Colorful Brother Chapter 12
Title: Colorful Brother
Author: 2he_re (Heather and Reena)
Fandom: Jonas Brothers
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, the real people in it are used without their permission and we do not own them or have any copyright to any part of any of them. We do not believe any of this happened, is likely to happen, or will happen. It is simply a story created around known facts about those involved.
Summary: He doesn’t remember anything before the white flash. He needs to stand the colors, to fix everything. So his brother can be happy again. So that Kevin and Danielle can be happy. So the boy before the white can come back, and make everything right.
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13
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His brother didn’t come for a long time, so long his skin that had become gram-cracker to match his brother’s reverted back to pale. He didn’t know for how long his brother stayed away, but he hated every minute his brother wasn’t there. He wasn’t allowed to go outside to see the colors, or go to the piano without his brother. He didn’t have to ask, he just knew.
He sat in the room and looked out the window. He wanted to look at the colors, because they were beautiful and they were an addiction, but he didn’t want to look, because they had become just that, an addiction. Addictions were bad. His brother had an addiction. He had had an addiction, and that had made him remember only the flash. His family had been broken, become broken because of additions.
White flash.
He pushed aside the thoughts when the person who normally held the rickety tray came in. The person didn’t have the rickety tray.
The person came into the room with the same quiet pitter-patter of steps. “Someone’s here to see you,” their voice came out lower than he remembered.
He didn’t move off of the floor with the cool tiles.
White floor.
He didn’t look up to the person. He didn’t want to see any color. He didn’t want to be reminded of his colorful brother. His colorful brother who wouldn’t quit, even for him. His colorful brother who tried to quit, but couldn’t quit, who couldn’t resist the addiction.
“Why don’t they just come in?” he asked quietly, picking at a stray thread in his pants.
White pants.
“Everyone else always comes to me,” his voice too low for the person to hear properly. To the person, it just seemed like a voice on the wind, maybe it was there or maybe it wasn’t.
The person shifted, and he could hear the soft suction of their feet bare, like his, on the floor. He had hid the socks that had come as a present under his bed so he wouldn’t see the colors.
White bed.
He waited for an answer. He waited long enough with his head bowed and fingers plucking the thread that an answer finally came.
“You can decline the meeting if you want. When people come into the room, you don’t have much of a choice. You can’t open the door to make them leave.”
He remembered Kevin coming in. He remembered trying to tell Kevin to leave. He remembered Kevin fighting him. He remembered the pain and the hurt and the words.
He squeezed his eyes shut. His hands landed on the cold floor. His fingers splayed out to steady.
He hated remembering. It hurt to remember.
“Who is it?”
The person didn’t answer that question. “I’ll take you to the meeting place.”
He opened his eyes to the wall.
White wall.
He got to his feet. He looked at the floor.
White floor.
“Do I know who I’m meeting?” he asked, watching the other person’s feet when they started to move.
“You’ll know when you get there.”
He stopped right before they passed through his door. “Why can’t you tell me?”
The person kept walking.
He passed through the door, and it swung closed behind him. He heard the screaming from inside the walls. He normally didn’t notice it when he walked with his brother, but they talked when they walked. He couldn’t help but hear it now, walking in silence between the person and him except for the soft pitter-patter pattern of both their feet.
“Sometimes.” He kept walking with his head down, not knowing what the person meant. “Sometimes you know this person.”
He grasped at the lead. “Did I know them before?”
They stopped at a door, a white metal door. The person opened the door and guided him inside.
He looked up, just briefly enough to see why there was so much noise. There were tables scattered around the big room.
White room.
People sat talking to other people. Some people sat, just talking to themselves. Others screamed to each other, to themselves. A big wall stood at the side. It made little cubbies, each one surrounding a window, a pane of glass.
Quickly he casted his gaze to the floor.
White floor.
The glass reminded him of the mirror. The mirror reminded him of hurting himself. In turn, he remembered his colorful brother. He remembered his colorful brother’s answer to his question.
“If I said never to come back, would you come back?”
His brother had answered no. His brother wouldn’t come back. He swallowed a lump in his throat. He hadn’t told his brother never, he had told the person to not let his brother back. Did his brother know?
He blinked away the tears.
What if his brother never came back?
“Wait here.” He started at the person’s voice; he had forgotten they were there. He looked up to find himself in one of the little cubbies. The glass was just inches from his face, and he could see his reflection. He gripped his hands behind his back. He wouldn’t touch it.
“Whenever you want to leave, you can leave. Just get up, and walk away. They won't follow you.”
“Okay,” he looked at the chair.
White chair.
“They’ll come in soon. Just wait.”
He sat in the chair, and waited, his eyes focused on his fingers he had re-interlaced before him.
White fingers.
“Mr. President?”
His whole head hastily snapped up.
His colorful brother sat across from him. In front of his brother sat the coffee cup.
Brown coffee cup.
He stared at it for barely a second longer than could be called normal, before his eyes locked down to his long, pale fingers.
He thought about getting up right then. He thought about kicking the chair back and walking out the door.
“They said I couldn’t come if I wasn’t clean,” he heard his brother mumbled. He didn’t look up at his brother. “Did you tell them that?” He gave a sharp nod, refusing to lie, but hating that he was the one who had made the glass appear between his brother and him. He heard a sharp intake of breath, along with a chuckle, and then a sip from the coffee cup. He winced.
“Is this against your rules, am I not allowed to even see you?”
“I just said you couldn’t come in.”
“To your room?”
“To my room.” Another chuckle and scrape of foam coffee cup to his brother’s lips. “You’re nervous,” he told his brother. He didn’t have to ask, he just knew.
“A little.”
“About what?”
He didn’t receive an answer. He thought the conversation was over, but he didn’t want to get up. He sat so close to his brother. They just sat separated by a pane of glass. He bet he could break it, if he really wanted to. But he didn’t know if he really wanted to.
Was that how his brother felt about the addiction? His brother could break out of it, but his brother wasn’t sure if that’s what he wanted?
The coffee cup scraped against the table that held both of them and the pane of glass. He heard his brother’s hands chafe the bumpy texture of the coffee cup.
He glanced up.
Brown coffee cup.
He looked back down.
White table.
The silence stretched.
“Frankie was nine. Kevin was twenty-one, he just turned legal drinking age. I’d been drinking on and off for a whole year before that. I started dabbling in drugs just a month before.”
“I don’t want to hear the story,” he told his brother.
Another silence fell, barely shorter than the one before. “What do you want to hear?”
He took a small breath before asking, the question burning as it slid from his throat. “Did Kevin know about it?”
“He found out after.”
“How?”
“You were tested. He saw the results as acting guardian. Put two and two together...” His brother shook the coffee cup, and he could hear the liquid swishing around in it. “What’s the first thing you remember?”
“Waking up.”
“Where?”
“Here. I didn’t know who sat on the side of my bed, holding my hand. They were just there, talking to me. I remember screaming.”
“What’s the first time you remember me?” his brother asked curiously.
“Kevin showed me videos, clips. You were in it. You won’t ever come back to me clean, will you?” His brother froze, caught off guard at the sudden change of topics.
“Why do you -“
“Just give me a yes or no,” his voice spiked to a high pitch, cracking in the center.
“One day.” He started to rise, kick back the chair. “Wait!” his brother’s voice rang throughout the room, it sounded so loud. The talking that had been going on all around them stopped. The whole room seemed to have had a spell casted over it. “Sit, please?”
The feet of his chair scraped the floor, and people started talking again.
White chair.
“They told me I couldn’t come see you again, not even like this, if I don’t get clean within the month.”
He didn’t ask who they were, he didn’t care. Instead he asked, “Who will come see me?” He didn’t expect an answer. He expected silence in which his brother would grow guilty that the answer was no one.
But the answer wasn’t no one. “Kevin.”
His eyes cut to his brother’s face on their own accord. He didn’t know what his brother could read in his eyes, but he knew whatever was in his eyes, mirrored his brother’s own frightened ones. The blank mask his brother sometimes wore didn’t appear.
“Why?” he begged.
“You need an acting guardian at all times. If I can’t see you, I can’t make decisions,” his brother’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“What if I want to leave here?” his voice cracked, and he blinked rapidly.
“They can’t let you as long as you’re a threat to yourself.”
“Kevin will come see me again?” He saw the nod out of the corner of his eyes that had swept back down to the table.
White table.
“What if I don’t want to see him?”
“I don’t know,” his brother said helplessly. “He needs to see you to make a decision.”
“But none of this matters if you get clean, right? If you quit?” his voice broke, grasping at straws he thought were there.
“Yeah.”
“Then fight it!” He wiped away tears at the scrapping of the coffee cup. He could see it in his mind, the coffee cup going to his brother’s lips and his brother swallowing from the coffee cup that wasn’t filled with coffee. He saw his brother unable to fight it even as they sat together.
He jerked back from the table.
White table.
His movements lacked the grace he normally held as he walked back across the floor.
White floor.
The person showed him back, except it wasn’t to his room. He’d been moved to a different room.
White room.
When he stepped inside, the person left. The door swung shut behind him, and he swallowed, still staring. In the center of his room, the piano stood.
Black piano.
His breath caught and he smiled when he saw the piano. But he couldn’t go over to play it. His heart wouldn’t let him, not when his brother couldn’t sit by him. He was afraid he would be lost with what to do, and his brother wouldn’t be there to help him.
He closed his eyes and remembered playing.
He remembered his feelings for the room he had first found the piano in. He remembered how he had loved and hated the colors when he had first seen it. He remembered his brother’s soft urgings for him to first play.
He looked at the piano.
Black piano.
How hard did he want to remember now? If it brought back the craving for addiction, too strong for even family to break. Did he want to remember now? If it meant he would know the little brother before the flash. Was it worth? If it meant he would lose the love of his feet on the cold floor. Why wouldn’t he want to remember? If it meant Kevin’s love.
He looked at the piano, scared.
Black piano.
Was it a choice to remember, like it was to overcome an addiction or let it consume you?
He turned around to look at the door.
White door.
A handle was attached to the door. He walked over to it, his feet feeling the ground beneath him. He reached out and touched it, the grip cool under his touch, like the tiles under his feet.
Could he just walk out of here, out of his room, out of this place, if he really wanted to? Could he just walk away and forget about this place?
His hand left the handle.
He could answer that question quickly, no. Even though he couldn’t remember, the past still hung behind him. He felt the addiction, even though he never remembered the drugs. The consequences in his past life still reflected onto him. His little brother was still dead, and Kevin still hurt.
He moved over to his bed, and sank down to his knees, looking under it.
He looked for the colorful socks he had hidden under his other bed. They weren’t hidden under this one.
~*~