First and final. (jaylos angst)
warning: major character death, no happy ending
summary: Jay struggling in the aftermath of Carlos's death
first and final. - Chapter 1 - viarcham - Descendants (Disney Movies) [Archive of Our Own]
It had never meant to end like this. As Jay stared down at the polished coffin, all he could think was that it wasn't meant to end like this.
Not at 19, due to what the doctor had clinically lectured was ‘a sudden spike of abnormal electrical activity in the patient's brain.’ No matter how many times they would explain it to Jay, it would never make sense.
They had made it, away from the Isle: made it over countless miles, a fathomless sea and an impenetrable barrier, ran so far it no longer loomed over them like a death knell.
Jay had always thought that of the four of them, he would cross the final divide first; in his quietest moments, he had entertained childish fantasies of martyring himself in their pursuit of greatness-maybe his still warm corpse languished on the ground, the only thing that had stopped the bullet from driving into his allies’ side. Maybe Mal would declare him her greatest knight, while Evie mercifully drove the blade into his carotids, Carlos’s last desperate kiss bruising Jay’s lips, as Jay let himself sink into the welcoming grasp of oblivion.
Mal hadn't been able to stomach the funeral. Evie had scrubbed furiously at her shining eyes, then swiftly disappeared, her mascara and facade already replaced so perfectly that no outward sign of grief remained.
Everyone had already left.
Despite the flood of remembrance cards that taunted Jay from his doorstop, there had been few attending the funeral. The weather had been too pleasant for the occasion, and Jay had watched as the beaming sun lowered and the mourners drifted away. Now, he was the only alive soul remaining.
He hadn't been able to leave.
It was too mimetic of the way the world would keep on spinning without Carlos. The world would keep on spinning, and the boy Jay had once been intertwined with would keep on being 19, as time tore them further apart, and soon Jay would be 21, 22, 35, still reeling from the absence of his first ally, his first friend, his first love...his first and final everything, until Carlos was just a wispy shadow of a faint memory, fainter and fainter as time roared on, the ghost that jay knew would always haunt him.
Soon the boy would be nothing more than a tragic footnote in the history of Aurodan. Forgotten. Earlier that morning, Jay had opened his front door to yet another remembrance card. Gaudy saccharine kittens in bows danced along the card edge. It sickened Jay. Inside, it was stuffed with feeble, cloying blandishments that said ultimately nothing but left him even more numb.
Then it referenced ‘the three original Vks’ and Jay had promptly puked. What little breakfast he had kept down splattered all over the card and his front doorstep.
Brownish orange. Dimly, as he continued to stand there, helpless, Jay had thought that Carlos would have detested its colour.
The same nausea clawed at his throat now as his eyes bored into the lacquered pine.
The funeral itself had been quiet: the shocked, detached, pall-like kind of silence that clung to its mourners. Jay hadn't been able to stop himself thinking that if Diego wasn't still trapped on the isle, maybe there would at least be a semblance of humanity. Even just a dirge. Anything to acknowledge the gaping hole left.
The coffin wood was cold and smooth and impersonal underneath Jay’s fingers. A flimsy shield.
Jay been able to shield him from gunfights, bullies- heck even Carlos’s own psycho of a mother- but had been passively unaware of that tiny, almost insubstantial electrical signal. Maybe if they had been together, Jay would have noticed something. Anything. Maybe was better than that cold certainty of a corpse.
Over a decade ago, he had pledged everything he was to give Carlos protection. Their splattered blood embodying the oath with a purposeful weight, the knife grip too oversized for younger Jay’s grasping fingers. Carlos’s small grin had electrified him.
Jay then had known he would give his life to see it again. He still would now...more than anything. The corners of his mouth were involuntarily tugged up, but it didn't reach his glassy eyes.
All of Jay’s protection was rendered useless in the end.
If he stayed, he could force the world to mourn for another moment. Jay wouldn't have to face the blistering apathy of this world as his own universe laid, unresponsive and unreachable, inside the casket.
Jay let his emotions fracture and engulf him in a suffocating chasm of grief.
It wasn't meant to end like this.
(end of work authors notes: Hi. I went to a funeral this week, and decided the best way to process that was to write a fic that hurts descendants characters (and my beta writer, sorry darling <3)
I have not seen rise of red yet so may not be totally canon accurate.
Please feel free to point out any grammatical errors I missed, and constructive criticism is will always be appreciated-
and even if its just a keyboard smash or emoji or kudos on ao3 :))
