Work Text:
And we don't have to be (your fairytale)
-0-
When Ben meets the children of the Isle of the Lost he feels like he has met them before, and he knows what destiny is. He is too much like his mother. He doesn't belong in a world with shallow dreams, and shallow ideas. He belongs with Mal, with her leadership, her determination, and with Evie, who has beauty she knows how to use, but has a brain she knows how to use even better, he belongs with Carlos, who is as loyal as the dogs he once feared, and more determined to love and be loved than anyone, he belongs with Jay, quick and strong, with a glint in his eye. For the first time he fits.
So he loves Mal right away, quickly, like the fairytales his mother would tell him, once, where love was quick and pure, and passionate.
The love for the others comes slower, like his parents, the love for them feels like a surprise, but he welcomes it.
And so when Mal kisses Evie in front of him and looks at him with eyes that say she loves them both, he pulls them both in. Love like this didn't exist in the fairytales his mother told him. His heart hurts when he thinks about what his parents would think, but he kisses them both anyway.
-0-
Carlos doesn't really like Mal and Evie in a well...super romantic sort of way, but he loves them, and he loves Ben and Jay in a definite romantic sort of way, so he is happy with their life in the palace by the sea, where he is married to Jay and Mal and Ben are married and Evie isn't married to anyone because she doesn't need that. She's the real Queen, and everyone knows it. She is sweet and kind and beautiful and the public loves her, and while Mal can plan a war, and plan a strategy and negotiate and be cruel when needed, Evie volunteers, and invents, and flirts her way to finding answers. They really are two sides of the same coin, and Carlos understands why Ben needs them both. Carlos himself sits and advises Ben sometimes but he prefers walking the palace's dogs and attending the stables and inventing alone in his room, inventions to change and make a kingdom. Jay isn't much for royal life, so he leaves and participates in tourneys and guards them all with his life. Carlos grins at the irony of Jay becoming a knight in shining armour, at Carlos himself marrying one.
No one knows about the dynamic they have. The people of the kingdom think Carlos and Evie and Jay all live at the castle because they are Ben and Mal's best friends, their sidekicks. Carlos grunts at that, because they are much more than sidekicks. Carlos gets kisses from Ben in the morning, and Evie cuddles him on the couch, and Mal rubs his hair, and Jay kisses him in the stables long and hard, because after all Jay stole his heart before anyone else did.
It's different. It's much different than anything in Auradon, but it's different than the Isle of the Lost too. People fucked like rabbits on the Isle of the Lost, out of necessity and without feeling, and people in Auradon only believe in loving one person, of true love and soul mates, and having only so much room in their hearts. But Carlos wakes up each day, and he studies his life because he is a scientist, and he wonders if the reason they all love so much is because they were all lacking in something as children.
Carlos shakes his head. He cuddles Evie (because he still can't think of her as anything different than a big sister, as Jay wraps his arm around him and Ben stretches his arm to touch all of them and Mal's head touches his leg and as they both play with Evie's hair.
It's a wonderful feeling to have so much love.
Carlos wouldn't change a thing.
-0-
People ask Evie to marry them all of the time. Evie just smiles and politely declines and tells them that her mother has taught her that marriage was the only thing she was worth all her life and she wants to prove her wrong now more than ever.
People nod sadly, and leave with broken hearts.
Evie goes home to her people, her friends, her family, her lovers, with a fuller one. She was not jealous when Mal and Ben got legally married. People expected it straight out of High School after all, and she was not jealous of Carlos and Jay when they got married (although she thought it would take Jay a lot longer to own up to commitment), but she does wish she could wear a necklace with two dragons (purple and blue) making a heart sometimes, or she could wear a Queen's crown, instead of her princess tiaras, or she could wear Jay's jersey, or the golden ring that she and Carlos made together once without anyone thinking anything of it.
Sometimes Evie wants to scream her love to the world, but she plays the dutiful princess, the lady in waiting, and while Carlos and Jay don't join their bed every night, she joins Mal and Ben every night and the world doesn't have to know, not really.
She doesn't tell Mal about the longing she has for the world to know about them all. She knows Mal would do something rash, like tell the world, scream, if she had Evie's word, so Evie doesn't tell her, instead she tells Ben, one day when Mal is off to the mountains taming some of the few dragons that still exist.
“I wish I could tell everyone about what we are.” Evie says. She says it quietly, calmly like the queen she is.
Ben kisses her on the head. “I'm king.” He says. “I can make it happen.”
“And what will the world think?” Evie laughs.
“I will say, 'I have found true love in four different people.'” Ben says.
Evie grasps for his hand. “No.” She says. “You will not.”
“The fairytales that could be told of us Evie...” Ben says. “Can you imagine?”
Her mother had found true love once with a man that loved his daughter more and his dead wife more and her mother turned bitter and brittle.
Evie knows that sometimes facing true love does not always lead to a happy ending.
“We will love each other in secret.” Evie tells him. “For the kingdom, and for us, and our safety.”
Ben nods solemnly. “A wedding then.” He says. “For us five, in secret.”
Evie kisses him on the cheek. “I'd like that.” She says. “I would like that a lot.”
-0-
Jay hates wearing tuxes. But Carlos is making him because it's the day where they all have a wedding for Evie, for five of them really, illegally, in secret.
How Isle of the Lost of them.
“Do you think this is really necessary?” Jay asks. “We're all basically married. Evie just wants her turn in the spotlight...”
Carlos is fixing his tie and leans up and kisses him on the cheek. “It's for us all.” He says. “It's just a celebration for us five, our family.”
Jay nods his head, and takes Carlos' hand. “Oh yes.” He winks. “So it's not an excuse for you all to get to see me in a tux.” He flexes his arm and Carlos snorts.
“I think Evie just wanted to design our outfits to be honest.” Carlos says.
“For no one else to see.”
Carlos grinned up at him. “Jay it's for us to see.” Carlos says this flirtatiously, and Jay wonders about what happened to the small boy that used to blush when Jay so much as ruffled his hair.
Jay likes this, this life of his. He remembers kissing Evie first. Both of them practising their flirting and particular brand of charm on each other. They would kiss in his father's store, hidden away where no one else could see, but never at Evie's. Her mother never wanted to see her with a thief. Later he would craw in bed with Carlos at Auradon prep, and hold him close to ward off the nightmares for them both. He was jealous, at first, when he saw the way Carlos looked at Ben, at the way Ben looked at Carlos back. But then he walked into Mal's and Evie's room one day to see Mal, Evie, and Ben cuddling on Evie's bed, watching a movie, and Jay finally understood. Ben loved them all, and he had looked at Jay the same way as he looked at his other three friends, with nothing but unconditional love. And Jay could share his team, his family, his pack with the other boy, he really could.
And Jay still wasn't much for sharing things.
“Shall I ask Carlos to join us?” Jay had asked with a raised eyebrow.
And Ben had smiled at him brightly, and Jay smirked back. Mal looked shocked, and Evie smirked happily.
It was a good day, and now they were here, in a palace where Jay is a knight, a guard, loyal, and he will do anything to protect his team.
“So do you wanna marry all of us?” Carlos asks with a laugh. “You know...illegally?”
Jay laughs. “Well,” He says. “It's been a while since I have done something like that.”
-0-
Mal dances with everyone at the wedding of five. She likes dancing. She has liked it since Auradon, and she feels beautiful in the dark purple dress Evie has made for her, because screw traditional wedding gowns.
Evie comes up to her and kisses her on the cheek. “Well,” She says. “I bet you never expected this on the Isle of the Lost.”
“My mother would be so pleased with all of the love in my life, I'm sure.” Mal rolls her eyes.
Jay approaches them then. “Or perhaps she would be pleased with all of the sexual indecency.”
Mal raises an eyebrow. “But love!” She says dramatically. “I have no room for love in my life.”
Ben sneaks up from behind and pulls her to his body. “You have more than enough room for love in your life.” He laughs.
“Shut up Ben.” Mal jokes, and everyone laughs around her, long and hard.
“Don't tell my boyfriend to shut up!” Carlos protests, but he's laughing too.
“Husband now.” Evie says, showing off the four different rings on her fingers. No one would think anything of those rings, and if anyone asks Evie will say that they are some of the few belongings her mother had left her before she died. “You know, illegally.”
Mal pulls Evie into a hug. She's warm and Mal loves her to pieces. Mal loves all of them. “Remember when I used to say we never dated on the Isle of the Lost? We just had gang activity?”
Ben laughs. “You used to be so confused at the concept of dating me. I think I get why now.”
“Right.” Mal says. “Well, it looks like we ended up with some Grade A gang activity here.”
Everyone giggles again, as they try to slow dance together as a party of five.
Mal has never been more happy.
-0-
FIN