Chapter Text
Nico found Mal sitting in the window box in a tucked away alcove in the dorm building. It didn’t seem like people came here often but there were some pillows set up against the glass. Mal sat, one leg drawn to her chest.
“Hey, can I join?” Nico asked, not meeting her gaze.
“Sure, I don't care,” Mal responded, like a liar.
“Oh,” Nico sat, drawing up one leg as well, in a mimicry of her.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Mal asked, voice cold, eye twitching.
“Straight to the point huh?” Nico deflected, fidgeting with the cuff of his pants.
“Yeah well I’d like to know about this information before I take over the world with my Mom”
“Jeez, Mal,” Nico said, glancing around hurriedly. “Maybe don’t say that so loud, we’re in a public space and there’s probably cameras”
“Like you care, you don’t want to participate anyways. You’re not a team player, we're all working hard here and you're prancing around with your little boyfriend, and now we find out that your adoptive mom is this perfect spring goddess. You’re the only one with the chance of people loving you and having the chance of staying here! To not feel hungry or pain, or the hate of everyone around you!”
“Ok first of all, Persephone basically adopted you today, without even turning you into a plant first! And second of all, you could stay here too, I mean Ben actually cares about you and you might even get married at this point, barf, and once he’s king you can do whatever you want! And I still care about you, I'd like to not see you end up back on the Isle! No one deserves to be there —and we should probably kill Mr. Furry but that's not the point.”
“If you care, then why didn’t you tell me? And Mr. Furry? DO YOU MEAN THE FUCKING KING?!”
Nico groaned, and looked up to the sky. “Oh my god don’t say that so loud! You and volume control, I swear. Look, I…I have a hard time telling the truth sometimes, you know with PTSD and ADHD. It was easier to think that it was fun to let y’all come to your own conclusions than actually tell you guys.”
“What do you mean PTSD, were you in a war or something? I thought we were friends. Did those eight months on the Isle mean nothing? Why didn’t you tell me anything?” Mal said, anger seeping into her voice, eyes glowing more and more neon green.
“Of course they did! It's just, I spent my entire life lying to people, to protect myself. I had to lie about who I loved, about what I was, and other things too. After that it's hard to tell the truth to anyone, it's just not my nature. Even with people I love and trust” Nico explained, voice thick with emotion.
“So, what, you just lie all the time? How much do we actually know about you Nico?”
“A lot! I’ve gotten better and I really try not to, it's just my first instinct and sometimes I'm too much of a coward to fix it right away. I’m sorry Mal, I didn’t realize how much it would hurt you.”
“Right.” Mal responded, looking back out the window the hurt and anger refusing to ebb away.
“I was going to tell you I promise,” Nico continued, reaching for her but stopping halfway, “I don’t like lying. But when and where I grew up, it was safer for the other person not to know things”
“Did you… not grow up on the Isle?” Mal asked, “I thought dad just sorta kept you sequestered away like Evie’s mom did.”
“Umm… so, it's more complicated than that?”
“Of course it is. And honestly Nico, how could this possibly have made me safer?”
“I just…every sister I’ve had before you was killed,” Nico tried to explain, tears threatening to escape his eyes. “It sometimes feels like I’m cursed. Like if I love someone, if someone becomes a part of my family, they’ll die.”
“Are you cursed?” Mal asked with apprehension.
“No, I’ve checked, don't worry. Doesn't stop me from being scared though. I’m kinda always scared. It's like this constant thrum in my chest even when I know I’m safe, I know it's like that for a lot of us.” He drew both his knees up to his chest, “Look, I’m sorry my shit gets in the way of us being friends sometimes. Or a lot of the time.”
“We’re not friends,” Mal said with a finality that felt like an executioner's blade.
“Oh” Nico said, the sound punching out of him like he’d just lost all his breath. He stood up hurriedly, making to get away as the tears welled up. She didn’t need to see that.
“Nico,” Mal continued, grabbing his arm to keep him in place, “We’re not friends because we're family.”
Nico stared at her for a moment before wrapping her in a hug. She tensed up before very, very slowly returning it. After some time Nico pulled away.
“That was really corny,” he said, smiling despite his tear streaked face.
“Ugh, I know. Auradon’s getting to me,” Mal said, smiling back, “I’ve never had a good family before. I mean other than our friends but honestly that’s pretty recent. I guess I could get used to having some bio family that doesn’t want to use me. I’m just glad that you don’t seem to be as fucked up as our dad.”
Nico laughed, “Oh just give it a few centuries.”
Nico stepped fully away from the hug, building up the courage to ask Mal if she really wanted to go through with everything tomorrow when a small mew caught his attention. He turned around grateful to find a normal looking tuxedo cat.
“Oh,” Mal said softly, “hey kitty”
The cat stared at her and pawed a few steps closer. It wore a purple collar with a name Nico couldn't quite read embroidered on it.
“What is with this campus and its pets? First Dude and now a cat?” Nico said. Mal snorted in response, stepping slowly closer to the animal.
Nico watches for a moment, his eyes growing heavy. He blinks. When his eyes open again Mal is frozen in front of the creature. It's definitely a creature, not a cat. Nico’s breath caught as the creature's spines shivered on its back. The spines seemed to be swaying, as if they had a mind of their own. Eyes, many eyes, opened up on its face and body. Clacking pincers appeared to be attached to its tail, which whipped back and forth as its many, many, eyes stared at Mal. The thing yawned, and it showed off rows of teeth descending down its mouth. A feeling of impending doom descended upon him. Images of his old home in Italy crumbling before him, of classrooms at Westover Hall, of the sheen of pomegranate stained glass clouded his vision for a moment.
Nico pulls out his sword, Mal scrambles back. In the split second it takes them to do this, they both blink again. It's a normal cat. Its black and white fur carries no spines, it has only two eyes, and the tail slowly moving back and forth ends like any normal cat tail would.
“What the fuck?” Nico said, as he stomped a foot, “seriously, what the fuck? Why? The night before coronation? Who did I piss off in a past life? You saw that too, right?”
Mal nodded mutely, slowly rising from her crouched position. The creature (cat?) blinked at them with its two pale eyes. It turned around and sauntered off around the corner. Mal and Nico looked at each other,
“We’re following it, right?” Mal asked.
“Honestly, do we have a choice?” Nico responded, putting his sword away hesitantly.
“I mean, we could always go back to the dorms. Forget that it happened,” Mal suggested without any real conviction.
“But we're not going to, are we?” Nico asked rhetorically.
“Of course not,” Mal decided, marching around the corner the cat walked around. Nico, step behind her. When they rounded the corner the cat stood in the middle of the hall, as if waiting for them.
“Ok that's just weird” Nico announced.
“Weirder than the pincer? Spines I can get behind, but a pincer?” Mal whispered back to him. The…cat… seemed to narrow its eyes at Mal.
“Yeah, I don’t think you should body shame the horror cat,” Nico whispered back to her.
If a cat (creature? What the hell was Nico supposed to call it?) could roll its eyes, this one was doing it. It meowed at them again and started walking off. The sound set his teeth on edge. Mal and Nico followed, curiosity outweighing general common sense, as usual. It led them outside the girls dorm building, every now and then Nico swore he saw a tendril or a spine but every time he blinked they were just following a normal black and white cat again. It lead them down the paved path between the two gendered buildings, but instead of going into the boys dorms it lead them around. At the very back of the building Nico came upon a scene he really wished he hadn’t. On the stoop of some sort of back porch to one of the rooms stood Prince Ben in his bathrobe, putting out a can of cat food.
Nico and Mal stopped short as the creature, which looked perfectly average at that moment, walked up to Ben. Nico watched in silence as Ben smiled at the thing and set down the cat food.
“Ben?” Mal asked, as she stepped a little closer. The prince jumped a little and turned quickly to them.
“Oh! Hey, what are you guys doing here?”
“It led us here,” Nico responded, pointing at the cat thing.
“It? Oh! This is Khosheck,” Ben bent down and picked up the animal. Nico tensed, hand twitching for his sword.
“Ben I think you should put the…cat down” Mal said, obviously trying and failing to stay calm.
“What? I’ve been feeding him for years. We’re friends, right Khosheck?” Ben said, addressing the last part to the creature and scratching under its chin as he continued to hold it in his arms.
“Ok, ok, ok that’s fine. That's cool, but have you noticed Ben, that its eyes are just a little weird?” Mal asked, voice ticking up at the end. The moon glinted off the cat's now multiple eyes as it peered at them from Ben's arms.
“Oh sure, but Eli says that’s normal, plenty of cats have different numbers of eyes. Well I guess it's usually either zero, one or two, maybe three, but still,” Ben responded, gently putting the thing down at his feet. It rubbed up against the bottom of his robe, its pincered tail curling around his bare leg.
“What.” Nico stated.
“Well he showed up at about the same time as Eli so I figured there was just something in the air that week,” Ben responded in lieu of a response that made any sense whatsoever.
“What do you mean? Where did it come from?” Mal questioned, stepping a bit closer again.
“Well it is a cat so I think you can use he/they pronouns for him. And I first found him in the men’s bathroom but he kinda just lives all around school now.”
“A bathroom? And you kept it?” Mal asked, “Ben there’s a lot of strange animals on the Isle, but I’m not sure even I would do that,”
“Yeah I mean the aura it gives off is…disturbing” Nico added lamely.
“Sure, but that’s just his nature. I can’t blame something for that. Plus he was a kitten, at least I found him and not someone like Chad,” Ben defends crouching down at its level as it eats the wet food with one row of perfect teeth. “Tomorrow you’ll be fed by a king, Khosheck” he cooed at it.
“Why’d you choose that name?” Nico asked just so he didn’t have to focus too hard on…Khosheck.
“He came with it” Ben responded, gesturing at the purple collar that was warbling in and out of Nico’s perception along with the spines.
Mal blinked and saw more than two eyes appear on its body and face as it preened under Ben’s pets. His hand ran over one of its open eyes and Nico felt a little nauseous. “Um you guys have got to be seeing the eyes” she blinked again and it's just a normal cat, it stared back at her.
“Mal, are you ok? Is this about the coronation tomorrow? You don’t have to be nervous, everything will go great and everybody will love you. Plus, once I’m king you won’t have to worry any more,” Ben said, standing up and walking over to Mal, holding her hands in his own.
Nico raises his hand “uh what does that mean?”
“Well when I’m king then Mal is the king's girlfriend and obviously can stay here or at my house as long as she likes. Plus I can start implementing policies to rescue more kids from the isle”
A stillness descended upon the yard, “has that always been the plan?” Mal asked softly.
“ I…well I knew I had to fix things but after a disturbing and enlightening conversation with Jay and Carlos as well as that shit Audrey’s grandma and my dad pulled, I just have really been thinking about it more. It's not right to leave any kid or innocent person on the Isle. Or wonderland. Wonderland may come first because I’ve been working on that longer with Eli, but I’ll totally try and bring the new policies up to the board. As long as my dad doesn’t get in the way”
“Ben…thats… I had no idea you wanted to…” Mal tried to say, eyes watering.
“Of course Mal, I know what my family has done,” Ben looked down in shame, “I want to fix it. I need to fix it. And I really care about you” he gave a small smile at the end.
Nico looked away, letting them have their moment. The cat stared at him with a piercing gaze that made Nico feel like he’d been stripped down to his soul.
“-ico, Nico?” Mal’s voice called. He turned around seeing that Mal was a few feet away from him, arms crossed. Ben seemed to have gone back inside.
“Yeah?”
“I’m still mad at you. You should have told me… but we’re ok.” Mal said, looking immeasurably uncomfortable.
Nico’s shoulders relaxed, “Thank you, Mal. I’ll make it up to you, I promise”
Mal hummed, unconvinced, “Just don’t keep important information from me again, ok?”
Nico swallowed, thinking about what important information required. Was the fact that he was from a different fucking dimension important? Or that he’d fought in wars? Or been trapped in tartarus? Or that he had bacon for breakfast? What the fuck was important?
“Of course,” Nico said, nodding anyway.
Mal nodded back to him before she turned and walked away. Nico turned back to the cat. It was eating the cat food. Spines shivered and the many many teeth scraped against the can. An eye opened on its torso, staring back at him. Nico swallowed heavily and turned away, following Mal back to the dorms.