#Gil's starting a lifelong obsession with supporting his friends

[thebluestbluewords]

OT3 Week Day One: Meet-Cute

a sea ot3 meet-cute of sorts :) I'm going to be trying my best for the @ot3-week prompts! Mostly Gil and Uma, pre-ship, more of a meet-ugly than a meet-cute. Because they're terrible adorable children and I think Gil is an underrated sweetheart even when everyone else is being terrible all around him.

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“I HATE YOU!” 

“I HATE YOU MORE!” Uma shouts back, balling her hands into fists so she’ll be ready when he stupid slimy ex-best friend starts swinging at her. “YOUR MOM IS STUPID AND YOU’RE EVEN STUPIDER BECAUSE YOU’RE JUST MINI-HER.” 

Mal, daughter of Maleficent, the undisputed queen of the Isle of the Lost elementary school playground, narrows her eyes. “Take it back.” 

Uma, daughter of Ursula, the queen of nothing except for possibly her mother's bad graces, sticks her tongue out. “No. You’re mean and boring and so’s your mom.” 

“Take it back, Uma! Or you’re not invited to my birthday party!” 

“You’re not having a party,” Uma sneers. “Nobody has parties anymore, not after what your mom did to the last girl who left you out. You’re the one who ruined parties for everyone, because you’re the worst, and you’re not even interesting about it. You’re just a baby who hides in your mom’s shadow all the time, and you–” 

“TAKE IT BACK!” Mal screeches. Uma’s plenty accustomed to screaming. It’s her mom’s main way of communicating with the staff at the chip shop, and Uma is seven years old now, which is more than old enough to be considered part of the staff, by both her mother’s expert opinion, and her own assessment of her precocious skills. She can catch fish with her mom, and slice the bones out of a flounder faster than any other kid she’s pulled off the docks, and she hardly ever drops ice cubes into the fryer anymore, even when she’s carrying a whole tray of drinks from the icebox and has to lift it over her head to dodge the knives Petey the main cook throws at her sometimes. 

What she’s less accustomed to is her former best friend launching herself at her teeth-first. 

“FUCK!” Uma screeches back. “Biting’s cheating! You’re not just a boring baby, you’re a boring, stupid, mean cheater!” 

“Take it back!” 

“No! You’re a boring baby and so’s your mom!” 

“You’re boring! You’re so boring that you don’t even know how to use the swings!” 

Uma shakes Mal’s teeth out of her arm, and shoves her back with both hands. “I know more than you.” 

Mal bares her teeth again. One of her front ones is loose, and there’s a scrape mark in the neat imprint on Uma’s arm that matches up with it. “Do not.” 

“Do so. You’re not invited to parties because everyone hates you. Because you can’t do anything without your mom there to make people do it for you.” 

Mal narrows her eyes. “I bet you I can make everyone kick you off the swingset. And the climbing bars. And the tower.” 

“You can’t.” 

There’s a dangerous green light in her ex-friend’s eyes. “Can so. You can have the sandbox. It’s for babies. Not even a baby like you can have fun in there.” 

The sandbox is widely regarded as the worst part of the school sulking ground. It smells like cat pee and cigarette butts, and not even the cats that pee in the alleys around the school will go in it anymore. 

It’s also boring. Nobody ever falls off and breaks their face on the sandbox, and you can’t do flips off it or anything. There’s no gold coins buried in the sand like there sometimes are on the real beach, and there’s not even any sharp shells left after the first group of elementary school kids, the ones a year or two or even three older than them came through and pulled them all out for makeshift knives. 

Sometimes being the second group of kids born on the isle sucks even more than usual. 

“Make me.” Uma snaps. 

Mal’s eyes flash green. “I will.” she spins around to the crowd of dirty boys who’ve been climbing up the rickety wooden tower that’s the best place to play. “HEY GUYS. I HAVE A NEW GAME. IT’S CALLED KEEP SHRIMPY FISH LOSERS OFF THE TOWER.” 

The boys stare. 

Mal sighs. “I mean, GET HER OUT OF HERE.” 

The future brainless henchmen of the isle already understand how to follow orders. “GET HER” is pretty clear even to a brain-damaged kid, so Uma makes her second smart decision of the day (the first being ditching Mal, because ugh) and turns to sprint to the sandbox before the boys realize that the base of their precious tower (with all the cool climbing spots and platforms and places to hide and pretend to stab each other) is built on a pile of small, easily throw-able rocks. 

“This isn’t over, princess!” Uma shouts. Even though it is. She’s smaller than the henchmen boys, even though she’s strong enough to work in her mom’s shop already, and she can throw rocks back, but she’s better than fighting against henchmen. She’s going to be a captain of her own crew someday, and she’s got to out-plot her slimy, cheating ex-best friend. 

“IT TOTALLY IS.” Mal shouts. 

“It’s totally not,” Uma grumbles under her breath. “I’m gonna be so much cooler than that ass-kissing baby. She just follows her mom and calls it cool, and everyone’s too scared to tell her anything else. I’m not gonna be like that.” 

She kicks a lumpy patch of sand. “Stupid. Stupid slimy Mal.” 

The sand– 

Uma kicks the sand again. Sand isn’t supposed to move like that, and even though she’s pretty sure that nobody at school is powerful enough to do magic under the barrier, because even her mom can’t use magic with the spell, and nobody at the elementary school is more powerful than a real sea witch, even one without most of her powers, there’s a lot of bad stuff and dangerous stuff and stuff that wants to hurt kids on their island, and she’s not too sure that the sandbox is actually clear, because it’s the worst and nobody’s played there for weeks. Partly because they haven’t had school in a week, because they only have Dr. Facilier and Mother Gothel as teachers, and they both left to do some other stuff that was “more important than teaching brats like you lot” last week, but also because the sandbox is the worst and nobody wants to play in it. Because it sucks. 

“Hey!” The lumpy sand says. 

Ume jumps back. “Are you a creep? Are you going to start licking my toes? My mom says creeps do that to little girls who don’t stay away.” 

“I’m hiding.” 

Her mom’s stories about creepy men don’t include many details about them hiding in sandboxes. “Have you considered not hiding?” Uma asks. “I could use a minion right now.” 

“Oh. No. No thanks.” 

Thanks? 

“Who the fuck says thanks?” Uma asks. “Are you sure you’re not a creep?” 

“I’m sure.” 

“That sounds like something a creep would say. One who’s lying.” 

Finally, the sand shifts again. “I’m not!” it says indignantly. “I’m just hiding a little bit.” 

Uma plops down next to the sand, which now that she’s actually looking at it, is all disturbed in a big pile right around where the kid is hiding. She hadn’t noticed before, due to being so mad that she wanted to spit on everything and maybe burn down the stupid play tower. Which isn’t even real. She’s not even kicked off a real tower, which would be something cool and evil and not lame at all. 

“Why’re you hiding anyway? All the kids are busy kicking me off the fun stuff anyway.” 

The pile shakes a bit more, and a blue eye emerges from the sand sort of near where Uma’s feet are. “Are you sure?” 

She snorts. “Sure’s snakes.” 

“Shakes?” 

“Snakes. Like, hiss hiss?” 

“Oh.” The pile shakes a little bit more, and a freckled nose peeks out. “I know what snakes are. I’m only a little bit stupid. My brother Third, he brought home a dead snake one time, and he wanted to put it in a stew, only my dad wouldn’t, and Third put it on a stick instead and roasted it over the fire, and then Dad said we couldn’t eat it cause the scales weren’t safe for kids, only I was awake later, and he totally said that ‘cause he was just waiting for us to go to bed so he could eat it himself.” 

Uma wrinkles her nose. “Gross.” 

“No, it looked good! I mean, wicked. It looked– tasty, I mean. Yeah.” 

Uma snorts, but not because she’s annoyed anymore. “You’re not very evil, are you?” 

“I’m super evil!” 

“Then why’re you hiding?” she shoots back. “Evil kids don’t hide from each other. We fight, like villains.” 

“You’re hiding,” the sand-kid points out. “In the corner with me. That makes us both not very evil.” 

Uma’s chest does a little flip at that. She’s the most evil. She’s just…plotting. “I’m taking a tactical retreat. To plot my next move. I’m super evil. Even more than you, blondie.” 

The kid shakes his way loose of the sand pile. He’s really blond, more than just the little pieces of hair that were sticking out with his nose before. He’s like a bleached broom, all pale and fluffy and covered with dirt, even though it’s mostly sand.  “It’s okay to hide with me. If you want. I’m Gil.” 

Uma sticks out her hand to shake like her mother does with new staff. “Uma.” 

She squeezes, just like her mom does. It’s not quite the same, because she doesn’t have tentacles and octopus strength behind her grip, but that’s okay because she shouldn’t care what some loser who buried himself in the sandbox thinks about her. 

He squeezes back. And smiles. 

What a weirdo. 

“You’re cool!” Gil announces, dropping her hand abruptly. “You should come meet my other friend!” 

“We’re not friends,” Uma says, because this is important to her. She doesn’t have friends anymore. She has enemies and people who aren’t her enemies yet, and she’s the coolest, evilest, most independent future-ruler of the school. She doesn’t need friends, not like that stupid fairy. She’s better than that. Better than all of them. “I don’t have friends.” 

Gil blinks at her. He’s tall, and he’s got big arms, Uma realizes. He could probably throw a rock a lot further than she can. He could get one all the way up to the second or third layer of the tower, maybe. “I have friends.” 

“No, Gil. Villains don’t have friends. You can be…” 

It’s a bad idea. It’s a monumentally bad idea. Villains don’t have friends, and she shouldn’t want to use weird boys who hide in the sandbox, but she doesn’t have many other options. “You can be my sidekick,” Uma finishes. “Just for today.” 

Gil beams at her. “I like that! I’ll be your sidekick every day, Uma. Let’s go get Harry now!” 

He grabs her hand and starts tugging. 

“Gil.” 

He stops. Perfect. A useful sidekick follows orders. 

“What?” 

“I’m the leader,” Uma explains, tossing her braids over her shoulder. “That means I lead the way, and you’re the one who follows me.” 

“Oh. But– but I know where Harry is, and you don’t know him yet, so I could show you? If you want?’ 

Sidekicks. Never the brightest. “You can tell me where he is,” Uma explains. “And then I can lead us both to him. Because–” 

Gil picks up on the cue this time. “You’re the leader, and I’m your sidekick. Got it, Uma.” 

“Perfect! Now, where’s my sidekick number two?” 

Gil frowns. 

He spins in a circle. 

“Um.” 

Oh, evil.

 “Is he real?” Uma asks, with enormous patience, considering the circumstances. Playground exile is no laughing matter, and she can still ditch this kid if he’s the sort of baby who still talks to imaginary friends. It’s not like anyone still believes in ghosts, not when they can’t die on their island. 

“He’s totally real!” Gil instsis, still spinning. “He’s the coolest ever except for you and he’s got a red coat and he steals crocodile teeth from his sister Harriet and he’s got real fish in his lunch and– there he is!” 

He points to a teeny, tiny little stick of a kid with the craziest black hair Uma’s ever seen, and yes, okay, a red jacket. 

A kid who’s in the middle of being thrown off the tower. 

Perfect. 

“Okay, blondie,” Uma laughs, over the sound of Harry’s shriek as Gaston Junior pitches him off the tower platform. “We’re mounting a rescue mission.”

#pirate child go wheeeee #my fic #sea ot3 #pre-ship but they're getting there #Uma's assembling her future crew/minions #Gil's starting a lifelong obsession with supporting his friends #Harry's getting his first playground-induced concussion #and tbh I love that for him #(I don't know how to write dialogue for Harry so he's just...he's busy doing terrible kid antics rn) #he's probably going to limp over to Gil with his face busted up immediately after this #and see Uma through his concussed bloody eyes #and fall instantly and awfully in love #ot3 week