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Carlos groaned as he stepped into the locker room, the smell of sweat hitting him right in the face. He quickly went over to his clothes, he dumped on the bench before practice and quickly made his way to the bathroom stall. He was glad he was able to get out of the uncomfortable tourney get up. He was stuck with it though, since Ben seemed to not give up on him and forced him to a personal training later the day. Now Ben needed to talk to the Coach though and after still had some meeting for his coronation. Carlos was not at all looking forward to that.
He started untangling the shoe laces as he heard the other guys talking in the locker room.
“Hey, Jay! Why is de Vil changing in the bathroom again? He did that before training as well.”, someone asked.
Carlos winced, he had hoped no one would say something.
“How am I supposed to know that? It's not like we're friends.”, Jay said carelessly.
Carlos hoped with that the conversation would be over. He'd just wait until most guys left the locker room before he got out, so he wouldn't have to answer any weird questions, but apparently he was wrong.
“Not friends? I thought you were. You seem so close.”
Did they? Carlos didn't feel like that at all. Yes, Jay was constantly close to him, always nudging or throwing an arm around him, but the Arab was like that with everyone. It made it easier to steal something out of the others pockets. Luckily Carlos never had anything important or of any worth on himself.
“Friends? I barely know the guy. We only hang out when our parents meet up, really. His mom is one of my dad's most important customers. Though it is weird he's hiding in the stall, I mean I would have thought locker rooms were his favorite place.”, Jay laughed covertly after his own joke.
Carlos froze in his movement while he was pulling off his shirt. ‘Fuck, no… don't tell them!’, he thought panicking. He had hoped he could just forget about everything that happened, at least living normally here. Jay was apparently not having that.
“Locker rooms? For real? He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who's into sports. I mean we all saw how shit he was on the field!” Some guys laughed. Carlos cheeks turned red out of embarrassment. Jay laughed as well.
“Yeah, no he's shit at combat, usually just runs away, or hides behind his boyfriend. I meant he's a fag, that's why I thought he'd love locker rooms.”, Jay continued laughing, but now no one else was laughing along. Carlos wanted to throw up. He never, not once hid behind Harry when in danger. No, Harry rather was the danger Carlos was hiding from. Fuck he felt his legs quiver and needed to squat down. He pressed his hands to his eyes and tried to breathe calmly. Now everyone would think he was a fag again. He just escaped the Isle, but he shouldn't have hoped.
“Hold up, boyfriend?”, Chad spoke up, slight bewilderment and malicious joy ringing in his voice. “So you're saying he takes it up the ass?”
Yeah, Carlos was definitely going to throw up. He saw a picture flashing through his mind and quickly opened his eyes wide, before it could clear into anything specific. He stared at the place where the toilette and floor connected.
“Yeah, like I said he's a fag and there is no way Harry would let him stick it in.”, Jay answered uninterested. Chad let out a snort.
“What and you're just fine with that? I mean, it's against nature, fully perverted.” Carlos held onto himself, his hands digging into the flesh of his arms. He felt the scars against his palm. ‘Against nature? Is that what Auradon thinks of it?’ He'd heard his fair share of slurs, but in the end no one really cared on the Isle. Everyone was just fucking who they wanted, really and while words like ‘fag’ or ‘dyke’ were a thing, they weren't used to really offend, but rather to describe.
“Against nature? Hold up, you're saying you don't have fags over here?”, Jay asked confused.
Chad made a offended noise: “Well of course not! That's disgusting! No one would allow that.”
Carlos felt so unreal. It was one thing when people on the isle thought he was a fag, but apparently here it was even worse. He couldn't feel his body, but just the scars rubbing against his palms. he started to scratch.
“Ah well,” someone else spoke up nervously. “It's not unheard of, but it's rare. Homosexualls get sent to conversion therapy by their family's usually.”
“Yeah, cause it's wrong!”, Chad cut in. “What, you think it's okay? Don't tell me you're one too, thieve.”
Jay let out a chuckle. It sounded wrong and forced to Carlos.
“Of course not. Me and a guy? Mish mish.”, he said. Carlos knew that was a lie. Jay has had encounters with guys, just like he did with girls.
“Good, or we'd have to deal with two of those. At least de Vil is actually hiding in the stall, god I wouldn't want to change with something like that.”
After that, the conversations finally shifted away from the topic, though not Carlos thoughts. No, he was still down on the stalls floor, trying to breathe. He knew they wouldn't kill him, Auradon wasn't like that, right?
Anyways, who cares, he was fast. He knew how to get away.
Why did Jay need to tell them? Why couldn't he just shut his mouth, for once? Tears picked at Carlos eyes, he gulped them down. He couldn't cry, people could see later. He wasn't save, locked away in Cruellas closet. That's the only place he ever allowed himself to cry, or those two times where he cried against Gils shoulder after the older had patched him up. Though Carlos had made sure the other wouldn't tell anyone, ever.
He noticed something warm against his plam and looked down. There was some blood on his hand from a scratched open scar. He stared at the scar, the scratched lines forming the initials ‘H.H.’. Carlos always avoided looking down at himself and quickly turned his eyes upward. His breath picked up even faster. His head was spinning. He didn't know how long he's been here on the floor. Didn't know if it were just some minutes or hours by now. The glow of the light bulb above his head hurt his eyes, but he just kept starring. Anything was better than closing his eyes right now. The thoughts in his head could turn into pictures. He couldn't take that right now.
Suddendly there was a knock on the door and Carlos was ripped away from his thoughts, blinking confused. There were white spots in his field of vision.
“Huh, yeah?”, he asked confused.
“Hey, Carlos, you think you're on there much longer? I gotta use the restroom!” It was Ben. Carlos heatbeat slowed down a bit. There were no other sounds on the other side of the door, so everyone else had left already. Ben must be done with talking to the Coatch by now. That was okay. Ben wouldn't hurt him.
“Yeah, I'm out in a sec!”