"Dude!" Daisy dropped her folders and giggled as Dude jumped to her arms, licking her face. She heard Carlos chuckling beside her, seeing him bend down to pick her dropped folders. For some reason, the coach had called to meet her.
"Ah, Daisy, there you are." Coach Jenkins finally arrived at the bleachers with Jay by him. "I'm thinking of letting these two in the team, if that's okay? Especially this champ here." He gestured to Jay and Carlos playfully rolled his eyes at the smug smirk of the boy.
"Of course, why would anyone not agree?" Daisy nodded in encouragement, sending a thumbs up to Jay who chuckled.
"Welcome to the team, then, Jay. I could really use a tough guy like you. The team's a bunch of princes, If you know what I mean." Coach Jenkins patted his back.
"You're telling me." Jay scoffed with a roll of his eyes, "It's all, 'after you, old chum', 'Oh, pardon me, did I bump into you?' Where I come from it's, 'prepare to die, sucker!' As my father says, 'the only way to win' is to make sure everyone else loses!"
Carlos and Daisy shared a worried look at the carried away Jay who got different, completely wrong meaning.
"Jay! Jay, Jay, Jay!" Coach Jenkins panicked, but Jay did not listen and went on.
"You rip—"
"Jay!" Daisy finally raised her voice rendering both him and Carlos silent at the stern tone in her voice which they had never heard before. "Let Coach Jenkins explain properly what a team is."
"Thank you." Coach cleared his throat, "A team is like..... a family."
"You do not want to be at my house at dinner time." Jay said, him and Carlos shuddering.
"Okay, okay, um... You know how a body has a lot of different parts right?" Coach tried to make it more understandable, "The legs, elbows, ears. But they all need each other. Well, that's what team is, different players who work together to win."
"Can I be the fist?" Jay still goofed around and Carlos sighed but Coach Jenkins only nodded in surrender.
"It might be heard at first but trust me, being in a team is great. You all carry and support each other no matter what." Daisy said with the Coach nodding in agreement to her every word. "I've been a team with Ben my whole life. Whatever you do, you stick together and do it. Is it starting to make some sense?"
"Yeah." Jay nodded, touched. He had personally witnessed the teamwork of Ben and Daisy. How Daisy was in charge of most of the preparations from behind the curtain and how Ben was in charge of the social events. "I can try to cooperate in a..... team.....I hope..."
⋘ ──── ∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗ ──── ⋙
"Yo-ho-ho!" Jay you exclaimed, entering Evie and Mal's dorm and plopping to the bed.
"Hey." Carlos held Dude in his arms as usual and took a seat at the edge of the bed, greeting in a lower voice than the loud Jay who had been overexcited ever since he got accepted to the Tourney team.
"Did your plan work with Jane? Are you going over to see the wand?" Jay asked Mal who was furiously flipping through her spellbook.
"Do you think that I would be going through every single spell in this book. If I hadn't completely struck out?" The girl snapped.
"Oh, someone's in a bad mood." Jay teased.
"My mom's counting on me! I can't let her down!" Mal groaned.
"We can do this....." Jay trailed off, completely hating what he was about to say next. "If we stick together." He felt like he had really disappointed Daisy.
"And we won't go back until we do. Because we're rotten..." Mal began.
"To the core." The rest finished, all trying to erase the image of a certain beaming princess with flowing brown hair and shining hazel eyes.
"Oh, yeah. I found out that fairy godmother blesses Ben with the wand at coronation and we all get to go. I have nothing to wear, of course." Evie informed and raised a brow at the unreadable but change in Mal's face. "What?"
A knock that sounded from the door. "Hold that thought." Mal held up a finger and made her way to the door, turning the knob and opening it widely to see Ben.
"Hey, Mal." He greeted, "I didn't see you guys today. I was just wondering If you had any questions or anything that... you... needed.." he trailed off awkwardly.
Completely out of her character, Mal genuinely searched around the room. "Not that I know of." She answered and Ben nodded.
"Okay. All right. Well, uh, If you need anything, just, uh—"
"Oh, wait! Um, is it true that we all get to go to your coronation?" Mal questioned.
"Yeah, the whole school goes."
"Wow. That is beyond exciting. Do you think that It's a possibility that the four of us could stand in the front row next to the Fairy Godmother, just so we could soak up all that goodness?" Mal tried her best not to sound suspicious.
"I wish you could." Ben sighed, not doubting Mal's words, "Up front It's just me, my folks, my girlfriend and if Daisy has a boyfriend."
"Daisy actually really doesn't have one?" Carlos perked his head up and Ben nodded with a knowing grin.
"A cutie like her doesn't have a boyfriend? Looks like it's time to work my charms." Jay teased Carlos who flushed red, throwing a pillow right at the snorting Jay.
"And your girlfriend?" Mal quirked a brow, unable to hide the tiniest bit of envy in her tone from her friends who all smirked as well.
"Yeah. I'm sorry." Ben remained oblivious.
"Okay. Thanks, bye." Mal pushed the door, ignoring Ben's attempts to start another conversation. Poor Ben only groaned in defeat the second the door slammed right in front of his face.
Mal turned around with a smirk, a plan forming in her head. "I think Daisy's been single for too long now and Bennyboo got himself a new girlfriend." As if reading her mind, Carlos threw over the spell-book to Mal who caught it with ease. "And I need a love spell."
⋘ ──── ∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗ ──── ⋙
Another night fell to Auradon and while most were already in dreamland, the group of VK's gathered in the school kitchen baking an important, special item.
"All right. It says that we still need one tear and I never cry." Mal read out.
"Let's just chop up some onions." Carlos suggested as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"No. It Says that we need one tear of human sadness." Mal retorted, "And this love potion gets the best so we have to follow it exactly."
"A tear's a tear." Jay shrugged, holding up an onion in his hands.
"That's not true, Jay. They both have antibodies and enzymes, but an emotional tear has more protein-based hormones than a reflex tear." Evie explained with a shake of her head.
"Listen to you." Mal nudged Evie who smiled shyly.
"Thanks. Daisy was the one who helped me sign up for advanced classes." Once again, they tried their best to not think of the mentioned princess.
"Yeah, I knew that." Jay shrugged.
"Did not." Carlos snorted.
"Yeah I did." Jay shot back.
Right before the two boys could continue their squabble or even begin another wrestle, a voice exclaimed. "There you are, Mal! I was looking for you. You know, all the girls want you to do their hair!"Mal quickly shut her spellbook on Lonnie entering, Carlos's eyes widening at Daisy who followed shortly behind carrying Dude.
Even in the dim light, Carlos could clearly see how sleepy Daisy was and even though she wore a simple loose nightgown and had her hair tangled towards the ends, her eyes barely open and her mouth slightly agape, Carlos still found her to be pretty.
"Is this what it means to like someone no matter how they look?" Carlos wondered but shook it off since not only him, but many others would also agree to that.
"I snuck Dude to my room tonight. I came to get some medicine. His stomach's been rumbling for the past few minutes now and it's not in a hungry way." Daisy mumbled, even her voice groggy showing that she had already been sleeping off.
Carlos's eyes widened in surprise and he gasped. "I fed him some chocolate this evening forgetting that it isn't good for dogs!" He exclaimed, slapping his cheeks lightly and helping Daisy with opening the shelves and getting out the box of both pet and human medicines.
"Midnight snack, huh? What you guys making?" Lonnie spotted the baking bowl of brown batter.
"Nothing that special. Just cookies." Mal shrugged, not expecting Lonnie to directly dip her finger to the batter in the bowl, "Oh, no, no!"
Carlos turned around in a rapid whirl, "Wait, wait, wait!" He shook his head as Lonnie licked the batter off her finger.
"Don't worry, Lonnie won't double dip." Daisy lightly chuckled, feeding Dude some water while Carlos petted the dog who expressed distaste at the medicine.
"Feel anything?" Evie curiously asked Lonnie and Mal continued, "Yeah, like maybe it might be missing something?"
Wanting to test it out, Jay stepped forward to her. "Hey, there." He plastered his flirtatious smirk to which Lonnie remained silent at, her face showing revulsion to Jay.
"It could use some chips." Daisy helped her out, opening a drawer and throwing a packet of chocolate chips to Lonnie who sent her a grateful smile.
"Chips?" Jay repeated, his flirting smirk turning to that of a very puzzled one.
"And those are......?" Mal asked, watching Lonnie carefully put in tiny chocolate bits into the batter.
"Chocolate chips. One of the most important food group." Daisy turned to Carlos, "An item which dogs aren't favourable to." She giggled at his embarrassed grin.
"Wait, didn't your moms ever make you guys like chocolate chip cookies? Like when you're feeling sad and they're fresh from the oven with a big old glass of milk and she just makes you laugh and puts everything into perspective.... And....."
Lonnie trailed off the at the expressions of sorrow the VK's were showing, "Why are you all looking at me like that?"
Daisy sighed and without much thought, her hand immediately grasped Carlos, giving it a light squeeze, a gesture which he returned.
"It's just different where we're from." Mal was not very good at the attempt of hiding the sadness from both her face and her voice.
"Yeah, I know. I just, you know, I thought......Even villains love their kids." Lonnie pitied, "Oh...... How awful."
By that time, Daisy couldn't help the tear that rolled down her cheek and even though the tension in the atmosphere was thick, Mal nudged Carlos who sighed and hesitantly wiped the tear off of Daisy's cheek, putting it inside the batter.
"Yeah, big bummer but we have to get these into the oven, so thank you so much for coming by." Mal subconsciously began to try and be polite, gently pushing Lonnie and Daisy towards the door, "Really, really have a good night. I'll see you tomorrow. Evil dreams."
"I think you should keep Dude with you for the night, in case something happens to him. Walking from the castle to here isn't the easiest."
Daisy kissed Dude's head and placed him on the counter. Carlos weakly nodded and Daisy could see that the previous talk was still affecting him. After all, Cruella had been the worst parent of the lot.
Sighing, Daisy stepped closer and Carlos's eyes widened at the feeling of her arms wrapping around his body, her hands patting his back and her chin resting on his shoulder.
"You have a lot of people who care about you, Carlos. Your friends, Dude, Ben, me." She softy said but before the flustered Carlos could properly process it all, she pulled away and smile. "Good night guys." She waved and left.
"Okay, most occasions, I would ask what that was but we don't have time. Okay, boys, cookie sheet. Evie, oven." Mal instructed.
"Yes ma'am." They nodded and Evie had to give Carlos a light push to reboot his frozen system as they all did as told, ignoring the guilt that continued to churn their insides.
A/N—I've finished my examinations! Whoo! I'm free now. I can do anything I want and don't worry, I'm going to update even more often so good luck having to read the incoming of this shit even more. 🤡🤡