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imherefordescendents

Oct 25, 2025

lsleofthelost

i’ve grown into a tall child.

[read on AO3]

T | 5.8k I Jay/Mal I Emotional hurt/comfort, getting together, aged-up characters

Content warnings for alcohol, implied child abuse, death.

Summary: It’s been two weeks since Maleficent and Jafar died.

Two best friends get drunk on a rooftop and think about what it means for them.

Mal rakes her hand through her hair, digging her sharp nails into the scalp just hard enough to be painful before leaning over to hand Jay the bottle of wine. He takes a deep swing of the cheap drink, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I thought we’d quit this shit in Auradon.” He says quietly, his voice almost lost to the breeze. They’re sitting on the rooftop of the apartment building they moved into after college, limbs spread out in beach chairs. The air is chilly with the soon-coming autumn.

“Drinking?” Mal asks, aiming for teasing. It falls flat when Jay just shakes his head.

“Wallowing.” He takes another swing.

Mal tries to hold on to the good-natured smile, but it’s brittle, and she just exhales heavily and relaxes her face. She turns back to the city skyline, bright and dazzling and so much closer than she could imagine even six-seven years ago.

They sit in silence for a few moments. Mal gestures for the bottle back, and as she takes it, she says softly: “We’re mourning.” She feels more than sees him shrug. “They were our parents, Jay.”

He leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees and the plastic chair creaks under the weight. Professional tourney player, on track to make the youngest captain in Auradon. He really shouldn’t be drinking. Jay keeps his eyes down where his hands are squeezing into fists and relaxing back and forth for some time. There are faded scars there, and they stretch and contract with his movement.

Mal is hypnotised by the skyline once again. All these bright colours seemed so unattainable to her as a child. She used to dream of being here, she used to dream of seeing it go up in flames. And now she’s here and she can have anything she wishes for, yet happiness still seems as unattainable as it was under the barrier.

Jay slaps his thighs so suddenly and so loudly, Mal almost drops the bottle.

“Shit, sorry.” He reaches out to steady her and she passes him the bottle. He takes a sip before talking. “I was just thinking… Can we even mourn them? They were monsters. Real monsters. There are whole fucking kingdoms out there, relieved that they’re finally dead. But they’re still our parents.” He takes another sip. “I- We- I just- Fuck!” It’s not like him to stutter and Mal turns her full body towards him. She watches him take a longer swing. His free hand is shaking minutely. He falls back into the seat and the chair creaks again. “We’re just sitting here, being sad and conflicted and shit, and it does nothing. We’re not, we’re not defying them, we’re not really grieving, we’re not doing anything!”

He exhales and seems to deflate some of that nervous energy.

Mal scoots a little forward in her chair and snatches the bottle from him. She takes a sip, slowly, to feel the alcohol scorch her throat and settle with a burn in her stomach.

“I know.”

“And I want this shit to mean something.” His eyes are still glued to his hands, and he twirls a ring on his thumb. Watches city lights hit it at different angles. “Because if it doesn’t, then what was all that fucking suffering for? I want to be free again, instead of dreaming about him every time I close my fucking eyes. I’m sick of hearing his voice in my head every time I see anything valuable. I got rid of him before but now I’m weak ‘nd I’m so tired of it.” He grabs the bottle from Mal and throws his head back for a few gulps. “Fucking sick of it.” He hisses.

“I know.”

“I know, I know,” he mimics disdainfully. “Say something real for once. You got them fooled with your- your whole integrated auradonian act, but I know you. And I fucking know you’re freakin’ out as much as I am.” Still freaking out, two whole weeks after the news broke.

Mal knows Jay is going to turn to her, so she snaps her gaze away from him. She can’t look him in the eye. He waits for her, but she stays still. He huffs out a breath and leans back into his chair, eyes finally leaving Mal’s figure. She still doesn’t dare look but she knows he’s disappointed.

“You know that I can’t, I can’t really talk.” Mal tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, only for it to fall back out. She lets it. “Especially about her.”

“I know that.” Jay almost laughs. “But try?”

Of course he does. Mal looks up at the sky and feels the world tilt under her, alcohol flowing through her body. She takes a deep breath. The air is crispy and she can imagine it warming up inside of her.

“I just, I guess the reason I feel so conflicted is because I don’t really feel anything. Like, I know I should be having all these emotions and memories but I feel like I’ve always felt.” She thinks she might cry, but her voice is surprisingly steady.

Jay furrows his brows. “Like what?”

“Empty, like I’ve got this terrible hole in my chest and it’s so hot, like hell, and I always carry hell in me. And I’m used to it and that’s okay.” She feels stupid, like a character from a cheap drama, but Jay and alcohol leave her without a proper filter.

Jay turns to her sharply. “You’ve always felt like this?” Mal nods. “No way. I would’ve noticed. No fucking way.”

He’s so sweet.

“You don’t gotta believe me. I mean, you know I’m good at hiding.” She smiles at him but it’s already crumbling at the edges. “It’s just, look, Maleficent was never really my mother. I know a legit parent on the Isle was rare, but I was her tool, her spear in such a,” she stumbles on her own words. “It was such an intrinsic part of me that I only questioned it when she almost killed the whole crowd at the coronation right before our eyes.” She runs her hand through her hair, trying to get rid of that persistent lock in front of her face. “And, and, I guess, I never had twisted feelings about her.”

“Twisted?”

She hums. “It was all straightforward. I realised I am more than her legacy, I realised how horribly she treated me and I buried her. I remember, after the dust settled a little, when I let them take her back to the Isle, she rattled her handcuffs in my face and she screamed at me, ‘Is this how you treat your Mother?!’” Mal’s voice goes booming on the last phrase. She swallows. “And I remember thinking something like, all I know I learned from you and please, show me you love me, please love me, and I’ll slice down all these guards in your name and I cried so hard. And all I could say was ‘Is this how you treat your daughter?’ and that was it. And I called her my mother one last time, but I could already feel that word rotting on my tongue.” Mal sniffs softly and Jay sharply looks at her, but there are no tears. She continues, whispering: “She was no longer my mother and I was no longer her daughter and that was for the best.”

Jay takes a second to take it in. Sips the drink, and when there’s just an inch or so left at the bottom, hands it over to Mal. She accepts it gratefully and he lets her finish off the bottle before speaking.

“If it was for the best, why do you feel so shitty about it?”

She glares at him, and he knows not to take offence, it’s not him she’s angry at.

“Fuck you.” She tenses her jaw and looks away.

For a while, the only sounds are passing cars.

“I thought I’d feel better with her finally dead, and I don’t. I thought this fucking hole would stitch itself back together because I already know it can’t be filled.” She sighs. “I tried, but no matter what I throw in there, good moments, success, people who love me, sex, drugs, hell, I even tried therapy. But nothing works for more than a few hours.”

He’s looking at her with such intensity in his eyes.

There’s so much to say but he settles on: “You did drugs?”

“A couple times at parties, yeah. But mostly prescription.” She presses her lips together, like she’s trying to stop herself from speaking. “It didn’t fix me. I guess some of us are born beyond repair.” She turns to Jay. “You’re a great person.”

“Where the fuck is that coming from?” His arm twitches, almost like he wants to reach out. “You’re a good person, too, Mal.” He knows she wants to protest. “Don’t even start, you are, I don’t wanna hear none of that shit.”

“What about you?”

Confused, he asks: “About me?”

She turns her body to face him. “Yeah, how do you feel?”

He points a finger at her, smiling. “See, you are a good person. Worrying about my feelings and shit.”

She swats at his arm. “Don’t fucking change the subject.”

The smile slowly falls from his face. He leans back in the chair and tilts his head up to look at the stars. “I can’t look back at him in pure anger or cut him out like you did. Because I remember he loved me, almost sweet, before he didn't, so I must have made some mistake.” His fingers are drumming some unknown rhythm on the plastic of the chair. “And you had your fucked up closure, but I just left, and. And I was sixteen and I had this goal and I disappointed him. And I haven’t even spoken to Jafar in almost six years and I still feel so much for some fucking reason.”

Mal hums noncommittally. “That’s what I mean, twisted feelings.”

It makes Jay huff out a miserable laugh. “Yeah.” He continues his rhythmic taps. “I can't help but blame the person responsible for my existence, but I pity him, too. The world hurt him first, he had ambitions and the world corrupted him until he was delusional and hungry for power, he just couldn’t help that his hands were like barbed wire. He knew he was supposed to love me, protect me, but I don’t know. Maybe he wasn’t aware how, or maybe I wasn’t worth trying hard enough for, because at some point he gave up on that.” He swallows thickly. “Just, as a kid, it was so easy to always forgive him. He’d do something and in a few hours, he’d come back and hug me and say he didn’t mean to. But really, how much damage is forgivable when you know it was done to him first, when he didn’t know better?”

He drags his hand over his face, before continuing. “Just, it just seems like I have these two versions of him in my head, one I remember as a kid, and one I saw as an adult. Fuck, not even adult, a teenager. And they blur at the edges sometimes.” He brings up his hands, face up on the handles. “I love my father,” he curls one hand into a fist. “I hate my father,” he curls the other.

He is still looking up at the stars. He’ll never not be fascinated with them, after being denied the simple luxury of open skies for so long. He knows Mal is looking at him, calculating her next words. She keeps her eyes on him as she precariously leans her back on a handle of her chair and throws her legs over the opposite one.

“Fuck,” comes out, breathy. “Hell, Jay, you don’t gotta pity him. He was an adult and you were his kid. And, like, he saw you as a kid. Jafar wasn’t stupid, he must have known what he was doing.”

When he doesn’t respond after a full minute, she kicks his arm.

“The fuck was that for?”

“I see you, trying to, to come up with excuses for him but you know I’m right.” She stretches her arms over her head and almost topples her chair, Jay’s hand shooting out to stabilise it last second.

“We should go inside.” Jay uses her chair to stand up and motions for her to do the same.

Mal grabs his hand and slinks on her feet. She lets him lead her towards the staircase to their apartment.

“Yes, it’s too cold here. But don’t run from this conversation. Closure is fake, you just gotta sit down and sort your feelings a little and realise you were never at fault there. And just fucking deal with that. You can cut him out. ”

“I’ll think about this, but not today, alright? Today we can just go and get more drunk?”

Mal lets out a happy hum at that. “Course we can.”

The door shuts behind them and the warmth of being inside hits them like a wave. Jay doesn’t stop, but he slows down a little, mulling something over. “I realised this way back when but everything feels less meaningless when you’re around.” His voice almost cracks like a teenager’s there and he hopes it doesn’t sound like a confession.

Mal sniffs again, and shit, is this what is finally gonna bring tears to her eyes? Her next words tumble out of her without her permission: “Yeah, I hate everything less when you’re around, too.”

They don’t talk the rest of the way home.

Their apartment is pretty big for people straight out of college, Auradon’s guilt works wonders.

Jay immediately flops onto the couch face up and arms stretched out around him. “So,” he begins playfully, as Mal makes her way towards the fridge for a new bottle, “tell me who you’ve been fucking on the down low?”

Mal groans and takes a swig before coming over to the couch. “I fucking open up my soul and you latch on to the news that I’m sleeping with somebody?” She plops down on the couch. It takes some shimmying, but she settles down with her back against the cushion and her legs slung over Jay’s shins.

Jay’s laugh is bright and warm. “Yeah, I’ve decided we’ll talk about heavy shit later and now I wanna gossip.”

“Hell,” she drags the word out, “you’re so annoying!”

“Wait, why won’t you tell me?” He sits up a little, leaning on his forearms.

She just takes another sip.

“Come on, I know, like, all your shit! And you know mine!” He gestures for the bottle and she passes it to him. He takes a swing and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I know that you made out with Uma and then puked on her shoes at that formal.”

“Fuck you, honestly! I was so drunk!”

He cackles. “I’d assume so, I mean, you swapped spit with Uma.” He takes another sip and passes Mal the bottle. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, she’s hot, but we never really stopped disliking each other after the Isle.”

He times it, so she’s just about to take a sip, and says: “Well, it didn’t stop you from sucking faces with Harry on the Isle, I guess.”

She chokes on her drink, and swats his thigh. She’s coughing a little, but it passes quickly. “Didn’t stop you, either, so shut up about the fucking pirates.” Her words are rough, but she’s giggling.

“Aight, aight.” He’s still smiling.

They settle down a little, before he continues, tone infinitely softer: “Know you spent all of high school pining over Evie, only for her to ask you to be her maid of honour few months after graduation.”

Mal lets out a deep sigh. “It’s for the best,” she says weakly. “She dodged a bullet.”

Jay tries to throw his hands up in protest, but seems to forget that he’s propped up on them and falls on his back, breath knocked out of him. Mal laughs as he struggles.

“Shut up,” he complains. “About my coordination-”

“Or lack thereof.”

“And about yourself.” His tone is stern. “Look, her husband has a fucking stroke whenever a book is out of alphabetical order at the library.” Mal can’t help but giggle. “Doug literally lost it when she changed up his tuxedo last minute before the wedding.”

Mal tries to protest, mumbling, which is so unlike her. “He’s just high-strung, you know that. He was nervous, and snapped at her. I made him apologize.”

“Don’t defend him.” He moves up again, scoots back a little, to sit up properly. “I just don’t like that she hurt you.” Jay’s face is gentle, even if he’s looking anywhere in the room but her. “It’s nasty, that someone so close to you could break your heart like that.”

She takes a long swing of the wine. “Yeah, well, I was always broken, so what’s a few little cracks, huh?” She’s smiling but it’s an empty, mirthless smile.

Jay finally looks at her. “You know I don’t like it when you talk like that.”

The brittle smile drops, replaced by rage just as hollow. “Like what, Jay? Like I’m broken? Because I am, even the fucking doctors said so! I’m stuck like this!”

“Doctors?”, so quiet, it’s barely a breath.

She loses her fire quickly, drops back against the couch like a marionette with cut strings. “Yeah, my brain’s all fucked up, apparently. I have major depressive disorder, so I’ll always be like this.”

He knows there’s more coming, so he stays silent, just moves a fraction closer and studies her face.

She stares straight ahead, almost unseeing. “I know it sounded like an exaggeration, or a metaphor, or whatever, but I really do feel like there’s a hole inside of me all the time,” she says evenly.

“I just get flashes of like the worst memories,” his voice is hoarse, “they’re wrong sometimes, distorted or some shit. But I get stuck in it like it’s quicksand. Sometimes it passes in an hour or so, sometimes a day, when I really can’t get my shit together.”

She furrows her brows and turns to look at him. “That sounds like a-”

“A panic attack. I know.” They look at each other and he searches her face for something. “I’m just wondering how you can feel like that all the time.” He mutters that last part, like he’s just thinking out loud.

He snakes one of his arms under her legs and one behind her back, and with a soft “Come on”, he maneuvers them to sit together. With his back against the cushions and his legs stretched out in front of him. Mal is sitting in between his legs, her own thrown over his lap and her head on his chest. His arms are looped around her middle.

“Wanna leave something gross at their house when we go next time?” She can feel the rumbling of his voice, laying like this, and it’s so relaxing she almost misses what he says.

“What? No!” She cracks up a little.

“Yeah, like a raw fish or something.” She knows he’s smiling. “Behind the couch. It’ll stink up the whole house and drive them insane.”

It starts slow, but soon they’re both doubling over with laughter. It’s not that funny and they both know it, but they’re stuck in this loop of just getting a hold of themselves, then making eye contact and bursting out again.

It’s minutes before they finally settle. Jay’s hand finds his way into Mal’s hair. He scratches softly, like he knows she likes. She feels like a puddle of jelly in his hands. He can’t stop thinking that it’s been entirely too long since he’s seen her laugh like that.

He clears his throat. “Seriously, though. If you want, I’ll break his nose.”

“Nah.” She blinks up at him. “Not worth it.”

“He’d deserve it. He knows, I know, he knows, and he always rubs it in your face.”

She settles her head back on his chest. Her next words are slow, and quiet. “I don’t think so. I think he’s just so in love. I heard they’re a true match.”

“I don’t know.” He takes a breath like he’s about to say something. He doesn’t, just continues scratching her head. “Remember when people thought you and the prince were a true match?”

She burrows closer to him. She doesn’t know what to say. So she changes the subject.

“D’you want me to fight Lonnie?”

“What?” He sounds surprised. “No, of course not.”

“Why not? She definitely deserves a broken nose or a shiner or something.”

“We just had a communication problem.” He shrugs a little.

“Jay, she lied to you. Come on, she never could have mentioned that your thing was never going to go anywhere because she’s got a whole fucking fiancé back home?

He struggles for a few moments, incomprehensible noises coming out of his mouth. “That’s just how it is with high status political kids. Plus, it was college, nothing’s that serious in college.”

Mal settles a little. “She still should have told you,” she mutters softly. “She seriously fucked you up, it’s unfair. And I never did anything.”

“We…” he tries to find the words, “we were so far from each other in college.”

“I should have been there for you, still.”

He has nothing to say to that.

Before silence can become too overwhelming, Jay says, in his lightest voice: “I like you like this.”

Mal huffs. “Pathetic?”

He tugs on her hair teasingly. “No, idiot, I mean vulnerable.”

“I don't think that’s better.” It comes out as almost a question, a request to elaborate.

“I mean, you, like this, I don’t want to say attractive, because it’s not like that, I just mean-”

All traces of coming sleep are snuffed out in Mal.

“Are you fucking serious right now?” She moves away from Jay and looks up at him. The hand that was in her hair drops to the side. “Did you drink too much? Since when are you the douchebag in the movie that’s like,” she pulls a face, “‘Your sadness is beautiful and I’m gonna kiss the scars on your wrists’.”

“Fuck,” he leans back and looks up at the ceiling. “That’s not it, Mal, you know that’s not what I meant.” He swallows and Mal sees the motion of his throat. “It’s just, just that I felt like we’ve been growing apart. Like you didn’t trust me anymore. It’s not because I like seeing you miserable or some shit.” When he looks back down, his head comes to a stop abruptly, like he’s barely catching himself. “I just mean,” his eyes focus on hers, “that I like that we’re still close, that you can confide in me like that, that you didn’t forget that I got your back.

“I was just so scared that we’d become estranged, like with Evie. Like all those years of history can be just gone. Again. I hate that I look at her face and see a stranger.” He exhales slowly. “Carlos is off doing his own thing, and I’m happy for him, I really am, I just wish he was here.” He looks away.

“That’s why I agreed to this apartment. I could easily rent somewhere closer to the stadium, but what's an extra twenty minutes of commute when in return I get to see you. Here, real, every day.”

Mal moves a little, so she’s in his field of vision again, so she catches his eye again.

“So of course it sucks for me to see you like this. Of course I always want you to be happy, and I always want to be close to you when you are. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you near when you’re down. I want you around, like, all the time.”

Her breath hitches. She snaps the bottle and takes another sip. “Fucking hell.”

He laughs softly. “I know. We’ll talk about the heavy shit later, okay?” She passes the bottle to him and he takes it gratefully. Chugs three huge gulps. “I just want you to get better.”

“I think this is as good as it gets.” Her tone is defeated.

“I don’t. I know I refuse to stay stuck in this shit and I’ll tug you out too, just watch.” He looks infinitely determined, and if she was a little more naive, she would have believed him.

“Sure, and we’ll start with therapy, where you can’t help but lie.” She touches him softly on the shoulder, tugging him back to lean down. “I remember what we talked about, how you say the shit they want to hear so they leave you alone, even when you don’t mean to.” They settle down the same way they were sitting before. “And since you’re right here with me, at the rock bottom, I can assume you still do that.”

Jay takes a deep breath. “Therapy’s just… They always try to pry you open from the start, and I always lie to people like that. And everyone here’s so soft, I don’t know how to tell them about my shit.”

“You don’t need to protect them, though.” She bumps her head against his chest. “It helped me for a while. Before they sent me to a psychiatrist. That bitch told me my brain’s all scrambled and incurable.”

“I know you’re not unfixable.” He settles his hand back in her hair.

“But I am broken.” There’s that defeated tone again.

“You just need help. We need help.”

They stay like this for a few moments, warm and drunk, trying to come to terms with that.

“You still haven’t told me who’s your mystery fuck buddy.” It comes out a little strained but he can blame it on the alcohol.

“So, um,” Mal twists away from him, settles against the couch arm, legs still thrown over his thighs. “I don’t know if I told you, that was just before we moved in, so around two months ago, Ben called me in the middle of the night.”

His hands tighten around her shins as he groans, “You didn’t!”

“No, no, he’s got Audrey and they’re practically married, but he sounded very drunk, and yeah, he’s my ex, but that doesn’t mean I want him to die of alcohol poisoning.”

Jay chuckles, “Would be funny though.” He puts on a straight face, as much as he can manage, “The King of Auradon found dead this morning. Cause of death: too much vodka because he misses his Isle trash ex.”

Mal laughs, too. “Stop it! No, I called Jane to make sure he’s alright, she’s always at the palace lately,” she fiddles with her hands nervously, “and I guess I sounded shaken up on the phone, cause she wanted to make sure I was okay-”

“Mal!” Jay’s eyebrows shoot up. “Mal, did you fuck Jane?” The sheer disbelief on his face gets another laugh from her.

“No, no, can you imagine?” She shakes her head. “No, but she sent Jade over.” She pauses and keeps her eyes on her hands.

“No fucking way.” He downs the wine like he hopes it’s vodka.

“That’s why I didn’t want to tell you!” There’s an awkward smile on her face.

He laughs. “Fucking hell, I see now. I mean, we only dated for a couple of months, it was all super casual, but still.” He runs his hand over his hair, exhales loudly and turns to her. “She was a great lay, though, I see why you’d do that.”

“Jay, I really don’t wanna talk about the sex I had with your ex-girlfriend.” She throws her hands in front of her face. “And it’s not like an arrangement or anything, it just happened then, and like one other time. I’m not seeing anyone.”

They pass the bottle back and forth for a few minutes, content to sit in each other’s presence. Jay’s fingers start drumming along to some song again, and Mal feels it over her sweatpants. She thinks she recognises the rhythm, from the quiet nights holed up at the loft, the shared study sessions, the knowledge she has of Jay.

“Sing, please?” She can’t help but ask. It’s been so long since she heard him sing.

He indulges her, taps out the rhythm with intention now. “Nami nami ya saghirah,” words fall from his lips easily. His mother singing him to sleep is probably his strongest memory of her, so he clung to it. The words of this simple lullaby are stitched into his heart.

Mal is as enchanted by his singing as she was the first time it happened. It feels magical, and not in a way a siren’s song feels magical. This sound holds no promise of destruction, no hidden threat. This is pure and honest, crystal clear, like a nymph’s song, born only out of love and desire to share it.

He gestures for her to come closer and she does. She doesn’t feel coordinated enough to slot herself back between his legs, so she just inches closer and leans her upper body on his, the top of her head falling right into the junction between his shoulder and neck.

Lying like this, she can hear his voice with one ear and his heartbeat with another. And, maybe it’s the wine, or the deep conversations that left her raw, or maybe it’s just him, but she’s suddenly overflowing with feeling. He’s so close and she’s missed him so. He’s so close and it’s not enough. His body, his voice, his heartbeat surround Mal from all sides but they’re still separated by this barrier. They stumbled over it, once, and they never talked about it. They should have. She should have. She was just too scared.

“I’m a coward.” Her voice is so tiny, muffled by Jay’s sweater.

He drifts out of his song and tilts his head down at her. “What?”

“I’m a fucking coward.” She repeats, voice still soft. Pushes off him and straightens up to look him directly in the eye. She’s frowning. “I’ve known something for so long, and I kept running from it, tried to replace it, and it only caused problems.”

Jay’s eyes are searching her face for answers. What is she talking about?

“And I’ve been watching you get crushed by love, encouraged you into those stupid situations that hurt your feelings. My feelings. And, and, the whole time all I really wanted to-”

“Mal, what are you talking about?” He runs his hand down his face, trying to collect his thoughts. Trying to shoo wishful thinking away.

“Just, just, can I try something?” Her heart is a hummingbird in her chest as her hand reaches for his face.

Jay nods.

Mal moves slowly. Waits for him to realise, to push her away in disgust, to turn away, to laugh in her face. Still, she stops with mere centimeters separating them, far enough to have a clear view of his eyes, close enough to feel the heat of his breaths.

His eyes are open wide, pupils blown. She feels his trembling exhale on her face.

“I kissed you before, remember? But I didn’t do it right. Can I try again?” She’s surprised to hear her voice come out so steady. Everything is shaking on the inside.

“Mal, you’re drunk,” Jay whispers. He screws his eyes shut and tilts back a little. He doesn’t trust himself to not do something stupid, if they stay so close. “Tomorrow you’ll-”

She catches his face. “Tomorrow I’ll be sober and I’ll still be in love with you.”

His eyes are still shut but he knows there’s a mirthless smile on her face.

“I threw myself into obsession with Evie, tried to ignore all things Isle with Ben, but none of that was really love. I see you, Jay, and I love you.”

“Mal…” It comes out a broken whisper.

“And I don’t care if you’re still hung up on Lonnie, or if I’m drunk. Tell me to fuck off if I’m upsetting you, but if you don’t, I’ll kiss you.”

He finally opens his eyes. Desperately searches for something in her face, for traces of a joke, of hesitation, of absent-mindedness. He finds only determination and wretched hope.

“Can I please try again?”

His hands find her head, her waist, pull her closer. She kisses him, finally, like she’s been starving for it. Her other hand lands on his shoulder, almost burning. They crush their bodies into each other like it doesn’t matter if they’ll be bruised tomorrow. Their lips part and he swipes his tongue over her lower lip. His hands don’t stop moving, they’re on her waist, her hips, in her hair, making sure she’s real, she’s real and she’s here, and he’s not in another dream.

Mal tries to move back, but Jay chases her, and they kiss again. And again. And again.

When they finally part, chests heaving, faces even more flushed then before, Jay gives her a dazed smile.

“So,” he says, “you love me?”

Mal looks away. “Come on, do it already,” she brushes a lock of hair behind her ear, “break my heart.”

Jay feels dizzy and it’s not the wine. He chuckles and grabs her face with both of his hands, tilts her head so she looks at him. He looks at her with such warmth in his eyes that it renders his next words unnecessary. He still says them: “I love you, too, Mal.”

He pulls her close, hugs her like he wishes he could shield her from the world. Pretends he doesn’t feel her soft sobs, like she pretends she doesn’t feel tears land on top of her head.

He feels like he’s going to fall asleep, so he tugs her up, only for her to bury herself closer. “Stay.”

So he readjusts his grip and stands up with her. Like this, he moves them to his room. The covers are still off from where he couldn’t be bothered to do them in the morning but it’s for the better now.

He lowers her, half asleep, onto the bed and falls down next to her.

Tomorrow, they’ll deal with their hangovers and Jay will find antidepressants in Mal’s bathroom, last refilled more than half a year ago. Tomorrow, they’ll talk about therapy and the past and make promises to finally seek out the help they need. Tomorrow, they will kiss again and struggle to find a reason they didn’t do it sooner that doesn’t stupid.

But that is tomorrow.

Tonight, they look into each other’s eyes as they lie close on the huge bed. They revel in knowing they can do that again, like they used to before the conventions of Auradon forced them to keep their distance.

She falls asleep at his side, clutching his hand. He holds her hand all night.

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