*slides in a new chapter all casual like it hasn't been a whole year or a decade or whatever since I updated*

*also casually slides in some outdated new year's jokes like those aren't overdone as heck*

So uh, hey! I'm back with new content!

It's been a while, and I am terribly sorry for my inconsistent nature, things have been a bit crazy in the Real World, so I haven't been able to write as much as I would have liked. Plus my terribly fickle muse abandoned me Sander Cohen-style, and I haven't been able to get it back no matter how many human sacrifices...(I mean attempts) I made.

But anyway, on to the reviews!

As always, please don't skip my Author's Notes, as I keep the important chapter warnings there.

Call Me Random:

Thank you so much for your kind words and the review! I'm really glad you like my OCs, and the reveal, at last, with Carlos and Isaac. I hope you'll continue to read and enjoy! :)

BlueMoon007:

Haha, yes to all the cuddles, for sure! I too, am super happy for the Carlos and Isaac reveal, and to continue developing their relationship from here. It has been a journey in the making, and I look forward to seeing what you think!

. :

Welcome to the story and thank you for leaving a review! I'm glad you're enjoying the story and I hope you'll continue to read and enjoy.

Time Turner:

Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad you're enjoying this story and the Carlos and relationship. There will be awesome moments ahead, to be sure, but gotta get through the rough beginnings first, haha. ;)

Hazminelol:

Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad you're enjoying this story so much and I hope you will continue to read and enjoy! :)

Gracfully:

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Hopefully you'll continue to read and enjoy! :)

EvietoyourMal:

Thank you for the review and the kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed everything that went down. It was a little more Jay-centric, and perhaps I could have timed/spaced it out better, but I wanted there to be a sort of suitable resolution of sorts, at least to that aspect of his/the VKs' backstory before moving onto further recovery and actual enjoyment of Auradon. ;)

As for things with Arendelle, it's all up in the air at this point, depending on how the story-politics plays out, but Elsa is essentially offering a 'one up' sort of deal. It wouldn't just be a school based offer, but a life based one. But we'll see how it all goes, and I hope you will continue to follow along and enjoy!

Nyehhh:

Aw, thank you so much for your kind words and the review! I'm glad you enjoyed the scene with Jay and Aziz. I had a lot of fun (is that the right word?) writing it and getting that resolution out and working towards that happy ending. I'm always excited to be updating, so I'm glad that you're glad, and hopefully this one will be just as good for you. :)

Guest 1:

Thank you so much for the kind words! My writing style has definitely changed a bunch over the years and I still get self-conscious about it sometimes, so it means a lot to hear that you're enjoying what I'm putting out. :) Hopefully you'll continue to read and enjoy!

Guest 2:

That awkward moment where you discover that you've been spelling Arendelle wrong this whole time…. That aside…thank you for the review and the kind words, and the probing questions, lol. You got me thinking, is all I'll say. ;P Daisha was definitely 'better' all things considered, and writing their relationship and her character has been a lot of fun. I would definitely be interested in exploring if there is a possibility of a happy ending in that regard…it just depends on the characters and the story. But we'll see.

As for the council, how I'm sort of headcanoning it is that the King and Queen of Auradon have the highest power, with the King having the final say, then the rest of the council royalties under them, either kings or queens have their own equal votes and say in things. The social standing and how 'well-liked' a member is plays petty part in it as well (see Chad's comments on his mother not having as much sway with the council given everyone's opinion of her.)

As for your other questions well, we'll just have to wait and see. ;)

A2:

Haha, confession for a confession, I actually had this chapter done a bit sooner than I thought, I'm just super late posting. So hey, you're good if I'm good, lol.

But thank you for the kind words and for the review! I'm really glad you enjoyed my little character touches. I definitely had fun incorporating the softer Mal moments in the midst of brutal Mal moments, haha. Plus showcasing Jane starting to grow a bit stronger in character and standing up for something/to someone, even if it was in the case of self-destructive Mal.

Your criticism is valid and also not the first time I've heard similar. I actually went back through and you are correct, I do have a bad habit of being a bit disconnected with my flashbacks and the story content. I've cross-posed this fic on AO3 as well, and have been editing it there so things flow a bit better (hopefully), cutting some flashbacks and changing others, but as for here on FF in the future I will work harder at making that transition smoother/relevant. Thank you! :)

Bex:

Thank you so much for the kind words and the review! I'm glad you're enjoying this story and my writing, and I hope you'll continue to enjoy!

Lily:

Thank you so much for the kind words. I hope you'll continue to follow along and enjoy!

bluewolf2208:

Thank you so much for the review and the kind words! I'm glad you're enjoying this story and the little character developments here and there. I had a lot of fun writing Dizzy, she's just so cute and I love how the Isle somehow wasn't able to get to her to let that fade. And yes, Jay realizing that the VKs really are a/his family was another moment I really loved writing. :)

I hope you'll continue to read and enjoy!

Tiredandlazy:

Aw man, Lazy, it's been a bit of time hasn't it. Talk about late than never, lol.

I'm glad you enjoyed my doozy of a chapter, and it's been super fun stringing you along for the Mystery Papa ride, haha. ;P So sorry about your ruined sleep schedule, hopefully you've found the time to recover and get back to normal sleeps? :)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this mess as well, and I look forward to hearing what you think!

Guest 3:

Thank you so much for the review and the kind words! I'm glad you're enjoying this story and my writing, despite its length, haha. I do worry sometimes if it's too much and people end up just getting lost by the end, but I'm super glad to hear you like it regardless, so yay! Hopefully you'll continue to read and enjoy!

Gin:

Thank you for leaving a review and for the kind words! It means a lot to hear that you're enjoying my writing and think I'm doing good with spacing out the details. I often wonder if I'm saying too much, or if things that I think are clear are coming across as such, so I'm glad to see that so far, I'm succeeding. :)

As for the flaming hair, I'll give you a hint; you've already met her. ;)

I'm glad you're enjoying this story so much and my little character developments. I hope you'll continue to follow along and enjoy!

lovePEOPLEandCOWBOY:

Pardonnez le Google Translate français ...

Merci d'avoir laissé un commentaire! Je suis content que tu apprécies cette histoire. Quant à votre espoir... Je ne veux pas gâcher mais je dirai juste de ne pas abandonner tout de suite... ;)

J'espère que vous continuerez à lire et à apprécier!

ezra3185:

Thank you so much for the review and the kind words! I'm glad you're enjoying this story so far and that I got you so hooked, lol. I can certainly try, it is never my intention to go on a hiatus, but sometimes things happen and I'm not able to predict when/if I'll be able to update when I hope to. But I hope you'll continue to read and enjoy regardless! :)

AC:

Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad you're enjoying this story so much, and I hope you'll continue to read and enjoy!

lanalight1:

Welcome and thank you for the review and the kind words! Sorry for the wait, but hopefully this update will make up for it, and that you'll continue to enjoy. :)

Idk:

Haha, you're totally that person, but honestly it is ok considering how long it took me to get back to this. I'm glad you love this story so much, though, and I hope you'll continue to read and enjoy! ;)

Nyx Nox:

Definitely still continuing! Glad you're enjoying so far, and I hope you'll continue to enjoy!

sillysammijo:

Welcome to this story, and thank you so much for leaving a review and the kind words! I really wanted to dig where Disney failed to, and show the realities of just what a world like this would look like and how it would have definitely affected the VKs more than what anyone wanted to admit, so I'm glad you are also enjoying that aspect of things.

I definitely plan to keep up with this story, and I hope you'll continue to follow along and enjoy! :)

(As you haven't yet caught up with Once Upon a Time, at least to where Isaac is relevant, I'm afraid of spoiling things for you. If you'd like me to explain the context for his character I can, but there will most definitely be major Once spoilers involved! So let me know, and I will message you. :) Otherwise note that there will be some scattered references and spoilers as Isaac's story here continues; including some small ones in this chapter, so just a heads up!)

Author's Notes!

Ok, well, this is officially the new content zone, all caught up to what I'd written ahead a bit ago, so yay! The chapters may be a bit sporadic, but I do have outlines and plans, so hopefully not as long as a whole year or anything. *Ok I'll stop making new year's jokes now*

The **WARNINGS** for this chapter include the usual, language/dialogue, and deals with themes such as child abuse and abandonment but nothing too explicit ot intense; mostly feel good and some hurt/comfort so enjoy, and I look forward to hearing what you all think!

- Raven

Note 2:

Just tagging again given recent character developments and revelations; this story is AU, but still based on and contains mild spoilers for the T.V. show Once Upon a Time.

Note 3:

Songs that inspired this chapter:

'Little Lion Man' by Mumford and Sons, 'Poet' by Bastille, 'Taking you there' by Broods, 'Youth' by Glass Animals, and 'Paranoid Android' by Radiohead.

Evie

Evie is well aware that Doug is staring at her, and she would have commented on it except Chad is also staring at her, and she's still trying to figure out how she should feel about him. True, he'd been a huge help with Carlos and in getting them settled in Auradon, and Mal had pretty much explicitly stated that she considered him part of their group now, what with her agreeing to bring Dizzy and Antoine over for him, but that didn't mean that Evie didn't have her reservations. Not that Mal would hear anything about that.

"Hey," she mutters to Doug, who jerks and blinks at her in wonder. "Is he by any chance in line for a throne somewhere? Anywhere in line?"

"Chad," he says flatly, peering over his glasses at her. "Chad Charming. Cinderella's son?"

She knows who he is, of course. Knows his status by default. But she needs to be sure that she's worked every angle. That Chad's not working any angles. If he's doing all of this somehow to try and garner favor for some future reign; racking up points by involving himself in all of their endeavors.

"Has he inherited anything? Is he going to?" She insists, glaring right back at him, and he quickly wipes the look off his face.

"Um, well I mean," Doug begins, and there's a vaguely haughty note to his voice that she can't stand. "He inherited his dad's charm, but ah. Not a lot of 'there there,' if you know what I mean."

There's a part of her that wants to curl her lip at him, that knows exactly what something like that might mean. The other part of her thinks she knows what Doug means, specifically, and she curls her lip at him anyway.

"Looks pretty 'there there' to me," she snaps coldly, and Doug shrinks from her, but before he can babble out something else offensive and academically superior, there's the dull sound of a cleared throat.

"Miss Evie," Mr. Deley says, and she stiffens in spite of herself, eyes snapping over and gazing at the man intently. He has a tired look on his droopy face, and his posture is straight but not tight, not threatening.

"I understand that my lectures aren't always the most engaging but you could perhaps try to pay attention couldn't you?"

"Sorry," she whispers, lowering her chin and resisting the urge to shrink bodily, to refrain from calling him 'sir' -to keep herself from begging for mercy.

"Perhaps this is all just review for you, hm?" Mr. Deley continues, lifting his bushy eyebrows curiously. "Do you think you can tell me the atomic weight of silver?"

And he stretches out his hand and she almost flinches, but then she sees the unassuming piece of chalk in his palm and that's almost worse than what she'd been anticipating. Because at least a blow would have been a quick correction, but what he's looking for she's all too familiar with.

"Why don't you come up and write on the board?" Gothel's voice was a deceptive croon, almost a cackle. "Show us all how clever you are- just what it is you've learned in that tower of yours."

The woman had always been oddly resentful towards Evie due to her similarities in places of living. She'd hated the fact that she had lost her Rapunzel, while Evie had somehow 'thrived' in her own tower. Never mind the fact that Evie was pretty sure that if she'd been in Rapunzel's place, with all that hair, she'd have hung herself with it before being doomed to suffer such a fate as life with Gothel.

Regardless, the woman held Evie in unearned contempt and often made examples of her, mocking and belittling her for her skills and knowledge, and sending word back to her mother. Which in turn made the Evil Queen furious because it meant that she was being made fool of as well, which then led to pain for Evie. It had been a vicious cycle that hadn't really stopped so much as shifted over time once Evie fell in with Mal.

And look where it got her now. Auradon, where history just seemed fated to repeat itself and their pasts just couldn't stay past.

"Evie?" Mr. Deley asks, and she flinches then, just a bit, and hates herself for it.

Fucking pathetic, she hisses at herself, and straightens in her chair and forces her face to crack into a smile.

"Well it can't weigh very much can it?" she simpers, curling her hair around her fingers and barely keeping from yanking it instead. "I mean, it's an atom."

It's not her best, but it's enough that Doug stops giving her mesmerized eyes and shifts back, brow furrowing. Chad snorts quietly, and looks immediately sheepish when both Mr. Deley and Evie shift eyes to him. He mouths an embarrassed apology to the teacher, but the man has already turned his attention to Evie and beckons with a stern finger and a tight press of his mouth.

Well, hell.

Evie stands, teeth biting at her lower lip and dragging the sharp bitter, waxy taste of her lipstick onto her tongue. And instantly her mother's voice is screeching in her head "Stop biting your lips this instant, Evelynn! If you can't stop ruining your lipstick perhaps I'll make it easier for you"- and no food for a week so nothing smudged the color, and nicotine mixed in with her lipstick to discourage her from biting her lips, which had only served to fuel Jay's cigarette selling gig and had nearly killed her in the end. Not so much the nicotine, but more the constant beatings when her mother had found out about her habit, but hey. She'd stopped smoking at least.

"Whenever you're ready, Miss Evie."

And this is Auradon, where she is allowed to eat however much she wants- still not much, but at least it's better than not being allowed to eat at all. She is in Auradon, where the teachers were not encouraged to belittle their students, where such a thing is not allowed and is dealt with if it happens. She is in Auradon and a class full of students is staring at her waiting for her to screw up, and her failure means ridicule and punishment, means no food and pain, and her success means. Means attention. Means being noticed, being sought, being sought after—means dark alleys and her muffled screams and…..

"What is the atomic weight of silver?"

And she is in Auradon, and far away from all of that.

"The atomic weight of silver," she repeats shakily, but her hand is steady as she takes the chalk from Mr. Deley's hand because she'd been trained well, dammit.

And she knows this one, actually. Had memorized this one, like she'd memorized the numbers of pi just for fun, and surprised even Dr. Facilier, who had been the one to teach her chemicals in the first place. Then of course, he'd been furious with her abilities and refused to teach her any more, and she'd had to learn potions by herself. But she'd managed.

Mass times abundance, Evie. Mass times abundance.

There's half of a periodic table sitting somewhere in her desk on the Isle, but she'd found one in the Auradon Chem Lab and updated her mental picture of it. It's not hard to close her eyes and breathe the rubbery smell of chalk- and resolutely avoid the flash of dark alleys that it brings- to scan her mind over the table until she finds the element she's looking for.

The numbers come easy after that, and she opens her eyes and grips the chalk between her fingers and:

"That would be 106.90509 times 0.5186, plus 108.90470 times 0.4814, which gives us 107.867702254…" She falters, then, desperately, "amu."

She freezes, the seamless flow of numbers stuttering to a stop because crap she'd overdone it and shit this was going to mean so much pain later on. And she tacks on the 'amu' at the end because maybe that would make it better, show that really, she didn't know what she was doing at all it was all fake just like her, just like everything she'd ever known.

"'Amu?'" Someone mutters behind her, and she thinks she'd succeeded, but the look on Mr. Deley's face as she hands him back the chalk says otherwise.

His lips are still pressed tight, but there's this strange sparkle in his eyes like pride. No, not like pride, because he hadn't been the one to teach her this. But a sense of wonder almost, and proud nonetheless of her abilities.

"I forget myself," he says, as he closes his reference book and takes the chalk with a slight shake of his head. "I should have-"

"Known better than to underestimate a villain?" she snaps before he can say another word. "Now you know not to make that mistake again."

And she turns sharply on her heel and ignores the part of her that stiffens and waits for him to whirl her back around and slap her across the face for her insolence. She doesn't realize she's waiting for exactly that until she thinks it, and she strides quickly across the room and sits down sharply, ignoring the look Doug is giving her, ignoring the one that even Chad is giving her because the look that Mr. Deley is giving her is so much worse.

It's disappointment.

She pulls away from Doug as soon as they step outside the building and darts towards the bleachers by the Tourney field on a hunch. As she'd hoped, the boy immediately stops at the sight of the athletic field and turns away. Which means she's left by herself…until she looks to her right and sees Chad strolling towards the bleachers a few feet away, drawing some device out of his bag. On a whim, because she's been doing a lot of those today, she approaches him, and realizes as she gets closer that it's a camera. She watches as he lifts it just in front of his face and blinks a bit because there's a small screen at the back and she can see the picture he's taking before he pushes the button.

It's of the tourney field, but not of the landscape, of trees or the sky. It's on an odd angle, and the picture is mostly of the metal bars of the bleachers, with just a white line and a hint of grass beyond to convey the location at all. It's weird, and she knows nothing of picture taking besides posing, but she thinks he's doing it wrong. She debates telling him that, when he lifts his head and notices her.

"Oh, hey. Evie," he says, and as much as it doesn't surprise her to hear him use her name, the lack of disgust in it does catch her off guard.

"Chad," she says, as cordially as she can with her back stiff with mistrust and a lingering anticipation of pain.

"I saw what you did there, in chemistry," he continues, fingers fiddling with the buttons on his camera. "It was pretty impressive."

"Thanks," she replies, and takes a careful step closer. "Your picture is…interesting."

He scoffs almost dismissively, but he's smiling, though it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "You don't have to patronize," he says. "I know nobody actually gets my photography. But thanks anyway."

"I wasn't-" she begins, then stops because she was.

"It's fine," he says, and shrugs, tucking the camera into his bag and raising his arms above his head, leaning forward against the bleachers. Stretched out like that, Evie can see the curves of his silhouette, can almost imagine the muscles that must be flexing under his shirt. Knows exactly where to strike to hit his kidney, with a pretty clean shot to it, too.

She blinks and forcibly reminds herself that that wasn't necessary. But she clenches her fists just in case even as she smiles at him and he grins carefully back. There is something guarded and uncertain in his eyes, as she's sure there is in hers, but Chad clears his throat and speaks before she can really contemplate it.

"So is everyone on the Isle as clever as you?"

He tries for witty but it comes out strained, and she wishes she knew what it was that was making him so nervous, so she could figure out what to do with it.

"I like to think I'm the fairest of them all," she quips, lowering her head and lifting her eyes to peer at him shyly.

"Good one."

He chuckles, licks his lips. Doesn't meet her eyes.

"You're gonna have all the nerds in love with you," he continues, and she shakes her head, dropping her eyes to maintain the bashful front while trying not to scowl because if even Chad was noticing….

"No," she mutters, biting her lip and grimacing. "I'm really not that smart."

"Oh, come on," Chad retorts, and she's surprised at it from him, and can't help but lift her head to glance at him in surprise.

"I'm really not," she tries to insist, then realizes how desperate that sounds and changes tack easily, slipping another shy smile onto her face. "But I am really good at sewing…and cooking…and cleaning. Kinda like your mom Cinderella, but without the ratty dress."

She finishes with a small, exhaled laugh, and Chad sucks a sharp breath and stiffens, expression hardening on his face.

"Right," he says darkly, and she realizes what she's done and stiffens as well, taking a step back and cursing her stupidity.

"I'm sorry," she gasps out, and he stares at her. "Really, I didn't mean…I'm sorry."

He looks conflicted, running a hand through his hair so it sticks up ragged when he pulls it away again.

"It's fine," he finally says. "I know you didn't mean it like that." He shakes his head, offers her a sour grin. "But speaking of….apparently you guys know my family over there."

It's a poor segue, and she doesn't want to go with it. She knows what he's trying to do and the last thing she wants is for him to have more information to hold over them or bargain for.

"We do," she says tightly, reaching down to grip her bag. "They're almost all as charming as you."

Sorry Dizzy.

"Ouch," he says, brows lifting despite the actual flicker of hurt that crosses his face for a moment. "Low blow."

"Look I know you think we're just a wealth of information, but I'm not just gonna sit here and go willingly along to be your means to an end," she snaps. "So if that's what you want, then you'll just have to deal with it."

And she swings her bag up over her shoulder and turns sharply, heart pounding desperately as her mother's voice hisses a death rattle in her ear, at her audacity for speaking to a man that way.

"You're one to talk!" Chad calls from behind her, voice hot and cracking over the syllables. "Isn't that just what you were doing a second ago with the whole 'Cinderella' thing?"

She freezes, and he scoffs, harsh and broken. "I might not be as book smart as people expect, but I'm not an idiot and I know people."

"Oh?" she retorts, lifting a brow and striding back with all the confidence of a death march. "And what do you know?"

"That there's a lot more to being royalty than just a pretty face."

And all the air goes out of her lungs and she's surprised she manages to keep her feet and remain facing him as she does.

"What?"

It's barely a hiss between her teeth, and Chad's lips quirk up on one side like he'd somehow figured her all out. She's not going to admit that he had.

"I know I come across as pretty shallow half the time, and pretty arrogant the other half, but I know that look. It was my look, until someone was rude enough to point it out to me."

"And what look is that?" Evie snarls, finding her breath and her loathing all at once. Never mind if it was directed more at herself than at him.

"The look of someone who thinks that they've got nothing more than their looks; who's given up on becoming anything more than they already are. Who uses it as a shield and a crutch and a sword all in one- because who's going to look past all that? No one that matters, right?"

His eyes meet hers with something sharp and pointed, even as his smile grows, and Evie has half a mind to bare her teeth and curse him. The other half reels, and fights to retreat from this far-too-accurate prediction of herself.

"And what do you want?" she says instead, dropping her pretense but not her eyes, maintaining contact and stepping forward again, searching for the catch in his expression.

"Hm?" Chad hums, brows lifting and head tilting to the side.

"Don't threaten me and then play coy," she snaps, more bravely than she feels. "What do you want from me? What…what do you want me to do?"

She watches the connection form in his brain, watches his eyes go wide with horror as he skitter-steps back, hands up coming up in sharp protest.

"NO!" he says, and she flinches at the bark of something like a command in his voice before it tapers off into something else. "No…gods no, nothing like…nothing like that!"

His face is pinched and pained, eyes crinkling tight at the corners as he stares at her, and she wonders what she's done wrong and fears the next thing out of his mouth because if not that then….

"I only meant," Chad begins, then stops. Then starts again, voice soft. "I know because it used to be me. Still kind of is, actually…I know a bit of what you're going through, and I can understand that it's hard to break out of that image you have of yourself. Of thinking that an image is all you have or could be."

"I don't believe you," Evie retorts, and Chad gives her that sideways look again, like he's seeing right through her. Seeing her.

"Auradon?" she continues hotly, if only to combat the tightening of her throat. "You've been living here your whole life, how can you stand there and talk to me like…"

"Like I'm not perfect?" Chad finishes, and Evie barely manages to contain a sob. It bursts in her chest and spreads like bitter poison through the rest of her body. "I get that I haven't exactly been the most reputable source or contact, but I am trying. And I do understand. More than you think."

There's something fierce and proud and pained in his eyes, in his voice, with those last words, and Evie realizes that this was what Mal must have seen.

"Drizella has four kids," she blurts, and he blinks.

"What?"

"Over on the Isle," she clarifies needlessly. "There's four Tremaine kids: Peirce and River, twins; Antione, and Dizzy."

Chad gapes a moment longer, and the strength of the emotions that lights in his eyes unnerves her, and she can't figure out why. But it doesn't feel entirely bad, not when his face splits into an incredulous grin a few moments later, a breathless sort of laugh bursting from his chest.

"Wow," he gasps, eyes wide and equal parts joy and fear. "That's…that's a lot."

"Yeah," she says, letting out a gentle scoff of her own. "Try keeping track of all of them."

Some of the wild emotion settles in his eyes as his expression smooths into something almost solemn once more, his gaze returning to her.

"And…and is that what you did? Kept track of them? Took care of them?"

"Where we could," she admits, lifting one shoulder and slipping her eyes away from his. "The twins were hard…they tend to stick more to the sewers so it was always hard to pin them down. But Dizzy and Antoine were close…they were the Lady's, so…they were easy enough."

"I'm…not sure what all that means outside of context," Chad says, a wry grin twisting his face. "But I don't entirely think I want to know the context. Not…not just yet."

And Evie realizes it's not something wry at all. It's genuine and concerned and pained, and it takes her a moment to catch up.

Oh, she thinks, staring at him and not trying to hide it. Oh of course. He really does think they're family.

"That's understandable," she quips in response to his words, and he chuckles again and shakes his head a bit.

"Someday, though," Evie says, and he nods, smiling just a bit as he meets her eyes once again.

"Someday," he agrees, and Evie finds she can actually return his grin. Return his gaze.

Looks like there's more to you after all, Charming. More to me.

Carlos

"Wait, what the fuck!? Your dad?"

Carlos isn't sure he can say that he'd imagined how this moment would go. He hadn't really been aware that this was a moment he'd needed to look forward to. The man in front of him- Isaac, Isaac, Isaac- had been a shadow in his memory until at least a day or so ago, and even then, he hadn't been able to fully recall him until the night before- waking up in the middle of the night screaming and Mal with her hands pressed between his shoulder blades and tawelan. Until everything had blurred together and he'd slept and dreamed his forgotten memories.

Forgotten.

"Y-you," he croaks, ignoring Jay's outburst, staring past the other boy's suspicion and into the dark eyes that are so much like his own it hurts. "You mmade me forge-forget you."

Isaac's eyes- Carlos' eyes! -stare back at him with something deep and pained, but so relieved at the same time. He smiles, just a bit, and Carlos wants to scream at him. Carlos wants to hug him, or be hugged by him. He's not sure which.

"I did," he says, his voice that same, cracking sort of rumble that Carlos remembered. That Carlos had forgotten, but was remembering.

"Why?" Carlos hisses, and he feels Mal shift around beside him, feels her palm settled gently against his back. Evie grips his hand tightly from his other side, and he doesn't need to see Jay to know that he's cracking his knuckles; can hear the subtle pop pop of cartilage. Or is that Carlos' heart, breaking over something it can't quite understand?

"Because remembering was dangerous," Isaac says, and he looks so sad. But so happy, and Carlos needs to hug him. He shifts his fingers to squeeze Evie's even tighter instead, and Mal's hand is warmth and pressure and safety against his spine.

[Lie.] Carlos signs instead, sliding the back of his hand along his jaw and just past his lips; like the words side-stepped his mouth instead of coming out honestly.

Isaac's eyes flash, and for half a second Carlos fears…what, he doesn't know. But then he is signing, too fast for him to process handshapes and specific curls of fingers, but he understands each word all the same.

[I never lied to you!] Isaac begins, face twisting fiercely with the denial, eyes sharp and sad and happy all at once. [I told you the truth always, and I regret leaving you. I'm so sorry for leaving you. But if I had stayed, you would not be here.]

[Here?] Carlos repeats, palms up and circling in front of him slightly, as if to encompass the space around them. As in, Auradon? Or, alive at all?

[Auradon.] Isaac confirms, fingerspelling the word, face twisting like it's a curse in its own right. [If I had stayed-]

He stops suddenly, and his eyes…drift, sort of. Like Jay when he goes away in his head, except Isaac is so much further than Jay had ever reached. His lips move without making a sound, and the fingers of his left hand twitch at his side, like he's tracing things in the air or trying to grab something.

Carlos' own fingers are numb where they twine with Evie's, and Mal's hand moves to grip his shoulder, while the other extends and snaps sharply. Isaac jerks, flinching in a way that Carlos is too familiar with, then he blinks and his expression turns pained.

"I'm sorry," he says, voice shaky and soft. Not strong like Carlos remembered. Then he thinks a moment and realizes that he doesn't actually remember it ever being strong. "I'm sorry, I didn't want…not like this."

Carlos twitches his shoulder as Mal's grip tightens too sharply, and her fingers relax and shift to his back once more. He's not sure if it's meant to be comforting at this point, or if it's meant to show Isaac that Carlos was hers now, but it at least soothes some of the anxious thrumming in Carlos' chest, and he manages a shaky exhale.

"Why-why-why are you here now?" he asks, cutting through Isaac's own frantic murmuring, and the man blinks, then straightens sharply.

"The…the invitation," he manages, then he nods his head and Carlos can see relief flood his face again, like he'd remembered something he'd forgotten. "When I found out that you had been chosen, well! I wasn't just going to sit and do nothing."

"Like you sat and did nothing for, how many years was it? Ten?"

Evie's voice is sweet-but-cold, and even Carlos shivers to hear it. Isaac's eyes flicker, then go cold, colder than anything Carlos has seen, and he feels his breath catch in his throat, and hears Mal murmur something like a curse in his ear.

"Twelve," he snarls, voice breaking over the venom that colors his words. "And every single one of those years was spent coming up with a way to free my son from that damned island. To see you again."

His eyes shift over to Carlos with those words, softening around the bitterness that had warped his expression only seconds ago. Carlos doesn't need Mal's pressing fingers to urge him backwards, and his group reforms around him again, and Isaac's expression…he doesn't know. Doesn't have the words to describe how it seems to just break before going blank all of a sudden, his eyes shining bright with pain.

"I wrote to you," he says softly, and Carlos blinks because he remembers those letters. Remembers snatches of things and blurs of words and feelings he had no way of dealing with until now. "I sent you books, supplies. Did you…you got them? You know how hard I was trying?"

And Carlos nods slowly, because he does remember, but it's…odd. Belated. Like looking back through a tinted window and finding strange shapes in the mist that you swore hadn't been there before. He sees himself, tiny and anxious, hair dark and curly like the man whose lap he'd sat on. He sees the man's face, shadowed and pale, eyes seeing but not seeing him at the same time. He sees the man's lips move, forming words that Carlos doesn't hear, but knows all the same.

"Once upon a time…"

"But that doesn't ma-ma-matter!" Carlos bursts out, finding his anger again in the swirling confusion of his emotions. "You left me! You don't get to…you don't get to…you don't."

Carlos feels Mal flinch, feels the sharp absence of her hand from his back. When it returns, she's shaking, and he wants to turn his head to find out why, but he fears that if he loses sight of Isaac at all he will cease being real. So he keeps his eyes forward, and watches as Isaac's fill with tears, and whatever coldness he had possessed vanishes beneath the flood.

"You're right," he whispers, and his voice breaks and Carlos' heart breaks with it. "I left you, and I took the memory of me as I went because…because I was selfish and afraid. I knew that I would do everything in my Power to get back to you, but I was afraid of what you might think of me, if you were left with all that time and only the memory of my leaving."

[Not fair.] Carlos signs shakily, not trusting his voice with his own tears rising now. [That's not fair.]

Isaac nods, touching the tips of his fingers to the side of his temple. [I know.]

"I…I mmmissed you," Carlos whispers, and Isaac shifts his weight forward but doesn't quite take that step, and it's all he needs to tear free of Evie's grip and Mal's hand, and rushes into the space between Isaac's chest.

Carlos hears the lifting voices of his group behind him, their worry and fear rolling up in a wave that becomes background noise, as Isaac freezes only for a second, before his arms come up and oh. Oh. That's how it's supposed to feel. Carlos stretches, reaches up with his arms and as far around as he can get and Isaac's arms wrap tighter, pulling Carlos so close until all that exists is Isaac and Carlos, Isaac and Carlos, and the thm-thmn of their shared heartbeats.

"I missed you too, Carlos," Isaac murmurs, lips and breath a tickle through his hair, arms and voice suddenly strong, now. Safe. "I missed you too."

Evie

The Evil Queen had never told Evie who her father was. She had known who he was, unlike many of the other villain parents, who either didn't know or didn't care to know, or who knew and were glad to be rid of their counterpart. But she would never tell Evie, no matter how many times she'd begged or pouted as a child. Once she'd grown up, Evie had tried civil conversations, or pointed questions or bribes. The Evil Queen had been pleased to see her skills at work, but always furious at the subject. It hadn't taken long for that fury to turn physical, and Evie had learned to stop asking relatively quickly.

Only once, when Evie was six, and had been coming up with a list of children to invite for her birthday party. She had invited nearly every one of the villainous children whose parents her mother had visited for 'tea' and the like. Every one except for Maleficent's awful little daughter, Mal. It hadn't been for any clever sort of poetic justice or historical repetitions as her mother presumed. It had been because Mal had ignored Evie from the moment they first saw each other, and Evie was tired of the lack of attention. If she ignored Mal in return, then maybe she'd realize how stupid she was and actually notice Evie.

It had backfired, and then come full circle ten years later, but Evie remembered her mother being proud of her display of evil. Except, she hadn't called her evil, exactly. She'd said, "Oh, that's my little evilette! So mischievous, just like." And then she'd stopped, and a look had come over her face before she continued stiffly. "Just like me, when I was your age."

Evie had never forgotten that, because as she'd grown older and more used to her mother's minute changes of expression, she'd realized that what had actually crossed her mother's face was grief. Anger. And something sort of soft and fond, and while yes, it could have been a sentiment for herself in times gone by, she only ever reserved that particular order of emotions when talking about her father.

And so, Evie was 'mischievous,' the only thing she ever got from him, apparently. Not a sudden and unexpected appearance who knows how many years later. No 'oh Evie, how I've missed you, look how you've grown, you have my eyes.' No 'I never should have left and I'm sorry and I love you.'

Instead she gets 'Evelynn sit up straight, no man will want you with terrible posture,' and 'Now don't forget that you must never be seen before a man without makeup, it is unacceptable,' and 'Do this and you just might make a decent wife some day,' and straight razors and itching scars and too many men in her bed from her mother.

It's as she's thinking these things that Evie realizes that she hates Carlos.

No, she doesn't hate him. She hates his father. She is jealous of Carlos, of the ease in which he rushes forward to embrace this dark haired stranger, with his eyes and his curls and his smile. She hates this Isaac, for showing up out of nowhere so full of love for the child he left behind, when her own father has yet to do the same, and her own mother only rarely displayed.

She hates the itching, clawing sensation it draws from her chest, the icy sting of her magic raw in her veins, burning from the inside out with no hope of release. She hates the tears she can feel pricking at the back of her eyes, and the way that everything starts to spiral and pile up because how was it fair that Carlos got his father back, got a loving parent, got something good? And all she has is straight razors and never good enough and too many too many too many men….

"Wait, your father?"

She's in Auradon, and Jay is gripping her hand too tightly, his own anger leeching into her to mix with her fear.

Carlos looks up sharply from the man's embrace, eyes wide as he takes in the remaining three of them. She wonders what he sees to make his eyes go wide like that, so full of surprise and fear and…she's not sure what. Something sharp. Something aching and desperate and pained.

"Yes," the man says, his arms tight around Carlos' shoulders like he can't afford to let go. "I am."

"Bullshit."

It's out of her mouth before she can stop it, all her hatred and rage and fear in one word, two syllables long.

"Eve."

She flinches, and it's Mal's one word, one syllable that cows her, has her submitting like she always fucking does. A part of her wonders vaguely, why it is she's thinking in this particular pattern, wonders if it has something to do with him, and her glare intensifies even as she slips her head down and shifts further behind Jay.

Mal doesn't let up her own glare either, though it's directed at Evie, and she knows what the other girl is looking for. She's not going to give it though, and Evie holds her stance despite the command, and she can see Mal's lips moving out of the corner of her eyes. 'We'll deal with this later,' she reads in the tight stiffness of Mal's shoulders, the sharp flash of green in her eyes and the quick clench of her hand into a fist.

She forces herself to ignore it, to focus on the new threat in front of her. Isaac is watching them just as closely as she is watching him, and his fingers twitch ever so slightly as his eyes trail over each of them, despite the way they still grip Carlos' shoulders. Evie can tell there's a restlessness in him, an anxious sort of thrumming through his body, like he wants to be doing a million things at once, but is forcing himself to remain in this moment instead.

His eyes start to slip in her direction, and she drops them down to Carlos to avoid eye contact because despite everything, she'd been trained well. She doesn't know what he would do, but there are always consequences for this sort of thing, and she doesn't want to be the one to provoke more than she has to.

"I know it's a lot to take in," the man says. "But I really am Carlos' father."

Evie risks another glance and he's smiling, a thin, queasy sort of thing like even he can't quite believe the words coming out of his mouth. Carlos looks eager and nervous all at once, shifting restlessly beneath the man's hands until they loosen. He doesn't rip away and back to them like Evie had been…expecting? hoping? Instead he pulls carefully away, hovering close to Isaac and glancing carefully back and forth between all of them.

"Where have you been all this time then?"

Mal is the one who says what Evie wants to, her voice sharp and leaving no room for dishonesty. Isaac turns that tight smile to her, and though Mal tenses, she doesn't drop her eyes, until Isaac is the one forced to look away. It's a small victory, but Evie will take it.

"I've been working in Arandelle, in service to the Queen there, trying to further solidify her power and most recently, to help make things better for those on the Isle."

He says it so matter of factly, so smug and self-assured, it's as if he doesn't notice that they're all glaring at him. Or at least, all but Carlos. Carlos is too busy trying to hide his tears to notice the hostility the rest of them are levelling at his father.

"Better?" Evie repeats incredulously, and Mal doesn't make a move to stop her this time, though there's a hot flicker in her eyes that she doesn't miss. "How exactly did you do that because, as I recall, it's still a living Hell."

Isaac's lips thin, and his expression darkens further, but he is not one Evie fears. There's no need to. He is a coward, for all his talk of position and power, and she'll be damned if she confirms his own inflated views by giving him any sort of power over her.

"You're all here, aren't you?" he says, quietly but with no lack of importance. "You're here and others will be too. There is more going on than your own limited view can begin to grasp, though I understand the confusion a lack of imagination can bring."

His lips quirk ever so slightly, as if at some clever joke only he fully understands the meaning of. "You don't need to worry about where I've been, only where I will be, and what I'll do; and that's right here, looking after my son."

He doesn't twist words to his favor, as most tend to do, Evie realizes, as his eyes flick back to Carlos with something soft and slightly manic. It's almost as if he creates them, slotting them together and weaving them in such an expert way that even she is thrown off guard trying to make sense of them. By the time she does, he's already on to the next thing, and Hades damn him because suddenly she is terrified.

"You say that now," Jay manages to bite out through his teeth, eyes dark and unsettling in the way they remind her of Jafar. "But you were fuck knows where when "your son" needed you. You can't just-"

Isaac laughs, a short, bitten off sound that makes even Jay shudder as it slips past his lips. "I think you'll find that I can."

There is…something…in those words, and Jay blinks, and falters, stepping back and away, back towards Mal. Evie finds herself doing the same, and the other girl grips her shoulder so hard it hurts, but instead of wincing, Evie reaches out and grabs Carlos' hand again, pulling once and drawing him back with her.

Whatever had been building behind Isaac's expression seems to break at their movements, at Carlos' pulling away from him, and he looks suddenly weary and grieved, his hands starting to tremble at his sides.

"I—shit I did it again, didn't I?" he murmurs, and Evie hardens her resolve and squeezes Carlos' hand tighter. He's not going anywhere with this man, and they most certainly are not going anywhere where he is.

Isaac seems to realize this as well, as he smiles, the grin twisting bitter and pained across his face.

"I see…perhaps…this wasn't a good time. I will…see you all again."

And with those last, stilted words, he's gone, exiting out in a sharp turn and quick, long strides, not looking back once.

It's only when he's gone that Carlos slumps out of their grasp, falls to his knees, and wails.

Isaac

Isaac takes two steps into his room in Arandelle's castle and screams. Then he crosses to his desk and grabs the Book residing there, pages still damp with drying ink, his words still damningly fresh, and throws the tome as far from him as possible. He's wrapped his fingers around the dark bottle of ink when his stomach plummets, and the vertigo is all the warning he has before everything goes cold.

"Careful," comes the icy murmur behind him, thick and heady like the snow encasing his body. "You'll destroy everything important if you keep going like that."

"Maybe that was the point," he spits. His ink bottle hangs before him, caught with crystalline precision, and he shudders as the snow sloughs from his shoulders, and Elsa strides calmly into the room. There's a lighter, quicker set of steps that follows her slow, intent ones, and the princess skitters across the still-melting floor and retrieves the Book, frowning at the page.

"Did you really?" she asks absently, brow furrowed as she indicates a passage that he has no desire to focus on.

"Anna," Elsa chides, and the younger woman flushes, nodding and closing the Book, placing it back on the table before retrieving the ink pot as well.

Only when everything is back in order does the remains of the snow and ice fall away, and Isaac would have stumbled if Anna hadn't somehow anticipated this, as well. She doesn't really 'catch' him so much as simply stand there, and he staggers into her petite frame and regains his feet, glaring at the back of her head. He catches Elsa's much darker glare in return, and her hand doesn't so much as twitch and yet he tenses anyway, reading the warning quite clearly.

"I take it things didn't go as well in Auradon as we hoped?" she says coolly, and Isaac doesn't have the energy to scoff at his projected puns.

"They went exactly as well as expected and then some," he says back, and Elsa frowns where Anna grins.

"And Carlos?" Anna presses eagerly, fingers pressing together and a bounce lifting her to the balls of her feet and back. "Did you get to see him? Did you talk with him? Did he-?"

"Anna," Elsa says, and she drops back to the ground, some of her exuberance fading, but not enough of it.

"I did see him," he admits, and he hates the way his voice breaks like glass, like ice, like hearts, like minds. "And talk with him. He forgot me…and then he remembered."

Anna squeals where Elsa scowls, fixing him with a look that says 'we'll discuss that later,' and he doesn't know if later will be the Snow Queen or her, but he dreads it all the same.

"And?" Anna presses, and Elsa sighs and makes no gesture to stop her this time, peering over at Isaac with equal parts resignation and curiosity.

"And nothing," Isaac bites out, finding his anger once more, his hands clenching sharply at his sides. "I couldn't…couldn't reach him. Couldn't talk to him like I wanted because of the rest of those…." He falters, stops. Remembers.

The way Carlos trembled when he saw him. Evie's hand, so tightly wrapped in his. The coldness with which she spoke, the hatred burning in her eyes as she'd stared at Isaac. The way Jay had loomed behind, every movement of his hands an invisible blow, forcing Isaac back and away, forcing him into submission. Mal's hand on Carlos' back, eyes bright with a fire that had nothing to do with her magic, boring into Isaac's with a single unspoken claim. Mine.

"Isaac."

He gasps a sharp inhale, suddenly aware that he'd stopped. Anna is looking at him strangely, lips pursed and brow furrowed, and it takes him a moment to flick through the emotions in his head before settling on concerned. Then he shifts his gaze over to Elsa and she is cold, angry, furious, furious, concerned, afraid, concerned.

"They're a tight group," he continues, and if the spike of Elsa's concern causes the temperature to drop suddenly, he's the only one who notices. "They're a tight group and I couldn't get close enough."

Carlos pressed close against his chest, trembling through the words 'I missed you.' Isaacs fingers tight around his shoulders, his breath trembling through the soft curls beneath his chin. 'I missed you too.' But really 'I love you, I missed you, I will burn the world for you, I'll make things right again.'

"But you got to see him at least," Anna says, voice bright and happy and melting the stiffness with her optimism. "You got to see him and he saw you, and he knows who you are now, so really, it's only a matter of time."

He can see why Elsa keeps her around.

He doesn't see why he needs to.

She is but a simple sentence, unfinished in his book. He finished it once, on a whim, just to see what would happen. Arandelle might have been a wintry scape, and Elsa its frozen ruler, but by the time she'd finished with it, the kingdom had burned.

"Only a matter of time," he agrees with Anna instead. Does not finish her sentence in his head, or in his book. "But the boy who would be king does wish to meet with you, Your Grace."

Elsa stiffens at that, and Isaac thinks it's almost comical, the way the cold fury shifts so quickly to fear and trepidation. Especially given all he knows about the boy. She had nothing to fear from his bite, but his bark. Well. Small dogs often think they're the fiercest, until they're taught otherwise.

"I suppose you're going to say that this is a good thing," Elsa quips, as though sensing his train of thought, and he can't help the smile that quirks his own lips.

"If it helps, Prince Ben is nothing like his predecessors," he supplies. "In fact, he's actively seeking to change the legacy he bears, much like you have been in the last ten years."

Anna gives him a sideways smirk, and he shares it then immediately wonders why he did. But Elsa looks relieved, if not still a bit hesitant, and he feels his hands begin to shake at his sides.

"I suppose there's no avoiding it," she says finally, distaste twisting her otherwise neutral expression. "Though at least someone is willing to acknowledge their faults."

Is that supposed to be meant for me? Isaac wonders, and the part of him that controls the story thinks of all the ways he can make her pay for that comment. The current part of him, the part that has followed that path and died for it over and over and over again, cowers away from his train of thought. Settles on something a bit strained instead.

"And what will be the children's fate, with the outcome of this meeting?" he asks, pressing forward and into her space, ignoring the push of cold his action brings.

"Their fate will be entirely in their hands," Elsa responds easily, eyes lifting to his with that knowing expression she wears all too well. "As was the point of my missive and my intention with sending you to deliver it. But as for Carlos, specifically? I don't see why we couldn't extend a more…personal…invitation."

"Ooh!" Anna chimes in suddenly, causing Isaac to flinch and his hatred of her to spark anew. "And Auradon's Family Day is coming up next month! We could visit-"

"Yes." Elsa's voice is a sharp bite of bitter cold that cuts through Anna's words. "We could."

She levels the princess with a look that's even sharper, and Anna falls silent immediately, offering a weak sort of simper in response, though her eyes flick to Isaac and….hm. She's too open, Princess Anna is. Everything so plainly there for anyone to take advantage of and destroy. Isaac can plainly read the guilt there, but also the fear? Not quite that, but there's a specific sort of 'right, yes, can't mention that in front of him' that flickers across her face and then disappears and hm. Anna can actually do neutral quite well. He'd underestimated her.

But he knows better than to underestimate Elsa, and so he tucks it away in his memory to write down later. Carlos. He was getting Carlos now. Everything else could wait.

"So," he says, taking another step. "Meeting with this boy playing at kingdoms and extending a personal invitation to Carlos and then….?"

"Then?" Elsa repeats, brow lifting with a dangerous sort of flair. "We show them what we're truly capable of."

And that…that is something Isaac can get behind.

Chad

While Chad had come to expect a certain amount of…behaviors…from the VKs, he's still entirely caught off guard by all four of them storming out into the hallways in a rage. Or rather, Mal is raging, a blur of blazing green, eyes bright and promising violence and death and it's all that anyone can do to get out of her way.

"Whoa, hey, alright then!"

Chad staggers, backing the fuck up and out of the way as Jay comes right behind her, not flaming, thank the gods, but just as violent, just as ruthless, and someone behind him lets out a horrified noise. It's somehow not enough, just those two, because of course Evie comes next and it's not so much that she is raging, in fact, quite the opposite. She is not loud in her anger, but it radiates off of her all the same, something cold and brutal filling the space around her and forcing the crowd of students back. Carlos is last, and it's the smallest of the group that is somehow the loudest, his whimpering cries seeming to echo in the silence the other three have commanded, his face pale and frantic as he sprints, away from the rest of the VKs, and why was it always….?

"Carlos!"

Evie calls after him, stopping at the head of the hallway, and Mal gives one look over her shoulder and snarls. The sound is guttural and feral and terrifying, and it makes the other girl stop in her tracks. Or perhaps it's the way Mal barks her name, next, sharp and just daring her to do anything other than follow. Evie's face twists, but she follows, and it's Jay who shakes his head and breaks away in a different direction, shoving Doug out of the way and all but slamming him into the wall when he doesn't move fast enough.

And then they're all gone, and the lingering students remain frozen and breathless for all of a second before bursting into gossip and chatter and speculation and judgement. Chad shakes his head and curses, shoving Doug upright with hardly a word and racing after Carlos because fuck if he knew how he'd ended up in this position, but he wasn't about to try and talk sense into any of the others. Not yet, anyway.

"Carlos?"

He shouts, ignoring the looks cast his way and darting down the hallway he'd thought he'd seen the boy rushing down. It's mostly dorms and closets, trickling down into a dead end, and Chad scowls as he doubles over to catch his breath, scanning past the heating unit tucked in the corner of the end of the hall.

"Carlos!"

What the hell? Chad thinks. There's literally nowhere for him to have gone, where…?

And then he hears a muffled, tinny sob, and he blinks. Son of a bitch.

He trails down the hall and squeezes in next to the heater, ignoring the uncomfortable prickling of his skin as it warns him of the heat, and tilts his head back. There, in the vent just above the unit, is an unmistakable flop of white hair.

"You know, I'd like to think that I'm not impressed, but honestly your escapism is really starting to impress me, de Vil."

Carlos jerks, and Chad just catches a glimpse of his eyes, wide and blurred by tears, before he shuffles back into the vent and out of sight.

"Hey, wait!"

Chad almost puts his hand on the heater, pulling away with a hiss when his nerves spike sharp with warning. He stands up on his toes in an attempt to get a better view, and relief fills him as he catches a shadow still there in the vent.

"Geez, I'd hate to think you were just crawling all over the school in there," he quips half-heartedly, settling back to the floor. "Although, maybe one good scare for Fairy Godmother might be entertaining."

Silence meets his pitiful attempt at a joke, and Chad sighs, sinking down to sit parallel to the vent on the floor, leaning his head back and staring up at the shadow.

"I guess the meeting didn't go according to plan?" he asks, and there's a dull, muffled thud in response to his words, followed by a series of harsh, angry pounds. He jumps, startled, then stands quickly when the banging is followed by a muted scream.

"Carlos!"

Chad tries again to reach for the heater, to get a grip, but it's too hot and fuck he was failing at everything wasn't he?

"Carlos, please," he tries, tipping his head back in another attempt to see into the vent. "I can't get up to you to help, I need you to try and breathe, ok?"

There's a rapid shuffle above him, and, in a move that he watched and yet still couldn't quite believe, Carlos came pitching out of the vent, tumbling forward and ending crouched on his haunches, hyperventilating the whole while. Once he was on the ground he scrambled backwards, not stopping until his back was to the wall, and even then, he kept trying to scoot back, as if hoping the wall would simply swallow him whole.

"Hey, hey, it's ok," Chad murmurs, dazed, crouching down to be on the other boy's level. "I'm not gonna grab you or anything, ok? I just want to make sure you're ok, cuz you're kinda scaring me right now, Carlos. You…you think you can tell me if you're ok?"

"Fuck off!" he bites out instead, eyes wide and still full of tears and pain.

"Well I would, but then Mal would have my head for leaving you alone while you're all freaked out. So, if it's alright, I think I'll stick around for a bit longer."

Carlos bares his teeth at him, but with the tear tracks on his face it's far from threatening. Chad inches just a little closer, stretching out his hand slowly, palm out, as if warding off a wild creature. Carlos stiffens as he comes closer, but stops trying to melt into the wall, at least.

"Is it ok if I touch you?" Chad asks, as calmly as he can manage with his own heart beating frantic in his chest. "Just on your shoulder, and I won't yank, I promise. Is that alright, Carlos?"

Carlos swallows, pants a bit, but nods once, rapidly, as if the option to say no was something that could be taken from him. Chad doesn't want to follow that train of thought, so he scooches himself a bit closer and slowly puts his hand on Carlos' shoulder, gripping just tight enough that the boy knows he's there.

"Hey, now can you take a breath for me?" Chad continues, once Carlos doesn't bite him for the touch. "Kinda hard to have a conversation if you can't breathe."

"Wh-wh-who said I was having a con…talking to you?" Carlos snaps, but he's breathing slower already, wiping his sleeve across his face and mostly clearing his eyes.

"Well, you haven't taken my head off, and you just spoke a full sentence to me, so, I'd say that's a conversation," Chad jokes, weakly, and Carlos scowls, but doesn't make any move to pull away.

"You can llet go," Carlos mumbles, dropping his eyes from Chad's. "Ple-please."

Chad nods, even though he can't see it, and lets go of his shoulder without squeezing. Carlos breathes even easier, and Chad really doesn't want to think on that train of thought, but it keeps poking at him all the same. He'll ask Mal later. Right now is for Carlos.

"Ok, so uh…how bout no more vents from now on, ok? Almost gave me a heart attack and-"

"Wh-why do you care?" Carlos blurts, cutting him off. The question comes out shaky, but genuine, and Chad blinks a moment, caught off guard.

"I-"

"You you keep coming after mme and…you keep car-caring. Why do you care?"

"I…I don't know," Chad begins, then continues when Carlos pulls away at the words. "I guess at first…you reminded me of my mom. How she…how she still can be, sometimes, even after all this time. You reminded me of her and I couldn't stand knowing that- having that connection and not doing anything. I know how awful it is to go through all that and not have anyone, and I wanted to do something different, after that."

Carlos stills, but doesn't say anything, and Chad licks his lips and thinks a moment before continuing.

"And then…I don't know. You stopped being like a shadow of my mom and were just…you. Carlos. And I wanted to make sure that you were ok…for you. And…it's kind of…exhausting. Being a jerk all the time. You gave me an excuse to be something else. So. Yeah."

It's lame, even to his own ears, but he means every word of it. Carlos hesitates, squirms a bit as if wrestling with something huge. Then, slowly, he inches forward and closer to Chad. Chad resolutely does not move, and Carlos pauses, biting his lip, then scooches the last little bit until they sit, side by side, backs to the wall. Carlos' shoulder just barely touching his.

Chad hardly dares to breathe, but he forces himself to relax, ever so slightly, and Carlos huffs out a sharp, hitching exhale before leaning his head back against the wall, eyes tightly shut.

"I…I met my dad."

Chad almost doesn't catch the meaning of the words, so wrapped up is he in the fact that they are sitting so close and this is such a huge sign of trust and also what the fuck because Carlos was barely stuttering, and he knew that that meant even more because it meant that the other boy really trusted him, could actually relax enough around him that he wasn't so focused on his words and also wait…wait…wait.

"What?" He hisses, gaping awkwardly and trying to figure out what to do with his hands, all of a sudden.

"At the mee-meeting," Carlos continues, still not opening his eyes, still leaning-but-not into Chad's shoulder. "Hhhe was there. I saw him. He knew who I was and everything."

"Wait, your dad. As in, the one responsible for a part of your existing. As in…."

"My dad. Yeah." Carlos' voice is clipped, and when Chad glances over Carlos is glaring at him, eyes dark and tinged pink. "Him."

"Wait, but how?" Chad resists the urge to jump up and pace, to wring his fingers through his hair. He fidgets with the gold buttons on his sleeve instead, tugging until the thread threatens to break. "That should be impossible!"

"Why?" Carlos' eyes sharpen, and Chad shakes his head, disbelieving. "Chad…why is it im- not possible?"

"Because way back at the beginning of this, when the Isle was first created… before the Isle was first created, the villains from all the kingdoms hadn't all been gathered together in one place yet. They were either defeated and buried, or else they existed in prisons, or else lived in or on the outskirts of the kingdoms they'd terrorized."

"Ok," Carlos says slowly, nodding to show he understood.

"Well…well I mean." He falters, uncertain even how to say this. It wasn't exactly secret knowledge, at least, as far as he knew, but it was still difficult to admit aloud. It was no wonder the council didn't like acknowledging it.

"Chad."

"Well I mean, everyone knows how the birds and the bees work," he blusters, and Carlos' brow furrows in genuine confusion because of course he doesn't, gods damn it.

"You mean sex?" Carlos guesses, and Chad can feel his face getting hot.

"I am not having this conversation with you right now," he says, quickly. "If your mother never explained it to you…" But then he stops, because Carlos' face goes very pale and hollow all of a sudden, and he absolutely does not want to do this again.

"Keep going," Carlos mutters, after what feels like too long.

"Well, there were some folks who ended up having kids with some of the villains, and when the kingdoms came together and this was found out, people weren't…happy."

"Fu-fu-fu-fucking understatement," Carlos hisses, eyes narrow, but he doesn't say anything else, and Chad sighs before continuing.

"So they had these villains and they had this island and they had the issue of these eventual villain kids, and so they decided that if any of the…royal or Auradonian citizens that wanted to 'own up' so to speak, and claim responsibility for their villain kid, then that kid would remain off the Isle."

"Wait…what?!"

Chad winces, because, yeah, saying it out loud, it is fucked up. But he wasn't even born when this all happened, and even then, this had all been decided long before him.

"All I know, is that when it came down to it, no one really wanted to own up to what they'd done, and the Isle was finished and all the villains went over and had their kids. And then Ben came along years later and decided to dismantle the system."

"No," Carlos mumbles, rubbing at his eyes. "Nnno, cuz…hang on. Cuz I remember. I remember him, he wwwas there…he was with me and…."

"Carlos," Chad says carefully, slowly reaching out and placing his hand back on the boy's shoulder. "Carlos, if your dad was on the Isle with you, he shouldn't be off of it now, you understand?"

"No, I fucking kn-know that!" he snaps, but doesn't wrench away like Chad half-expects. "I know that but he…he's…."

"What?" Chad presses gently. "He's what, Carlos?"

"Not…not bad," Carlos mumbles, but he's not making eye contact and Chad recognizes the self-preservation for what it is.

"Ok," he continues tactfully. "And that's fine. It's ok if he's not. But if he's meant to be on the Isle then-"

"No!"

Chad jumps, and Carlos winces, settling just a little closer.

"No," Carlos says again, softer. "No he's…he's not. But he wwas here and I saw him and…and…."

"And?" Chad prompts, quiet.

"And th-they don't like him." It's almost a whisper, Carlos hunching his shoulders, bowing into himself and, due to their position, into Chad.

"Who?" he asks, and Carlos frowns, shrugging his shoulders dismissively.

"You mean, Mal and the others?" Chad guesses, and Carlos purses his lips and tilts his head. "Why don't they like your dad?"

"Because he le-left." Carlos whispers the words like they're a betrayal in themselves, his voice tight. "He left the Isle…left…me on the Isle. And ssso they don't like him."

"Do you like him?" Chad can't help but ask, and Carlos lifts his head sharply to glare at him.

"Of-of-of-of course! He's mine, he's my dad, and…and I missed him."

He's almost crying again, and Chad almost brings his arm around his shoulders and stops himself.

"Did you tell them that?"

"You're no-not fucking helping," Carlos spits instead, shoving himself up and away from the wall and Chad. He doesn't flee entirely, however, just paces a frantic, broken path in the hall in front of him, back and forth and back until Chad is dizzy just looking at him.

"I'm sorry," he says, meaning it. "What would help?"

"Not you!" Carlos snaps, hands twisting and wringing anxiously at his sides, seeming to vibrate with the boy's anxious energy. "I want…I want him! I wa-want him back and I want Mmmal to stop being so….Mal. And I want Jay to be ok. And I want Evie to be ok. And…I want…I want to be ok."

"Well that's a lot," Chad replies, bluntly because fuck he'd gotten into it now, hadn't he? "And you're right, I can't help with all of that. But some of it. Some of it I can at least try to help, and I'll be here where I can't help."

Carlos looks over at him, sharp and desperate and hopeful and fearful all at once, and his body shifts like he wants…something. Chad isn't sure what. But he turns on his heel and paces around again, instead.

"How about this?" Chad offers, when it's clear the other boy won't stop anytime soon. "How about you come up with what you want to say to the others, and I'll walk you back to the dorms, and you can tell them?"

"I al-already know what I want to say," Carlos bites out through his teeth. "And I don't wa-want to go back to the dorm."

"Ok, well then what-?"

"I don't know!" Carlos bursts out, stomping the tight stretch of hall. "I don't know I don't I don't…."

"Ok, ok," Chad gets up quickly, then moves slower when Carlos flinches sharply away. "Ok, come on. Come on."

He telegraphs his movements a bit more clearly, and Carlos doesn't jerk when he grips his shoulder again. Chad leads him like that, encouraging with a few more 'come on'-s when he stalls. They go like this until they start to reach the steps leading up the dorms, and Carlos snarls, pulling out from under his hand.

"I ssaid I don't-"

"We're not going to your dorm, come on," Chad tugs once, gently, at Carlos' sleeve, and Carlos scowls but tromps up the stairs after him. Chad leads him down the opposite hallways, back towards his shared dorm. Carlos hesitates only a second more, but then Chad taps a knock and then, on hearing the grunt from Aziz, follows after and into the room.

Aziz is lounging in the curved desk chair, the thick cushion flung to the floor where Nikhil sits, idly tuning his guitar. Chad can't help but sigh just a bit in relief at the familiar sight, and doesn't hesitate to sit on the edge of Aziz's bed, waving Carlos forward from the doorframe.

"Good," Chad sighs as he relaxes. "You're both here."

"Yeah," Nikhil drawls carefully, his guitar falling silent as he clutches it tightly, eyes flickering past him to Carlos. "And I'm feeling an odd sense of déjà vu, Chad."

Chad rolls his eyes, but doesn't deny the genuine concern in Nikhil's voice. "Aziz, out of the comfy chair."

"What, no, I just got here!"

"So did Carlos," Chad says pointedly, and Aziz starts to protest, then seems to notice the smaller boy's demeanor and gets up, tossing Carlos another pillow.

"Sit down, de Vil," he teases, and Carlos grips the pillow and shuffles uncertainly to the chair, plopping himself down and curling his feet up, the pillow tight across his knees.

"What is," Nikki begins, and Chad shakes his head, at a loss.

"I don't know, but we weren't getting anywhere in the hallway, so…I thought here'd be good."

"Cool," Aziz chirps, but he's uncertain too, and Carlos doesn't look up from his curled position, picking at the soft fabric of the pillow.

"Nikki," Chad pleads, and the other boy blinks before glancing up at Aziz, who shrugs.

Nikki shakes his head, but pulls his guitar across his lap before plucking idly. Carlos doesn't move, at least, not in a way that Chad notices, but his eyes are watching Nikki closely as he plucks a few notes, then strums through a few bassy chords that Chad vaguely recognizes.

"I swear every Muse bassline is exactly the same," he mumbles, just to poke the other boy. "Play something good."

It works, and Nikhil scowls and mutters a few choice words under his breath, strumming through almost every Muse bassline he knows in rapid succession. It's enough to get Carlos's attention, unfolding carefully from the defensive position he'd been in. Aziz seems to realize what Chad's intention was then, and extends his foot to tap Nikhil's shoulder gently.

"Hey, play the Radiohead one you were working on earlier," he encourages, and Nikhil frowns a bit.

"I still can't get that one part, though," he protests, but then he looks up and sees Carlos' eyes focused intently on him, and he sighs, plucking obligingly through the intro.

Aziz grins broadly, then clears his throat softly and starts to sing as Nikhil repeats the chords.

"Please could you stop the noise, I'm tryin' to get some rest? From all the unborn chicken voices in my head."

"What's thaaat?" Nikhil hums, picking up the lyrics where he leaves off. "What's that? When I am king, you will be first against the wall. With your opinion which is of no consequence at all."

"What's thaaat?" Aziz echoes smoothly, almost a whine and almost a taunt. "What's thaaat?"

Nikhil nods his head in rhythm a bit and grins, expression sobering just a bit as he goes through a brief bridge, playing the sharp, twangy –du-du-doo-doo- before he draws a breath to continue.

"Ambition makes you look pretty ugly." –du-du-dudu-doo-doo-dudoo-doo

"Kicking screaming, Gucci little piggy!" Aziz picks up as Nikhil focuses on the increasingly difficult progression of the chords. "You don't remember? You don't remember! Why don't you remember my name? Off with his head, then, off with his head aw why don't remember my name? I guess he does…."

There's a longer stretch of notes here, and Nikhil winces and hisses when his fingers slip over the transition, but when Chad looks at Carlos the boy is enraptured, his whole body rocking slightly back and forth and eyes bright as he takes in the music. There's a familiarity in his expression, an eagerness and openness that Chad wishes he could see more of, now that he's seen it, and then, as Nikhil shifts to the softer strumming of another bridge, Carlos tips his body forward and opens his mouth.

"Rain down," he sings, softly but surely, each lilting plea of lyric perfectly clear. "Rain down, come on rain down- on me! From a great height. From a great heiii-heiiiiiight! Rain-"

"That's it son, you're leaving." Aziz picks up for the echo while Carlos repeats his lyrics. "The crackle of pigskin, the dust and, the screaming. The yuppies networking. The panic, the vomit. The panic. The vomit."

"God loves his children," Carlos sings, lips twitching sharply upwards in a secret sort of bitterness. "God loves his children, yeah."

-Du-du-dudu-doo-doo-dudoo-doo!- from Nikhil's guitar as he slips into the final solo of simply music and feeling, and for a moment nothing else exists except for this little, intimate moment between the four of them.

Then the song ends, and Carlos is grinning, open mouthed and a little breathless, a little shy. But then Aziz claps him on the shoulder and laughs, and even Nikki is laughing, just a little.

"You…you said you know Muse?" Carlos questions, carefully, and Chad pretends to be put out as Aziz and Nikki cheer and crow triumphantly.

"Yes!" Aziz shouts, pumping his fists. "Finally! What do you want? Please say Bliss!"

Carlos chuckles and shrugs his shoulders, looking to Nikki cautiously. "I al-always liked Hysteria?"

Nikhil groans, but he's smiling, shaking his head even as he starts to strum awkwardly. "Just so you know, I can not do that bassline well on this thing."

But the music continues, and the laughter does too, and Chad thinks that maybe, just maybe, he could be some help after all.