Jay | Descendants (looklikeme) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2018-06-02 21:38:00 |
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Entry tags: | !completed gdoc, !log, ~2018 june, ~25 points, ~~carlos de vil (luckiestgirl), ~~jay (looklikeme) |
WHO: Jay and Carlos de Vil
WHAT: Hanging out, catching up
WHEN: Before the snow
WHERE: Near school
WARNINGS: Nah
STATUS: Closed/Completed Gdoc
Ever since that mess with Dawn, things had been a little weird between Carlos and Jay. And Jay regretted that a lot. Even though he liked to screw with Carlos and give him a hard time, he’d never meant to upset him in any serious way. After all, in the end, they were brothers. Or more than brothers. He definitely saw him as some of his closest family. So he wanted both to catch up with him and to talk about some of the things he’d been doing lately (like his date with Cassie).
That was why, after school, he ran up behind him, catching him easily and putting an arm around his shoulder.
“Carlos, my man. We need to catch up. What about we get some Hinkleburgers? I’m starving.”
***
It had been long enough since everything went down that Carlos had pretty much forgotten all about it. Pretty much. He wasn’t mad anymore, had only sort of been in the first place because he’d liked Dawn and had hurt her and Jay had just made it worse. But Carlos hadn’t even talked to her in a long time now and he had other things to worry about. Himself and his own issues were plenty for a kid his age.
He’d barely even missed talking to his friends. He’d always figured himself kind of like a last second thought to round out the group and though he’d never questioned that they all cared about him or would do anything for him he never figured anyone spent much time thinking about him, either.
So when Jay came up behind him, Carlos was surprised, squawked and flailed a little before he realized who it was and relaxed, throwing an elbow at his friend’s side. “Dude. Don’t sneak up on people like that!”
***
“How did I sneak up on you?” He asked, eyes wide. “I mean, you should have seen this handsome dude coming from miles away. I’m hard to miss.” He gave him his trademark smile and ducked a little from the elbow to the side.
“So. Like I said. Me. You. Hinkleburgers. We’ve got stuff to talk about. You know Cassie? I’ve been going on dates with her. And she’s HOT. And awesome. And I have no idea what’s going on in your life. So you totally need to catch me up.”
***
Carlos rolled his eyes, tried not to smile. Handsomeness aside, he should have known Jay was coming. But he had other things on his mind. A lot of the time, these days, and he still very firmly blamed Evie for all of it.
“There’s nothing going on with me.” Aside from the fact that he had no guardian, was flying beneath the radar because he didn’t want anyone getting worked up over him. That was never something he wanted; worked up over him had never ended well with his mom. And then there was the whole discovering himself thing that he definitely didn’t want to tell Jay about. Carlos had said it to Mal, exactly once, and she’d turned into a dragon so...that wasn’t going to happen again anytime soon.
“Which Cassie? The cheery one or the cool artsy one?” Steering away from himself seemed a better idea.
***
Jay had no idea about the discovering himself thing. It wasn’t even on his radar. But he still was perceptive enough to know that Carlos was lying when he said nothing was going on, and he scowled a little.
“No, I’m pretty sure stuff’s going on,” he said. “But hey, if you don’t want to tell me then I can’t make you. Wish you’d trust me, though.”
He used to, or at least Jay thought he had, once.
“The cheery one,” he smiled. It’s like...being with her makes you feel like you’re surrounded by sunlight.”
And like the darkness of the Isle couldn’t find him.
***
It wasn’t about trust, but Carlos didn’t bother trying to protest that, he just sighed heavily. He did trust Jay, as much as he trusted anyone, would put his life in his friend’s hands and would be the first to fight to the death for him. And when it came to it, Carlos would go right to Jay for advice. But right now, he didn’t know how he felt about anything, and he was determined to figure it out without being a burden on his friends.
It was easier to let Jay just talk about himself. Even if it didn’t make it any easier on Carlos.
“That’s...weird. She doesn’t seem like your type. Well, except for being a girl. That’s kind of always your type.” But he didn’t think Jay would end up actually liking sunshine. He could imagine someone brighter than the VKs were, but someone who was going to push back on him too.
***
“She’s a pretty girl,” Jay said. He thought that was pretty much his type? He’d never been too picky when it came to pretty girls. He kind of liked them all. And Cassie was sweet and bright on top of it. It was...kind of intoxicating being around her.
He didn’t know if it would be a long term thing, but he knew he didn’t like people like that Mitchell getting a bit too close to her. Maybe he’d been a bit of a jerk when that had happened. Maybe.
“But I don’t know, I mean, I don’t have a girl I’m sleeping with, like Evie does. Well, she’s sleeping with a boy, but you know what I mean. I’m not that serious about Cassie.”
Yet, anyway.
***
“Why do you have to be serious about her to sleep with her?” Not that Carlos had any personal experience, but he definitely didn’t think that being serious about someone and having sex with them were necessarily always going to go together.
And it was obvious enough to Carlos that Jay liked her. He looked like he liked her. The way Carlos had always smiled at Jane back at school. He was pretty sure that was at very least smitten. Though the more he thought about other things, the more he wondered about whether or not that had been what he’d been feeling at all.
***
Well, in Jay’s mind there needed to be a certain amount of seriousness. He didn’t want to just go around sleeping with all the girls, no matter what sort of persona he put forward to the world. He was actually a lot more innocent than most people believed when it came to things like that. And much more of a romantic.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, I guess I just want it to mean something. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
***
Carlos shrugged. “No. There’s not. I just always figured you wouldn’t care.”
It wasn’t like it was something that had come up a lot before. They’d always had plenty of other things to talk about and honestly Carlos had never cared enough to ask. Jay’s romantic life was his own business.
“But that’s cool. Do you think you might get more serious about her?”
***
But he did care. Even though he liked to pretend he was super shallow and didn’t care about much, the truth was that he did. Things mattered to him. He wanted to care about people and for people to care about him. It wasn’t something he advertised, but it was still true.
“Don’t know,” he said with a casual shrug. “Not sure if she actually likes me enough.”
Lots of guys seemed to surround her all the time. Maybe he wasn’t that special after all.
***
“That sounds like you want her to.” Jay didn’t show self doubt a lot and Carlos knew him well enough to know that was unusual for him to be doing it. When a guy was as small as he was, as outwardly unthreatening as he was, they learned to pay attention to things. And when they cared about people like Carlos did, they paid attention to the people who were important to them.
It might not be perfect, he might be wrong a lot, but Carlos knew his friends.
“Have you told her?”
***
“Yeah, no,” Jay said, trying to make it sound utterly and completely casual. “I don’t know if I will, either. Maybe I’ll let her do it so I can let her down gently. That would be awesome of me, huh?”
He grinned impishly, looking a bit more his normal self.
“So what about you? How are you? How’s Dawn?”
***
Carlos didn’t exactly know anything about talking to girls, Jay was the one he would go to for advice on that, but he was pretty sure talking to them was what he was supposed to do. If he liked the girl, he probably had to tell her so. Just looking like him probably wasn’t good enough.
He didn’t say so, though. Jay knew what he was doing a lot more than Carlos did even if it seemed like he didn’t actually know much right now.
Right up to Carlos’ relationship with Dawn.
He cringed a little and shrugged. “I don’t know, man. Dawn and I don’t exactly hang out anymore.”
Not since he’d broken up with her without even knowing there was anything to break up.
***
“You’re not friends anymore?” He frowned at that. He’d hoped that Dawn and Carlos were still friends because that made him feel less guilty about what he’d done. He realized after a while that he’d done her wrong, even though he really, really, really hadn’t meant to. He wasn’t the kind of guy who would do that on purpose. He just wasn’t. But if he and Carlos weren’t friends at all anymore, well, that was bad.
He frowned.
“Why not? I mean, you’re still friends, aren’t you?”
***
“Yeah, not really.” Not that Carlos didn’t want to be friends still. He really did. He liked Dawn and liked hanging out with her, just didn’t want to date her and didn’t want to hurt her feelings anymore by trying too hard. She’d said she didn’t want to spend time with him and his friends, and he didn’t blame her for that.
“After the whole thing with the accidentally breaking up with her and...stuff,” he wasn’t blaming Jay, really, but his friend really hadn’t helped anything, “she doesn’t want to talk to me so I’ve just been giving her space.” Carlos did miss having her as a friend, though. She’d been the first person here who wasn't a VK who had been that.
She was the new Jane.
***
“Huh.”
Actually, Jay felt really bad about that because he seriously hadn’t meant to hurt Dawn. He thought she was sweet and nice and actually wouldn’t have minded going on a date with her. He’d just totally screwed the pooch on that and now that he thought back on it with a clear head he didn’t blame Dawn at all for thinking he was a total douchebag. Because he had been. He would have liked to make it up to her, but right now he was kind of just stepping back and letting her have her space too.
“Can I help? You know, if I really, really apologized, or something?”
He was willing to do whatever he needed to help Carlos out. Because even if Carlos didn’t blame him for it, he blamed himself.
***
“It’s cool, man,” Carlos assured, a smile plastered on his face that probably wasn’t as genuine as it looked. “I’ve got you guys.”
Which he meant to sound like he didn’t need other friends.
The problem with that was that all his friends had, since coming here, mostly been busy doing their own things with their own romantic interests, so he didn’t really feel like he had them. It was why he’d never said anything when his guardian had disappeared and left him on his own, why he hadn’t asked for their help or anything. He was looking out for himself and he was being a good friend and supporting them. Because he really, honestly, was glad they were doing well and getting to live their dumb hero lives here. No one thought of them as villians and they all deserved that. Carlos wanted that for them.
***
Jay had Evie and Cassie...but it seemed like a lot of people liked Cassie. And he was pretty sure he wasn’t even the one she liked best. Which showed that she had really terrible taste, of course, but it also sucked because Jay wasn’t used to that at all. And he really, really liked her.
But truth be told, he hadn’t made many friends. And he definitely hadn’t made any friends who mattered to him as much as Carlos did.
“You should come over. Stay the night. We could play video games or something.”
It would be nice just to hang out with Carlos, like old times.
***
It being like old times wasn’t at all what Carlos heard, though. He was used to being the one his friends looked out for, protected, and he could get just as rough as they could, he’d grown up exactly the same as they had, but he was smaller and he could admit to weaker, and for some reason the one people wanted to look after.
He just shook his head. “I’m okay, man. It’s cool if you want to do your thing. I want you to do your thing.”
Carlos might be a little lonelier than before these days but it wasn’t like he was completely alone or anything.
***
Jay blinked, because that hadn’t been what he’d meant at all. He’d really wanted to hang out with Carlos, play video games, do fun things. He didn’t really understand why Carlos had just decided he didn’t want to spend time with him anymore, and that was what it felt like.
“Are you pissed at me?” He finally asked bluntly, needing to know the answer. Because if he was, then he wanted to fix it. Carlos was one of the three people who mattered most in his life and he didn’t want to fuck that up.
****
“No!” Carlos was quick, very quick. With that answer. He was no stranger to lies but there was no way it could have been. “I just...you guys have a good thing going on.”
He wondered sometimes if he was just getting in the way of that, but couldn’t make himself just step aside completely. His friends still meant everything to him and it wasn’t like he was unselfish. He wanted to hang out sometimes too.
“It’s good for you, you know. And I’ve got...personal stuff I can’t talk about yet; you guys don’t need to be worrying about me.” So he was keeping it away from them. That was selfish of him too. “I want you to do your thing. It’s better than we’ve ever had.”
***
Jay wasn’t serious very often, and he wasn’t good at it when he was. But Carlos was like his best guy friend ever, so it was worth making the attempt.
“Hey, dude, I’m not going to push on the personal stuff because it’s like, personal. But if you want to talk or something, I am always here for you. We’ve always been here for each other, all four of us. And I don’t want that to change just because things suddenly don’t suck as much. Actually, you know what? You should move in with us. The little Tree is a bit of a jerk but Peter and Gamora are like totally great guardians. Meaning that they totally suck and let us do whatever we want.”
***
Carlos just waved off the offers. He’d talked to Mal, a little bit, a while ago now, and it hadn’t really helped. Maybe if he was more sure of himself it would have, but he was still working things out. It wasn’t as easy as just it dawning on him. It was a lot more questions than it was like flicking a switch.
“I’m fine, man,” he assured. “My birthday’s close anyway.” Which by a strange twist of timelines meant that even though he was actually the youngest of the group, that he’d only turned seventeen a little before arriving in Madison Valley, he was going to be eighteen and wouldn’t legally need anyone looking after him. He was almost tempted to just invite his friends to live together once he did, but he really didn’t want to damage their good thing. “I’ve just gotta keep the authorities off my back until then.”
Which wasn’t hard for him. He just poked around in their computers a little, and Carlos was good at computers.
***
Jay wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to do that, that he was welcome to come live with them. Because he was family - closer than family, really, and the truth was that Jay really missed him. It was nice having another guy around sometimes, and he hadn’t really had that lately.
But he also wasn’t going to push.
“Whatever you want, dude,” he said. “But you should at least come over sometimes. I mean, video games and free pizza, yeah?”
***
“Yeah, sure,” Carlos just grinned and darted back around Jay and without any warning hopped on his friend’s back. It was good, despite everything else and his own reservations, his own tendency to step back and let his friends have the good they’d gotten without him,to spend time with his best friend.
“Now shut up with the sappy stuff and get me some fries.”
He wasn’t completely convinced that this wasn’t going to be the only chance to hang out with Jay that he had for a while, so he was going with embracing it full on.
***
Jay ‘umphed’ a little when Carlos jumped on his back, but didn’t have any trouble taking off at full speed while holding onto his legs to make sure he didn’t fall off. Carlos didn’t weigh a thing in Jay’s mind, and scaring the crap out of him by running super fast sounded like fun.
Of course, he hoped that Carlos would know that Jay wouldn’t really drop him.
He was hoping this afternoon might be fun with his bestie again. He’d missed these times.
***
Goofing off, getting wild and roughhousing a little was just like how they’d been before they’d left the Isle, and Carlos was happy to get back to that for a little while. He’d felt pretty cast aside by his friends and even if he was happy for them to be getting good things it hadn’t been super easy on him. Pretending like it hadn’t happened for a little while seemed like a great time.
And he wasn’t at all concerned about falling. Even if he did, it wouldn’t hurt worse than anything he’d endured back home; he’d be fine. Besides, he trusted Jay not to purposefully send him flying. So Carlos just laughed, locked one arm around his friend’s neck and mussed up his hair as revenge.
It was good to be the real them for a minute.
***
When Jay finally stopped, he shrugged him off and grinned. Jay hadn’t felt like Carlos had been cast aside. He felt that Carlos didn’t want to have anything to do with him, and that’s why he’d been so distant. He missed his friend, a lot.
“We should do this more. Everyone here seems to expect me to be something I’m not.”
Even Cassie. Even with how much he liked her he wasn’t sure she saw the real him.
***
Scoffing, Carlos just elbowed his friend. “What, you mean smart?” he teased briefly before gentling. “If they don’t like you for you, screw them.”
That was the way the four of them had always been. Honest and their true selves, maybe not so much Carlos in the latter but he was still only figuring that out and it wasn’t easy. It was stressful and confusing and as much as he wanted to share with his friends he wasn’t ready to do that. They meant more to him than anyone. But if there were people who pretended to be their friends and only wanted to change them, the way of a lot of people in Auradon, then Carlos said screw them.
They were Isle kids. They were VKs. They didn’t need anyone else.
***
“Ha, ha,” he said dryly, rolling his eyes. Jay wasn’t going to argue that he was smart. That wasn’t his thing. They all had something that they were good at, and he was perfectly happy to be the good looking, athletic one. If that meant he was also the dumb one, well, it was what it was. He was okay with that.
“Yeah,” he said, and seemed to relax a little.
“We’re us. And us is just fine.”
***
With a smile, obviously trying to be reassuring, Carlos just punched his friend in the arm. “Stop being so delicate. Seriously, dude.”
Delicate was more Carlos’ thing anyway. Jay was the one he tried to be more like. On the outside, anyway. He did know the truth about how soft and fragile his friend was beneath it all, they all were, they’d all been through their own stuff and it had been bad for all of them. They were all damaged. But they also all helped each other along.
***
“I’m not delicate,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes a little. “Please. I’m like...the least delicate person there is.” Carlos was the delicate one. Jay? He was big and tough and awesome in every way because that was just the way he was.
Or so he told himself, and he even believed it most of the time.
“So, let’s stuff our faces, yeah?”
He grinned at his friend and punched him playfully in the shoulder. He was glad that they’d all arrived here, and that they all had each other to get through the weirdness together.
***
Carlos was kind of the delicate one. He tried not to be. He didn’t want to be. He wanted to be more like Jay. In a lot of ways.
That wasn’t an issue for now, or even later, he had bigger things on his mind.
“Your treat,” he said agreeably. Normally Carlos would have just been down with eating and running, but that was a good way to get banned from somewhere and Hinkles was kind of a place for all the kids their age. He wanted to be able to go again.