Chapter Text
The first time it happened was when he was about twelve years old. The boy had always been a little off but ever since he started going through puberty it only got worse. Carlos didn’t spend a lot of time in his family’s run down house and instead opted to hang around his gang’s turf which consisted of the harbour, the orphanage, and a third of the bazaar at the center of the island. Every time he left home it was under the excuse of needing to fight off the other two rival gangs.
Truthfully he did it so he didn’t have to live among his parents who had fallen so far from grace. They were pitiful in his eyes. Auradon lied about them being villains. Lied about all the adults. However their kids were exactly what the royals claimed their parents to be. Evil, vicious, ruthless. Not for fun but out of necessity. It was the next generation that brought terror to life on the island. Living in such a way got to all of them.
Mal had grown more, well, malicious over the years. Evie became ever so narcissistic. Uma threatened people for simply making eye contact with her. That was the ‘Coven’. Their gang ruled over the forbidden forest, the black lagoon, and, again, one third of the bazaar.
As Jay got older he got more brutal. Gil grew stronger and more imposing. Felix had become an incredible can artist and would stab anybody in the back if given the chance. The three of them were ‘Snakes’. The three of them had markers over the club district, the brewery, and once again, one third of the bazaar.
And like the rest, Isle living paid its price on the ‘Blood Sick’. Not a name that they chose, unlike the other gangs who did, but rather a name given to them by the rest of the Isle dwellers. The name was given to them because it wasn’t the Isle that turned them, not entirely at least, it was their genetics. Harry Hook got his obsessive fixation tendencies from his father. Quincy Hart inherited his mother’s violent mood swings. And Carlos De’Vil developed what Cruella and the Baroness had. Mania, DID, depression. If it’s in a text book, then a De’Vil has it. The only thing the Isle did was encourage it.
All of this to say that the people who began to recognize his first ever major depressive episode were not his parents but rather Harry and Quincy.
It all started when they were hanging at their hideout and Carlos took a nap. No one on the Isle naps unless they want to wake up in the afterlife. The second clue was when he bowed out of a raid. The third and final clue was when he went home to his parents. Not for the sake of trying to find comfort from them but rather for the hope that he would be left alone.
When he staggered through the front door, Jasper, his father was waiting in the foyer. He always waited for him to come home when he left. Sometimes Carlos was gone for days, even weeks, and lately, months. And when he watched his boy shuffle inside and immediately fall to the nearest couch, he recognized the numb look on his face and he knew that whatever Cruella had had taken a grip on his mind.
Jasper thought he was prepared to handle this when it inevitably happened. He had seen his wife go through the exact same thing. But it was different. Seeing your child’s own brain attack itself. It was also different in the sense that they were on the Isle. which meant no access to a therapist, or medication, or even a psych ward. There was absolutely nothing he could do for his son. Nothing except sit on the floor beside him and keep an eye on him in hopes that he wouldn’t kill himself if someone was watching.