#andersonelliott

Since it’s no secret to anyone at the Academy that Elliott loves art, Jace decided to incorporate it into their exam, something he could tell Elliott was thankful for. He’d never been the type of Dom to be a hardass, and likewise, Elliott had never been the type of sub to drop to his knees at a moment’s notice, so exam times weren’t always the easiest for them, but Jace knew that, together, they could come up with something that would hopefully meet the Headmaster’s approval.

The concept was easy enough: draw a picture, but then he built on that- he wanted Elliott to draw a picture blindfolded, using a color-by-numbers photo that Elliott spent the week memorizing, learning where every single number was on the grid from 1-50. On top of that though, he decided to push Elliott’s studying further by having the boy learn some basic Braille, Braille that was then taped onto the ten crayons Elliott would be using during the exams.

Jason knew they’d be scrutinized during their exam, Elliott especially, so to try and lessen that, he spent most of the time beforehand giving Elliott a peptalk, constantly touching him and soothing him, keeping his brother on his lap and their heads tipped close so he was all Elliott could focus on and he could only hope it’d be enough. When the time came and their name was called, Jason led the way into the examination room, Elliott half a step behind him. After Jace greeted the Headmaster he instructed Elliott to do the same, having his brother keep his hands folded behind his back. Once they greeted him, Jason got into his spiel about their exam, explaining to the Headmaster how Elliott had been studying nonstop all week, not only memorizing every single point on the colorless picture sitting on an easel in the middle of the room, but how he’d also learned a new language in learning how to read the Braille. Jason pointed out an already finished drawing, the same one, except this one was colored the day before and was an example of how it should look at the end of the exam.

As he explained all this he blindfolded Elliott, whispering a few more words of praise and encouragement to him and pressing a kiss to his cheek before covering his eyes, making sure his face was the last thing Elliott saw before things went dark. He kept his hands on him, leading him to the stool in front of the easel to sit on, and once Elliott was settled, Jason went to the crayons and purposefully mixed them up again, just to prove that Elliott really would know them, and then things began.

He started out simple, calling out things like “Use blue for number thirty-seven.”, but as he progressed, he made things more difficult. He started giving Elliott time limits to find the right colors and the right spots, usually fifteen-to-twenty seconds or less, would call out mid-coloring for him to swap crayons, or to use two at once, he’d call out three-to-four random numbers which Elliott had to find and color in order, sometimes he’d even call out a number without a color, telling Elliott to remember which color was used on that spot in the example drawing. 

Jason would occasionally go over every other minute or so and mix the crayons up, other times he’d turn music on on his phone, theme songs to cartoons he knew Elliott liked just as a means to distract him and force him to focus more on what he was doing.

All in all it took about a good twenty minutes, and finally when he was done, Jason turned off the music and told Elliott he was behind him before putting his hand gently on his shoulder and then carefully removing the blindfold, giving Elliott to adjust to the light in the room before he turned the easel around to show the Headmaster the finished product alongside the sample.