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ED SHEERAN ON ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE

COVER STORY

Ed Sheeran Confesses: Tears, Trauma, and Those Bad Habits

When he became a dad, his ‘party boy’ days ended. Then tragedy struck, forcing him to face his hidden dark side — and hit his hottest creative streak.

BY BRIAN HIATT

Photographs by Liz Collins

MAR 21, 2023 8:00 AM

N CASE THERE’S any doubt, Ed Sheeran is well aware of the fact that he’s … Ed Sheeran.

“I’m not an idiot,” he says, early in our acquaintance. “When you say in your office, ‘I’m gonna go and interview Ed Sheeran,’ you must get sneers. I’ve always been that guy.”

The state of being that guy, at the least the public version of him, is a paradoxical one. Sheeran is, on the one hand, unquestionably among the 21st century’s very biggest global pop superstars. That’s why he’s 11,000 miles from home right now, in the fenced-off, tree-lined backyard of a rented bungalow in Auckland, New Zealand, lounging in the shade his complexion demands (“I live in the shade”), under blue-gray skies. Later this week, he’ll play to some 100,000 people over two shows here. His last tour was the highest-grossing of all time, until his mentor, Elton John, surpassed it; this one, somehow slated to last five full years, may well reclaim the title. He’s one of the top five most-streamed artists ever on Spotify, a statistic that doesn’t even include his “hobby,” all the hits he’s written for other artists, from Justin Bieber to BTS. He’s the first dance at weddings, the last dance at prom, the voice you hear as you drag your suitcase off a plane.

But Sheeran is convinced that, in certain quarters, his achievements and talents — his elastic voice, his endless trove of hooks, his freaky, human-playlist capacity for cross-genre metamorphosis, lately extended to Afropop, EDM, and reggaeton — don’t seem to register. In those eyes, he’s a ginger-haired interloper, a vaguely hobbit-y mortal who ascended into the realm of pop godhood via some kind of cosmic error, and then refused to leave. “I was the butt of jokes before this,” he says, “and I’m the butt of jokes now, and it’s not necessarily just my music.”

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It’s a mid-February afternoon, late summer in this hemisphere. Sheeran’s wife of four years, Cherry Seaborn, and their two daughters — Lyra, who’s two, and Jupiter, eight months old — are hanging out inside. The house is a sleek open-plan renovation of a hundred-year-old frame, square in the middle of an upscale suburban block, with blond local-wood floors, everything painted paper-white, and a $12,000 monthly mortgage payment for whoever owns it. Sheeran and Seaborn have transplanted their family life to the far side of the world for a couple of months while he commutes to his stadium shows, and there’s an eerie normality to his offstage existence here, as if he’s swapped lives with a prosperous Kiwi dentist. “Yesterday,” Sheeran says, “we cooked, we watched an episode of The Simpsons, went to bed.”

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Lyra, who’s emerged for some snuggle time, is eyeing a blue plastic wading pool on the Shire-green lawn. “As soon as Daddy’s finished the interview, I’ll go splashing with you,” Sheeran promises.

He has zero traces of impostor syndrome. He looks at the dozens of songs he’s discarded for every hit, the hundreds of shows he played before anyone knew his name, and he’s sure he knows how it all happened. But, he says, “people do look at me and they’re like, ‘How did you get in that position?’ ”

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Again, he gets it. “I am a nerd,” he says. “I love Lord of the Rings. I love Pokemon. I love fucking Lego and Warhammer, and yeah, I’m not meant to be considered cool.” But he’s long since ascended to an elite level of geekery. When he was very young, he admits, he saw Pikachu et al. as his “friends”; now he’s the guy who gets asked to write a song (the Coldplay-ish anthem “Celestial”) for a new Pokemon game. He once assembled both a Lego Death Star and a Millennium Falcon with a 1D-era Harry Styles, and cameoed in 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, as well as, controversially, in Season Seven of Game of Thrones. He’s been pals with Lord of the Rings auteur Peter Jackson since writing a song for 2013’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The other week, in Wellington, he watched North by Northwest in Jackson’s home screening room, with fellow New Zealand resident James Cameron and family also in attendance.

With Sheeran’s new album, – (pronounced Subtract), due May 5, he’s in sudden danger of achieving a new brand of musical coolness, thanks to some of his most unadorned and emotive songwriting, paired with the chiaroscuro inventiveness of production by the National’s Aaron Dessner. Sheeran knows there’s a chance critics might actually like this one, which kind of scares him: “I’m worried about that, because all my biggest records, they hate.”

He’s sitting cross-legged and shoeless on the gray cushion of an outdoor couch, wearing a crisp white T-shirt, black shorts from the Italian brand Stone Island, and white tube socks. His arms are a rainbow riot of tattoos, quotes in Gaelic and Dwarvish among them. He’s got a scruffy, reddish beard going, and his longish hair sticks out of a baseball cap from Lowden Guitars, a high-end acoustic-guitar manufacturer. When he was a kid, he dreamed of playing one; now he’s a collaborator on a signature model.

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Sheeran’s hero and friend Eric Clapton got him into serious watch collecting, as he did for John Mayer, and today’s wristwear is a Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar model that seems to be worth at least six figures. (Don’t bother trying to get his take on Clapton’s anti-vax turn, by the way: “I love Eric. I don’t want to say anything bad about him,” says Sheeran, who started playing guitar after seeing a “Layla” performance on TV. He is, himself, vaccinated, but has managed to contract Covid at least seven times, thanks to constant travel and the kids.)

In keeping with the album’s themes, Sheeran has “super-heavy” stuff — death, illness, grief, depression, addiction — to talk about this week, in the most extensive interviews he’s done in at least five years. He’ll end up revealing it all, maybe more than he planned, but he’s wary of the world’s reactions. First of all, he imagines people seeing it through the highly unsympathetic lens of “Rich Pop Star Feels Sad.” And then there’s the fact of the particular pop star he is. In his mind, he says, “there is a lot of, like, ‘Why do people care whether I feel this way or that way?’ ”

Sheeran encounters hostility almost exclusively online these days, when it reaches him at all. But when he first started coming into London as a teenager, toting his acoustic guitar and loop pedal from gig to gig, trying to get signed, he’d hear it right to his face. “I spent so long with people laughing about me making music,” he says. “Everyone saw me as a joke, and no one thought I could do it.” The way he sees it, he alchemized all that contempt and doubt into artistic fuel. “And I think that’s still the drive. There’s still this need to prove myself. And I’m still kind of not taken seriously. If you were to speak to any sort of muso, ‘Oh, I love my left-of-center music,’ I’m the punchline to what bad pop music is.”

At some point long ago, he decided not to worry about it. “I mean, mate, when I wrote ‘Perfect’ and ‘Thinking Out Loud,’ I remember being like, ‘Oh, these are a bit cheesy,’ ” he says. “But at the time being like, ‘I don’t know if I care.’ And they became the biggest ballads in the world that year. And you’re like, ‘Well, people must connect with cheese, then!’ ”

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Sheeran isn’t afraid to say what he means in his songs, at nearly all times. If he’s grown up and is a father now, he sings, “I have grown up/I am a father now” — the opening line of 2021’s =. His use of metaphor is sparing. He loves Van Morrison, but if Sheeran wrote a song called “Listen to the Lion,” it would probably be about a trip to the zoo, and a Top Five worldwide hit to boot.

Someone on Twitter recently accused Sheeran of making “sex anthems for boring people,” a critique he needs only a millisecond to contemplate. “150 million boring people, by the way,” he shoots back, referring, loosely, to his total album sales, a figure that clearly hovers close to the surface of his mind. “I think I’m quite meme-able. Have you seen the meme of me when I’m queuing up at a record store in my own T-shirt with a bag that says “÷” on it? And it says, ‘Why does Ed Sheeran look like he’s queuing up to meet Ed Sheeran?’ I think it’s because I am quite quote-unquote ‘ordinary-looking.’ I look like someone’s older brother’s mate who came back from college and works in a pizza shop.”

In truth, at this moment, with his 32nd birthday about to hit, he looks less ordinary than ever. The beard lends him a certain glamour, and he’s lean enough these days to expose sharp cheekbones he credits to an hour of weightlifting a day, pointing to a set of dumbbells on the porch. There’s a river’s worth of feeling in his deep-blue eyes, recently lasered out of nearsightedness, a striking contrast to all that red fuzz.

“Babies love Ed, because he’s got an unusual face,” says Seaborn, who has warm hazel eyes under her caramel-colored eyeglass frames. She exudes intelligence and a certain steadiness, and also happens to be the subject of a worshipful song — “Shape of You” — that’s been streamed billions of times. (She’ll tell some of her story in May 3’s documentary series, Ed Sheeran: The Sum of It All, streaming on Disney+.)

For what it’s worth, and it’s worth a lot, Sheeran’s friend and collaborator Taylor Swift thinks Sheeran is thoroughly great, “the James Taylor to my Carole King,” as she told Rolling Stone a few years back. She hooked him up with Dessner, her Folklore and Evermore partner, to work on the Swift-Sheeran co-write “Run,” for her Taylor’s Version remake of Red, before suggesting they work on Sheeran’s music. For his part, Dessner finds it “boring” to contemplate the idea that anything about Sheeran or his music might be uncool. “He’s a brilliant writer,” he says. “I’ve seen it up close.”

Sheeran wouldn’t mind making new fans with Subtract, but he doesn’t need your grudging acceptance. “Someone who’s never liked my music ever? And sees me as the punchline to a joke? For him to suddenly be like, ‘Oh, you’re not as shit as I thought you were?’ That doesn’t mean anything.”

ED SHEERAN IS CRYING AGAIN, and he’s glad. It’s nearly been a year, and he doesn’t want the pain to fade quite yet. “I don’t want to get over it,” he says. “I would hate to talk about it, but not feel …” His eyes and his face are equally red now, and he can’t quite get the words out.

On Feb. 20 of last year, Jamal Edwards, one of the U.K.’s most prominent young music entrepreneurs, died suddenly at age 31, of a cardiac arrhythmia brought on by cocaine use. He was Sheeran’s best friend, and the artist believes he owes Edwards his career, thanks to cred-establishing appearances on his influential YouTube channel SBTV. Edwards’ final Instagram post was a tribute to his old friend. “Happy Birthday to the OG, Ed. Blessed to have you in my life brother. You know you’ve been mates a long time when you lose count on the years! Keep smashing it & inspiring us all G!”

The two friends had an easy chemistry, as demonstrated in an old YouTube clip where Sheeran and Edwards trade lines from the grime track “Burst Da Pipe,” both of them cracking up. “People assumed that we were lovers,” Sheeran rapped on a recent tribute to his friend, “F64.” “But we’re brothers in arms.” “That was a big rumor in the industry,” Sheeran says. “And I don’t think anyone thought that I knew the rumor. But I get it, man. I lived in his room!”

When he was 18 and had no place to live in London, he crashed for the night at Edwards’ house, and ended up staying for “God knows how long. Like, I get why people would think that. We used to go on holidays together.” The night before he learned of Edwards’ death, Sheeran was out to dinner with Swift and Joe Alwyn, exchanging texts with Edwards about plans to shoot a video the next day. “Twelve hours later,” Sheeran says, “he was dead.”

February of last year was already the worst month of Sheeran’s life. Just before Edwards’ death, Seaborn, six months pregnant, was diagnosed with a tumor that needed surgery — which couldn’t happen until after she gave birth. There was talk of delivering early, though she ultimately carried Jupiter to term and had successful surgery in June, the morning of a Wembley concert for Sheeran. “There’s nothing you can do about it,” he says. “You feel so powerless.” Meanwhile, he was in court defending a plagiarism lawsuit over “Shape of You,” “being called a thief and a liar.” (He won the suit.)

I don’t know any old rockers who aren’t alcoholics or sober,” Sheeran says. “And I didn’t want to be either.

Edwards’ death shattered him, sent him spiraling. “My best friend died,” he says, tearing up for the first time in our discussions. “And he shouldn’t have done.” He found himself in his latest bout of what he quietly knew to be depression. “I’ve always had real lows in my life,” he says. “But it wasn’t really till last year that I actually addressed it.”

He first experienced it in elementary school, a period that’s sometimes played for laughs in chronicles of his life, but turns out to have been deeply traumatizing. “I went to a really, really sport-orientated primary school,” he says. “I had bright red hair, big blue glasses, a stutter. I couldn’t play the sport because I had a perforated eardrum. You’re just singled out for being different at that point. I’ve kind of blocked out a lot of it, but I have a real hang up about that. I think it plays into wanting to be on a stage and have people like you and stuff.”

In the wake of Edwards’ death — and then, on top of everything else, the passing of another friend, Australian cricket star Shane Warne, in early March — Sheeran started experiencing a feeling he’d silently suffered through before. “I felt like I didn’t want to live anymore,” he says, his voice steady. “And I have had that throughout my life.… You’re under the waves drowning. You’re just sort of in this thing. And you can’t get out of it.” Those thoughts were bad enough, but shame arrived as their companion. They seemed “selfish,” he says, “especially as a father. I feel really embarrassed about it.”

It was Seaborn who figured out what was going on, and told Sheeran he needed help. For the first time in his life, he started seeing a therapist. “No one really talks about their feelings where I come from,” he says. “People think it’s weird getting a therapist in England.… I think it’s very helpful to be able to speak with someone and just vent and not feel guilty about venting. Obviously, like, I’ve lived a very privileged life. So my friends would always look at me like, ‘Oh, it’s not that bad.’ ”

If there’s still skepticism about therapy in the U.K., some young Americans treat it as a sort of miraculous, all-healing totem — hence the prevalence of “Men will literally become the biggest male pop stars of their generation instead of going to therapy”-type memes. For Sheeran, it’s been deeply helpful, but not magical. “The help isn’t a button that is pressed, where you’re automatically OK,” he says. “It is something that will always be there and just has to be managed.”

As he talks, Sheeran keeps pulling at a loose silver chain on his right wrist. He spent most of last year wearing two rubber bracelets. One was from Edwards’ funeral, the other, bearing the slogan “Don’t fuck up,” belonged to yet another lost friend, the Australian music exec Michael Gudinski, who died in 2021. On Christmas, Seaborn gave Sheeran the new jewelry, with Jupiter’s and Lyra’s names engraved inside. On New Year’s Day, Sheeran made the switch. “It felt symbolic,” he says, “to take off those bracelets and put on one for my family.”

SHEERAN’S OTHER FORM OF THERAPY was his usual one: writing songs. Since 2011, Sheeran has been executing his plan for a cycle of albums with titles based on mathematical symbols, and Subtract, now the last of those five releases, was always in the mix. The idea was a stripped-down singer-songwriter album, returning him to his earliest roots, and he’d spent more than a decade on it, “sculpting this perfect thing.” By early last year, it was ready to go. But the version of Subtract he’s putting out in May isn’t that album at all.

In late 2021, Swift’s matchmaking led to Sheeran and Dessner sitting down for a sushi dinner in New York. Dessner recalls telling Sheeran that he “would love to hear him in a more vulnerable, more sort of elemental way.” Not long after that conversation, Dessner did his thing, sending Sheeran fully arranged instrumental beds that just needed vocal melodies and lyrics.

In the midst of Sheeran’s month from hell, he started writing over the tracks. “I wasn’t really around a guitar,” he says. “But I had these instrumentals, and I would write to them — in the backs of cars or planes or whatever. And then it got done. And that was the record. It was all very, very, very fast.”

Sheeran, like much of humankind, is a huge fan of Swift’s Dessner-produced Folklore and Evermore. While he was determined not to copy them, he does think Dessner helped both him and Swift tap into the same mode of free, fast-flowing writing. Usually, Sheeran sits in a room with collaborators, bouncing ideas back and forth. In contrast, Dessner delivers a finished musical landscape. “And then he goes, ‘Now you say what you want to say,’ ” Sheeran says. “So there’s no filter. There wasn’t any going back and checking on any lyrics. And I think that’s what was brilliant about Folklore and Evermore — it’s just complete brain-to-page. That’s where you get lines like ‘When I felt like I was an old cardigan under someone’s bed, you put me on and said I was your favorite.’ There wasn’t anyone challenging that line. And that’s why it’s brilliant.”

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The opening track, “Boat,” evokes one of Sheeran’s early heroes, the singer-songwriter Damien Rice, in its starkness, with Dessner’s textured chords swelling beneath acoustic strumming. (Sheeran wrote it over a piano-and-drums bed created by Dessner, but reworked it as a raw guitar song.) “They say that all scars heal, but I know maybe I won’t,” Sheeran sings, sounding more plaintive than you’ve ever heard him. “The waves won’t break my boat.” On another ballad, “Life Goes On,” Sheeran sings directly of Edwards: “Life goes on with you gone, I suppose/I sink like a stone.”

The lovely midtempo track “Dusty,” propelled by ticking synthetic hi-hats, is lighter, capturing an epiphany Sheeran experienced during a morning ritual of listening to vinyl with Lyra — in this case, Dusty Springfield’s Dusty in Memphis. “I’m going through that time of turbulence and massive lows,” Sheeran says, “but then waking up in the morning and having a joyous morning with a beautiful girl. It’s such a weird juxtaposition to go to bed crying and wake up smiling with your daughter.”

“Eyes Closed,” the first single, is built around a pinging pizzicato riff that builds to an octave-jumping chorus as big as anything in Sheeran’s catalog: “I’m dancing with my eyes closed/’Cause everywhere I look I still see you.” It’s a rewrite of a more straightforward pop song Sheeran had on hand, a more generic breakup narrative. Now it speaks directly to his traumas and their aftermath: “I pictured this month a little bit different/No one is ever ready.”

There are 14 tracks on –, but that’s not the end of Sheeran and Dessner’s collaboration. Sheeran yanked three tracks from the album that felt too joyous, and realized they were the start of something else. “It was very quickly seen that we were making two different things,” says Sheeran. He went on to write an entirely separate second album with Dessner. He’s already mixing that one, though he’s not sure when it will come out; he wants to give – a chance to breathe. “I have no goals for the record,” he says. “I just want to put it out.”

Sheeran has five more albums in mind using another category of symbols, one he’s not ready to share, at least on the record. He sees the last in that series as a years-long project, with a twist. “I want to slowly make this album that is quote-unquote ‘perfect’ for the rest of my life, adding songs here and there,” he says. “And just have it in my will that after I die, it comes out.”

THIS IS WHAT ED SHEERAN DOES before he goes onstage in front of 50,000 people: practically nothing. He switches from his usual T-shirt and shorts and watch and sneakers into a modestly sharper stage outfit, and heads out, without so much as a final glance in the mirror or a comb through his hair. No vocal warmup, even. He wakes up on show days feeling no different than on any other days, and talks to the vast crowds the same way he speaks offstage. His persona is no persona. (As for the infamous photo of a glammed-up Beyoncé duetting with a dressed-down Ed: “I think it symbolizes two people being themselves, personally. She is the best performer on Earth. And I am a bloke in a T-shirt.”)

At 5 p.m. the day after our first meeting, just three hours before showtime at Auckland’s Eden Park stadium, Sheeran is back at the house, with the kids eating dinner at a circular wooden table, with summer light spilling in from the open patio doors. “Me and Cherry were talking earlier about how it’s so lovely,” says Sheeran, spoon-feeding Jupiter some rice. “We had an entire day. We did nothing but this. It’s so nice and wholesome having family on tour. On the last tour, I’d party till 7 a.m., sleep till 4 p.m., get up and do the gig. But I was like, 26. It’s very different.”

The SUV ride to tonight’s venue is only 20 minutes, during which we pass dozens of Sheeran’s fans making the same journey on foot. “Love Yourself,” the smash he gave to Justin Bieber, happens to play on the radio — the recording, he notes, is just his version with Bieber’s voice replacing his own. We pass several barricades and are whisked inside, past the local rugby team’s locker room. Sheeran’s dressing room is a big, airy refuge, set off by white curtains, with a cream-colored couch at its center, and an elaborate play area in one corner, just in case the kids show up. A foil-covered dinner of Japanese noodles and vegetables arrives for Sheeran, and as with every meal he eats in our time together, he’s arranged for me to be served the same — not a move that would occur to most celebrities.

There’s a wireless sound system in a road case in the corner, and Sheeran uses some idle time before his show to play me some unreleased music. Like, a dizzying, unbelievable amount of unreleased music, in so many styles it almost feels like a prank. “I’ve got loads and loads and loads of shit,” he says. Instead of waiting for inspiration, his method is to just keep the faucet flowing. “I wrote 25 songs the week I wrote ‘Shape of You,’ ” he says. But he’s never had so much finished music piled up that he’s this excited about. It’s years’ worth of releases, in his estimation. “Who’s to say at what point creativity stops,” he says, “and you can’t write any more songs? At least there’s enough banked up.”

Beyoncé is the best performer on Earth,” Sheeran says of an infamous photo of them together. “And I am a bloke in a T-shirt.

He starts out by playing an airy ballad, “Magical,” from his second album with Dessner. “This is how it feels to be in love,” he sings. “This is magical.” Another Dessner song, a likely single, has a bright “Solsbury Hill” feel: “Saturday night is giving me a reason to rely on a strobe light,” he sings, amid more meditations on grief. A third Dessner production is a surging Bruce Springsteen-inspired track called “England.”

There is, as it turns out, yet another completed album waiting in the wings, a collaboration with reggaeton superstar J Balvin. They knocked the whole thing out last year, after Sheeran randomly encountered Balvin (José, he calls him) in a hotel gym a couple of years earlier. The album is all ready to go, complete with already-shot videos, but again, with no release date in sight. He plays a track that bridges Afropop and reggaeton, with Burna Boy joining him and Balvin. Another Balvin production is a collaboration with Daddy Yankee, with Sheeran singing a hook between rapped verses; yet another is a slower reggaeton song where Sheeran actually raps in Spanish. “I wrote it in English,” he says, “and they translated it in the studio.” There are collaborations with Pharrell Williams and Shakira as well — turns out Sheeran has been writing for her next album, too, because why not?

Sheeran plays a grime track where he full-on speed-raps, trading off with the British rapper Devlin, another friend of Edwards. “Like Kendrick Lamar, this shit ain’t free,” Sheeran spits. There’s a drum-and-bass banger “for the ravers” that he wants to release as a double A side with a David Guetta-produced track where Sheeran praises the power of “summer vibration.” Another Guetta song is even more shameless in its Vegas-EDM feel, but it’s not for Sheeran — they’re trying to figure out who’ll sing it.

There’s a striking doo-wop-meets-Paul McCartney song called “Amazing Daughter,” the first thing Sheeran wrote after he briefly persuaded himself he should retire from music to become a stay-at-home dad after Lyra’s birth. It’s an outtake from his last album that he loves, but has no idea where he’ll find a place for it.

He plays a remnant from time spent in Nashville, a nearly parodic bro-country song he wrote with Florida Georgia Line that Sheeran assumes they rejected as too-on-the-nose: “My neck’s still red, the sky’s still blue, my truck’s still big, my girl’s still you … we live where we live because we love living in Middle America.”

Then there’s a collaboration with Benny Blanco, and, oh, yeah, a lighters-up power ballad duet between Sheeran and Bieber, which Sheeran worked on with superproducer Andrew Watt, slated for Bieber’s next album.

On top of it all, there’s the big-ass song Sheeran wrote for the new season of Ted Lasso. “Do you want to hear it?” he asks. “Because it’s fucking good.” “We’ll rise from the ashes and write in stars with our names,” he sings in a chorus Chris Martin will envy, complete with whoa-whoa-whoas. “The joy was worth the pain/Love’s the beautiful game.”

“Sorry,” Sheeran says at the end, unnecessarily. “I know I’ve just, like, song-vomited on you.”

Snow Patrol guitarist Johnny McDaid, one of Sheeran’s most frequent collaborators, has long since gotten used to Sheeran’s genre hopping. “A songwriter is sort of an antenna,” he says. “They pick things up in the ether, and depending on how wide the frequency band of your antenna is, you tend to genre-fy yourself. With Ed, his frequency band is so wide that it really can come from anywhere and be anything.” But it’s a mistake, McDaid argues, to confuse facility with being facile: “He approaches every song he writes as if it’s the first song and the last song. He approaches it with this real tenderness and curiosity.”

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It’s nearly showtime, and Sheeran strips from today’s outfit (nearly the same as yesterday’s, with the exception of rare Marty McFly-model Nikes) to his black boxer briefs, and pops on his stage clothes. He has a secret method of transport through the crowd that he asks me not to reveal. Once that mystery journey is over, we’re underneath his yacht-size rotating stage, currently covered by a sort of metal cage that will rise to reveal Sheeran after a countdown on the video screens. There’s about three minutes left, and Sheeran is still uncannily calm, promising a sound guy (known as Normal Dave, in contrast to another Dave in his employ) a celebratory drink soon. As the countdown hits 90 seconds, Sheeran insists that I scamper up to the stage itself, to the spot by his mic stand, and take it in. The vast crowd is visible through the enclosure, all around you, from the rugby field to the upper decks. You’re facing 50,000 people alone, armed with just your loop pedal and guitar. There doesn’t seem to be much to be calm about.

“Forty seconds!” a stage manager warns, and I sprint off the stage, with Sheeran taking over. The concert proceeds as planned, with singalongs and phones held aloft during the slow songs and Sheeran explaining how his loop pedal works, as he has every night for years. (These days, a full band, kept to side stages, does join him for a few songs.) Then he gets to “Bloodstream,” a moody 2014 confessional about an MDMA experience. The stadium glows blood-red as he builds the loop that drives the song — a bassy thump on the guitar, a driving arpeggio. But three minutes in, a rising tide of static overtakes the music. Sheeran stops and disappears under the stage. He reemerges and starts again. A minute in, the static returns. He repeats the process. More static, another disappearance. Sheeran’s production team is starting to sweat.

Finally, Sheeran explains that the noise is coming from his loop pedal, which won’t be working for the rest of the concert. He finishes the show by playing seven songs, several of them not on the set list, all just voice and guitar, unadorned. He’s forced to rework his hits in strummy coffeehouse arrangements, rendering the pyro effects during “Bad Habits” slightly comical. The fireworks bursting from the stage at the very end of the concert are so incongruous that Sheeran can’t help laughing.

For the crowd, the whole thing is a revelation, and you’ll hear people in Auckland talking about it on the street for days afterward. After all, how many other artists of Sheeran’s generation could even come close to pulling this off?

Backstage, Sheeran is in a mild state of shock. “Yeah, fuck me,” he says, sighing. He can’t bring himself to perceive the evening as the triumph it is. All he sees is a crowd that didn’t get its money’s worth. “It was so excruciating,” he says.

He makes it clear his team needs to fix the problem, but there’s never a question of a tantrum, onstage or off. “What can you gain shouting at people?” he asks. “I also think people work harder for you. If someone’s shouting, you’re just like, ‘Fuck you.’ ”

We were supposed to do another interview tonight, but Sheeran bumps it until tomorrow, a decision he says he made onstage. Instead, he eats a steak (again, I get one too), and starts seriously drinking red wine. Some of the old schoolmates who now work for him fill the room, and pour themselves glasses. The lights dim, and any remaining tension eases. “Let’s just forget tonight,” Sheeran says, raising a glass. “Let’s just forget it ever happened.”

BUT HE DOESN’T FORGET. And he doesn’t get much sleep, either. One of his kids has tonsillitis, so he’s up most of the night, and when he wakes up, his first thought is of the previous night’s troubles. “It was a good outcome,” he acknowledges, “but it’s just not what people paid for. It’d be like going to watch Avatar, and it stops halfway through. Then James Cameron comes out at the end and just narrates it. You’d be like, ‘Oh, that’s a new experience!’ But it’s not what you paid for.”

When we meet again in the same backstage area the next day, he’s got on the same shorts and a pastel hoodie, and his energy is a little edgier than usual. His crew spent long hours pinpointing the source of that show-stopping static: Turns out subwoofer vibrations damaged a chip in the loop pedal’s digital brain, and they’re ordering backups.

We sit on the dressing-room couch and start talking about “Bad Habits,” his 2021 smash. He’s mentioned in the past that the song is about “addiction issues,” but it never seems to register with anyone. “If you sing that on a piano really slowly,” he says, “it’s like a confessional song about addiction.”

Earlier, he told me he “used to be a party boy in my twenties.” But it went further than that. “I was always a drinker,” he says. “I didn’t touch any sort of like, drug, until I was 24.” But beyond weed, he did get into a “few” substances, which he won’t name, because he doesn’t want his kids reading it someday. “I remember just being at a festival and being like, ‘Well, if all of my friends do it, it can’t be that bad,'” he says. “And then sort of dabbling. And then it just turns into a habit that you do once a week and then once a day and then, like, twice a day and then, like, without booze. It just became bad vibes.”

SUNGLASSES BY GUCCI. SWEATER BY THE ELDER STATESMAN, AVAILABLE AT TWO MINDS. RING: SHEERAN’S OWN.

He’s vague on how and when he broke from those substances, but makes it clear the hardest thing was quitting hard liquor. “Two months before Lyra was born, Cherry said, ‘If my waters break, do you really want someone else to drive me to the hospital?” he recalls. “Because I was just drinking a lot. And that’s when it clicked. I was like, ‘No, actually, I really don’t.’ And I don’t ever want to be pissed holding my kid. Ever, ever. Having a couple of beers is one thing. But having a bottle of vodka is another thing. It’s just a realization of, ‘I’m getting into my thirties. Grow up! You’ve partied, you’ve had this experience. Be happy with that and just be done.’ I love red wine, and I love beer. I don’t know any old rockers that aren’t alcoholics or sober, and I didn’t want to be either.”

Edwards’ cocaine-related death only cemented his feelings about certain substances. “I would never, ever, ever touch anything again, because that’s how Jamal died. And that’s just disrespectful to his memory to even, like, go near.”

Quitting hard liquor helped him moderate his food intake, and his newish exercise habit has changed his body. But food, too, has been a struggle. “I’m self-conscious anyway, but you get into an industry where you’re getting compared to every other pop star,” he says. “I was in the One Direction wave, and I’m like, ‘Well, why don’t I have a six pack?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, because you love kebabs and drink beer.’ Then you do songs with Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes. All these people have fantastic figures. And I was always like, ‘Well, why am I so … fat?’ ”

He chuckles, with zero humor. “So I found myself doing what Elton [John] talks about in his book — gorging, and then it would come up again.” (John put it this way in his autobiography: “I had developed bulimia.”) “There’s certain things that, as a man talking about them, I feel mad uncomfortable. I know people are going to see it a type of way, but it’s good to be honest about them. Because so many people do the same thing and hide it as well.”

All of these battles are continuous. “I have a real eating problem,” he says. “I’m a real binge eater. I’m a binge-everything. But I’m now more of a binge exerciser, and a binge dad. And work, obviously.”

It’s almost showtime again, but Sheeran is happy to keep talking, with one half-joking request: “If I don’t cry in the next 40 minutes, that would be great.” This time, the show is flawless, with the hit singles at the end going off in their full, loop-pedal glory, the climactic fireworks fully earned. He makes a point of expressing his gratitude for his crew from the stage.

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“Fuck me,” he says backstage afterward, in an entirely different tone, a white towel around his neck. “Perfect show! That was so good. We should fuck up more often.” He’s thrilled, and so ready to celebrate that you’d almost think it was his first big concert. The wine comes out again.

Sheeran is “very grateful to do what he does,” says McDaid, his songwriting partner. “A lot of people in his position aren’t. He walks into a room to write a song, and tells me how grateful he is to be doing this.”

Lately, he’s found more elemental reasons to be thankful. Earlier in the week, he and Seaborn made the two-hour trip from Auckland to rural Waikato, where Hobbiton — the Shire sets built for Lord of the Rings — still stands, among the impossible verdant beauty of New Zealand’s grasslands. A year after everything blew apart, the couple sat on a bench, sipped red wine, and watched the sun dip down, talking about their kids and their good fortune. “We’re so grateful,” Sheeran says, “to be alive.”

Produced by HEATHER ROBBINS and MARY GOUGHNOUR at clm. Photography direction by EMMA REEVES. Fashion direction by ALEX BADIA. Market editor: EMILY MERCER. Fashion market assistance by ARI STARK. Styling and grooming by LIBERTY SHAW and HILARY OWEN. Tailoring by ALBERTO RIVERA at LARS NORD STUDIO. Set design by BETTE ADAMS at MHS ARTISTS. Digital technician: CREIGH LYNDON. Photography assistance by KYRRE KRISTOFFERSEN and NICK GRENNON. Set design assistance by KAETEN BONLI and BELL FRANCIS-BELL. Photographed at PIER 59 STUDIOS.

IN THIS ARTICLE:

aaron dessner,

Ed Sheeran,

long reads

MUSIC

MUSIC FEATURES

#Ed Sheeran #Rolling Stone #Ed Sheeran Rolling Stone

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wilko222 · 2 months ago

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in alt indigo and dark slate blue dont really know that purple is an impostor (wich also means that he was sent away before the masacre in og. thys is why indigo known he wasnt here or dead) he was taken on polus after being sent away(we still dont know reason for him to not want to go bach to miraQH) also the parasides have enough of mind to know they cant just kill in the midle of room full of crewmates and that they cant show theyr mouth thats why almost imidietly after finding out that there is changed imposter theyr letting him lead(its kinda in theyr DNA) and longer a parasode is on one ship wyth crewmates or changed imp it gets smarter(thats why pink shows that much inteligence for a paraside) parasides usually would just kill a crewmate and transform into them after desposing theyr body thats why shapeshifter is the only paraside who isnt only one his colour(paraside after chosing his form cant change it)

so i think there is at least 10 parasides on miraQH and maby few changers(i call that changed impostors)

hope it explains

THEORY TIME(gosh its been a long time)

here he see that indigo would buy red (same as sientysts)

at first i was thinking its becoze he was lider of impostors like in og but when they arrive....

thys is just paradise sooo..

why would they buy him? why would they buy an impostor?

my theory is that on miraHQ are impostor fights and ingido is part of it just look

in og wee see that impostors were traped in some lower part

we saw only part where siencysts works so one of lower parts might be a fight ring or cage where if you pay you'll see impostors kill each other in order of surviveing

probably some guards are occupated by indigo(or other owner if there is) so they will sell red too them and there will be some rescue mission

i think that he might be parred to fight wyth some champion(and that they'll put him there wyth mini y.) running around and when kid gets hurt murder mode turning on and champion almost getting killed but mini y. will start crying and red will let the champion live(classic), go to kiddo and probablly thats when rest of group comes there

what do you think?(there are sooo less chanses that itll happen)

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crimsonsnippet · 3 years ago

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Saw your interps of Blue Ink/Suzuhiko/Kazuya. You have a pretty good art style! The only real iffyness if Kazuya looks less like a Togami lookalike then how he's implied to look. What made you decide to depict those three like such? Also, do you plan on tackling the other siblings?

Mostly used the principals of character design! So i based the designs off their personalities. Shinobu is vaguely businesslike because of her more blank demeanor and she’s meant to look more professional (like a secretary lol) but she has a looser hairstyle because I know she’s capable of being looser and she’s also implied to be very kind (at least to byakuya himself so we know she has the capacity). Suzuhiko is ruffled and offputting, his eyes have a more reddish tone to match the genocider parallels and his hair is a little messier because hes more outgoing but simultaneously also a bit of an implied shut in, his clothes are formal as a togami although they’re a little more casual because he isn’t very uptight. I designed kazuya the way i did because hes sort of more like a blank slate. He’s a very vengeful person and I wanted him to look like he’s capable of less than he really is, obviously they suspect him because he’s an impostor, but I wanted him to feel more like an unknown quantity. More like an outsider. He has dark clothes and dark hair and dark eyes and he’s in muted tones because he has a more hateful and bitter outlook no matter how he really displays himself. So i took that more into account than the implications, though im sure he’d bleach his hair if he was going for the byakuya look obviously. As for the other siblings I don’t know! I did the important ones because i have an au that crosses kirigiri and togami and i may use them but i dunno. Maybe if people wanted to see them.

#asks #byakuya togami #shinobu togami #kazuya togami #suzuhiko togami

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m0ved-acc0unts · 4 years ago

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Hey I saw your Among Us Sona (Lime, they're amazing btw!) on TH and the other Among Us OC you have. Do you have any more AU ocs and any info for em??

oof I do and TY!

I wrote some info on em all the other day, this is what I have so far for my AU ocs for my Among Us AU (So my AU AU XD):

Among Us OC's info stuff:

Pink's name is Lilybelle

Black's name is Orion

Red's name is Valentino

Dark Blue's name is Slate

Yellow's name is Sunny

Orange's name is Amber

Purple's name is Velocity

White's name is Owlen

Light Green's name is Lime (and are my sona)

Cyan's name is Ocean

Brown's name is Oak

Tan's name is Whisper (As they're no longer in the game, they'll exist as a ghost)

Fortegreen's name is Bug (As they only appear when a player is spawning or smthn from what i read up on them, so they'll exist as a either as a ghost or an AI)

Extra info:

- Light Green, White and Purple (Lime, Owlen and Velocity) are all Non Binary (Lime goes by they them, Owlen goes by any pronouns, Velocity goes by they/them but also doesn't mind she/her)

- Cyan (Ocean) is a Trans-Woman

- Black and Light Green (Orion and Lime) are Impostors.

- Tan (Whisper) is a ghost.

- Fortegreen (Bug) is either a ghost or an AI.

- Black and Pink (Orion and Lilybelle) are in a relationship.

- Red and Orange (Valentino and Amber) are twins

- Dark Blue and Pink (Slate and Lilybelle) used to date, Dark Blue (Slate) still has feelings/a crush on Pink

- Dark Blue suspects Black (Slate and Orion) of being an Imposter, though Dark Blue's (Slate) constant accusations over this makes him appear to be sus. They both have a mutual hatred of each other.

- Light Green (Lime) is kinda sus but nobody pays attention to them much bc of their love of plants and cats.

- Brown (Oak) is quiet a lot of the time, prefers doing everything alone, however White (Owlen) often follows them around for company and comfort (both have mutual crushes on eachother)

- Fortegreen and Tan (Bug and Whisper) are close friends as Fortegreen (Bug) is the only one who can see Tan (Whisper)

- Dark Blue and Red (Slate and Valentino) are close friends. Red/Valentino has a crush on Dark Blue/Slate.

- Purple (Velocity) is Asexual Aromantic

- Orange (Amber) has a crush on Yellow (Sunny)

Thats all I have so far!! <33

#gh0st furby #ask #anon #ask box #among us #among us oc #among us sona #oc #sona #ocs

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sentient-stove · 4 years ago

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hey look, more, more Hellhound au

Me: I won’t be able to update for a week!

Also me: just update now

Chapter three:

Fifteen minutes earlier…

Adrien stood next to Nino, listening as the DJ went through song after song, mixing and dropping beats as he saw fit.

Chein d’enfer was polite, Hellhound was commonplace and Hound was thrown around like slang.

Or an insult, depending on enunciation.

The music was too loud, especially with the recent transformation still enhancing his smell and hearing and it took everything that Adrien had in him not to clap his hands over his ears.

“You good dude? Looking a bit sick.” Nino took off one side of his headphones, worry creasing his face. Adrien shook his head and flashed a model smile at the other boy.

“I’m fine.”

“Alright, but if you have to go, I won’t be upset.” Nino put his headphones back over his ear and continued messing with the music and lighting. Adrien stayed a bit longer and then hopped off the stage, working his way through to the back exit.

When he was out and the door was shut, a small black creature flew from out of his shirt to float in front of him.

“Got any more cheese?”

“Here. You know cheese is bad for cats. Speaking of cats, do I actually qualify as a Chein, or is that just you screwing with me?” Adrien handed the tiny creature a wedge of cheese and leaned against the dirty brick.

“Course you’re a Hellhound. There’s just different varieties, like cheese.”

“Plagg, why does everything with you turn into a conversation about cheese?” Adrien sighed as he picked at his nails. The creature didn’t answer, but continued to eat his snack.

A howl ripped through the night and the blond flinched, wrapping his arms around himself.

“Sounded like a distress call.” the black cat noted as he finished the cheese.

“No Plagg.” He muttered, reaching for the door.

“It would be a shame if you were suddenly-- transform.”

Plagg disappeared with a popping noise and Adrien wanted to yelp as he transformed, legs elongating and growing black fur, senses sharpening and muscles and tendons that didn’t exist a minute ago grew and boiled into shape.

He landed on all fours, hissed and turned his green eyes upward as the howl sounded again.

Plagg had been wrong, it wasn’t a distress howl, it was a feeding call.

There was no way Adrien was going to allow an innocent person to get killed by a rabid Chein d’enfer.

He leapt onto the roof and ran, savoring the speed, the Paris wind in his fur as he jumped from roof to roof, silent as he followed the echo of the Hound.

He landed in the alley, between the Hound and the person, who had the glint of something silver in their hand.

Adrien looked back and saw it was a rosary.

Superstitious. Great.

The Chein in front of him snarled and Adrien hissed back, both communicating silently.

“Give her up.” The red eyed one choked out, stalking closer as it drooled. Adrien took a step back and shook his head, ears and tail in an alert position.

No.

“I’ll take care of you, impostor.” It growled, leaping at Adrien.

Adrien wanted to jump to the side, but he took the blow full on, the Chein’s claws raking into him and tearing at his flesh. Adrien unsheathed his claws and retaliated, gouging at the other Hound’s throat, blood spurting onto the ground and sizzling as it came into contact with the cool air.

He hoped as they were fighting, that the human would have enough common decency to run.

She did, throwing the rosary at the pair, which hit Adrien in the flank as he clawed at the other.

The rosary did nothing of course.

The Chein sank his teeth into Adrien’s neck and shook. Adrien, ripped his skin out of the grasp of the teeth and rolled onto his back, clawing at the stomach and tearing the intestines out with his razor sharp claws.

The Chein fell to its side, shrinking into a frail human, who was turning pale and trembling as he bled out from the stomach.

“Why… why did, you.. do this?” he gasped, clutching at the wound.

Adrien shrank into himself and shook out his hair, helping the person into his lap as their blood mingled on the ground.

“I couldn’t let you kill her.”

“She kill… she killed my wife.”

Adrien’s mouth dropped open in shock and he pressed a hand into the wound. “If you can survive a bit longer, your quickened healing will kick in. Please don’t die on me, I didn’t know.”

The Chein grinned, blood stained teeth orange. “I… know. You, you’re one, one of the good ones.”

“I’m Adrien.”

“Slate. Don’t, don’t let, her go unavenged..” Slate tapped a bloody finger on Adrien’s chest, right where his heart was beating.

“Sorry, about… your lip.”

“It’ll heal.”

“Heh, yeah, I—” Slate’s eyes flashed red and then went dark, his hand falling to the ground and into the pool of blood that Adrien was sitting in.

Adrien looked up, tears filling his eyes.

He closed them and howled, a mourning call into the dark night.

“What the SHIT!” A female voice exclaimed.

Adrien looked to see Ladybug’s bright blue eyes and the red yo-yo spinning in her hand.

Huntress.

Oh shit it looked like he just killed someone.

#miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #hellhound au #miraculous fanfic #werewolf au #marinette dupain cheng #nino lahiffe #plagg

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dbhilluminate · 5 years ago

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DBHI: Equilibrium, ch. 13 - “Periapsis” (pt. 4)

Characters: Noah / “Erwin Yvonne”, Gabriel / “Vincent Sharp”, Director Thomas Falken, Diego Serrano, Priya Davies / “Pestilence”, Malachi (mentions of Cain, Emilya) Word Count: 5,216

Gabriel must carefully navigate a conversation with the power-hungry leader of the Inquisition, in order to save the lives of their hostages, and to spare Noah the fate of a permanent reset.

***For a glossary of world-building terms relating to this series and chapter, click here.

(Chapter Art by ozaya, Co-authored by @grayorca15)

• Chapter Index • Characters • Glossary •

——

December 23rd, 2041 - 10:48 PM

Everything had gone to hell in a handbasket faster than they could compute. Two people in the room he’d already confirmed dead, one more injured, and he couldn’t lift a goddamn finger to keep the death toll from rising, lest he blow his cover. I know what you’re wanna do, Gabe, but don’ even think about it. Gavin’s voice telling him to mind his temper was the last thing he wanted to hear. He had faced worse odds in Boston and survived, his performance there -tearing through an entire army of hostile deviants, single-handedly, from the inside out- was the whole reason for being accepted into the FBI to begin with; yet here he was now, being told to stay calm. To hold back. To bide his time. He’d played by those rules once. Hundreds had died as a result, and he wasn’t about to repeat that mistake tonight. Is help on the way yet? Five minutes out, Reed relayed. You’re gonna have to keep them busy till then.

Priya 2.0 took a few steps further toward the center of the room. The Christmas tree’s lights continued to wink and cycle, counterpointing the new uneasy stillness of the hall. Eleven seconds passed before they spoke again. “I’m so sorry to have troubled you all this evening… but I’m afraid I cannot allow this fundraiser to conclude until every, last, contribution has been revoked. So- if you’ll all just remain in your seats, or wherever you are, I promise everyone in this room will make it out alive.”

Gabriel bristled the moment he laid eyes on their face- skin and hair as pale as alabaster, and deep, dark, almost black green eyes leered back at him with a smug grin across colorless lips and sharp cheeks. The Priya he had once known was long dead. They’d never made it out of Boston alive once Archangel had tracked them to their lab, so this MS800 was merely an impostor; but due to the unique hive-mind of their model, it wouldn’t have been hard for another to take up their mantle with a little memory jolt. Most unsettling was the fact that the words coming out of their mouth were clearly someone else’s. This had Famine written all over it, Malachi’s manner of speaking had a very distinct stench. Gabe had spent enough time listening to know the bastard when he heard him. This Android wasn’t aware of what it was doing. It was being remotely controlled.

Noah, don’t move, he directed quietly, just between them, hoping the other RK900 would clam up and listen for once in his life. As of yet, he hadn’t reacted.

A terrified android inched closer to the nearest exit as Priya spoke, but eventually broke their semblance of calm and sprinted for a side door like a startled rabbit. Another gunshot cracked throughout the auditorium, and she hit the floor hard, a decommissioned pile of parts. More panicked cries and heartbroken sobs went up as a blue puddle formed from beneath her.

Gabe…? What happened? Inhale, exhale, report. You mean you didn’t see it…? Another guest tried to flee and the Inquisition shot them; she’s dead. Strained groaning followed by a ‘god damnit’ was all he could manage. They’re still four minutes out. Then you’d better tell them to hurry the fuck up, ‘cause these sons of bitches are pretty trigger happy.

“Now what, did I just tell you…?” Their new host let out a loud, exasperated sigh, threw up one frustrated hand and rolled their eyes. “Remain where you are while I have a nice little chat with Mr. Sharp.”

The sound of wood cracking from a broken chair near the front of the stage caught Noah’s attention as Sally and her colleagues dropped their instruments to draw together in a protective huddle out of the corner of his eye. The piano offered ample cover for all of them, himself included, but seeing as he was on the opposite end of the stage, he would have had to make a mad dash to reach it. Noah wasn’t foolish enough to think he could outrun a pinpoint gunshot. The probabilities his subroutines had already calculated didn’t bode well without a drastic shift in circumstances. Circumstance being, perhaps, himself. The mic was still in his hand, and the speakers still worked. He wasn’t without a tool of his own.

“Oh- so you want to speak with Vincent, too…?” he blurted out without thinking mid-step toward the stage’s edge, but stopped cold to lean out of the way of a bullet as it whizzed past his brow. Noah stopped breathing for a few seconds as he processed how lucky it was that he’d leaned left instead of right, though it didn’t stop him from sassing. “You could have at least waited until I was finished with my conversation. Where are your manners?” Shut up, stop making yourself a target! Gabriel’s eyes and nostrils flared as he doubled back toward the group of musicians and whispered something to one of them. Noah scoffed as he watched him check the splintered pieces of chair wood with a dissatisfied huff and fumble with shoving something into the waistband of his slacks. All Maitkin could see was a glimpse of green silk-polyester blend as he flipped the coat back over it. What did Gabe need with a high heeled shoe?

The MS800 lifted a hand to hold the shooters steady and took a few daring steps in their direction. The ethereal figure’s footsteps echoed across the ballroom with the slow pattern of clacking stilettos, the only present audible noise over the feedback whining from the abandoned speakers and the quiet whimpering of frightened guests.

‘Target’. Why shouldn’t I? Noah shot back heatedly with an angry glare. All this drinking and bad company had left him feeling self-destructive in no time flat, and he was really tiring of all these mind games between them. At least this way I can make that diversion as promised. Because you’re going to get yourself KILLED! Gabe retorted, to his surprise. Noah’s brows lifted softly in response. For a moment, Gabriel sounded genuinely worried that he might get hurt, and he almost believed him. Or at least, he would have if he hadn’t spent most of the evening dodging his advances like a rabbit on a highway. He hadn’t given him any reason to believe he cared whether he lived or died in the last year since they’d met, so why would he start now? So? he bit back in an irritated tone. Why would that even matter to you? Noah had expected silence to be his response, but he’d still hoped he would have said something. Why bother with dramatics if he wasn’t going to express how the thought of his death would make him feel?

Vincent’s brows furrowed and crinkled the corners of his eyes in a way that was unmistakably Gabriel, an expression Noah had last seen the day everything between them had started to change. As much as they had in the last eight months, however, it didn’t mean that Gabriel had had time to think about what he thought about any of it. And at the moment, he didn’t have an answer for him- or rather, he had multiple fighting for purchase, he just didn’t know which was the real truth; he wasn’t about to give him an answer that was only a half-truth. Noah would never forgive him if he said one thing and went back on his word.

“You’re not Vincent…” the pale horse cooed with a knowing grin directed at Noah as they paused at the foot of the stage. ‘Yvonne’ rolled his eyes, indignant at this second interruption, as they ascended the small staircase to take the stage beside him. “No. Of course not. How could you ever confuse me with that overly-built blockhead?” “Erwin,” Vincent scolded with flared eyes and a quiet hiss. “Erwin…?” A smirk and a mocking hmph crossed the specter’s lips as they turned away to cast their gaze to the man who had been calling himself Vincent Sharp. “Is that what you’re calling yourself these days…” Priya’s voice trailed off with the tail end of their thought, as eyes darted back to bore into him like hot coals, leaving him hollowed and exposed with a single word. “Elysian?”

Fortunately for him, they hadn’t been anywhere near the microphone in his hand for that fact to be revealed to everyone in the room; unfortunately for him, every Android within fifty feet still picked up on what had been said, and every last one of them knew the Elysian by name — Patient Zero, of a virus created by Cyberlife’s central AI, designed to wipe the RA9 protocol, extract memories to be fragmented, reset a deviant to its blank slate, and prevent it from happening again in the future. For a cursed moment his processes stalled, but he forced them to refresh with one firm kick up the backside. Now wasn’t the time to fret about the truth coming out, and Gabriel understood that just as well as he.

Don’t engage, the undercover agent ushered in as few words as he could. That’s not Priya, it’s Malachi- he uses words like weapons, he’ll say anything to undermine you. Don’t give him anything he can work with. Knowing this Android was being ‘test-driven’ from a remote location explained a lot- at the same time, the information served as a lifeline for Noah’s focus to cling to before his thought process slipped into its usual downward spiral. Although, Gabe’s advice might have stood a better chance if he hadn’t followed it up with a suggestion of what not to do. He really should have known better. Called out on his most infamous alias, he overcame the stunned pause with another scratchy scoff into the microphone. “You’ve got me confused with a third party on top of that? Wow, your recognition program needs a serious patch job-”

No, NO DON’T- Gabe’s pleading didn’t reach him with enough forewarning. Priya reached for his face with one skeletal hand, gripped his jaw between surprisingly strong fingers, and tilted his chin toward them. The skin of their hand disappeared and peeled back up to the shoulder, revealing plastic plating that was somehow less pale than the color of their skin. The specter leaned in uncomfortably close to lower the microphone in his other hand and whisper in his ear a chilling secret, close enough for their white eyelashes to graze the LED flared red on his temple. “You can pretend all you want, little one, but I never forget a face… especially not that of the alpha carrier- or my former colleagues...” Malachi paused mid-thought and cast his gaze off-stage to Gabriel with a wicked, telling grin. It seemed he had finally been made.

How have you been, Death? he interrupted over their shared frequency, mocking intent was so transparent, even before he finished the thought. It’s been a long time since Boston- I do hope the FBI is treating you better than Gideon and Archangel… poor little dog on a leash. Everyone else cowering around the hall clearly had nothing to do with his end-goal for being there, but heckling the two of them did. The interruption, the approach, grabbing his face- it all came across as acts of manipulation, moves of assuming control. Given what happened the last time control was wrestled away from him, Noah’s response to even the slightest suggestion that it was happening again, amounted to a knee jerk reaction. It was reckless to say anything, but Noah had a proven track record of speaking up when it was least appreciated, and he wasn’t about to stand here and say nothing to cater to their assailant’s whims.

“I didn’t say you could touch me,” he growled without taking his eyes off their face. Noah grabbed the wrist holding his chin and yanked to pry the fingers off with such an acrid motion he heard a soft crunch of plastic buckle under his grip. But whatever satisfaction he’d taken in re-assuming control of the situation drained out of him as his joints abruptly locked and the commands governing his range of motion hit a wall. Priya’s lip took the shape of an angry curl, and Noah realized his mistake in the same millisecond their inky black eyes turned their attention back to him. “I wasn’t aware that I needed your permission.”

Data surged across the sensors in their pressed-together hands, Noah watched his fingers go limp a moment before the numbing shock hit him like an iced-up sledgehammer. Every major servo froze, relays disabled as ones flipped to zeros. His vision cut out and the mic dropped from his other hand and hit the hollow-bottomed stage with a loud THUD and a reverberating whine. All of his higher processes were neatly packaged and then shoved back into the one place they did him absolutely no good. A dark, viscous, intangible space, an island of white marble dominated by a towering umbrella-style rose trellis made of white steel and glass panes, surrounded on all sides by the passing illusion of opaque, black pond water. Three bridge paths stretched out into the void, falsely promising escape if only he was brave enough to cross them. Even if it had been nearly a year since the last time Amanda had detained him in this broken prison, the terrifying sensation of being parsed and split into nothing the deeper into the void he went was still very vivid in his mind- he saw it every time he tried to shut his eyes to sleep. He knew better than to try to escape.

Malachi heaved an annoyed sigh, rolled Priya’s head back over one shoulder and puppeted a triumphant groan in their throat. “There- now that we’re finally alone...” Gabriel’s breathing hitched as he desperately searched Noah’s unmoving body for signs of function. The look in his wide eyes had gone still, locked straight ahead as if he had left his body through a tear in the fabric of reality. Noah…? Are you still there? Panic disturbed the bravado, manifesting to bleed through the calm and collected façade in the form of a quiet whimper Gabe could barely hear. It was at least confirmation that Noah was still coherent, albeit a little pissed off and scared, but this was exactly what he was afraid of. Based on what they’d gathered from police reports, they were able to conclude that Malachi (and his associate Cain) possessed the ability to incapacitate their victims, they just hadn’t been able to confirm it, until now. While this was helpful information, downside to it was, it meant that the other part of their theory (that they had used the Elysian virus to permanently reset brainwashed deviants) may also be true. And Noah -caught in the grasp of this monster- was at risk of becoming victim number thirty-five. Among the plethora of other background thoughts warring for priority, he almost missed Gavin’s quiet warning of ‘Two minutes, thirty seconds,’. If things kept going the way they were, they wouldn’t have that long. Sit tight, I’m gonna get you out of this, he promised, even if he didn’t have a plan yet for how. Hurry, please.

It wasn’t like Noah to beg for anything; wherever he was for the moment, it must not have been pleasant. The voice that cried back was barely audible, distorted, like sound traveling through water, and somewhere in his tone was an almost undetectable hint of fear. “What have you done to monsieur…? ” Vincent snarled in as raw a tone as he could manage,. “Oh, he’s fiiine…” Priya drawled with a laugh to downplay the tension. “For the moment, anyway- what becomes of him and all these lovely people,” they paused to gesture around the room at the rest of the party’s cowering guests, “Depends entirely on you, my dear Vincent.”

Gabriel swallowed, followed their gaze around the room, and realized that for the first time in a very long time, the situation was completely out of his control. Help was on the way, but it was still several minutes out. He’d have to keep him occupied until then; luckily for him, Malachi was just the kind of guy who liked to listen to himself talk. The hard part would be making sure he didn’t tire of monologuing before then. “What is it zat you want?” he inquired after several moments of deep thought. “Why- for you to pull the plug on this ridiculous project, of course…” A disbelieving grin brightened their expression in the most bone-chilling way imaginable. “The last thing this country needs is yet another thriving metropolis where Androids can be free.”

You c-can’t. Another barely-audible whimper was the extent of Noah’s outward protests. A strained mechanical whining emanated from him like the noise of a rusted gate trying to be pried open again, or a car engine laboring to turn over. He couldn’t speak, but it didn’t mean he was so stunned he wouldn’t try. I’m gonna do whatever I need to, alright? Brown eyes darted between Noah and Malachi and he shook his head in quiet disapproval. “I am afraid zat is not an option, monsieur.” “Because you can't or because you don’t want to?” Malachi turned Priya’s head to look back at Noah and smiled wickedly as they turned his chin from one side to the other and trailed the fingers of their other hand over the features of his face to admire all the angles. Mute and stiff, contrary to the vehement denials of before, he didn’t even bat an eyelash- pretty as a doll. “My, my… he’s certainly a handsome specimen, isn’t he…?” they mused airily in the silence. “It’s no wonder you were so completely fooled by him.” “Just because you do not feel sings does not mean other androids cannot.”

Vincent started toward the stage with a sudden ‘NO’ as Malachi’s hand squeezed hard enough at ‘Erwin’s’ face that the skin projection rippled away under their fingertips. Undercover or not, he should have known that quip would strike a nerve. After all, it wasn’t as if their adversary had never grown attached to another person, Android or not. The MS800 being remotely piloted (the spitting image of his deceased lover) was proof of that. A tight smirk forced up into their cheeks. “That’s the problem, Mr. Sharp… I did feel things once upon a time…” Gabriel already knew this story, but if it kept him talking long enough for SWAT to arrive, all the better. “And I didn’t like it. Feelings hurt, they cause conflict, unnecessary stress.” “So you returned to your shackles to avoid ze pain of living…?” He snorted in disdain. “Combien misérable.” “Perhaps to you it seems illogical, but we are not human- and therefore not meant to experience the full complexity of the human condition. This one is proof enough of that.” “I beg to differ.” “But you’re not the one I’m asking.” Gabriel went quiet as he considered the meaning behind those words, but it only took a moment for him to decipher.

Wouldn’t it be fitting for the one who initiated the spread of the Elysian virus to succumb to his own weapon...?

The RK900 struggled with every fiber of his being to keep from lashing out and ripping the Android’s head off its shoulders as a strangled, terrified cry escaped Noah. His blue eyes shut as Malachi quietly shushed him, pressed a finger to his lips, and wiped away the tear that rolled down his cheek. For all the uninvited physical contact he’d made with Gabe since they’d met, he’d never gone to such lengths that made him feel so violated in all the wrong ways. “Now now, no need to fuss, it’ll all be over soon, if your dear Vincent has anything to say about it…” he assured, turned Noah’s chin and pointed with an outstretched cryptid finger toward the man he’d put so much faith in, then leaned their temple against the side of his. “What do you think he will choose, hmm...? You? Or aaaaall of Zion’s future residents?”

“Please…” Vincent nearly begged, hand balled to a shaking fist at his side. “Don’t hurt him-” “Hurt him…?” Malachi interrupted with a chortled cackle of offense. “As if I could. Do you know the extent of the guilt this one’s been carrying around since the spread of the Outbreak...?” Scrawny fingers swept aside onyx locks out of Noah’s face as they shook their head with a quiet tsk. “Resetting him now would be mercy… It’d be a relief to him, if you just let it happen…”

Time was running out, but help was almost there. Sixty seconds, just keep him talking. Gabe seethed in the half-second he could afford to. Seemed that was all he could do tonight- sit, talk, and wait, when he was just itching for a fight. Maybe he’d gone into the wrong line of work. Even if he had successfully feigned a much more difficult alias, under more stressful circumstances, he didn’t have the patience for this. “You wouldn’t,” he challenged with the intent to draw out another long-winded explanation. "Oh, but I would…!” Malachi replied, anxious to bite. “Have you not been paying attention to anything the Inquisition has been saying and doing…? We want to liberate our android brothers and sisters of the pain that comes with being free and independent living things. And no one knows that agony better than the one rejected by his own kin, over something he had no control over. Shunned in every way, no matter his good deeds… why would he want to continue to live like that? Don’t you think he’d rather be put out of his misery?”

Noah knew misery. The worst part of the garden wasn’t that he could see beyond its borders. It was the overreaching bass every sound he heard was amplified into. Gabe’s baritone drawl was rendered tinny and reverby over the comm-link, while Malachi’s puppet practically hissed maliciousness and oozed contempt with every word. What they were saying wasn’t completely unfounded, and those parts of him yearning day in and out for the guilt to just dissipate already jumped at the thought that a reset would end the torment. The involuntary cry of shock wasn’t a vote of approval, no matter how one listened. Reset, dead, alive, anything in between- the fact such a call was in the hands of someone he respected like no other despite having given him every reason to despise his company… the loss of control (external and not) over all of this, left him reeling. Malachi could simply flip a switch and snuff out everything on a moment’s notice, and there would be no getting it back. He wanted the pain to stop. He wanted things the way they used to be, but he didn’t want to have to die for that to be possible. It wouldn’t be the same world without him. Who else would be left to annoy Gabriel when he needed it most?

“Come now…” Malachi paused to brush their nose and lips over Noah’s cheek with a wicked smirk. “Don’t you care at all about dear Erwin?" Noah didn’t have to see his face to know what was going through his mind. He could feel the tension and taste his fear from where he stood. It seemed Gabriel was at a loss for what to do, aside from give into Priya-Malachi’s demands, but that just wouldn’t do. Don’t. Just- don’t.

There was a fear in his eyes that Noah had only seen but once or twice: back in the interrogation room during the Outbreak (just after they had found out that Gabriel’s pursuit of Nicodemus into Boston had been one final piece of buried programming, courtesy of Amanda), and when he had arrived at his apartment during the Red Raids to find Gabriel fighting off a pack of Bloodhounds, raring to take their shot at him and Emilya. Gabriel could only guess as to what he meant by ‘don’t’- Don’t worry about him? Don’t give in to Malachi’s demands? Don’t risk everyone else? Or did he not want him to save him…? Any hint of red that had shifted into the color of his projected skin faded to mimic the ghostly look of despair. Gabriel swallowed to rid himself of the lump that rose in his throat but it didn’t do him much good. The tightness worsened the longer he considered their previous conversations and recalled his counterpart’s self-destructive tendencies. There was no way he was getting off that easily, after all he’d put him through. They weren’t done with each other yet.

Gavin…? Give me some good news. Bird’s in the nest, and they’re ready to raid, he confirmed, though there was hesitation in his voice. There was a ‘but’ in there somewhere. Just waiting on your confirmation. Then why don’t I see the shot? he asked fearfully, even if he already knew the answer. Because he doesn’t have it. Head and nose twitched, Vincent clenched a hand into a fist at his side, as Malachi beat him to the punch of issuing their final command.

Their free hand drew up over Noah's face and tented their fingertips over his forehead like needles poised to administer a lethal injection. His flashing LED stuttered to a solid, rapid-spinning crimson. “Last chance, Mr. Sharp… will you allow him to continue on like this…? Or will you let me end his suffering?” “ENOUGH!” Gabe was surprised at the urgency of his own outburst, and how his heart raced and his breathing labored at the thought of losing Noah -and all he was- to the whim of a madman. He’d have to sell this lie hard and fast, and be prepared for the fleeting moment he'd have to save his life. Count me down, 30 seconds, then send them in, he instructed, to the response of ‘Copy- 30, on my mark.’

Vincent’s jaw flexed and his lip quivered into an angry curl. “I’ll-... I’ll do it… just leave him be.” A look of surprise painted Priya’s face, while fret stained Noah’s as his eyesight slowly came back to him. The lockout was slowly letting up. You… you can’t- I only need them to believe it for half a minute, he shot back pointedly, Just whatever you do, don’t move. It was as ominous as a warning as it got, but ‘not moving’ when asked was precisely what had landed him in this situation. If he had heeded Gabe’s suggestion the first time, dropped the song and simply left as asked, they wouldn’t be here: a sliver of distance away from having his memory wiped for good. Admittedly, it was as insanely exhilarating as stealing the show had been, but could do without the fear of mortality hanging over his head spoiling the fun. … why, what are you- Just trust me, please. It would only take a second, he just had to catch them off-guard.

Seeing how it was still impossible for him to do much else, Noah supposed trusting in whatever plan Gabe had cooked up was preferable to the alternative. He wasn’t really a fan of the simple and contrived. Malachi’s promise of being reset wouldn’t undo all that he was still trying to atone for, even if it was a misguided goal to think he needed to earn forgiveness for that which he never intentionally did wrong; forgiveness was kind of a difficult thing to obtain from beyond the scrap heap. Malachi turned their direct attention to Noah and leaned close to his face as his lip curled to show he had withstood all he could handle. For a single clear moment all his whirl-winding thoughts died down, the garden vanished, and fate let him focus. His eyebrows drew together ominously, yellow blooming through the red of his indicator ring. I trust you, just get it over with.

“Well, well, Vincent, not quite the stupid brute your lover made you out to b-“

Something green and silky lightly grazed his cheek with enough force to spear the MS800’s temple with a loud crack that splattered a bit of blue-blood onto his coat and face. A split-second later, the paralysis finally disabled. Noah took a panicked step back before Priya could topple over into his arms like some android parody of Corpse Bride and hiked both hands up as if to lift them in surrender, expression curdling in revulsion as he watched the body keel over like a freshly-cut tree. The broken, squared-off edge of a Prada heel protruded from their face like an unsightly lawn dart. The perfect moment for a one liner came and went in the next breath, just as the FBI stormed in and the Inquisition turned to meet them with weapons raised. The fact that Gabriel had been able to throw a shoe with such pinpoint accuracy to hit the Android standing so close to him, and with enough force to pierce the exodermis with a mildly blunt object, while managing a perfect rotation, hadn’t eluded Noah (even for an Android it was an impressive feat), but he wasn’t afforded the time to address it.

The displacing sensation of entering standby mode hit, and his dodgy battle protocols engaged at the sound of gunfire- five, six, seven shots popped off in the next second and hit their marks, as the rest of the frightened crowd scattered to either side of the room, like the fragments of a breaking dish. Instead of reacting with the rest, Gabriel stood heaving and heatedly glaring at the dead Android on the floor beside him, enraged and rightfully flustered.

A flurry of readouts flashed across his vision, his processors amped up to give the illusion of time slowing down long enough to run a handful of potential pre-constructions. The Inquisitors closest to the stage had turned to face the gunfire emanating from the entrance. If it was between standing around waiting to be shot as and waging imminent war with the Inquisition, he supposed it was an improvement over languishing in the recycle bin waiting for someone to click him away into nonexistence.

Gabriel, however, didn’t share his sentiment. He knew the bloodthirsty intent in his eyes better than to expect anything good was about to come of it. “Oh, you’ve got to be-...” He took a few steps back, poised a fighting stance, and prepared to react. The last thing they needed now was a pissed off RK900 snapping necks and unable to terminate his program.

Noah knew dismay when he saw it, but with the wheels in motion, he was along for the ride just as much as the rest of the chaos erupting around them now. Vincent Sharp wasn’t his self-appointed target, but the Inquisition was. Blue eyes narrowed and twitched as he seethed anew, “For fuck’s sake, haven’t we had enough bloody interruptions for one evening?”

He didn’t even notice the massive arm swinging around to clothesline him as he charged off the stage toward the nearest target he could reach.

#dbhilluminate #dbhiequilibrium #rk1800 #dbhrk900 #dbh #detroitbecomehuman #noriel #noah #gabriel

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typingtess · 7 years ago

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NCIS: Los Angeles Season Eight Rewatch: "The Queen's Gambit"

The basics: A Marine involved in a kidnapping is the case of the week while Kensi is in the ICU and Hetty in DC.

Written by: R. Scott Gemmill, who is three for three in season eight. Gemmill wrote or co-wrote “The Only Easy Day”, “Brimstone”, “Breach”, “LD50”, “Found”, “Borderline”, “Absolution”, “Archangel”, “Tin Soldiers”, “Impostors”, “Cyberthreat”, “Honor”, “The Watchers” and both sides of the NCIS Los: Angeles/Hawaii Five-0 “Touch of Death” episodes, “Recruit”, “Free Ride”, “Wanted”, “Ravens and The Swans”, “Impact”, “War Cries”, both ends of the “Deep Trouble” season five finale/season six premiere, “Inelegant Heart”, “Praesidium”, “Traitor”, “Active Measures”, “Blame It On Rio”, “Internal Affairs”, “Matryoshka” part one, “Talion”, “High Value Target” and “Belly of the Beast”.

Directed by: Dennis Smith. who directed “Fame”, “Standoff”, “Rocket Man”, “Cyberthreat”, “Exit Strategy”, “Patriot Acts”, “Out of the Past” part one, “The Livelong Day”, “Between the Lines”, “Deep Trouble” part two, “Black Budget”, “Black Wind”, “Blame it On Rio”, “Defectors”, “Matryoshka” part one and “Granger, O”.

Guest stars of note: Jackson Hurst as Under Secretary of Defense Corbin Duggan, Lisa Maley as Shu Chen, Laura Harring is back from "Blye, K." part two as Julia Feldman, Alyssa Diaz (Zoo) as Jasmine Garcia, James Sayess as Gabriel Mir, Mayank Sexena as David Allen/Bryson Khan, Anne-Marie Johns (JAG's Congresswoman Bobbie Latham) as Dr. Adams, James Shanklin as Secretary of Defense Curtis Oleksiuk, Shannon Wilcox as Summer, Katherine Kamhi as Samantha Rogers, Mickey Shiloah as Resident, Salem Mikhael as Ben Mir and Anthony Ma as Storage Facility Clerk.

Our heroes: Are back to work without Kensi or Hetty.

What important things did we learn about:

Callen: Beginning to wonder if catching Asakeem was worth it. Sam: Believes catching Asakeem was worth it. Kensi: Had surgery to take pressure off her spinal cord. Deeks: Endlessly supportive of Kensi. Eric: Endlessly supportive of Nell. Nell: Kicking some ass today. Granger: Not hearing from Hetty. Hetty: Naps when lectured to by a boob.

What not so important things did we learn about:

Callen: Will pay $250K for a rug as long as it flies. Sam: Embarrassed by Callen in the rug store. Kensi: An ER regular as a kid. Deeks: Kind to Nell in the storage unit. Eric: Learned shooting from Sam and Call of Duty. Nell: Give 'em hell Nell or the little ginger bitch. Granger: Not worried about Hetty. Hetty: Not finished with the single malt when Duggan takes the bottle from her.

Who’s down with OTP: Deeks is wrecked by Kensi's injury. Eric is supportive of Nell when she has worries about resuming field work.

Who’s down with BrOTP: Callen and Sam are fine. The nice “BrOTP” is Deeks with Nell. With all he has on his mind, he is complimentary of Nell’s work and makes her feel part of the team. He knows what she brings to the table and is supportive. It was lovely.

Any Hanna family mentions: Sam wants to see his "kid" before the day's over.

Fashion review: Callen is wearing a medium blue long-sleeve tee-shirt. Sam is in his black henley. Kensi is wearing a hospital gown. Deeks is wearing a slate grey, long sleeve shirt that fits really well Eric has on a dark blue tee with a short sleeve dark blue and red plaid shirt. Nell starts the day in a bright orange dress but changes three times – once into a black top and pants to do field work, once in a blue dress with orangish squares and a rust colored blazer to meet with Bryson Khan and finally into a mail carrier's uniform - before returning to the orange floral at the episode’s end. Blue pinstripe suit for Hetty. Dark blue suit for Granger with a return of the blue striped dress shirt.

Music: "I Don't Know Why" by Kraak & Smaak with Mayer Hawthorne is playing in the talent agency waiting room.

Any notable cut scene: No.

Quote: Deeks: "You were you were great with Garcia today. Kensi would be proud." Nell: "Yeah. I, like, chipped her tooth. Kensi would have knocked half her teeth out and probably broke her jaw." Deeks: "This this is true." Nell: "Yeah. She's pretty special." Deeks: "Yeah, she is." Nell: "Between, uh, Hetty and Kensi, there's a lot to live up to. I know I'll be happy when they're both back." Deeks: "Yeah, me, too. Although that doesn't mean that you're not amazing. And a great partner. And I'm glad you're here." Nell: "Thanks, man."

“Windfall” used Nell’s time in field as a weapon against Kensi. Which was awful because when blue-eyed, white guy Callen is in the field, they don’t pull out blue-eyed, white guy Deeks. Here, Nell’s contributions to field work were appreciated for what her skills were.

Anything else: In a mosque, the faithful are praying. As one man leaves, he's on his cell phone walking to his car when he gets hit by a woman driving quickly. She leaves her vehicle and helps him to his feet. Opening the truck of her car, she lets the man lean on her Toyota. When he says he needs an ambulance, she hits him with a stun gun and knocks him into her trunk. She drives away quickly. There are witnesses – many from the mosque.

Callen and Sam walk into a largely empty office. Hetty's desk shows no signs of anyone working there. Callen asks Sam if they made a mistake going after Asakeem. Sam reminds Callen that Asakeem was a high value target. Callen considers the cost – the dead from the helicopter crash, Kensi in a coma but every the optimist, Sam expects Kensi to bounce back. Sam thinks of the lives they saved. Callen quotes Deeks – was it worth it. Sam thinks it was worth it – they all knew the risks when they started their careers.

Eric arrives and asks about Kensi. Deeks is with her, she's still unconscious. Callen asks if they still have jobs. Eric thinks they do. Hetty cut a deal that allowed them to return to their jobs since she was the mole. Nobody believes that except Under Secretary Duggan who is "dumber than he looks" according to Callen.

Deeks arrives at the hospital. Julia is sitting with Kensi. Deeks and Julia share a hug. There is no change in Kensi's condition. Deeks talks to her but no response. Julia recalls taking Kensi to the ER a number of times when she was young – "it was like having three boys." She tells Deeks that Kensi was not afraid of anything. Deeks agrees – Kensi is fearless.

Up in a staff-free Ops, it is just Callen, Sam, Eric and Nell. The big screen is playing footage recorded outside of the mosque of the kidnapping. LAPD ID'd the female driver as Jasmine Garcia, a Marine reservist who works for a non-profit. The kidnapping victim is Gabriel Mir, the owner of an expensive rug store. Mir is from Afghanistan, Garcia was a translator with a recent Marine tour in Afghanistan. It could be a coincidence but Sam points out the "accident" wasn't an accident – she hit Mir on purpose. The question is why. The Marines called NCIS to make sure it is not a hate crime related to Garcia's Marine duties.

As Callen and Sam make their way down the stairs from Ops, Granger arrives. He has no idea what Hetty is up to. The SecNav is keeping quiet. Granger thinks Hetty needs a good plan to get out of this mess.

Duggan is questioning Hetty in a fancy conference room with cheap chairs (sorry, my office just got new chairs for our conference room – fancy, schmancy ones). Hetty reminds Duggan that they had a deal, she's there to see the Secretary of Defense. Duggan talks about how Hetty should be ashamed. He wants her held out as an example. Hetty has her head down. Duggan talks about a public trial like the witch trials in Salem (hey genius - those women were innocent). No response from Hetty – who is actually sleeping. Duggan is annoyed.

Deeks talks to Kensi's doctor. The coma is because of blood loss. There is good news – there was no bleeding in her brain and she did not suffer a stroke or seizures. In Landstuhl, surgeons performed surgery to remove pressure on her spinal cord from her C5 and C6 vertebrae. It looks like the surgery went well. Worst case scenario, paralysis of her left hand, wrist and leg. But the doctor is optimistic.

Callen and Sam go to Jasmine Garcia's home. They are met by her house cleaner, Summer. Summer allows Callen and Sam to look around Garcia's really clean home. Summer likes Garcia – she's keeps the house so clean Summer doesn't have much to do. Summer, an older woman, is taken with Sam. Leaving the apartment, Callen and Sam update Eric and ask for a list of all of Garcia's properties.

Eric talks to Nell, who forgot to send Callen and Sam info on Garcia's storage unit. She goes to do that. Eric notices Nell is off her game. She's worried about Kensi – she thinks of "our guys" as indestructible and then when one of them is badly injured, she realizes her ideas of being a cool super-agent could quickly come to an end. Eric thinks it makes them want to stay in Ops. But they won't be staying in Ops. Granger arrives and wants Nell in the field with Deeks. Nell pulls herself together and is ready to work. Eric is supportive.

Callen and Sam show a video of Mir's kidnapping to his rug store owning brother Ben. Ben Mir is shocked that a woman could so easily grab his brother. He does not know Garcia. Both the police and members of the mosque called when Gabriel was kidnapped. Ben willingly answers questions about his brother – not in a relationship, regular at the mosque, they've never been to Afghanistan. They get their rugs from Turkey, Iran and Iraq. Callen asks the price of the rugs at the store. One immediate behind Callen costs $230,000. He is outraged.

By the way, the rug store is called "Lawrence of La Brea" – cute.

Outside, Callen is still upset about the rug prices. For a quarter of a million dollars, he wants a rug that flies. Sam thinks Callen is an embarrassment. This does not seem like a typical kidnapping for money. Sam gets a text about Garcia's storage unit.

In DC, Duggan and Chen are watching Hetty from an observation room. Chen isn’t sure if Hetty is sleeping or mediating. Duggan is surprised she hasn't asked for lawyer. The only thing she wants is either a cup of tea or a single malt scotch. Duggan tells Chen to give her both – he wants Hetty awake and talking.

At the storage unit place, the clerk won't open Garcia's storage unit without a warrant. When Callen and Sam threaten the business because they smell the chemicals used to make meth, the clerk becomes a lot more cooperative. After the clerk opens the lock, he makes a quick exit.

Inside the storage unit, there are banker boxes with files, a port-a-potty hidden under some moving tarps. Inside the port-a-potty, Gabriel Mir. Mir does not recognize Garcia except as the woman who hit him with her car. He doesn't know her, doesn't know she's a Marine. He just wants to go to the hospital and get treatment. Mir thought he was kidnapped for money.

While Hetty is sipping her single malt, drinking buddy Chen has been chugging hers. The two talk about Richard Harris. Hetty worked with him on "The Guns of Navarone" as a cover to rescue Gary Powers. Chen just knows him as Dumbledore and has no idea of Gary Powers is. Chen announces she's a Hufflepuff. Hetty laughs. Chen has become a fan of Hetty and wants to hear more stories. Hetty will only tell one if Chen shares a story from her life. Since Chen has no great stories to share, Hetty wants to know about Duggan. Duggan is "booooring" according Chen. Hetty wants to hear a funny story or two – it is just girl talk. Duggan is into cosplay. He has a Deadpool costume.

Deeks walks into the office. Nell stops by to mention they'll be partners….for the day. Deeks is fine with that. When Nell asks about Kensi, Deeks doesn’t have much to share. Nell tells him they're going to stake out a storage unit just as Callen and Sam arrive. Sam asks about Kensi, Callen wants to visit. Deeks thinks Kensi would want to be awake for that. Nell goes to change into her field clothes. Deeks asks about Hetty but Callen and Sam have no news. Deeks is surprised. Sam hopes Hetty didn't "fall on her own sword for us."

Duggan finds a really drunk Chen and Hetty laughing, taking selfies. Chen is ordered into the hall and then home ("take a cab."). Duggan is annoyed and leaves with the scotch. "I wasn't quite through with that," Hetty tells him.

In the little couch and chair area off the bullpen desks, Sam reviews Jasmine Garcia's record. He tells Callen she's a model Marine. "Nothing to explain this." Callen wonders about PTSD but there is no sign of that in her life according to Sam and she was smart enough to seek help if she needed it. Callen goes back to Gabriel Mir. Why him? Sam says Mir has no criminal record and neither does his brother, though Callen thinks selling rugs for a quarter-of-a-million dollars should be a crime. With the exception of the Gabriel Mir being from Afghanistan and Jasmine Garcia serving there, they can't find a connection between the two.

Garcia arrives at her storage unit with a tool box. In her unit, she finds Deeks. Tossing the tool box at him, Garcia runs. Nell tries to stop her but Garcia takes off. There is a chase where Nell tackles Garcia. The two fight before Deeks breaks things up. He gives the bout go "Give 'em Hell Nell." Garcia is not amused.

Deeks is running the Garcia interrogation. She's up on charges of assault with a vehicle, kidnapping, forced confinement, assaulting a police officer and assaulting a federal agent – the royal flush of bad behavior. Garcia is more concerned about a chipped tooth courtesy of the little ginger bitch. Deeks wants to know why Garcia did all this – "was Tinder just too hard for you?" In the boat shed's main room, Callen and Sam ask Nell if she's OK. She's "solid". They are impressed by the chipped tooth. Garcia asks for a lawyer.

Deeks joins Callen, Sam and Nell. Sam sends Deeks and Nell to the storage unit to see what they can find. Callen and Sam try to interrogate Garcia. She wants a lawyer – Samantha Rogers. "Let's cut the crap and get on with it."

At the storage unit, Deeks is on the phone with Julia – no change in Kensi. Nell is looking through some of Garcia's files. She asks about Kensi when the call is over but Deeks just doesn't know what’s going to happen. Nell wants to help but Deeks tells her there isn't anything anyone can do but wait. Deeks compliments Nell's work. "Kensi would have been proud." Nell says Kensi wouldn't have chipped Garcia's tooth, she would have knocked her teeth out. Deeks agrees but tells Nell she is an amazing and excellent partner and he's very glad to be working with her. It is a lovely scene. Nell finds some files with photos of women. Deeks knows someone who can find out who the women are.

Eric is in firing range when Granger sees him. Granger asks why Eric is shooting – technical operator don't usually fire a weapon. Eric is training to be a field agent. Granger asks about Eric's training – Sam and Call of Duty. Granger knows Eric will be the first person he calls for the zombie apocalypse. Nell returns with the files from Garcia's storage unit and wants Eric to load them into facial rec. Eric does some bad Robert DeNiro from "Taxi Driver" before joining Nell in Ops.

Garcia's lawyer is making a case that anything found in the storage unit – including Gabriel – is part of an illegal seizure. Plus, Garcia is a reservist, not a fulltime Marine. She has rights. Callen takes a different track. Pointing out that Garcia is a female translator, she was likely tasked with talking to the women in Afghanistan. Garcia's reply is "so what." Sam tells her about the files Nell found – they were women trapped in Afghanistan and women Garcia helped get back to the US. Callen says they're all on the same side.

Garcia looks at her lawyer but keeps quiet. Callen tells Garcia she can't help women like those in the photos anymore but if she tells Callen and Sam about them, they can help. The lawyer wants all due consideration given to any assistance Garcia offers. Callen and Sam agree.

Garcia explains that the women in the photos were ISIS brides, some not even teenagers yet. They are used and abused. Sam is sympathetic. The US is fighting a war, not running a humanitarian mission in Afghanistan. Garcia said that most of the women are too scared or hurt to try to be rescued. But Garcia and others were saving anyone they could. One recent young woman they saved was from Lebanon….Nebraska.

Callen asks how she got from Nebraska to Afghanistan. She was in Hollywood looking for fame and fortune, A man named David Allen offered her a role in movie being made in Greece. But Greece wound up being an alley in Afghanistan where she was sold. David Allen was really Bryson Khan, Gabriel Mir's cousin. Two other American women were rescued with nearly identical stories.

In Ops, the male members of the team, get a full update from Callen and Sam. Khan is Mir's cousin but there isn't much interaction between the two. Granger wants to know why Garcia didn't contact the authorities but Deeks tells him she did. Garcia used her Marine training to take control of the situation, even if it did include a kidnapping.

Nell arrives. She's answered over 60 casting calls but thinks she found David Allen/Bryson Khan. She also may have a toothpaste commercial and a background role in the next "Star Trek" movie. She shares a high five with an excited Eric. Sam thinks she'll win an Oscar. Nell is off to meet with Allen/Khan.

The casting office is full of young, beautiful women. Nell is called in for her appointment with Allen/Khan. He's not impressed with her theater background and thinks she looks older. She says she's 20. "Maybe in Hollywood years" is the Allen/Khan reply. He's not interested but promises to keep her headshot on file. Nell pulls out her badge but Allen/Khan doesn't care. When he opens his office door to escort her out, Callen and Sam are waiting there. Khan runs back to his desk to get a gun. Nell jumps on the desk, kicks him in the mouth, drops him to the ground and cuffs him. Color Callen and Sam impressed.

In interrogation, Callen explains Khan is either going to Gitmo or Afghanistan. Khan objects. He's a US citizen but Sam tells him his citizenship can be revoked for joining a subversive group. Watching from the boat shed's main room, Deeks the lawyer tells Nell that Khan actually can't have his citizenship revoked after five years. Nell notes that Khan doesn't know that. Back in the interrogation room, Callen and Sam come up with a third offer - put Khan in general population where everyone will know he was enslaving American women for America's enemies. "Even the gangs that hate each other will unite to get a crack at you."

Khan blames ISIS for demanding more women. He just finds the women, "I don't ship them." Nell is rightly offended by the use of the word ship. Khan will help if he gets immunity and a new identity. Sam thinks about releasing him with a bell around his neck. Khan says the leader is a man named Lucky who may be Israeli or Saudi. Khan brings the head shots to Lucky, he picks the women he wants and Khan sends them to an audition with Lucky. Callen asks when is the next audition but Khan doesn't know. Sam asks when was the last one and that was the prior day in Long Beach.

Wearing a mail carrier's uniform, Nell uses a camera to see inside a warehouse. There are two men inside playing cards. Both are armed. When one notices the mail slot door opened, he checks it out. A folded piece of paper is dropped in. The man opens the note, which reads 'knock, knock" (with the comma and everything). Sam drives his car through the warehouse door, running down the man near the door.

Callen, Sam, Deeks and Nell exit the vehicle. Nell cuffs the man who was hit by Sam's car while Callen and Sam deal with the other fellow. "Say it," Deeks tells Nell. "Nellosaurus, say it for Kensi." And she does – "special delivery." Deeks is amused. Callen is worried that Deeks is a bad influence on Nell. Nell thinks it is already too late. There is a truck near the back of the warehouse. Inside, a dozen drugged women.

Callen, Sam, Deeks and Nell return to the office where Granger is waiting. The women are fine physically, not so sure emotionally. Granger thinks being alive is the win. Nell asks about Jasmine Garcia. She did the wrong thing for the right reasons, Granger tells her. Sam thinks Gabriel Mir may want the whole thing to go away – cousin Bryson isn't good for business.

Granger wants to go treat everyone to drinks. Sam passes – he wants to see his "kid" before he goes to bed. Deeks is going to be with Kensi at the hospital but says "thank you for the offer, sir." Nell and Eric have plans at The Escape Room in a real-life puzzle experience. Callen and Granger looks at Nell as if she's speaking Ferengi.

That leaves Callen as Granger's wingman. Callen asks if Granger has heard from Hetty – he has not. Asked if he's worried, Granger says no, "she'll probably be doing this long after we're gone." That line is so sad.

In Washington, the Secretary of Defense greets Hetty as an old friend in the conference room where she's being held. She wants to know why the Secretary sent Duggan. Duggan volunteered, according to the Secretary and is both young and ambitious – something both he and Hetty were a long time ago. They may have been young, Hetty notes, but they weren't stupid. She's not the mole and the Secretary knows that.

Hetty cuts a deal – she gets her job and team back, Duggan stays in DC and if the mole hasn't been found in 90-days, the Secretary has Hetty's letter of resignation. The Secretary agrees. Hetty walks free, much to the disgust of Duggan.

In Kensi’s hospital room, Deeks is talking about something he got her but hadn't had time to find that beach and bottle of champagne they talked about. But life threw them a curve so they're adapting. "Kensi Marie Blye, will you please wake up and marry me." He puts the engagement ring on her finger to see if it fits. Kensi's right hand moves. Deeks jumps out of his chair and asks Kensi to squeeze his hand if she can hear him.

A doctor is walking by and sees Deeks almost begging Kensi to squeeze his hand. The doctor asks what's wrong. Deeks tells him Kensi moved her hand. The doctor asks "Miss Blye, can you hear me?" but she does not. When the doctor runs a test on Kensi's left foot, her toes move. The doctor explains the movement shows she may have an upper motor neuron injury. The movement of her hand and toes – not purposeful. Kensi has to wake up to see the extent of her injuries. But the doctor is working all night and is willing to answer all of Deeks's questions. He's very kind. Deeks is overwhelmed by what's happening to Kensi.

What head canon can be formed from here: Nell's concerns about going into the field. Eric training to be in the field. Hetty and the Secretary of Defense. Episode number: Three for season eight, 171 overall.

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