Chapter Text
Carlos… was an idiot. Mother had always told him so, and her words had never rung truer than the moment he stood in right now. Mal, Evie, and Jay staring at him from behind a heavy wooden door. With windows. Why did everything have windows here?
The moonlight framed his friends and lazed on the marble floor. Shining right on the exhibits in the center of the circular room. The ceiling was vaulted. Higher and fancier than anything he’d ever really seen. The security guard was still asleep behind him on the floor. Lying in front of the monitors and beneath his blue rolling chair. Carlos looked down to the phone near his hand and then back to the door, a good twelve feet away from him.
He could see everything.
Jay was still vehemently trying to unlock the thing, but the alarms had triggered some sort of spell that made it impenetrable even to him. It was almost an out-of-body experience. Jay had always seemed strong enough to do anything. Here, he couldn’t even kick down a door.
Carlos couldn’t hear them through the doors, but the windows let him see how angry they were getting with each other. Over him.
Over his stupid decision to answer a stupid phone. He didn’t want to be alone, but if they didn’t leave, then everyone would be caught, and they’d all have to go back.
Something curdled in his stomach at the idea of going back to mother without having accomplished the plan. Maybe she’d be so mad that she’d lock him in the closet again. Or maybe she’d just click her tongue in that way she always did when he’d made a mistake. She would say “come, boy” and he would, but it was always so scary to go.
He walked up to the door, where it looked like Evie was having a heated conversation with Jay and knocked on the window.
‘Go.’ He mouthed as obviously as possible. He used his thumb to point the other way.
All three of them glared at him and shook their heads nearly in sync. It made him feel good. It would feel better if he knew that they wouldn’t get in trouble because of him.
‘They’ll catch us!’ He mouthed again.
‘Remember the plan.’
That made them all stiffen. And then there was the sudden sound of marching metal and they all knew they’d lost. But what was new?
Carlos put his hand to the window. They all followed suit, looking close to tears. He always messed everything up…
As quickly as they had all touched the cool glass panes, the rest of them had left him behind. And the marching got closer. He wasn’t sure what to do. So he walked back to where he was before and sat in the rolling chair. He didn’t know exactly what it was called, but it was pretty cool. They didn’t have spinning chairs on the Isle. This one was blue. And it was plush. Like the bed they gave him.
The marching got closer, so Carlos spun around faster. Would they kill him? What were the rules? What if they released pack hounds on him? Or drowned him with a bag over his head? Or just got it over with right in the museum. He’d get stabbed to death and then Evie would cry.
Carlos almost wonders what his mother would do if he ever got stabbed to death, but he decides against it. He doesn’t think he wants to really know. She’d probably make it all his fault, like everything always seemed to be. Then again, it kinda was his fault.
The marching had stopped, Carlos looked up to see suits and suits of armor. Faceless and impenetrable. He really hated the windows. There were so many that he couldn’t even outrun them. And they all had swords. He really WAS going to be stabbed to death. Or… maybe be-headed? He’d read somewhere once that getting beheaded was noble. They were all noble here. He wasn’t the best reader though, maybe he was wrong.
It was stupid to think that the door would hold them back. It has held Jay back, so he’d thought it would take a little more effort for them to get through the barriers. The leading suit of armor just turned the knob, and the only thing standing between Carlos and his great, noble death was gone. They hadn’t even had to kick it down.
“State your business, Child.”
He looked up at the metal face and put on his most charming smile.
“Just lookin’ around. This whole…museum… is so fancy.”
“The night guard is unconscious.”
“He woulda’ gotten in my way.”
“I don’t have time for your games, thief. Boy or not, you will face retribution.”
What the heck was a “retribution”?! Was it another word for be-heading??
He KNEW it was a dumb idea, but there was a gap between all the men. Maybe if he was just fast enough…
“Alright, alright…” he put his head down, with hands in his pockets. “Think fast! ” he threw a candy wrapper at the man and bolted.
He made it past the “retribution” man, and between the legs of another suit. He managed to flip and fly around metal gloves until one caught his ankle, sending him smacking down dead on his face with a groan.
More metal, more hands. They were going to put him through “retribution”.
He fought. Clawed. Kicked. But they were metal, and there ten then of them and no matter how much he moved, all that happened was him popping his own shoulder out of socket before getting hit with a sword-hilt and blacking out completely.
He could hear the smack of his mother’s lips as he lost consciousness. ‘Stupid boy.’
————— + ————-
Carlos came to in a dingy cell. The smell of mold and rot greeting him when he woke. It was a little comforting, so much more like home. And his room. The floor was dirty and the bed was small and he thought that for a moment he could even hear a rat or two.
His shoulder hurt, but he could move it, which meant that the suits had reset it. Which was nice of them. Jay had reset his shoulder once after he’d almost fallen off a roof and the older boy had caught him at the last second. It hurt so bad, but it was also really quick.
He moved his arm a few more times and took more stock of the cell. There weren’t too many other cages next to it. And of the four cells that were in the prison, his was the only one filled. They each had the same basic layout. A sink, a toilet, a bed. He hadn’t known that his room back in the isle was a prison cell, he got running water and a bed, mother had always told him to be grateful. And he was, he knew a ton of people who didn’t have plumbing.
Carlos was bored. Sure, there wasn’t much entertainment on the isle but there were people. His FAVORITE people. He couldn’t even talk to the rats here, they wouldn’t come out of the walls.
He bet the princes and princesses here fed them cheese and stuff. The thought made it feel suddenly embarrassing to have vivid memories of nearly crying over rats eating and contaminating the last of his food for the week that one time. People here could just… give it away.
Carlos tapped out a tune on the metal bars, laughing along with it. It had become a sort of memory game. Could he remember the tune and exactly where he hit the bars to get the sounds just right? He could sit here and try answering that question for hours.
He did. Three to be exact.
After those hours, King Ben had come downstairs. He was a kid too, still. Older than Carlos, sure, but only by a few years.
Carlos had never seen anyone with so much power look so remorseful. He shouldn’t ask. But he also kind of had To. Just to be sure.
“Are you going to kill me?”
He’d tried coming off as nonchalant. But his voice was too high pitched and it cracked in the middle. Nice going, now the King knew he was scared.
Ben’s face morphed from guilty sorrow to abject horror.
“What? No! I— we weren’t ever planning to do that. Did you think that for the entire time you were down here?”
Carlos gave a noncommittal shrug. Suddenly feeling small. Just to check, he really needed to ask another question
“So… you’re not gonna cut off my hands either.”
Ben looked genuinely pained.
“No Carlos, no. We’re just moving your housing arrangements.”
“You’re sending me back?”
The thought was somehow scarier than losing a hand.
“No! No. We just… think that it would be better for you to live with a bit of supervision. From here on out, I have executively decided to make you the ward of Rapunzel and Eugene Fitzherbert”.
Carlos sniffed awkwardly. He didn’t know who they were. “Fitzherbert” sounded fancy, but so did everything else here.
Ben shook his head
“Oh! Right, forgive me. You don’t know who they are. Rapunzel is a princess and Eugene is her husband. They both come from backgrounds similar to yours. You’re only expected to live with them. You’ll get to come to school and see your friends every day. You just have to go back at night.”
Carlos couldn’t stop a petulant frown as his knees buckled and he sat on the floor.
“So no rooming with Jay?”
Ben gave an apologetic smile,
“‘Fraid not buddy”.
Ben was nice, Carlos thought. He could stillhardly believe that he was getting away with his hands. And they’d fixed his shoulder. Maybe Ben had told them to do that. Ben was way too trusting. Carlos was planning to help free the worst villains ever and ruin his life. But… Ben still gave him the benefit of the doubt after literally catching him poised to steal. The expectation of goodness almost made him want to try and do better.
But mother would hate that. And then she would hate him more than she already does.
Carlos knocked on the bars. “Thanks for not cutting off my hands.”
Ben hit a weird smile before kneeling down to sit with him, getting his nice, expensive blue pants dirty.
“Anytime. It will take quite some time to get everything all sorted for you. About a day. Do you want any games or anything?”
Carlos squinted, with a bit of a smile
“you can give those to prisoners here?”
Ben rocked his head back and forth before declaring “well… I AM the king.”
This must be why Mother was always telling him to get friends in high places.
Now, sure in the thought that Ben wouldn’t have him “retributed” Carlos stuffed his face through the gaps in the bars. Now that he thought about it, this prison would be pretty easy for him to break out of. There just wouldn’t be anywhere to go.
“Can I get jacks? Ooh! Or marbles?”
Those were the BEST games in the isle, he’d managed to steal a whole full set of jacks and cards once. Jay’s dad found it and sold it though. Food was better than jacks, but jacks were really fun.
Ben agreed with a thumbs up and a smile.
“Sure. I think I’ll also get you a video game. And your food will be arriving in thirty minutes.”
Carlos was confused.
“There isn’t a TV in here though, how am I gonna get a video game?”
Ben blinked. And then sat on the floor again. The weird smile was back. Carlos knew it was pity, but he didn’t really care to understand why he was receiving it.
“It’s called a handheld game, and you slide cartridges in and out.”
Carlos couldn’t even imagine it.
What was a cartridge? The way he said it made it sound like some kind of old tape.
Ben sighed and got up.
Carlos apologized “sorry Ben, I didn’t mean to make you mad. You’re being really nice right now.”
Ben laughed, a kind thing. Soft, even.
“I’m not mad, especially not at you Carlos. I just need to work out more. Getting up hurt my back a little. I’m looking forward to explaining the handheld game to you.”
Carlos didn’t know what to say to that, so he just smiled through the bars. Ben smiled back, and then he left up the stairs.
Carlos got back to the tuning game. Clang, clang, clang-ing his way through another made up song. Maybe this was actually even BETTER than his room. Mother couldn’t yell at him for the game anymore.