Chapter Text
Ever since he was a little kid, Abed has always had a deep fascination for colors.
He used to watch the Sleeping Beauty over and over again, entranced by the scene where the fairies argued about the color of the princess' dress. He looked at the beams of magic, the light they cast around them, the smooth transition from a shade of gray to the other, and wondered what it would be like to actually know what blue or pink means.
He remembers the late nights in his childhood home, tucked in under the covers with his mom sitting on the edge of his bed to read him a bedtime story. He rarely paid attention, but he liked the soothing sound of her voice as he felt his eyelids get heavier.
Then, before falling asleep, he would ask her to describe a different color every night. He quickly learnt that this was one of those things that didn't make him a bad kid, but that made his mother scoff and roll her eyes at him nonetheless. She never scolded him for asking, but it was clear that it wasn't something she was exactly pleased about. Like when he would rather play alone in the sandbox instead of joining all the other kids on the swings. Or when he would bring his hands to his ears in front of other people if they were being too loud.
Her eyebrows would furrow more and more with each new question, especially with the ones that started with "why". So Abed found a new way to further his research. Instead of asking questions with the words that made his mother sigh like "how" or "why", he would ask about something specific. What color is this pillow? What color are my favourite shoes? Is this the same color?
That worked well enough, he was beginning to learn. The sky on a sunny day is blue. The sun is yellow. Their car is red. But it turns out, this game gets boring very fast if you don't really understand what it means. So instead of asking for explanations, which made his mom irritated, he started asking another question:
"When will I see colors too, mama?"
Her reply was always the same, more or less: "One day you'll meet someone very special who will give you this gift." An answer that left him with even more doubts and questions - though now that he's grown Abed understands that there is really no easy way to explain the process of finding a soulmate to a child.
The uncertainty, the inherent chaotic nature of the thousands of apparently inconsequential choices that can ultimately lead to meeting your soulmate (or never meeting them) is still a concept that Abed's mind often circles back to. Sometimes when he can't sleep he imagines all the different versions of himself that would exist if only he could rewind a scene and make a different decision. He runs the simulations in his head of what would have happened if he took karate instead of judo classes as a kid, if he went to a different frozen yogurt place the day he decided to enrol in Greendale. And he lets all these different versions of him unfold - he tries to find who's the first that experiences colors. At that point the simulations stop. He doesn't have any data on what would happen next.
As a kid however, he was never satisfied with the vague answers he would get from the grown ups. And the conversation with his mother continued:
"I know how it works. But when will that be?"
"No one can say that. You'll just know."
"What if I don't know? What if I meet this person and I don't know I'm seeing colors?"
His mom chuckled lightly, "That's not possible, silly" she said. He wasn't sure if he believed her though. Even as young as he was he had started grasping the existence of rules that everyone seemed to know but him. It was like playing a game of secret spies where everyone forgot to teach him the secret code used to communicate. He would say the wrong thing, his teachers would yell at him, then his dad would tell him he's embarrassing the entire family, and repeat. And he would never understand what his mistake was in the first place. That's why he was scared that he wouldn't get the incredible color vision. Even if he had it he was scared it would somehow slip past him, and he would never understand why it's so important that Aurora's dress is pink or blue.
Growing up, he discovered his passion for movies and television. He was lonely through most of his childhood and adolescence but this provided him company and comfort, as well as examples characters archetypes and social behaviours that he could watch and learn from. He figured he fit the "nerd" stereotype best, and tried to lean into it as best as he could in his teenage years; he thought that if only he found the right role to fit in he could stay clear of trouble. Sometimes it helped, sometimes it didn't. There was another aspect about filmmaking that captivated his curiosity, though.
Movie directors had always played with colors.
All the earliest cinematic productions were in black and white, because the technology to capture and reproduce colors hadn't been developed yet. Progress caught up quickly though, and ever since then making black and white had become a statement.
Most movie directors who had grayscale vision preferred to have their movies match their own sight. It was the safest option, for them and for the public: they got complete creative control over the final result, and the movie could appeal to a large demographic of people who didn't want to feel like they were missing out on anything. In all honesty, the viewing experience wouldn't have been much different, but - and this was especially true the more they aged - a lot of people could be very self conscious about not having gained colour vision yet, and they didn't like a reminder.
There were a few directors who, despite having grayscale vision, liked to make color movies. Not the kind where they got a team to help make cohesive, visually appealing scenes; they shot them exactly how they pictured them to look, in their eyes, and refused to do any color editing. The end product was often an uncanny and unsettling watch for the color vision audience. This resulted in very polarised opinions from the critics, whose reviews ranged from "a visionary, thought-provoking critique of our romance-driven society" to "unwatchable garbage".
One of the most interesting ramifications of the incorporation of color perception in filmmaking was the soulmate romance subgenre. There were decades of history behind the production of movies that alternated black-and-white and color scenes, meant to be watched after meeting your soulmate to get the whole experience. Meant to be watched with your soulmate. For rather obvious reasons, most of these movies centred around romance, though more experimental twists on the genre weren't unheard of. It was a very successful, but very saturated branch of modern cinema, where it was easy for a great film to be overshadowed by the release of hundreds of forgettable ones.
Abed would describe a lot of those movie as "cash-grabs trying to capitalise on our obsession with the often unrealistic one-true-love fantasy". Because the truth is, statistically it's not uncommon at all for people to never find their soulmate. One might think otherwise, seeing how pervasive the concept of soulmates is, from movie tropes and pop culture to the way entire lives get planned. Recent surveys though, show that only about 46% of the US population has color vision.
And it's worth noting that while finding your soulmate isn't impossibly hard, those data are inflated. Color vision works in mysterious ways. A good majority of people start seeing colors after kissing their soulmates for the first time, but that's not the case for all of them. Some people stated that they started seeing colors after the first time they touched, or even after the first time they locked eyes from a distance. But there's some people who get color vision from birth, without ever needing to meet anyone for it.
This phenomenon is actually less rare than it sounds. It's not a story that's as easy to sell as the soulmates fantasy, and a lot of kids who claim they can see colors tend to be dismissed as lying or simply not being able to understand what they're saying. Abed actually thinks that a story about that would make a way more interesting narrative than most of the soulmate rom-coms they play in every theatre on Valentine's Day.
That's why when he found out that his good friend Jeff Winger is one of the people who was born with color vision, he was so intrigued he almost couldn't stop asking him about it.
When Jeff briefly moved in his dorm room, he started noticing some curious things about him. Like the way he would never hesitate when picking the right kind of Skittles from the bag (he didn't like half of the flavours), not even when he was focusing the TV, he could just distractedly tell which ones he would like. Or the way he spent 10 minutes debating between nearly identical t-shirts one morning.
And so one night, as they were sitting on the dorm couch watching cartoons and eating Lucky Charms, it clicked.
"You can see colors" Abed said.
It was a statement, not a question. Jeff's eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up in a way that resembled the cartoon in the background. Abed thought it would make for a good shot for a sitcom, and before he could choose where he would place the camera to best capture the comedy of that moment, Jeff spoke:
"Excuse me? What makes you think that?"
"A series of observations courtesy of living together, combined with the way you always mock the idea of soulmates led me to the conclusion that you must see colors, but that the revelation of your soulmate must have left you and/or them disappointed."
"Abed, your concern for this is as sweet as it is completely unnecessary and laughable, I can assure you that this face has never left any woman disappointed" he replied, lips stretched in a big, almost unnatural smile. He was lying.
"You're ignoring my question,"
"You didn't ask any questions."
"You didn't say whether i was right about your color vision."
"As you already know, I don't believe in of care for any of this sappy soulmate crap, I have nothing to prove to you nor to anyone else."
"You're still deflecting."
"Because there's nothing to say about it" said Jeff, stuffing his mouth with a spoonful of Lucky Charms.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, Jeff slowly munching on his cereal and looking at the small TV with a blank expression, Abed staring intensely at him, taking in the way his features seemed to be rougher and his jaw a bit clenched.
"You're mad" Abed broke the silence.
Jeff took in a deep breath and spoke slowly: "No, I am not mad, but I am about to be very annoyed if you don't drop this" and flashed him a smile even Abed could tell was forced. Maybe Abed had overstepped, he tended to that sometimes. Jeff clearly didn't like talking about it. But he still wanted his friend to know that there was no judgement from him, it was never his intention to embarrass him, or anything like that.
He started saying: "I won't tell anyone if that's what you're worried about. But you shouldn't feel ashamed about it. The percentage of people who don't work out with their fated partner is actually higher than you would-"
"There's no fated partner Abed! No soulmate, no one! God, will you please drop this?" Jeff cut him off.
"But-"
"I was born like this okay? I've always seen it. There's no one made for me, and for the record if there was, they would never be able to move on."
Abed was too stunned to speak and for a moment the only sounds that filled the dorm room were the various crash! bang! boom! coming from the TV. He definitely hadn't seen this plot twist coming. He didn't have any frame of reference on how to continue this conversation. Based on his previous experience, if someone didn't like to talk about color vision, it was either because they didn't have it and were sad or embarrassed, or because the relationship that granted it to them didn't end up working out. This was new.
He tried to sort out the facts he knew in his head and find a logical explanation for Jeff's behaviour, but he couldn't reach a conclusion. Jeff could see color since he was born. Jeff never had his heart broken by a soulmate. Jeff didn't like to talk about it. He really, really couldn't understand Jeff. Minutes passed in silence between them, until Abed remembered he was supposed to say something and react in any way to that new information. So he asked:
"Why do you keep it a secret?"
"Because maybe I don't like to have a reminder of how un-lovable I am." Jeff said.
It was like that sentence alone opened a portal to an hidden world that Abed could never see before. Jeff's general fear of commitment wasn't something he was unfamiliar with - he had picked up on it quite early on in their friendship, and his analysis of Jeff's character always seemed pretty accurate - but maybe this issue ran deeper than he thought.
"Is that how you interpret it?" Abed asked, tilting his head with an inquisitive gaze.
Jeff scoffed, "how else would you interpret 'everyone has someone who's meant to come and change their lives forever except for you, you're meant to die alone'?"
There was definitely a lot to unpack about Jeff's insecurities, and Abed wasn't sure that he had the emotional intelligence to deal with that. If Abed was being honest, getting color vision without having to rely on anyone else sounded like the perfect scenario to him. Still, he tried his best to comfort Jeff.
"You do realise that soulmates don't actually dictate your life, right? And just like you don't have to spend your life with someone because they're your soulmate, you also don't have to spend your life alone because you don't have one. It's up to you."
Jeff turned to look at Abed for the first time since the conversation started, before replying: "Well, maybe it's easier said than done, when you're not in it."
"But you get to see colors, without needing anyone. That's cool."
"Yeah, that really helps, I will never know real love but thank God i can tell green from orange" said Jeff, in the inflection Abed learnt to recognise as sarcasm.
Abed's next words came out before he could give it a second thought. He still doesn't really know why he decided to share that on that night. Maybe he did it because he felt an imbalance in the conversation, with Jeff in a much more vulnerable position than him, and he felt like he needed to even the ground between them with a confession of his own. Maybe it was something he had been waiting to get off his chest for a long time.
"My parents were soulmates, you know. And they ended up getting separated anyway. My father was heartbroken. If he could, I'm sure he would choose to never know she was supposed to be 'the one' in the first place."
"I... I'm sorry, I didn't know that." Jeff's tone immediately became quieter, his mouth dropped open- he probably didn't expect that confession either.
"Soulmates are based on compatibility, not on love. And even if the love you feel is not pre-determined, it doesn't make it any less real. You get a choice, Jeff. You get to choose what to risk and who to risk it with. And you get to read comic books just as they were made in the meantime."
Jeff didn't look mad anymore, which was good.
"Wow that... was a surprisingly good speech. Thanks, Abed. For this and for letting me stay at your place, too."
Abed aimed finger guns at him, "Anytime. I won't bother you anymore if you don't like talking about it. Can I ask you one more question though?"
"Uhm.. yeah, sure."
"What's your favorite color?"
"Blue."
"Cool. Cool cool cool."
He had never told anyone before that his parents were soulmates. Abed used to dream about meeting his soulmate a lot, when he was young. As he grew up, he started noticing how hard it was for him to form connections with other people, how no one would stick around him for too long, but he always held onto the hope that one day he would meet someone who he would know for sure would stay by his side. Then his mother left.
She could see colors, she could be certain that his father was the objectively best choice for her, and she still left. Abed could barely talk for the following weeks. His dad looked like he was physically hurting each time he did as much as looking at him. Neither of them knew how to deal with this, how to fill the void she left.
Gradually, things got better between them. As much as his father couldn't understand him, he tried, and maybe this was more than he could ask for. He'll never forget what he said to him one night, when he was 13, after he arrived home with a black eye he got from another kid and his dad had just finished yelling at him: "I'm sorry, I know it looks like I'm mad at you all the time. I'm not. I just don't get you. And I'm mad at myself for not getting you better. You shouldn't have to deal with this but I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do with you." His dad never apologized usually.
The unspoken truth always hanging between them was, Abed's mother left because of him. She could see colors and it still wasn't enough to put up with a son like him. And that's when he stopped relying on hopes about his soulmate. There was no real way of making sure someone wouldn't leave him.
So, he had to rely on himself. He cultivated his passion for cinema, he was confident in who he was and what he liked, even if it meant getting stuffed into lockers sometimes. He wasn't opposed to being in relationships, but he found out he was more comfortable doing casual hook-ups, without any other expectations on either side. He worked best as a side character in other people's life, and he was content with that. Even now, after this perspective on himself was challenged by the unlikely group of lovable misfits he ended up forming a genuine friendship with, when it came to relationships he didn't really feel the need to seek out anything more than what he already got, which was occasional sex with his classmates.
All things considered, he thought it was unlikely he'd ever meet his soulmate, but he didn't mind at this point. People seeing colors for the first time during a casual hook-up was an overused comedy trope anyway. There's plenty of famous directors who never saw colors, and they aren't any less acclaimed than those who can. And if he ever wanted to, there's plenty of successful relationships between people with grayscale vision, too.
He was still deeply fascinated with colors, though. When he found out there was a Color Theory in Cinema course at Greendale, he immediately enrolled, even if he couldn't really follow what the professor was saying; he found it mesmerizing, like the first episode of a sci-fi show where you're introduced to a brand new world to discover. And he would from time to time indulge in exploring the timeline where he has a soulmate and sees colours, but in the same way he would indulge in exploring the timeline where he's secretly Batman. It was just a fantasy.
When Abed wakes up on the Greendale Community College library floor at the Halloween party of 2010 and is suddenly able to see colors, saying he is surprised would be a great understatement.
As soon as he opens his eyes he is met with an explosion of visual stimuli. Everything seems too bright and too vibrant, and he feels the need to wear sunglasses despite the scarce illumination of the room. He looks at his hands, meaning to count his fingers - a technique he used to check if he was in some weird dream and to keep himself grounded when he was beginning to spiral - but he could only get to two because he was too stunned at how his own skin looked.
It's the same body he's been looking at all his life, yet it feels completely different. It's not like he was a stranger in his own body, or anything that groundbreaking, but the way he would have looked in colors was something he'd never contemplated before, something he didn't even realize he would eventually be confronted with if he ever got colour vision. He doesn't have a name for any of this, neither for this unfamiliar feeling or the shade of brown of his skin in the dark.
He is growing restless, his eyes darting from one side of the room to the other, without really registering anything of what they see. The only messages that can reach his brain are the various overwhelming color stains that surround him.
He closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. Takes as many deep breaths as he needs until his pulse is steadier and his brain doesn't feel like it's going to melt out of his ears. He was going to open his eyes, and only focus on things he could recognise. He can do it. Slowly, he lets his eyelids open, and the second time is much less harrowing than the first. It is fine, even. Now that the initial shock fizzled out, he could really try to take in the picture ahead of him.
The party has already ended, he isn't sure how long ago. The library is silent, only a background noise of people mumbling. He looks at the floor a few feet away from him, and sees a crumpled paper cup on the ground. Those are red, he assumes. In the dark it almost blends in with the shelves nearby, but if there was one thing that movies taught him, it's that party cups are red. He stares at it for awhile, then looks away with the intention of finding something similar to compare.
He doesn't get very far in his mission, since as soon as he turns his head to his right he notices that Troy is laying on the ground next to him, seemingly asleep. Abed was about to start wondering what the hell was happening and why they would be asleep at a Halloween party, but every brain cell whose job wasn't looking at Troy shuts down in an instant. Even if his outfit is pretty neutral and actually doesn't look all that different in colors, he looks so much warmer, in a way that makes perfect sense, because everything about Troy feels like warmth. He is the first person Abed is really looking at with his full color vision, too.
That's when Abed realizes something, something that should have probably been his first epiphany: he has a soulmate. He met his soulmate at a Greendale Halloween party. As he tries to remember what - and who - led him in that situation, he has the second quite important realization of the night: he can't. He recalls having a fight with Troy after he decided to ditch their matching costumes, he recalls seeing Jeff and Britta not-so-subtly sneaking in a bathroom, but everything after that is a mild headache and TV static.
(His stomach twists in a knot for a second when he goes through his last conversation with Troy again. But it looks like now Troy wasn't wearing that dumb sexy vampire costume anymore, so they are probably good now. Right?)
He watches a girl on the other side of the room looking around, confused and... scared? Maybe? That was Abed's best guess. For a moment he thinks that maybe she is going through the same thing as him, that she also woke up able to see colors but didn't know why, that she was his soulmate- then he sees another guy walk up next to her, and overhears bits of their conversation:
"There you are! I've been looking for you, what the fuck happened?"
"I'm not sure, I can't remember anything."
"Neither can I."
"That's so weird."
There was indeed something really strange going on at that party. Abed notices that everyone is wearing that same confused-mixed-scared expression on their face. His best assumption is that whatever happened caused them all to lose their memories of the night. Or, in a Greendale Community College perspective, just another Sunday. Focusing on the background noise of overlapping voices, he can hear more and more people wondering about the events of the night. He cannot hear anyone mentioning colors, though.
These are the facts: he has a soulmate. He met them at a really odd Halloween party. He can't remember anything about them, and chances are they can't remember him either. They are probably looking for him, or if they aren't already they would start soon. One way or another, he would meet them soon.
He thinks of his mom. He thinks of his parents locking themselves in their room, yelling and cursing at each other, and a younger Abed on the other side of the door, hearing everything they were screaming. He thinks of the day his mom left, the silence that haunted their house, the dinner table set for two every following night. The guilt that planted its roots deep in him and that he could never quite shake away. The paralyzing fear of being abandoned he's lived with ever since, feeling like he has to walk on eggshells with everyone because everyone is one wrong word away from leaving, for all he knows. He has friends now, he has something new to lose and he is still getting used to that. Adding a soulmate to the equation might be catastrophic.
Abed thinks of having someone by his side who would understand him, someone whom he could understand in return. Of getting to know them and slowly but surely falling in love. Of associating colors with them forever. And eventually, them leaving, and him finding himself in the same spot where he was at 6 years old, alone in a dark hall that barely felt like home anymore. And that's when he knows that he has made up his mind: he isn't going to look for them.
He wouldn't outright lie about it, that would probably be cruel to his soulmate, who might be feeling just as lost and clueless as him. But he wouldn't be the one to search for them. He could enjoy the current balance of his life for a little longer, all while he gets to rewatch every single movie ever made with a new perspective. This might be selfish, but he hopes that they would understand if they knew - they are his soulmate after all. Besides, if they wanted to, looking for him couldn't be that hard. He is sure that meeting your soulmate at the Greendale Community College Halloween party of 2010 was a pretty unique experience they shared.
He would have to lie to this friends, though. They love to play matchmaker with him, and if they found out about this they would never let it go. They wouldn't understand. For the first time in his life, he feels genuinely happy and satisfied with what he has. Not only he has a group of close friends, he also has an awesome best friend. They build cool matching costumes together, they have Star Wars and Inspector Spacetime marathons, they have a fake morning show, they even have their own Troy-and-Abed handshake.
He can picture the way Troy lights up, his full bright smile directed at the camera whenever Abed is behind it (the amount of times he replayed those moments when he was reviewing his footage was all but dignifying), and he thinks: this is enough. More than enough.
If he is being honest with himself, he knows that a soulmate for him wouldn't really interfere much with the fabric of his study group. It would, however, change inevitably the dynamic between him and Troy; he figures that it wouldn't be fair to his soulmate if he wanted to spend every waking minute with his best friend, even if it would have been objectively much cooler and more awesome.
He's never felt this comfortable around another person before, but Troy makes it look so easy. Being around Troy is easy, unlike anything before in Abed's life, yet never dull. Troy is charismatic and emotional, whimsical and sweet, and Abed is lucky enough to be able to call him his best friend. He simply isn't ready to lose that.
I don't want to find out who my soulmate is if it isn't you is a terrifying thought to have, so Abed doesn't let it surface to the conscious part of his brain completely, and shoves it back where it came from before he can allow himself to dive head-first in it, because he knows that at that point, there would be no coming back. And if that line has already been crossed, he wouldn't know as long as he refused to look down.
When he turns to look at Troy again, he finds him awake, his eyes wide open staring at him intensely.
"Good morning, Troy. Don't worry, I don't remember anything either, and neither does everyone else apparently" Abed speaks, hoping that it would ease the worried look on his face. Troy still has a shocked expression painted on his face, fair enough, Abed's explanation probably left him with more questions than answers.
Troy finally moves, sitting straight on the floor. As he tries to recollect himself, slowly blinking and cracking his neck, Abes sees a stain of- really dark red probably? on the side of Troy's neck. Even without color vision he could tell what it is. Blood.
"You're hurt. Hold on," Abed comes closer, placing a hand on Troy's jaw to gently keep his head facing away so he could take a better look. Luckily Troy wasn't bleeding anymore, but he still had a huge wound. He never expected wounds to look so lively. He already knew blood was red, of course, but he wouldn't have guessed that after the scab formed, you could still see a halo of red in the pitch black patch. He traced circles around it, careful not to touch it, suddenly feeling very protective at the thought of someone - or something? - doing this to Troy.
Before he could take say anything else, a first-aider comes up to them, and forcefully tears them apart as she tries to help them stand up. She guides them to sit on a stretcher nearby. Troy still hasn't said a word, but he can feel his gaze is still on him.
"Are you feeling alright? Let me take a look at you," she says, a cold slick gauze already dabbing all over Abed's face.
Abed must have got hurt too. He didn't even notice. He wonders what shade of red his own blood is.