#let them bend all the rules together!! Let them have Mal's evil motivation and disregard for rules combined with Ben's knowledge

[thebluestbluewords]

Moral Education

*chanting* OT3 OT3 OT3!

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Mal's teeth are sharp when she grins. “The beast king locked all the royal children up in his castle, just as he’d been locked up and abandoned by his own people. It’s to teach us all a lesson. So we can learn the power of isolation, or something. I don’t know what moral lessons your father is trying to impart. I’m not from here.” 

“Where did you hear that?” 

“School.” 

“Do you–” Ben starts, and then just stops for a moment, with his mouth open and his jaw working like he’s trying to digest the fact that the villains have more accurate information about his father than he’d reckoned for. “Did you have a source for that? One I could read, maybe?” 

Mal scoffs. “Like I’d ever steal a textbook. That’s school property. I’m a beacon of goodness and moral integrity for these trying times, and I’d never steal textbooks from a blessed institution of learning.” 

Ben levels an incredulous sort of look at her. “Really.” 

“Really. I didn’t steal anything–” anything of value, Mal adds to herself. “From Dragon Hall.” 

“Because there wasn’t anything to steal.” Evie adds unhelpfully. “And you didn’t attend very often.” 

“I had better things to do.” 

“Liar.” 

Mal rolls her eyes. She attended school enough of the time. Like, at least half of the days that they were allegedly supposed to attend. She showed up just often enough to keep all the little villains in line, and to get the free food that some particularly enterprising adult got for the cafeteria. “Whatever. The point is, we know that your father donated his old castle to keep the royal children all locked up in one place, and that’s why we’re not allowed to leave. The king wants us all contained so we can be just like him.” 

Ben’s face folds up into a frown. His eyebrows do this cute crinkly thing when he’s confused that makes Mal sort of want to kiss the point in the middle of them, right where his head goes all wrinkly. Like a weird, sexy old man. “That’s not true. We’re allowed to leave on the weekends.” 

“You’re allowed to leave,” Evie chimes in. “We’re not. Only the Auradon kids who have parental permission can go into town. I asked Fairy Godmother, and she said that we don’t have signed permission slips from our parents, so she can’t bend the rules and let us out, even though we could just send the permission slips over to the Isle of the Lost for them to sign.” 

“Like my mother would ever sign something to make our lives better.” 

“My mom would forge her signature for you,” Evie says sweetly. Ben’s eyebrows are reaching a new level of distress, but that’s not their problem. “She knows how. It’s something you learn, when you’re cohabitating with someone. Which our mothers are doing. Because they’re fu–” 

“OKAY, OKAY, OKAY.”

“Fucking,” Evie finishes, flashing an absolutely wicked grin. “They’re fucking. Because that’s just the headache we needed. Our mothers having a forbidden isle romance, after we already claimed that story.” 

“I’m going to end our romance if you don’t stop talking about my mom’s sex life,” Mal grumbles. She’s watched a lot of shitty, awful things happen on the Isle of the Lost, but her mother’s romance with the Evil Queen has been one of the most disgusting.  “They’re like watching a pair of goblins try to catch a fish.” 

“Disgusting and wrinkly,” Evie agrees. “And something that feels illegal. In the boring, gross way. Not the fun way.” 

“I’ll show you the fun way.” Mal shoots back. Her mouth just runs on autopilot sometimes, without any actual input from her brain. It’s sort of a problem. “In bed. You wanna get up to some indecent exposure together, princess?” 

Evie’s mouth is so red and sweet, and Mal is well aware that it’s lip gloss, but she still wants to lick the shine off of Evie’s perfect smile when she turns it on like this.  

“I think that should wait til later, M. We have a guest right now,” Evie says sweetly. “Ben?” 

Right. They have his royal highness over. 

“I’m–yeah,” Ben squeaks. He’s so cute when he’s flustered. “I mean, sorry. I didn’t know that Fairy Godmother wasn’t letting you four leave on the weekends. I mean, I knew that you weren’t going anywhere, but you’re always so busy, Evie, and I just figured that you were staying on campus to get everything done, because that’s what I have to do, and– uh, I can talk to her. About it. If that would help.” 

So sweet. 

“That would be great, babe,” Evie coos. “You’re the best.” 

Ben ducks his head into his smile. It doesn’t make sense for the crown prince to be shy, but Mal’s maybe, possibly been keeping track of when they can coax a real smile out of him, and nine times out of ten, when they get his real smile instead of his public one, he ducks his head to hide it. 

It’s cute, in a sad sort of way. It’s one thing for Mal to watch Evie, and Jay, and Carlos hide their real smiles, because they’ve grown up hiding their emotions from everyone but each other, but Ben’s supposed to be the well-adjusted one. He’s supposed to be Auradon’s perfect prince. The boy wonder who always has a kind word for everyone. Their future leader, equipped with a strong arm and a kind heart and a level head. It’s sort of distressing to think that he’s been taught to hide his emotions just the same as they have, so Mal buries the feelings for now, and keeps watching and waiting instead. 

“The best,” Mal echoes. “Best boyfriend ever.” 

Ben’s eyes flicker up to meet hers. Gods below, but she has got to stop falling for this boy every time he smiles at her. It’s not fair to the others. She’s got a limited number of butterflies that her stomach can produce, and they all seem connected to the way Ben’s smile makes his eyes crinkle up at the edges. It’s even worse when he’s all sunlight and golden like this. She’s going to have to have Evie make blackout curtains for their room, because it’s just not fair to keep bathing Ben in golden afternoon light. He’ll get some sort of complex. 

“Thanks,” Ben says, voice round and soft around the word. It fits naturally into his mouth just like it doesn’t in Mal’s own. “I’ll do what I can. There’s nothing I can do about official school policy, but I’m pretty sure there’s a loophole about students whose parents don’t have custody that we can exploit to get you four off campus. I’d wondered a bit why you never took us up on visiting the ice-cream place.” 

“Maybe we hate ice cream.”  

“I’d believe that.” Ben says seriously. “I would. That was a good delivery. But I know you, Mal, and I know that you’d never turn down an offer of mint chip.” 

Ugh. Unbearable. The butterflies aren’t going away. 

“ANYWAY,” Mal says, spinning away from her boyfriend and his stupid golden eyelashes. “As I was saying, I’d never steal from Dragon Hall, because I am a beacon of moral purity now, and stealing is wrong.” 

“And because you didn’t go to class,” Ben agrees, with just a hint of a laugh in his voice. “Or so Evie says.” 

“Evie’s a liar and a cheat.” 

“And she’s right here, Malfeasance Bertha, so if you want any help with your remedial goodness homework later, you’d better watch your mouth.” 

Her girlfriend is the worst. 

“Anyway,” Mal says again, turning so she can face both of her beautiful, perfect nerds at once. “We were taught that king beast locked up the royal kids in his former castle so he could keep control of them. And for moral lessons, or whatever it is you good folks tell your kids to keep them compliant. And then we got here, and we’ve been stuck on the castle grounds since then, soooo.” 

“So your logical conclusion was that your teachers were right, and my dad locks us up here,” Ben says, nodding. “Okay. I see it now. Do you want to know the real truth, or would you rather bring it up to Fairy Godmother when we ask her to let you off campus?” 

“I want the truth.” Evie breaks in. “Please. I spent enough time locked in a castle back on the isle, so if there’s another way of living, I want to know about it.”