Shades

Summary: Eustace can turn seven different shades of red, and Jill knows every one of them. One-shot.

Author's Note: Inspired by the fandom thing of Eustace turning various shades of red. Hints of JillxEustace.

Disclaimer: I don't own Jill, Eustace, or Narnia, as it all belongs to C.S. Lewis

Eustace Scrubb was one of the only people Jill Pole had ever seen turn so many shades of red. After being around him so often, she knew how to interpret every one of these reds better than her school lessons. As he could interpret the way she leaned her head, she could read the shades on his face. After so many years and hardships together, not to mention Narnia, they knew each other better than they both liked to admit. For Jill, this meant knowing what to do in every situation just by reading Eustace's face.

When Eustace turned magenta, it was a sign he was slightly embarrassed. This was the tone he turned when he was called on to answer a question he didn't know in class or fumbled over a stone in the walkway. It was embarrassment, but a fleeting one, and the color faded as quickly as it had come.

The cherry red for was true, deep, embarrassment. This shade surfaced when a fellow student teased Eustace about how much he had changed over the holidays, or when they attended to him and left him hurt. The color stayed longer and did not seem to want to let go of the skin as easily. It was a red that spread throughout his face to the very tip of his ears, and only Jill knew the cure for it was a cup of tea and a peppermint.

When Eustace's cheeks flushed scarlet, he was steaming with anger but trying to keep it in check. This was the color that happened quite often around his parents, or when classmates would say something nasty about Jill to him, as he could not help but to become protective and defensive. Jill's response for this was just a simple touch, either to the wrist or the back of the neck. Just the simple act of a touch brought Eustace back to reality and away from what was going on in his head.

When the hue that ran under his pores was a light rose, the color that radiated from his skin was pure joy from smiling or laughing. As Eustace did not have a large grasp on emotion, this color was rare, but it was Jill's favorite to see. It meant that he was perfectly happy, and the best thing she could do was to continue it anyway she could.

One shade of a darker rose was the color that covered Eustace when the subject of Narnia came up in conversation. It was part joy for Narnia and the fact he had ever had the chance to be there, for Narnia now ran in his veins. It was also part embarrassment for the dragon he had been before his first entrance into the magical land and the Dawn Treader. The two contrasting emotions and colors gave way to the color of a dark rose that was slowly fading. However, unlike the others, this color covered all of Eustace, as if it lurked just under his skin waiting to be drawn out. Jill's reaction for this shade was to smile and nod while recounting memories, just as long as she kept Eustace's mind from wandering to his memories before he had been turned into a dragon.

Any time he cried, which Jill found very difficult to catch, Eustace's face would be a soft, deep, almost purple-red. His eyes dulled and if possible, his face faded into almost the color of a shadow of a bruise. Whatever caused Eustace to cry is reflected on the outside, just as if he had been literally punched on the face. Whenever Jill could catch this, she would bring him a cup of icy water, but by the time she was back he would act all right for her sake.

The crimson that would sometimes set in over Eustace's face was his last and rarest form of embarrassment. In his head, this color was reserved for Pole and Pole only, as it is the shade he turned when he said or did something uncharacteristically sweet to her, such as when he apologized for snapping at her, or when he told her she was just as pretty as her roommates.

This color was reserved for Jill, and yet she never knew what to do. However, whenever she dwells on it, she cannot help but to smile and think that one day she will learn.