Chapter Text
Chad's life plan basically consists of three steps.
- Become king
- ??????
- Profit
It's very minimalist, and the only thing that stops him from expanding on it is that he has no idea how to. He's tried everything: crying to Audrey at 1 AM while they watch reality TV together ("Chad, I literally do not care."), asking Doug ("No, Chad."), trying to read through some stupid essays about ruling or whatever (keyword: trying), asking Doug again ("No, Chad!"). It’s pretty safe to say that he's covered all his bases - and if none of those things have gotten him the throne yet, he’s not going to be king.
So, being king isn't going to happen. Sorry, Dad. In light of his newly recognized situation, he's had to revise his life plan a bit, maybe into less of a life plan and more of a...short term goal. His possibilities so far have included becoming the tourney captain, or maybe even regaining his status as the most popular boy at school. Unfortunately, there’s one problem with these goals, and it’s Jay.
Since Jay has arrived at Auradon, he’s sort of been Chad’s #1 rival (besides Ben, but that’s sort of a one-sided rivalry, because Chad super can’t compete with being born into THE ruling family). Jay’s tourney captain now, and is apparently blessed, because their team hasn't done this well since...ever. For the team's sake, Chad decides to not interfere, meaning that he has to aim for the popularity goal. Unfortunately, that’s even harder, because Jay has a rugged bad boy appeal cultivated from years of living on the Isle. Chad may be vain, but he’s not vain enough to think that he could compete with that. It's infuriating, and Chad is barely keeping it together.
If he was, like, any good at planning, he might come up with some elaborate revenge scheme, but he really isn’t. So he just sulks about it, because that’s apparently all he knows how to do. It’s not until he’s lying on the floor of his dorm (because Audrey kicked him off his bed so she could paint her nails) that the perfect idea hits him.
“Guys,” Chad says, sitting up so fast he gets a little dizzy. “Do you think I could win Prom King?”
“You can do whatever you want if you set your mind to it.” Doug responds indifferently, not looking up from his book.
“Thanks, bro. Auds, how about you?”
She laughs, but it’s definitely one of her condescending fake laughs. “Listen, I’m on prom committee, and I’m telling you right now that Jay is the front-runner by, like, so many votes. And we haven’t even opened voting yet, people are just sliding notes under the door while we’re having meetings.” She blows on her nails. “Sorry, Chad.”
He scowls. Leave it to Jay to get a head start on a competition Chad had just realized he was in. But there was still hope, there had to be. He desperately racks his brain for anything that could take Jay out of the running, only to find he doesn’t actually know anything about the requirements of being Prom King.
“Is his GPA even high enough to run?” Chad knows that’s not going to be anything as soon as he says it, but he can still dream.
“Is yours?” Audrey responds. “Chad, no offense, but he’s hotter than you. And he has that bad boy appeal.”
“You don’t even like boys.” He grumbles, lying back down on the floor, and definitely not tearing up a little bit.
“Objectively he is. Doug, back me up here,” Audrey snaps, turning to look at Doug, who is still actively ignoring the conversation.
“Follow your heart and you can do anything.” Doug mumbles, and Audrey sighs.
“Whatever. Anyway, you guys need to vote for me for Prom Queen.”
“Can’t you just rig it?” Chad says, bitterly. “Can’t you rig it so I win?”
“No! That’s unfair!” Audrey appears shocked, but Chad knows that she’s rigged things like this before. He snorts, and she continues. “And, uh, Carlos is on the committee this year, so I’d rather not risk it.”
“Why is Carlos on the committee?”
“He says our color schemes are ugly and that he’s gonna ‘save the people’ or something. But, I mean, he wears like three colors, so I’m not backing down yet.” She shrugs. “Whatever. Regardless, vote for me.”
Chad nods, but Doug looks up from his book for the first time in an hour and says “Oh, I’m voting for Evie.”
“You’re going to vote for your ex-girlfriend?” Chad asks, indignant.
“Yeah, well, she’s nice to me.” Doug responds. Audrey rolls her eyes.
“Doug, if it wasn’t for how cute my nails looked, I would maul you.” She threatens.
“You’re really solidifying my vote right now.” He says, and goes back to the book.
“I am so making you help out with prom committee.” She grumbles, which Chad knows means that he will be roped into assisting as well if he ever wants to get any of his homework done. It’s a struggle to be him, it really is.
Despite what Audrey says, Chad knows he has a shot at Prom King. He might not be the most popular right now, but he’s seen the other boys at their school. Most of them are ugly. Chad, in comparison, thinks that he’s pretty good looking, as well as naturally charismatic. He can pull this off.
It’s just... Jay. Jay is literally so iconic, and he knows it, which would be arrogant on anyone else but is really sexy on Jay. And it’s eating Chad up inside. He has to figure out how to surpass Jay in this, if it’s the last thing he does, because Jay doesn’t even want to be Prom King. Chad, on the other hand, has dedicated at least 4 hours to really wanting to be Prom King, which makes him the far more deserving candidate.
So, as of now, his revised life plan reads;
- Steal Jay’s secrets
- Become Prom King
- ?????
- Profit
Chad takes the fact that there’s now an extra step to mean that this plan is much more organized than his other one, so he has that going for him. He has a week until official voting opens (Audrey assures him they won’t count the preemptive votes for Jay), so also he has a week to figure out what the fuck Jay is doing and imitate it. In a very tasteful, Auradonian way, of course.
But, like, he’s not friends with Jay. They’re civil to each other, because sportsmanship is something Chad values (and Coach told him if he kept fighting Jay he would be kicked off the team), but Chad has never passed Jay in the hall and received anything more than a slight nod. Which, normally, would be fine. But in the secret-stealing business, access to your rivals is a valuable thing.
So he has to talk to Audrey, because Audrey and Carlos have formed an alliance and have taken over and prom committee, and Carlos is friends with Jay, so maybe she can help him out?
Some things get lost in translation.
“You want to...what?” Audrey wrinkles her nose at Chad, looking up from her phone. “Learn Jay’s secrets? Did I hear that correctly?”
“That sounded a little weirder out loud.”
“Honey, the fact that you even phrased it like that in your head is weird.” She shakes her head. “I don’t have time for your gay crisis, I’m arguing with Carlos about the theme.”
“I already had my gay crisis, like, three years ago.” Chad moans. It was a very eventful week, and he’s frankly sort of offended Audrey doesn’t remember it. “Anyway, isn’t prom in a month? Shouldn’t you have already picked a theme?”
“Well, posters were supposed to go up tomorrow, and I thought we were settled on a theme, but then Lonnie quit the committee because she said I was being unreasonable, and she was the only one of us who had access to a dragon, so Enchanted Kingdom is out.”
“We live in a fairytale society, why was that the theme ?”
Audrey ignores him. “And Carlos said that he already spent so much time planning the decorations that he’s not going to do anything too different, and I think that’s bullshit because we haven’t bought anything yet, he just really wants to do a fairytale theme, but I think we should do Dreaming In Pink, and he says that’s not appealing to anyone who has any sense of decent interior design and Jane won’t take sides and we need to decide now because we need to make the damn posters.”
Chad blinks. “Wait, is prom committee just you, Carlos, and Jane?”
“...yeah,” Audrey admits. “But Doug said he’d join because chess club just ended!”
“Doug isn't going to vote for Dreaming In Pink.” Chad points out, because Doug’s idea of a good party includes a lot of ugly plaid decorations and some level of involvement of the school band.
Audrey stares at him blankly for a few seconds, and evidently decides any argument she could start over the statement isn’t worth it, because she changes topics. “Would you mind helping hang some posters tomorrow? Rhetorical question, you're hanging posters tomorrow. Get your homework done beforehand.”
Chad mentally translates that to procrastinating his homework and then lying about it being finished, and shrugs. He doesn't have anything better to do.
Chad normally isn’t able to focus in class anyway, but he’s especially not able to focus in class now that his hatred for Jay has grown tenfold. Fucking….Jay, with his stupid long hair and annoyingly buff arms and complete indifference to being Prom King. Jay was definitely not the Prom King the people deserved - he’d probably do something stupid like renounce the entire Prom monarchy in favor of voter’s rights. Lame! He bet that Jay didn’t even have a speech drafted out for if he won.
Chad leaves Life Skills feeling remarkably unenlightened. Being bitter and pathetic are the only life skills he needs, anyway.
Except, before he can go sulk somewhere else in peace, Jay strides up to him (confident as fuck , Chad hates him so much) and says, “Bro, you need to stop glaring at me. It’s really weird.”
“I’m not- what are you talking about?” Chad deflects. Poorly.
“C’mon, man, I thought we were over this. If you have a problem with me being captain, take it up with Coach.” Jay sighs, shaking his head as Chad sputters out excuses. “Your eyes are practically burning through my head. Knock it off.”
Chad doesn’t have a good enough response for that, so he nods and walks away before the situation gets any more awkward, and he ends up agonizing about that conversation for the rest of the day. You should have asked him why he was staring back enough to notice, he berates. Or maybe you could have listed off some Prom trivia facts to intimidate him.
Those probably wouldn’t have worked. Chad hates himself, sometimes.
“So, I hear you want to hit on Jay.” Carlos says to him as they're hanging up posters for prom - Night Under the Stars (ugh), the result of the truce between Carlos and Audrey that Doug negotiated. According to Doug, he had single-handedly prevented the next Auradonian war, but Chad is pretty sure they just searched prom themes online and maybe stole another school’s poster.
Chad groans, and tapes a poster to the wall. “I don't want to hit on Jay.”
“Aren't you gay? Why don't you want to hit on him?” Carlos asks, taping another poster right below where Chad had literally just put one.
Chad glares at him, ripping the Carlos’ poster down. “You don't hit on him,” he complains, trying to shake off the tape now stuck to his hand while Carlos snickers.
“That's because we grew up together. The romance is gone at this point.” Carlos deadpans, and Chad feels himself pale.
“I'm not...there’s definitely no romance between Jay and myself. The only romance is the romance between our tourney skills and tourney.”
“Why can’t you ever phrase things like a normal person, Chad?” Carlos snickers again, and sticks another poster to the wall. Chad decides to leave it there.
Tourney practice is weird, which is very unfortunate. Jay keeps looking at Chad like he's trying to read Chad’s mind, and it is (1) very unprofessional, (2) inefficient for tourney, and (3) tripping Chad up. It's not that good of a practice, because all of Jay’s passes are unfocused, and Chad isn't thinking through his actions, and the two of them normally carry the team. (And that's not even bragging - he and Jay are literally the sole backbones of their team’s tourney success, especially now that Ben is so busy. Suck it, Ben!)
So when both of them have an off day, it throws off everyone else. Coach sighs, disappointed, and when practice ends, and he tells them to pull it together or they aren't going to be winning anything. Then he makes next practice sooner and longer, much to everyone's chagrin, and lets them go.
“Did you tell Jay something?” Chad hisses to Carlos as they run to the locker room.
“I'm his best friend. I'm legally obligated to tell him everything.” Carlos cryptically responds, and refuses to elaborate.
So far, Chad’s excellent attempt at becoming Prom King has gotten him:
- No secrets.
- A lot of advice from his nosy (and extremely bad at reading subtext) friends on how to hook up with Jay.
- An absurd amount of time dedicated to planning prom. He might as well join the committee.
He almost does resort to cheating, because the general consensus is not in his favor. He asks Audrey, as casually as he can, if he could help monitor the voting table when they get it set up, and she laughs at him for a solid 3 minutes before she realizes he’s serious.
“That's a conflict of interest,” she explains. “Doug and I are handling that.”
“How do we know you won't rig it?” He grumbles.
“Oh, I stepped down. I think Evie deserves it.” Audrey shrugs. Chad doesn't buy it for a second, and it must be obvious, because she rolls her eyes. “It's pretty hard to ask out your prom rival, turns out.”
Chad grins. Yeah, that was definitely more like Audrey. “You actually asked her yet?”
Audrey tenses up. So that's a no, then. “Ugh, don't even,” she deflects. “Like you've even talked to Jay.”
“That's not-” He begins, but Audrey barrels on like she hasn’t even heard him.
“If you're so desperate to help out, you can sell tickets with Doug and Carlos.”
And that is that. Chad resigns himself to it. Maybe he can fall asleep, because his sleep schedule has definitely been messed up now that he’s been dedicating so much time to lying awake in bed, brooding about Prom. Yeah, he’s definitely going to sleep instead of selling tickets. He’s sure Doug would cover for him.
Doug does not cover for him. Chad puts his head down on the table and Carlos moves it without warning, and Doug laughs at him. Chad feels immensely betrayed.
“We’ve got a job to do, asshole.” Carlos chides. Doug nods.
“No one is even here yet.” Chad groans, wildly gesturing at the empty lunchroom to prove his point. Carlos and Doug are unaffected.
“Yeah, well, you better be ready when they get here, then.” Carlos says, and goes back to talking about some nerd shit with Doug. Chad eavesdrops for, like, a second, but he hears “coding” and “html” and it’s too much to comprehend. So he tries to get on his phone, but Carlos slaps it out of his hands before Chad can register what’s happening.
Chad gasps, quickly rescuing his phone and examining it for damage. “If you had broken this, I would so be making you pay for it.” He huffs.
“You’re the 1%.” Doug says. “Do it yourself.”
“Doug!” Chad whines as Carlos gives Doug a high-five. “Stop! ”
“Fend for yourself.” Doug shrugs. Carlos beams.
“I literally hate the two of you with all my heart.” Chad moans, cradling his poor phone.
“Yeah, like you hate Jay?” Carlos smirks. Chad flips him off, planning to put his head back on the table, because after dealing with these two, he’s earned sleep. But it’s not very long before people actually do start coming up to the table, so Chad covers his annoyance and turns up the charm. His dedication to prom has to be good for his image, hopefully. Maybe smiling at people who buy tickets will make them vote for him.
“You’re so fake.” Carlos says, almost in awe, after the crowd clears.
“I prefer charming. It’s an acquired skill.” Chad smirks, satisfied. Doug snorts.
“You should put that much effort into your homework,” he says. Chad rolls his eyes.
“And be a nerd like you? No thanks.”
Carlos looks like he’s about to contribute something (probably something deeply demoralizing to Chad), but Jane walks over to check in on them, and he tenses up. Jane is smiling, and politely asks how sales are doing, and Chad shrugs and says fine. Jane hums her affirmations, and then turns her attention to Carlos.
“So, Carlos, has anyone asked you to the prom yet?” She says, nervously twirling her hair with her fingers.
Carlos shrugs, not making eye contact. “No one I’m really interested in.”
“Well, would you mayb-”
“But it doesn’t matter!” Carlos interrupts. “Because I’m going with Doug.”
Jane’s smile falls. “What?” Chad’s with her on that one.
Doug is silent. “Right, Doug?” Carlos prompts, anxiously.
“Um, yes! Yeah.” Doug finally stammers. Chad isn’t so sure that this was something they’d actually discussed, and from the look on her face, Jane isn’t, either. She bites her lip, and looks from Doug to Carlos, trying to catch them in the act.
“Oh. Well...congratulations!” She says, and doesn’t bother to stick around for small talk, walking off after she forces the words out. Carlos turns to Doug, and this is the most nervous Chad has ever seen him, excluding the whole “Maleficent is going to take the wand” thing, of course.
“Sorry about that,” Carlos says. “I just- she seems like she would want to go as friends if I turned her down romantically or something, and even though she's sweet and everything, the only girl I’d go to a dance with under any circumstances is Evie. And she wants to go with someone else.” He laughs. “If you don’t, like, want to cover for me or whatever, that’s cool.”
“It’s fine! It’s not like it’s romantic or anything.” Doug assures. “I mean, you have to join rocket club now, though.”
Carlos’ grin fades for a second, but Chad, being the highly perceptive person he is, picks up on it. “Uh, right! Totally, just, bros being bros. Or whatever. Thanks for covering.” Carlos rambles.
Doug smiles at Carlos, and then grabs the money box from Chad. “I don’t trust that you counted this right, I’ve seen you do math.” Doug criticizes. Chad doesn’t even bother to retaliate (because he is pretty bad at math), and opts instead to raise his eyebrows at Carlos while Doug is distracted.
Carlos sticks out his tongue and turns away.
“Jane quit prom committee!” Audrey says, slamming Chad’s locker closed without so much as a hello. Um, rude. “What did you do ?”
“I wasn’t done getting stuff out of there,” he complains, sadly staring at his locker. “Now I have to open it again.”
She ignores him, which he half expected. “What. Did. You. Do?”
“Why do you think I did something?”
“Because you’re an asshole.”
“Hey!” Chad frowns. “I’m not that bad.”
Audrey raises her eyebrows. She has a point, because Chad kind of is that bad.
He sighs, “I actually didn’t do anything. She asked out Carlos and Carlos said no.”
“Well, she’s been doing that since he joined committee!” She huffs. “It’s so unprofessional, but I didn’t think she would quit over it!”
“Maybe it's because he got Doug to cover for him.”
“...what?” Audrey looks shocked, and Chad is suddenly very excited to share this news. He nearly never knows anything that Audrey doesn’t.
“Doug is going to prom with Carlos now! And it was strongly implied that it was maybe in a romantic context. Jane, like, probably doesn’t want to watch them hold hands or anything.”
Her eyes widen. “Wait, are they dating? No way. ”
“I guess they’re fake dating?” Chad shrugs. “I don’t know, Doug doesn’t seem that concerned.”
“Well, Doug’s idea of romance is memorizing the periodic table.” Audrey points out. Chad shudders, because that's not even a joke.
“Sucks that you guys are down to three members, though.” He says. Audrey groans.
“Ugh, I would be fine with it if it wasn’t for the fact that Doug and Carlos are aligned. But that totally usurps my power.”
“It’s...prom committee, Auds.”
“So?” She stares at him blankly. “Oh, you should join! You usually listen to me.”
“Is that the reason you’re friends with me? So you can boss me around?” He jokes, but Audrey doesn’t respond. “...Auds?”
“Come to the meeting tomorrow.” She says. “I’ll text you the details.”
Chad hesitates, and Audrey rolls her eyes. “And yes, I’m actually your friend, you complete idiot.”
“See you there, then.” Chad grins at her.
“So, we can’t let Chad near any of the votes for obvious reasons, and you two can’t form a couples alliance to take over the club now because we are evenly matched!” Audrey says, concluding her very long and highly dramatic ‘ welcome Chad to the club ’ speech.
“We aren’t even dating.” Doug says. “And I have no interest in taking over prom committee.”
“I do.” Carlos interjects. “If you’re going to be my fake-boyfriend, you have to get on board with my real evil plots.”
Doug flushes. “I’m...you chose good, Carlos. It was a really big deal. The whole kingdom was there.”
“All’s fair in love and prom planning,” Carlos points out. Chad’s pretty sure that’s not a real expression.
Audrey snaps her fingers. “Hey, lovebirds, we have to start the meeting.” Doug turns to face her, still blushing, but Carlos is on his phone.
“We can’t start it yet, Jay isn’t here.”
Okay, now Chad is blushing. Fuck. “Why is Jay coming?” He asks, out of concern rather than curiosity. Totally.
Carlos must take pity on him, because he doesn’t try to call him out. “Uh, before I knew you were going to be here, I super didn’t want to have to do everything with just three people. So I asked Evie, and she’s too busy making prom dresses, and then I thought about asking Mal or Ben, but I actually didn’t really want to do that, because they’re both total fun-suckers, so I just asked Jay. Who should be here in, like,” Carlos checks his phone again. “A few minutes.”
“That’s so unfair!” Audrey says. “Now you outnumber us!”
“Again, not taking part in this hostile prom committee takeover.” Doug mumbles.
“Again, you super totally are.” Carlos looks up from his phone. “Or I will fake-dump you so fast.”
“Yeah, and I’ll be fake-devastated.” Doug grins. “And you can really go to prom with Jane.”
Chad has no idea what’s happening, and apparently neither does Audrey, from the ‘can you believe this shit’ look she’s giving him. If Doug doesn’t end up actually dating Carlos by the time prom rolls around, Chad will be so disappointed in him.
Before they are subjected to any more of Carlos and Doug’s fake-(real?)-flirting, however, Jay strolls into the room, and Chad is instantly reminded how fucking unfairly attractive Jay is. Fucking... Jay, who is totally going to win Prom King. Asshole.
“Uh, am I late?”
“Yes.” Audrey says at the same time that Carlos shakes his head no. She glares at Carlos, and then rolls her eyes at Jay. “You can sit down, we don’t have enough people for me to kick you out over this.”
“You are now in the minority power alliance, which means that prom committee now belongs to me.” Carlos corrects. “Jay, please, have a seat. How do you feel about being co-prom-captain?”
“I’m your fake-boyfriend, why does he get to be co-prom-captain?” Doug asks, mock offended.
“You showed reluctance.” Carlos shrugs. “Rules of the game, babe.”
“No one is co-anything!” Audrey shrilly interrupts.
“Well, we have to have some form of leadership.” Doug points out. “This isn’t prom communism.”
“We do have leadership! Me!”
“Nah, it’s me now.” Carlos shrugs. “I’ll let you be co-co-prom-captain, Audrey.”
Chad, frankly, is amazed at how chaotic this scene is, and even more amazed that the sole perpetrators of the chaos are Doug, Audrey, and Carlos. He feels like he’s watching a soap opera, or something. Jay, equally uninvolved, catches his eye, and shrugs, like what can you do? Chad offers a hesitant smile back.
“I do not have time for this.” Audrey groans. “Prom is less than two weeks away! And we are nowhere near ready!”
“As prom captain, captain of prom, I have to agree.” Carlos nods. “Like, ticket sales are good and everything, but we still need decorations and music. Those are major prom staples, right? I’ve never been to a prom.”
“Doesn’t Ally have a band?” Chad asks, before Audrey can get mad at Carlos again.
“Yeah, because we’re going to have her one person alt-rock ‘band’ play at prom .” Audrey says. “ No , Chad. As far as I am concerned, her music does not exist.”
“We could just get a DJ or something.” Doug suggests, but then he lights up in a way that means he’s about to talk about the school band. “Unless you guys want the school band to play. I can get the school band to play.”
“No.” Carlos and Audrey chorus. Doug looks slightly put out, until Carlos adds, “If they play, how can I fake-dance with you?”
“Do I really need to be here for this?” Jay asks. “Like, it sounds like you guys have this covered.”
“If you leave, I lose power, asshole.” Carlos complains. “And if you think you’re going to leave us to decorate alone, you are sorely mistaken.”
Jay rolls his eyes, but doesn’t move.
“Okay, because I don’t trust Carlos to do this and not hire a total freak, Doug and I will take over the musical aspect.” Audrey says, to which Carlos shrugs.
“That’s fair,” he says. “And I can get decorations with Chad and Jay, because, while I do not trust their aesthetic senses, I’m not going to carry shit by myself.”
Audrey nods, appeased, but Chad feels panic flare up inside his stomach. He can barely interact with Jay normally, he’s definitely not going to be able to deal with this. Especially not if Carlos is there, because Carlos thinks that antagonizing Chad is a highlight of his day.
Audrey definitely owes him for this.