Colorful Brother Chapter 4
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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He sat in the center of his room.
White room.
The bandages were off, and he could feel the cool air barely moving over his arms. His pants were rolled up so his thighs could rest on the cool tiles like his hands were, propped up behind him. His fingers splayed across the pure white. He faced the door, bed behind him, and he looked at the door, waiting for something to happen, thinking about the boy before the flash. Obsessing on the thought of how to get past the flash.
On what he could think. On what he could say. On what he could be, do, see, to make the white dissolve, without leaving his comfort zone. Without destroying his pure, little realm of white.
There was still no handle on the door.
White door.
Just four little raised white splotches that were from the backs of big iron screws, keeping the handle on, on the other side. His eyes glazed over as the whites started to blend around him, and the edges of his room became undefined. The world shifted and blurred around him, one never ending blur that had become his only home.
White blur.
Soft mellow knock erupted in his world, and it fell apart. Things separated and left each other, edges were back, shapes were there again. His eyes snapped back to their wide, unglazed fashion. If it were any other knock, he would be mad. But it wasn’t another knock, it was his brother’s knock. His brother didn’t walk in like his brother had done before. Now his brother was always knocking, and he didn’t know why.
He couldn’t open the door in response now. He could only talk. But he didn’t even do that. His brother would come in when he wanted his brother to; somehow his brother would just know.
The door swung open with the soft sigh he now knew well. He looked up at his brother for barely a second.
White pants.
White shirt.
White skin.
Red eyes.
His eyes stayed glued to his brother. His brother had been crying. His brother was sad. “What’s wrong?” was out before he could stop it.
“Why are you on the floor?”
“Waiting,” he said back, slowly, watching for a reaction, for any given reason if he should know why his brother was crying.
His colorful brother wasn’t colorful.
He would know what to think with black. Black meant death and depression. Black meant mourning.
White meant pure. Wasn’t white happy? A bride wore write. Crying wasn’t happy.
“Waiting? For what?” his brother asked.
“Something to happen.”
His brother sank to the floor across from him, head pressed against the door, legs extended out. So close to him, that if he reached, he could touch the tips of his brother’s toes. The feet were flexed to give him a look at the bottom of his brother’s shoes if he looked.
Together they waited for something. His brother looked at him and waited, and he looked at the floor.
White floor.
“I have a present for you.” He rotated his eyes to where the door handle should’ve been. “But you have to come with me to get it.”
“Where is it?” he asked.
“In one of the other rooms.”
“I have to go out?” He fidgeted with the string on his pants. He didn’t want to go out. Most was white out there, but the people outside, they weren’t. They wore clothes like his brother normally did.
Colorful clothes. Colorful people. Colorful brother.
“Yes, you need to come to the other room.” His brother sounded desperate. He didn’t know why, a present wasn’t really anything to get worked up about. It wasn’t even a present for his brother, it was for him.
“I don’t want to,” he replied in a soft voice.
“Please?”
His eyes flashed.
White shirt. White pants. White skin.
Red eyes.
The light left his eyes. “Okay.” He pushed off the floor to stand, pant-legs tumbling down over his legs.
White floor.
His brother glanced down at his feet. “Don’t you need shoes?”
He shook his head watching as his brother clumsily stood. “They don’t care.”
His brother made a small sound that he took as understanding. His brother did something, and the door swung open for them.
He swallowed, and locked his eyes to the floor.
White floor.
His brother tried to wrap a hand around his arm to guide him, but he jerked away. He didn’t like the touch. He felt his brother’s body language change without even looking: reserved, drawn back, scared, confused, angry, lost.
His brother started walking. He started walking, following his brother out the door. He heard things he didn’t want to hear as he walked past doors. He heard things thudding from the inside, and screams muffled by thick doors. He didn’t look up to see if there were small windows. He didn’t look up to see any colors.
Someone brushed him as they shuffled past. Their pants were a flowing, thin material.
Blue pants.
He shied away, bumping into his brother who stopped at the contact. His brother moved away, thinking that’s what he wanted, but he only moved back. He didn’t mind as his brother wrapped an arm around his waist, holding him close and guiding him through the halls.
White halls.
His brother stopped and he looked up. They were standing in a doorway. A doorway with a wooden door.
Brown door.
He darted his eyes down to the floor.
White floor.
“We’re here.”
He moved out of his brother’s grasp in acknowledgement to the words. He kept his head down, watching his feet move over the cool tile floor. His feet almost blended in. Almost so perfectly, you could barely tell his feet were above it.
“Do you like it?”
He shrugged. He hadn’t seen anything, but his brother had assumed because he had stopped, he had seen the present. He raised his head up, eyes quickly darting around the space. It was completely empty except for a piano standing in the center of the room.
Black piano.
It was just an arm’s length away.
Maple walls.
His eyes darted around to land on the windows spanning across a whole wall. There weren’t any curtains covering the colors from outside. They all filtered in.
Green grass.
Blue sky.
Yellow flowers.
He looked at his brother. His non-colorful brother. His brother was looking at the piano. Black framed by the oak walls and open windows. Colors filtering in. “I want to go back.”
“Do you remember?” He looked at his brother. His non-colorful brother was staring at him, silently pleading.
“It’s a piano.”
“Can you play?”
“I don’t want to.” He stared at the floor.
White floor.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to!”
His brother took a step forward and he took a step back, his side bumping into the piano.
Black piano.
“Get away from me,” he hissed, muscles bunching.
His brother flinched, taking steps back. “Tell me why you don’t want to.”
“Tell me why you were crying!” he screeched back, his hands gripping the top of the wood. It hurt to hold on so hard, but he didn’t think he would be able to stand if his brother came closer.
“Nick-“
“I’m not Nick! I’m not the boy before the flash! I’m not, I’m not, I’m not…” His words bubbled over, his hands loosening and his knees sagging. His brother started for him and he straightened back up, shifting closer to the piano, farther away from his brother. The wood dug into his back. His lips closed, and his words were cut off.
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded in brief acknowledgement.
White floor.
“Just, listen to me?”
“Why were you crying?”
“I’ll tell you after you try,” his brother promised, and he accepted his brother’s word. His brother wouldn’t lie to him, would he? His brother came up and stood beside him.
“Turn around,” his brother commanded.
He nodded, turning around and facing the piano.
Black piano.
“Sit down, please.”
He swallowed. He didn’t like that idea, being lower than his brother. He didn’t want to be on something other than white. He didn’t want to be on black. He heard his brother shuffle, and quickly he pulled out the bench, flinching at the touch.
Black bench.
He swallowed as he waited for his brother’s next instructions. His hand rested on his lap, curled into a ball.
White ball.
His brother’s hands snaked around him and pushed up a slab of wood. Black and white appeared beneath it.
“This is a piano,” his brother whispered to him. He didn’t have to look at his brother to know his brother was looking at the keys, not at him.
Black keys.
White keys.
Black and white keys.
“I know,” he said back softly.
White knuckles.
“Yeah, and you know how to play it.”
He swallowed, understanding the unsaid command. Uncurling his finger, he placed them on the white keys. “Knew,” he whispered.
Ivory keys.
“I don’t know how to play anymore.”
“Just play,” his brother’s voice was hoarse, and he could hear his brother swallowing repeatedly, nervous.
He stared at the white keys and his white fingers. He pressed a key.
“It’s not there.”
He flinched as the air moved around him, signaling his brother leaving him. He slung his hand out desperately wanting to keep his brother. He felt his brother slipping away from him. Slipping out of his grip, slipping away from being his brother.
He stumbled to his feet, clinging to his brother’s shirt.
White shirt.
“No,” he choked out. His other hand fumbled to wrap in the loose fabric. His brother stopped, and he fell into his brother. “Tell me! You said you’d tell me after I tried. You never said I had to succeed. I tried!”
He stilled as his brother’s arm wrapped around his shoulders. His eyes darted to the floor.
White floor.
Slowly his brother started to walk; he walked with his brother. They moved out of the room and back down the hall. He couldn’t hear anything except the sounding of the single key.
The single key that didn’t mean anything to him except a sound.
The single key that should’ve meant more to him than just a sound.
They were back in his room and his brother sat him on the bed. Then his brother left. Without telling him anything, his brother left, and he didn’t realize that until the sound left his ears and he couldn’t hear his brother’s breathing anymore.
He looked up at his door.
White door.
No handle on the door. His eyes whipped around.
Bars on the windows.
White bars.
Walls. Lots of walls.
White walls.
Frantically his eyes found his skin. He clawed at it, why was it there? Why wasn’t it pure white? Why was his brother not here? He wanted his brother here!
He scratched, nails digging into his skin. He screamed as skin came up, as red started to come out.
Red skin.
They came in with needles and tied him to the bed. People he didn’t know touched him and pushed him around. He only saw them for a moment, before needles went into his skin. Then he saw nothing real.
He saw something in his dreams. Something black. Something black and it was spinning in his mind.
When he woke up his arms were wrapped and someone was waiting for him. Not his brother or Kevin, someone he didn’t know.
White hair. White skin. White clothes. Icey blue eyes.
They could pass as white. For the second time he didn’t like that someone else was in white. It felt like they were coming into his world and tainting it.
He curled up into a ball, into his white, and didn’t come out until the person sighed and left. The person never came again. His brother didn’t come for a long time, and he spent time looking at the door that had no handle, and running his stubs of nails over his skin. Someone had cut them. When his brother did come again, his brother was back to himself.
His colorful brother.
And everything was normal, except he didn’t dream in white anymore. He dreamed in black and white, and when he woke up, he craved the black.
He wanted the black.
~*~