's ever managed to slip out of her pockets. She's also sort of scary if he tries to slip out before she's done talking with him, but she pays attention to his new bruises, and she once brought him a cup of stew from the spicier stall two streets down, and didn't even spit in it first. So she's basically the closest thing he's got to a friend at home. 

"Mal takes her temper out on everyone," Jay points out, instead of defending his home life. It's the Isle of the Lost. They're all stuck here together with the same shitty parents, and explaining that he's got one person who usually doesn't throw anything at him on the way out the door isn't exactly a resounding defense. "I don't think I could stop her if I tried." 

Carlos rolls his eyes. Now that Jay's looking, there's a ring of old bruises around his left eye. "I know. The whole school knows. It wasn't this bad last year, but ever since you two got dumped by Uma's pirate crew, or whatever–" 

"We broke it off with them." 

"Or whatever,” Carlos repeats, rolling his eyes again. “It's not like it makes a difference what actually happened. She's been kind of a raging bitch since then."

Jay lifts an eyebrow, partially at the language choice, and partially because he’s sort of being thrown for a loop here. Everyone wants to meet Mal, and he’s not really sure if he’s got anything to offer outside of his connection with her. 

“Yeah, well,” he tries. “I bet if she had another soulmate, she’d probably be a lot less…” 

“Bitchy?” 

“I was gonna say irritable. Look, we lost half our crew when we dumped Uma’s gang–” 

“When they dumped you,” Carlos whispers. 

Jay shoots him a look. “Whatever. When we broke up, we lost a lot of our crew. And it’s not like we’re having trouble keeping things under control on our own, but we wouldn’t turn down company, if you’re interested. We have a hideout and everything. You could come and stay the night, if you want. Just to try it out.” 

There’s a flicker of interest in his soulmate’s face. 

“I guess,” Carlos says slowly. “If you’re offering, it would be not the worst thing to get out of my mom’s house for a night.” 

Bingo. 

“We’re offering.” Jay says, before he can think twice about the offer. He’ll lock Mal in their storage room if he has to, keep her out of the way until he’s got his new soulmate acclimated to the place. “Come on, if we go now we can make it home before Mal gets there, and you can give her the scare of her fuckin’ life.” 

There’s a tiny hint of what might be a smile on Carlos’s face. “Sounds fun.” 

It’s a risk, but they’re doing so well now that he can’t resist. 

Jay holds out a hand. “Come on. Let me show you the way.” 

Carlos takes it. “Lead on, I guess.” 

+

Isle of the lost, 18 years and 7 months After Imprisonment 

"You should touch me." 

Carlos visibly recoils from Mal at the thought. "What? No. Gross.”

They’re walking side by side through the alley between two of the nicer abandoned warehouses. Mal’s not exactly a touchy person at the best of times, and walking through a very public alley isn’t exactly the place she’d ask for anything like that to happen. 

"Not–” Mal starts, and then has to stop for a second, just to rub her eyes and really consider the magnitude with which she didn’t mean it like that.  “for fuck's sake, not like that. I know you're not into girls. You should touch me skin-to-skin. See if we're marked too.” 

“Oh,” Carlos stops walking too, which is decent of him. He’s sort of cute, if you’re into fluffy-haired nerds, but Mal’s already got Evie in her bed, and any more nerdy types would be too much to handle. They’d probably start talking about covalent bonds or acid production in extinct mammals or some shit like that, and she’d never be able to get them both on track. A nightmare, honestly. “"Why would we be marked?”

"Why wouldn't we be?” Mal counters. She’s already got plenty of marks of her own, but she’s wicked and evil and possessive, and if they’re going into the great unknown of princess school together, she’d rather they go with her crew clearly marked as hers. “We both share marks with Jay and Evie. We're going to princess school together. Are you trying to say you're not important to me?" 

"I'd rather not be important at all." 

"Shut your face, you're already important to me whether or not we're marked. It's too late for you to get out of it."

"Darn." 

Mal shoulder-checks him into the nearest wall, which is about four inches away because none of the idiots who built the warehouses in the first place ever considered that people might like to walk between them, and immediately starts walking away. They can talk and move at the same time if they’ve devolved into insults again.  "You’re important to me whether you like it or not, loser. Shut up and let’s get out of here.” 

+

"I think," Carlos says, after they've walked through half the market together, and the dirty peaks of the castle across the way are coming into sight on the horizon, "I don't want to know right away." 

Mal’s never met a mystery she didn’t want to understand immediately. "Why not?" she asks, turning around so she can stare better. She’s got a beautiful incredulous stare, and it would be a waste not to use it. 

Carlos shrugs, hands already shoved deep in his pockets. No bare skin visible from neck to knees, and Mal’s not marking him on his legs. "What if we're not marked for each other?" 

"Then we keep on with this scheme anyway? It doesn't have to change anything." 

He lifts a shoulder. "It would. For me." 

Mal considers this. 

"Yeah,” she says finally. “Alright. Fine. It would change something for me too.” 

"Maybe…” Carlos says slowly. They’re barely walking anymore. Maybe he should make a decision already, and leave with Mal before they reach the house they both know he doesn’t want to go back to. “Maybe once we're off the island." 

"Yeah?" 

"Once we're really off. I want Auradon ground under my feet, and then you can touch me." 

"I'll hold you to that." Mal says, almost threatening, but mostly a promise. “I’ll get you off, and then I’m touching you wherever I want.”

The corner of his mouth hitches up, just barely enough for her to see. "Yeah, by all means. Get me to Auradon and you can touch me all you want.” 

"I will! I'll drag you myself if I have to. I'll take my mom's spellbook, turn myself into a dragon, and fly us off this stupid rock." 

"And then when we touch down I'll let you touch my skin, and it'll be the most dramatic way anyone's ever tried to get a mark from someone." 

"Yeah.” Mal says, and it barely even hurts, because they’ve got a plan, and they’re getting off the isle. They don’t have to keep dreaming of increasingly implausible ways to get off, because they’ve got a direct invite to princess school, and they’re going to grab it and cling as hard as they can. “It'll be cool. No matter what, you're still part of my crew. We share two marks in common, and I'm not letting go of either of them." 

Carlos’s hand twitches, a little aborted motion with his left hand towards the ruby-red mark on his neck. "Me either." 

Mal lifts her own hand, the one with blue-stained fingers, to rest on her shoulder right over where her own mark from Jay is.  "So we're stuck together, marks or no marks, you hear me? I’m not gonna kick you out of my crew if it turns out we’re not marked, and if anyone else tries, I’ll kick their ass.” 

Carlos does smile at that. "Heard you loud and clear, fearless leader. We’re stuck together, all the way to Auradon." 

“Damn right we are.” Mal says firmly. “Together until we die, and maybe even after. I’ll mark your bones if I have to.” 

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” 

Chapter Text

Auradon Preparatory Academy for Future Leaders, 20 years After Imprisonment. Three weeks til the coronation. 

"What's on your back?" Mal asks, carefully casual one day in the locker room after gym class.  "Did your mom mark you too?" 

Audrey stops dead, hand frozen above her head, peach body spray un-spritzed. 

"It's rude," she says frostily, lowering her arm with what looks to Mal like carefully controlled rage threatening to overwhelm her body. "To notice." 

Mal leans back against her locker. "It's rude for you to leave a question unanswered."

"It's none of your business who my marks are from! You're just jealous that I already have a soulmate, and you just have some creepy platonic mark from your mother!" 

Audrey’s pretty face flushes red when she’s annoyed, which is probably embarrassing for her. Mal, who is as pale as the new moon and twice as awful to hide from at night, does not. 

"My mom's mark isn't creepy.” Mal says casually, lifting a single eyebrow. “She's one of the most powerful villains of all time, so obviously she's going to leave an impression. What's really creepy is you not telling anyone who that mark on your back is from. It's probably someone you hate, isn't it?" 

Audrey glares at her. "It's none of anyone's business who my marks are from. We all know you didn’t learn manners on the Isle of the Lost, but there’s no excuse for not understanding them now. It’s rude to ask about soulmarks, and there’s no reason for you to be looking anyway.” 

Oh, this is a nerve that she can exploit. 

"There is if you're going to show it off,” Mal says calmly. It always infuriates girls when you’re calm. They want you to get mad, to stoop to their level. They want you to start joining in on the petty threats and posturing, and they get stupidly mad when you won’t, and make stupid mistakes. Auradon hid away their villains, but Maleficent knew how to play the long game, and Mal is the master of staying cool under pressure now. “You'll show your mark from Ben to anyone who even thinks about looking at you, but you won't show this one to anyone? Pretty suspicious if you ask me." 

Audrey glares harder "Well, good thing nobody did!" 

"Actually,” says a very, very soft voice. “I want to know who your mark is from." 

Audrey whirls around, shirt still off,  peach body spray in her hand like it’s a weapon. If she ever teamed up with Evie for some biological warfare, this girl would be unstoppable, Mal realizes. Maybe it’s a good thing that Audrey hates their guts with a fiery passion and wouldn’t touch anything Evie’s made with a ten foot pole. The kinds of destruction that could happen if those two start teaming up is….not a very pretty princess approved sort of thought. 

"That's not even what I meant, Jane!” Audrey almost-shouts, her volume control eroded by her own annoyance. “Your only mark is from your mom, so there's no way you could understand. My marks from my real, actual soulmates." 

Mal smirks. She didn’t think the obvious nerve of Audrey’s giant unnamed soulmark would provoke this kind of drama. She was hoping for a little family insecurities at best based on the placement, maybe an awkward story to bring up to the wrong person later about a childhood friend or swimming accident gone wrong. This level of defensiveness is leagues above what she was anticipating, which makes it all the more fun to poke at. 

 "Yeah, you've said. So, who's the one on your back from?" 

Audrey spins back around to wave a delicate, seashell-pink polished finger at Mal. "It's none of your business!" 

Mal lifts her hands, conveniently disguising the fact that she’s got her cell phone tucked into the waistband of her school skirt, already primed to take a timed SpinChat photo of Audrey’s soulmark the second she turns around again. Shoulderblade is a hard place to mark if you’re not family or already getting naked with the person, and even though the Auradon standards for sex are different than back home, it still seems like a pretty big thing to get naked with someone. "Fine. I'll figure it out on my own."

“Ugh,” Audrey huffs. “You do that, and in the meantime, I’ll tell everyone that you’re a soulmate-stealing creep who’s got so many marks she doesn’t know what’s real and what’s dirt anymore.” 

Mal’s got plenty of soulmates of her own, and definitely doesn’t need to steal any more. You let slip that you have one set of shared group marks, and suddenly you’re the notorious soulmate-stealing slut of the school. If the Auradon kids cared about accuracy in their gossip, it wouldn’t even be her who’s the notorious slut. She’s practically monogamous compared to some of the isle kids. She’s not Harry, who strokes people’s faces with his bare hands as a greeting. She’s nowhere near as bad as Jay can be sometimes either. He thrives off the attention of being wanted, and lets people touch him just to get their attention. It’s useful as a distraction, but a risk that’s wholly unnecessary now that they’re off the isle, and was stupidly risky before, when one new soulmate could mean the difference between life and death for the night. 

Mal lets the insult roll off her multicolored back like she’s a fucking duck, and Audrey’s words are the water she thrives in. 

“Whatever,” she says casually, lifting one shoulder in a little shrug. “I’ll figure it out someday, princess sunshine.” 

“Oh, for f–” Audrey cuts herself off before finishing the swear, like the word just won’t fit in her perfect princessy little mouth. “You do that. Just you try. See if I care.” 

She does. She’s got to, or else she wouldn’t be putting up this sort of fuss about it. 

Mal grins, making sure to show all of her sharp, white teeth. Transformation magic is good for a lot of things, including some impromptu dental work the other night when she was awake late and feeling bored. “Sure. I will.” 

+

Auradon Preparatory Academy for Future Leaders, 20 years After Imprisonment. Two weeks and five days til the coronation. 

"My mom marked me. When I was little. That's why it's so big." Mal explains to an audience of two horrified Auradon girls. “She’s got a theory that the bigger the mark, the more significant it’ll be in shaping your future.” 

When Mal looks up, sweet little Jane has her mouth dropped actually open like a frog. 

"It looks painful. Like a bruise." 

"It's not,” Evie jumps in. “She just marks people that way.” 

“She doesn’t mark many people,” Mal corrects her, because she’s not the biggest fan of her mother, but the name of Maleficent means something, and these fluffy pink Auradon girls shouldn’t be hearing them disrespect it. “She marks those of us who are special to her, and mine looks like a bruise only because it's so dark. I'm the darkest she's ever marked someone." 

"I should hope so. It looks like a pit in your shoulder." 

Mal shimmies her shoulders. She’s stripped halfway to her waist, down to just her bra and a shirt tied just over her hipbones. "I already said it doesn't hurt. You can touch it all you want." 

Jane’s hand floats out like it’s a delicate little butterfly. "Do you want me to touch it?" 

“I don’t care,” Mal says, which is a lie. She wants Jane to touch her. She wants to feel her skin. She wants to know if she’s somebody who’s going to leave an impression on innocent Janey, who’s so magical that she makes Mal’s teeth ache with it. “It feels weird to have somebody else touch where she's already marked me, but it’s not a bad sort of weird.” 

“Oh. I wouldn’t know.” Jane says softly. “Nobody touches me except for my mom, and she’s my only soulmark anyway.” 

Her hand is a little bit cold and a little bit rough when she brushes her fingertips over the dark spot on Mal’s shoulder where her mother’s silver-gray mark stains the skin. 

She pulls her hand away a second later. 

“Sorry. Uh. I didn’t mean to be weird. I don’t. I mean–” 

“Chill out. It’s just a soulmark,” Mal laughs. She pulls her shirt off her waist and slings it over her shoulders like she’s seen the Auradon boys do after their sports practices. She’s not nearly as built as the boys, but she’s not unaware of how she looks, and the scars and muscle on her arms are unusual here. Something else that marks her as different. “It’s not like you’d risk marking me up, Auradon girl.” 

+

Auradon Preparatory Academy for Future Leaders. One week til the coronation. 

Evie blushes bright, bright red, redder than the color of the soulmark that Mal has on her shoulder. "I didn't mean to mark him. It was an accident, I swear." 

The new mark on Evie's arm is a faint sage green. It could be a smear of her tailor's chalk, but Mal's had enough experience with soulmarks by now to know that it won't rub away as easily as a spare chalk smear. 

They never wore short sleeves on the Isle. Exposed skin was like an invitation, and Evie didn't want to invite the sort of attention that bare arms would attract. 

She's always been the most careful out of the four of them, with her gloves and tights and skin covered so thoroughly that her mother never had the opportunity to complain about marks on her skin. Evie's mother left her own marks, of course. Bruises on her feet and palms, where they'd never be seen. The rest of her skin smooth white, unmarked, like a blank page for her soulmate to use in the imagined someday, when Evie would meet the most handsome prince and marry him, because every eligible prince must be a man, and save herself and her mother from the shame of their exile. They're allowed to have bare arms now. Auradon is less dangerous than the isle, both from a objective, physical harm standpoint (none of the kids at Auradon Prep carry knives, and Mal hasn't seen a single fight break out in the hallway that she and her crew weren't directly involved in) and from a soulmark standpoint. Auradon brats wear their soulmarks openly. They wear short sleeves, and expose their shoulders and necks and hands to the sun. They don't touch each other as often as family might, but they do touch, and they only wear gloves for social events with strangers, and even then only the most royal children, the ones with parents who will care about who they share marks with, wear them. 

Evie’s isn’t as royal as the worst of them, but they’ve all been slow to warm up to the safety of Auradon, and with her delicate gloves and long sleeves, she blends in with the princess crowd. She hasn’t lost her isle habits yet, just blended them into her new identity. 

(Mal spares a thought for Jay, who’s always worn short sleeves with his gloves, even on the Isle, where that meant something. He blends in better with the Auradon crowds than the rest of them do in their full-body leather, but Jay’s always been unafraid of drawing a very specific sort of attention with his bare skin. Her first soulmate has always craved touch, even when it hasn’t exactly been safe to do so.) 

Evie doesn't have to be afraid of drawing attention here. 

She can drop her gloves and long sleeves, and let her fair skin see the sun for once, and accept the soulmarks that come her way. Their parents aren't here to punish them for having connections anymore, and if they get their way, they'll never be on the same coast as their parents again. Maleficent and the Evil Queen can rot in their moldering castle prisons forever for all Mal cares, and she'll be in the sun with her soulmates and her family, not thinking about them for even a second. 

"I know it's not what we'd planned," Evie says, rubbing at the fresh mark. The skin around it is fair and cream-soft as ever, but there's going to be a red mark soon if she keeps this up, and maybe that's what she wants, but Mal doesn't want to watch Evie hurt herself if she can help it. "But it was an accident. I leaned over his table without thinking, and we brushed arms, and I could just kick myself for being so stupid. We can't afford to have these sorts of ties." 

"Eves."

"I know. I should have been more careful. It was stupid of me to be so careless. We're not–" Evie breaks off and presses her beautiful pink lips together, casts her eyes up so that the bright sparkling tears gathering in them don't spill over and ruin her face of makeup. "We're not safe here. I know we can't afford to make these kinds of frivolous connections, and it doesn't have to mean anything, but I can't deny that it happened." 

Evie's nearly crying, and it makes Mal's gut twist in some sort of anxious sympathy for her. They're soulmarked together, bold and brighter than anyone else Mal has ever seen on Evie's skin, so it's not like she's got any reason to be insecure about Evie having another mark, but it feels strange to know that she's sharing Evie's skin with an Auradon boy.

But. 

Mal's got an Auradon boy's mark on her skin too now. Maybe, now that they're off the island, they can afford to have a few extra soulmarks. They will never be the perfect children their parents have tried to mold them into, but maybe they don't have to be as wicked as they were raised to be either. Maybe now that they're in the sun, it could be okay to have a soulmate who belongs here. Maybe it could be an angle they can work, when one of the adults inevitably tries to get them thrown back to the isle again. 

"Eves," Mal says, and Evie's name feels right on her lips. "E, it's okay. I… think we're allowed to have this." 

Evie laughs, tearful. "We can't." 

"We could," Mal insists. "We deserve as much as they have here, don't we? Why shouldn't that mean soulmates too? We have each other, and that’s okay. We can use him as more proof that we’re supposed to be here.” 

"Because it can't, M." Evie says, breathing deep and tipping her head back so the tears don't spill over. "We're not the sort of people who can care about Auradon boys. We’re going to destroy this place once our parents get the wand, and I can’t–” Evie gasps, sucks in a single ragged breath before getting herself under control again. “I can’t bear knowing that I’ve got to hurt him. I don’t need any more soulmates.” 

Mal’s mind whirls around the shape of the problem. They can’t keep marking up the people that they’re going to destroy. Evie’s little nerd is the first, but she’s not going to be the only one of them to pick up an Auradon brat or two, and Mal isn’t going to stand by and let her soulmates rip themselves apart over their other soulmates. They’ve all got empty spaces left on their skin still. If they’re going to keep finding people they share marks with, then she’s going to make a world where they can keep them. 

“We could.” 

Evie wipes a finger under her eyes. “M, don’t be stupid. We can’t. Our parents won’t just let us keep some extra soulmates as pets when they take over. They’ll make us kill them. We can’t do it.”

“What if our parents don’t take over?” 

It’s impossible. It’s absolutely impossible, but in Mal’s International Relations class they keep saying to believe in at least five impossible things before breakfast, so really this is just good scholarship. She’s participating fully in goodness, not falling for delusions. 

Evie’s mouth drops open so quickly that her jaw clicks. “We can’t defy our parents. It’s a death wish. We’ll all end up dead, and nobody is going to be left to care how we’re soulmarked, because everyone who’s ever cared about us is going to be dead too.”

“We’re the ones outside the barrier right now,” Mal says, casually, just like she doesn’t feel right now. Evie’s arms are creamy white under the Auradon sun. She deserves to keep them bare. She shouldn’t have to go back to hiding. “We could leave them there. If they’re so powerful, why do they even need us to get them the wand?”

Evie flashes her a tiny, anxious smile. “They need to learn how to rely on themselves. Nobody in the real world is going to bail them out. We’re helping them help themselves if we leave them there.”

“We’re helping them grow as people. It’s a lesson for them.” 

Evie giggles. “We’re really thinking about leaving them there.”

“I was thinking they’d learn the error of their ways,” Mal says, swallowing back a giggle herself. The heir to evil itself shouldn’t be giggling over the thought of leaving her mother to rot.  “They shouldn’t have underestimated us.” 

“You’re awful.” 

“Rotten.” 

“To the core,” Evie finishes. “You’d really leave your mom on the Isle for me?” 

“I’d do anything for you,” Mal whispers, so soft that Evie probably can’t even hear her. “Our parents deserved what happened to them. We don’t. Leaving them there is the best thing we could possibly do for them.” 

“Because we’re dutiful children. And we care.” 

“So much.” Mal agrees. “It’s for the best.”

Chapter Text

Auradon Preparatory Academy for Future Leaders, 20 years After Imprisonment. One month after Ben’s coronation. 

The seam ripper slips through Evie's fingers like it's one of the little tiny fish in the Auradon lake that she visited with the others last week. The ocean of blue-grey silk crepe that she's working with isn't quite the same color as the lake water when the sun had hit it just right, but it's close enough that the comparison feels right, and it's an effort not to let her mind go off on a winding path through the difficulties of nature themed embroidery. Little silver and gold fish would be adorable as a border detail, but Evie's family has always used apples and ravens as their sigil, and it would be odd to switch to fish now. An imposition on the coastal kingdoms, perhaps. Maybe she could work up a collection around the idea of the inland lakes, but even then it would have to be marketed to a different audience than the old-money princess families she has access to at school and without an anchor in the high fashion runway word, she's not really in a place to make a leap like that. 

Evie shakes the fabric, rippling the ocean, and the seam ripper falls to the ground and rolls across the floor of the dorm, away from her sewing table and over to where Mal and Ben are sitting on the floor with their history textbooks. 

She could get up and retrieve it herself, but she's got a mountain of fabric piled up on one side of her lap, and if she sets it down the pile will slip all over the place, and she'll have to take an age and a half to get up and spread it out over the bed to refold it properly again, and it's not worth the trouble when she's got two people right there who are able-bodied and willing to give it back to her.

"Babe," Evie calls, and two bright, open faces turn towards her, and isn't that a trip. "Babes, can you pass my seam ripper back over?" 

"You threw it all the way over here?" Mal asks, but she's teasing. Her eyes don't shine like that when she's being serious. "Clumsy much today?" 

Evie rolls her eyes. "It slipped." 

"Sureeee." Mal drawls, drawing out the word as she waves a hand, trying to locate the little tool ineffectively. She's been an absolute show-off with her magic lately. It about serves her right that she can't find Evie's things with magic. That, and the little fact that Evie's been trying different spells of her own to keep her things where she leaves them, and not floating around the room as part of Mal's spell practices. 

Ben turns around, because he's the sensible one who thinks of things like the direction that the item would have rolled from, and finds the seam ripper immediately. "I've got it. Here you go, Evie." 

Ben leans forward, and Evie leans down, and they share Mal so often that neither of them are thinking about the motion, and the fact that Evie's gloves are off for sewing, and Ben's are off because he hasn't been wearing them around Mal for months now, and-- 

Their fingers brush together. Bare skin on skin. 

It feels improbable that it's the first time they’ve touched. Evie's hand tingles with the now-familiar feeling of the soulmark sinking into her skin, and it feels warm, but it also feels wrong that they haven't done this before. They should’ve touched already. They share two marks in common, and Mal is the strongest mark they’ve each got, but somehow they’ve never touched before and the magic is tingling through the place where their hands connect, and Evie’s trying to wrap her head around this new soulmark she’s going to have. 

Ben. Her friend. Her soulmate, someone that’s going to mean so much to her that the universe decided to put it on display for everyone to see. 

It makes sense. It makes so much sense that Evie almost wants to keep clinging to his hand, to make sure the mark is good and strong and there for everyone to see, but their hands separate and she's got the seam ripper back, and she's got a new mark on her skin, and the seam ripper doesn't feel so important anymore. 

Ben's eyes go wide. "I'm so sorry–" 

"No, don't be–" 

"I–" 

"No–" 

They stutter to a stop, both of them wide-eyed and staring at each other. Evie’s not sure who started speaking first, but they’re certainly both in it now. She’s not even quite sure what she wants to say. Telling Ben that she loves him obviously isn’t the right move, but it’s sort of what she wants to do right now. Because she loves him, and they’re soulmates, and oh evil. 

She can’t share a mark with the king of Auradon. 

Ben pulls his hand back further, so that it’s cradled in his lap. He’s not holding the seam ripper anymore, but Evie can’t feel it in her own numb fingers either, so she must have dropped it again somehow. Her fingers feel strange. 

Ben flexes his hand, and Evie wants to look, to drink in the color that she’s stained his skin with, but she can’t. They’ve already done so much wrong just getting to this point, and it feels right and wrong all at the same time, and she can’t bear it, and she wants to touch him so much more, and the feelings are so tangled up that she’s ended up with a sort of bubbly knotted feeling instead of anything useful. 

"I am sorry. I didn't mean to mark you like this." Ben says. “I– I’m sorry.” 

Like this. He didn’t mean to mark her like this. Evie’s probably a hopeless romantic thinking that the choice of words means something, but she grabs onto them anyways. "Thanks. I'm sorry that your fingers are blue now." 

Ben looks down, flexing them again. "Don't be. I think.... I think I like them. They won't show through my gloves, at least." 

Evie giggles. She’s a little bit giddy. Ben’s fingers are bright, saturated blue. Royal blue. Her color.  They’re not quite as bold as his mark with Mal, but they’re one of the darkest that Evie’s ever given.  "That's true! I do try my best, you know. At least you'll be on theme for any royal events coming up!" 

"And you'll be able to compliment your usual colors with mine.” Ben agrees. “At least gold and blue go together. That’s–” he turns his hand, lifting it up to the sunlight.  “Oh. That’s very bright.” 

Evie can’t contain her giggles. "You're important to us. We wouldn't be here without you. And we already share two marks in common, so it makes sense that we’d mark each other too.” 

“It does make sense.” Ben agrees, only slightly less giddy. “We’re soulmates. I– I could kiss you right now.” 

“I’d ask how your girlfriend feels about that, but I’m pretty sure I already know.” 

They both turn to look at Mal, who is flashing two thumbs up. She’s grinning like a gargoyle, all wide and toothy and terribly enthusiastic. “Kiss away. I’m very in favor of my soulmates being soulmates too. I’ve got a deep…” she leers harder. “Aesthetic appreciation for the two of you.” 

“We should let you touch the boys,” Evie murmurs, leaning in. Her fabric is sliding off her lap and she’ll have to re-do all her careful folds, but Ben is worth the extra effort. “I bet you’ll mark all of us. A whole harem of VKs for you.” 

Ben’s hand comes up to cradle Evie’s cheek. “I’d like that.” 

He’s a good kisser. 

+

Auradon. Junior year, summer. 

“Do you trust me?" Ben asks, holding out a hand. It’s mid-morning, and already getting sticky-hot outside. "There's no alligators in the enchanted lake, I promise. You’ll be safe with me." 

Carlos shrugs off the helping hand. He’s not some princess type, and he’s not afraid of sliding off a horse. He’s not afraid of hitting the ground either, which is the argument that Mal makes when she’s trying to get out of being dragged up on the rooftops with the rest of them. It’s not the falling, she says, it’s the hitting the ground that she’s afraid of.

Carlos is afraid of a lot of things, but heights isn’t one of them.

“It's not the gators I'm worried about.” 

Ben smiles. He’s wearing his gloves, soft thin leather ones for riding, and probably more in his bag too, for when the first pair gets wet in the enchanted lake. “Ah. Well. I thought maybe you’d be used to having bloodsucking creatures in the water. I saw some pictures of your school—”

“Nope.” Carlos interrupts. “No. There are no gators in the moat at Dragon Hall. None. Do not even think about the pictures. They’re dead to you now. Burn them from your mind.” 

Ben laughs. “Okay. Sure. There are no gators on the isle, and you’ve really never tried swimming before?” 

“I didn’t say that there are no gators on the isle,” Carlos says. There are, in fact, many gators on the isle. Thanks to the breeding efforts of the Facilier girls, there’s practically a gator army in the swampy area around the upper left side of the island. Freddie used to ride them to school, which is why Carlos knows exactly the picture that Ben saw, and why it needs to be scrubbed from the internet immediately. “I said there are none in the moat at Dragon Hall.”

“I see.” 

“And we didn’t exactly go swimming on the isle of the lost. Between the sharks and the gators and the piranhas, we didn’t really want to risk losing more limbs just for a little swim.” 

Ben grins. “And that’s why you won’t go in the pool, right?” 

That, and a few other reasons. “Right.” Carlos agrees. “Totally. And not because I watched some guys fall in the harbor every barge barge day and come up covered in so many leeches we couldn’t see their skin.” 

“Aw, gross.”  

It was disgusting. What was even worse was how they’d pull the leeches off afterwards and boil them into a thick, grainy stew made up of their own blood along with the tough, slick leech meat. “Hides the soulmarks that way. If you can’t see skin you can’t see who’s gonna care about your body.” 

Ben grimaces. “Isn’t that a bad thing?” 

Carlos shrugs. It’s easy enough not to look at Ben while they’re walking on the path, because he’s a city boy and has the built-in excuse of watching his step on the narrow, overgrown path up to the top spring of the enchanted lake. “Not necessarily. Made it easier to keep funeral costs down if there’s nobody to claim the body.” 

“You guys are really something else,” Ben says. Carlos chances a glance up at him, and finds that he’s shaking his head slightly. “If I happen to drown in the lake today, I’d like my parents to have my body.” 

“Give mine to Mal. She could use more protein in her dragon form.” 

Ben drops the branch he’d been pulling on.  “No!” he squawks. “Absolutely not!” 

There’s a bad part of Carlos that wants to hear Ben make that noise again. He shouldn’t give in to it, but they both know he’s going to. “Yeah. She’s not stealing sheep for fun. Her dragon-shape takes a crazy amount of protein and energy to maintain. She should eat my body when I drown, it’ll be good for both of us.” 

“No.” 

“I won’t try to drown.” 

“I wouldn’t let you.” Ben says firmly, heaving the branch (tree. There’s no point in lying to himself. It’s a small tree that Ben just threw off the path, and Carlos but one simple homosexual. He can think that it’s hot to watch the guy he’s been not-so-subtly crushing on throw a tree out of his way.) off the path so they can get by without climbing over it. “If I wanted you dead, there’d be much easier ways than taking you all the way out to the enchanted lake first.” 

“Like dissolving my bones in acid.” Carlos says cheerfully. Ben’s gloves have a smear of dirt from the tree on them. He looks slightly sweaty, and very, very handsome. “You’d need to ask Mal for some, but I bet she’d set up the still again for you. We ran out after the thing with the–” 

Ben claps his hands over his ears. “LALALA.” 

What. 

“Do you not like acid?” Carlos asks, after a moment of this. Sometimes Auradon kids have weird hangups about bodily injury. Jane gets what she calls “the heebiejeebies” when they talk about pulling out toenails for spell ingredients, so Ben might feel about flesh-eating acid the same way that Jane feels about toenails. 

Ben pulls one hand off his ear. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. I’m technically required by law to act on any information that I hear relating to crimes against the kingdoms, you know.” 

“Jay stole my laptop from the computer store in town,” Carlos says immediately. It’s a curse. He hears trouble and can’t keep himself out of it. “Evie does arson for fun sometimes. She’s the cause of half the fire insurance claims in the Camelot fashion district.” 

“LALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU.” 

“MAL SET THE ASTRONOMY TOWER ON FIRE ON PURPOSE.” Carlos shouts. “SHE’D DO IT AGAIN IN A HEARTBEAT!” 

“I DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOU.” Ben shouts back. “PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY.”

“I’ll deny everything.” Carlos shoots back. The path is more overgrown here. There’s a tree ahead that’s even bigger than the last one, and he’s looking forward to watching Ben heave that one out of the way too. “I’m innocent. I’m just a little guy. I’ve never done anything wrong in my life ever.” 

“You’re a menace.” Ben says, sighing. “I don’t think I’m going to need flesh-eating acid in the near future, so please don’t set up more illegal chemistry experiments because of me, okay?” 

“No promises.” 

“I wouldn’t expect that of you.” Ben says seriously. “Here, I’ll give you a hand over this tree.” 

Carlos stops. He’s capable of climbing over the fallen tree himself, but… 

But Ben has a hand out. 

Ungloved. 

“You–” 

“I care about you.” Ben says steadily. His hand looks warm. Strong. Clean, except for the smear of Evie’s blue on his middle two fingers. “I wouldn’t want you to fall. On the tree.” 

“You’re sure. You want to help me–” Carlos waves a hand (his left. He wants Ben’s mark on his dominant hand. He wants to wear it proudly, if he’s going to get one) at himself.  All five-foot-four, weedy, probably-supposed-to-be-a-band-kid, himself. “Over the tree.” 

Ben’s hand is still out. “I want to teach you to swim. No life-or-death situations this time, just us. Being whatever we are to each other. I’m here on purpose.” 

He hesitates. 

Ben waits. 

The red half-moon on the back of Carlos’s neck was an accident. Wrong place, wrong time, right person. Jay says he doesn’t regret it, but they both knew how bad they were for each other when they started out. The blue smear on his arm was from a fall, a case of the right person, accidental right place, right time. They don’t wear short sleeves on the isle, but it had been hot, and they’d been safe enough in the hideout for Carlos to take his jacket off, and Evie wobbled just a little too far and caught herself with her bare hand on his arm. 

Mal’s purple mark on his shoulder was on purpose, but Mal was the one who wanted it. She’s the one who said that they should, who badgered him into agreeing. They set the time together, but Mal’s the one who made the choice to reach out and leave her mark on him. 

Even his oldest soulmark wasn’t one that he chose. Carlos wouldn’t trade his cousin for the world, but he’s been marked for longer than he can remember, a hand around his broken ankle, older than the scars that are there now. The soulmark is deeper over the scar tissue, like the skin healed overlapping, saturating the burnt orange color darker where Carlos was hurt. Where Diego helped drag him to the healer to reset the bones. 

He’s never been the one to choose his soulmark before. 

“If you don’t want to,” Ben starts, misinterpreting his silence as rejection. “It’s fine. I’m fine if you’re not ready. Not that you ever have to be ready. We don’t have to touch, I just thought, because we share so many marks, and I like you so much, that we could. But we don’t need to. I like you, just you. With or without the marks.”

With or without. 

Ben’s hand already has Evie’s blue. 

Red goes well with blue. 

“Hand.” Carlos demands, gesturing. “Put it back up. I’m ready now.” 

Ben’s smile is as bright and golden as the marks he leaves. “I’m glad you’re you.”

Their hands meet. The warmth is immediate, soulmark-bright and familiar and as strong as the sun coming out after crossing the bridge. 

“Me too.” Carlos agrees, “I’m glad you’re you too.”