WHO: Jason Grace and Carlos de Vil WHAT:Going Shopping WHEN: Yesterday WHERE: JC Pennys WARNINGS: No STATUS: Closed/Completed Gdoc
Jason was feeling a bit better. He still missed Lindsay, but friends he didn’t even know he had had come out of the woodwork. That still moved him to think about. He hadn’t expected anything like it to happen. Maybe he wasn’t as awkward with normal mortals as he thought he was.
Today he was shopping at JC Penney for a pair of mittens (it was really getting cold here, much colder than it ever got in the Bay Area) when he saw Carlos shopping too. He hadn’t talked to the guy since the obstacle course, so he smiled and waved at him.
“Hey, you find anything warm and not too expensive?”
He was hoping that maybe the Christmas sales would make that easier, but so far he hadn’t had much luck.
***
Carlos didn’t expect to make friends, not really, he had Mal and Evie, but he did try to be friendly with everyone, to get along and not cause any unnecessary waves especially after being relocated to another guardian. He’d been dragged into speed dating, thanks to Evie, and still hadn’t talked to his friend about why she’d signed him up in the first place, much less why she’d signed him up to date other guys. He didn’t even know how to approach that, and so was letting it settle for now while he thought about it.
And while he settled and thought, he was shopping. Well he was in a store, looking at things, and being really unimpressed for the most part.
He recognized Jason the moment he saw him, wandered over with a smile of his own. “Hey. No. Not really.”
Not that not too expensive really factored in. He was honest enough to pay if he could, but he was villian enough that it wasn’t really a necessity.
“You?”
***
“Nah,” he said. “Honestly, I’m not really sure what of this I need.”
Sure, San Francisco and the Bay Area could get really cool. But it never really got cold. And with how much they worked out and kept themselves active at Camp Jupiter, there wasn’t really any reason for warm clothes.
“Maybe I’d do better looking for Christmas gifts, instead.”
Shopping for other people had to be better than shopping for yourself, although both of them seemed to suck.
***
“That’s a good idea.” But again, actually paying for the things was a little more optional than people usually thought. Carlos tried to be good, better than he’d be expected to be on the Isle at least, but going back there, before being here, had reminded him that being bad was a way of life.
“Want some help? I’m not doing anything.” And maybe he could find something for his own friends.
Not that he really thought that at least one of them really deserved gift giving this year. If he didn’t care so much about Evie, if she hadn’t been the one to save him, he’d really believe that.
***
Jason, being the boy-scout-like kid that he was, would never, ever condone stealing. It was wrong, full stop. But he had no idea what the other boy was thinking, so there was no reason to give him a hard time about that.
“Sure, then maybe we could grab some lunch.”
This would have to be more interesting with someone to keep him company. And maybe he’d have some good ideas, too.
***
That almost sounded like friendship, and Carlos smiled brightly. “Yeah. Sounds good.”
He didn’t want to get his hopes up, or think that someone around here who wasn’t already a friend would want to be his. That was dangerous thinking and was only going to end up with him getting hurt when he was wrong. But it was almost and so he was going to just accept it. He was going to make the most of it. Maybe he’d get lucky one day. He could hope for that much.
***
As long as he wasn’t Luke Castellan, Jason was probably going to like him. He was pretty easy going that way. He liked pretty much everyone. And he really appreciated Carlos coming to the obstacle course that day when he needed help. That went a long way towards winning Jason’s friendship.
“Great. I hate shopping, but I doubt I can convince my sister to do it all for me.”
Thalia didn’t like shopping much either.
***
“Really?” That seemed like a weird thing to hate. “Why?”
Carlos liked shopping well enough. He hadn’t exactly gotten to do a lot on the Isle, and when he did it was usually with his mother. Which, usually, would suck all the fun right out of something but was actually the one thing that he’d actually liked doing with her. Even when she treated him like the only reason he existed was to follow her around and carry things.
***
“Well, like, the last time I went shopping at an actual shopping center, Medea tried to kill me.” That hadn’t been fun at all. It wasn’t his fault he was named after her husband. He’d barely gotten out of that one alive. It had kind of soured him on shopping. Just a little.
“Why do you like it?”
***
For a second, Carlos hesitated. If he’d learned anything about people outside the Isle, it was that they always wound up pitying him for his story. He didn’t want anyone’s pity. His life hadn’t been all that bad when he’d had nothing to compare it to, when he hadn’t known that some kids’ parents said nice things, or treated them well, or actually liked them.
“It was always the only time my mother was ever kind of nice to me. She’d let me hold things or try things on sometimes, stuff like that.” Which might not sound like much, but from Cruella de Vil it was the nicest she’d ever been to him. Carlos had almost even thought she’d loved him some days. “I guess I just started liking that.”
***
Jason understood horrible mothers. And he wasn’t the type to give anyone a hard time over their childhood, or embarrass them with pity. He just nodded. Sometimes you had to hold on to whatever little bit of kindness you had, and it seemed like that’s what this kid had been doing.
“Well, that’s good then,” he said sincerely. “You can definitely help me out. I have no sense of style. I usually just wore jeans and a purple t-shirt. Or a purple toga, depending.”
***
Carlos looked at him, appraising more than disbelieving. Togas weren’t common but it wasn’t like no one wore them. Well, okay, they didn’t, not anymore, but they weren’t unheard of. “Purple’s not really your colour.”
What was, he wasn’t quite sure. Evie would know better, she had an eye for that kind of thing no one else did. But Carlos, at least, had a sense of style, as Isle-inspired as it was, and could say what he thought looked good.
***
The expression on Jason’s face wasn’t anger, it was horror Purple wasn’t his color? Purple was pretty much the only color he wore. It was the noble color of the Roman Empire, and crucially important for him to be able to wear. If he couldn’t wear purple…
He let that thought trail off, and his voice was barely a whisper when he asked:
“Really?”
***
Carlos couldn’t help laughing, reaching out and clapping the other boy on the shoulder. If he knew why he was so horrified, he’d assure that it wasn’t that bad, that it wasn’t like he couldn’t wear purple if he wanted to. It was just that it didn’t really suit him, didn’t look good.
“Pretty sure. Sorry.” He wasn’t really that sorry. It wasn’t that big a deal
***
It was to Jason.
“Really? I mean...almost all of my clothes are purple. It’s an important color to me. It’s - “
He frowned, letting his words and worries trail off into a wordless near-panic.
***
“So wear it anyway?” Honestly it didn’t matter. Some colours looked better on some people, but Carlos didn’t think it was really a big deal to wear it anyway. “There’s fashion ‘rules’,” said complete with air quotes, “but who really cares? If you like it, I can help you find a cool purple shirt. You should wear by whatever you want.”
That was more important than any crazy rules that even Carlos, probably even Evie, didn’t understand. Someone should be comfortable in their clothes. They should like the way they looked in them.
***
Jason still looked deeply disconcerted by this. The idea that he didn’t look good in purple was one of the most disturbing things he’d ever heard. Maybe it backed up his decision not to remain with the Roman camp. Maybe it meant he never really belonged there all along. But he’d had such a sense of belonging for so long…
He shook his head. He was putting too much into what one kid said about a color. It was just that he still had a lot of deep feelings about that color.
“Sure. I’ll let you dress me. I never really put much time into it myself. Just grab whatever’s in my dresser that fits.”
***
“You should talk to Evie,” Carlos suggested, tilting his head and heading off to browse clothes, expecting Jason would follow him. “She actually designs me most of the time.”
He had taste of his own, made adjustments where he saw fit, but the basis always came from her. Always her vision and her designs and a lot of the times what she’d made herself. Carlos attributed at least half of what he knew about fashion to his friend.
***
Jason laughed at that. “Look, I don’t care that much. I’m not really a clothes guy, you know? I just want to look good. I want girls to think I look good. You’re dressed nice. Seems that you can help me with that. How about we go looking for stuff after the burgers?”
***
When burgers had entered the equation, Carlos wasn’t sure, but he’d go with it. That sounded like something friends did. The girls would be proud of him for making a new friend.
“I’m pretty sure girls don’t actually care that much how you dress. I think it’s more about how you treat them.” But what did he know? He couldn’t even tell the girl he did like that he liked her. He had no idea how and just turned into a bumbling idiot. “But yeah. We can look.”
***
Burgers were never far from Jason’s mind. As a super-powered teenager, his stomach was practically always growling. And they were in a strip mall so there had to be some place close by that sold them.
“I don’t know. Honestly, I’m crap with girls. I never know what to say.”
***
“Yeah, me neither. There’s this girl at home, Jane; I wanted to ask her to Cotillion but I couldn’t get it out and, well,” he shrugged. “Too late now.”
Even if he went back home one day, he was back on the Isle. Whatever the good intentions were, that place was a part of him and it made him a certain way. A way someone as good as Jane wouldn’t ever want to be with.
Carlos wondered a lot why he didn’t care more about that. It was just...okay. He wasn’t even sad.
***
“Sorry to hear that,” he said sincerely. “My best friend was apparently in love with me for years and I had no idea,” he said. “It upset her a lot when I brought my girlfriend back. That was the first time I picked up on it at all.”
Jason was a nice guy. Honorable. Brave. Noble. But entirely dense when it came to girls. It was almost laughable just how blind he could be.
***
“Awkward.” Carlos was really glad he didn’t have to deal with any of that. Neither Evie or Mal were at all likely to suddenly decide they’d had crushes on him unless it was some kind of magic. Their relationship just wasn’t like that and they both had other guys they liked anyway.
And he got the feeling they both assumed he also liked guys.
And were really wrong.
***
“Just a little, yeah.” And he hated that he’d hurt Reyna. He’d never meant to. He cared for her very much, just not...that way.
They reached the burger place and Jason pulled out his wallet. “What do you want? It’s on me.”
***
“Uh, sure. Yeah.” That sounded a lot like friends, but Carlos wasn’t going to say anything. If he was making a friend, rather than being adopted into a group the way he usually did, he wasn’t going to jinx it.
He didn’t really make friends. He’d never really been able to. People on the Isle kept to very small groups of trust, and his had found him. Anyone he’d call a friend in Auradon had happened because he’d joined a team, and because Jay was really good at everything and that turned into people wanting to be around him. Which meant being around Carlos some too.
***
Jason was the kind of guy who got along with everyone. He was a natural born leader, but not the kind who pushed it on people. It was just what he was. And he liked other people. He cared about them. He watched out for them. Again, it was just what he was.
Since Carlos didn’t tell him what he wanted, and seemed maybe a bit weirded out, he just ordered two of what he was having. It was pretty basic anyway.
And anyhow, it was just something to keep them from starving to death while they were shopping.