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~*~
Kevin didn’t come back. His brother didn’t say a single word, when his brother came, about Kevin. It was like Kevin didn’t exist, the exact same way Danielle didn’t exist to him. He felt like he was missing something, but at the same time, it felt like he had everything. His brother was enough for him.
For now.
Kevin had never been family, because family accepted you as you came, and didn’t try to fix you. Kevin had tried to fix him, so Kevin wasn’t family. His brother never told him what to do, at least not in a way he could recognize, he just listened as his brother treated him like he was family.
Maybe it was because his brother didn’t have any family except him, and his brother had to make the best of what he had.
He sighed at the thought, tracing the tiled floor.
White floor.
His brother didn’t have Kevin because Kevin wouldn’t talk to his brother, because of something before the flash. Because of something before the flash, his brother didn’t have a mother or father now. No one had told him, but he knew it was because of the flash. Whatever had happened was hidden in the flash; the flash was so blinding bright and strong to hide everything from before.
He gave a frustrated sigh and wished he could look at his piano. But he couldn’t, not if he wanted to win the battle. He wished he could have his mirror then. He closed his eyes and remembered the walls.
Red walls.
They were better than the pure white. He didn’t feel pure. He felt like dirt in his own world, and that isn’t right, because his world should be a world he felt perfect in, like when everything started, when he had woken up, and there was nothing before the flash and nothing after.
It was just white: white and pure and perfect.
His eyes flashed open at a knock on the door. His brother.
“Come in!” He scrabbled to the floor, his heart racing. His brother was a different color.
His colorful brother.
He needed something other than white. He needed it.
The door swung open and his brother stood with a big brown box at his brother’s feet. He paused mid-step to his brother, confused. He shook off the confusion.
“What’s up, Pres’?” his brother asked in greeting, kicking the box into the room. His heart swelled at the nickname. His brother had called him that when his brother had first come to see him, two years ago, but his brother had stopped after the first few times, when he had been confused with the name. Now though, he loved it.
“What’s that?” He nodded to the box, over spilling with paper.
Blue paper. Red paper. Orange paper. Green paper. Silver paper. Gold paper.
His eyes were glued to it.
“Letters.” His brother pushed the box into the center of the room, right by the piano. He squeezed his eyes shut, and turned away. Too close, too close to the piano. He shifted as out of the corner of his eye, he saw his brother sit down. His brother had to be sitting on the piano bench.
He flinched away. He looked up at the ceiling, trying to orient where everything was. The piano bench he hadn’t touched, the piano he refused to look at, and now his brother and his brother’s box with the color papers. They were all under the same spot, the same spot he couldn’t look at.
“Nick?”
“You need to come over here,” he told his brother, staring at the ceiling before he cautiously made his way back to his bed.
White bed.
He flinched at the white, afraid to sit on it now. Afraid as always he would taint it with his brother, with his colorful brother, and now with himself, even in his all white.
“Why do I need to go over there?” his brother asked. He shrugged, still standing to the bed.
White bed.
“Because,” he whispered.
“Because why?”
“Because!” he screamed, before his voice softened to an almost inaudible whisper, “Just because.”
“Nick?”
“I’m not the boy before the flash,” he mumbled.
“Okay,” his brother said slowly. He flushed at his brother’s acceptance of his statement. “Then who are you?”
He folded his legs underneath him on the bed and wrapped his fingers into the sheet.
White sheet.
It was better to taint the white then answer his brother’s question. He didn’t know. He turned to face the wall, and, if he dared look, he could just see the top of the cardboard box and all its colors.
Brown box.
“Remember…” he asked softly playing with the sheet.
White sheet.
Then his words sped up, tumbling into one another, “Remember when you gave me the piano?” He was testing his brother. He realized he was testing his brother with how fast he had shot off the question. He was seeing if his brother would lie to him, or only tell him a half truth. He twisted the sheet, waiting for his brother’s answer.
White sheet.
If there would even be an answer. His shoulders started to sag when his brother didn’t answer.
“Yes.”
He straightened up. “What do you remember about it?”
“Why?”
“What do you remember about it?” he asked again. His eyes focused on the wall.
White wall.
“I remember…not much. I - the piano wasn’t in your room at first. I had - you needed to come with me to see it.”
“What were you wearing?”
“W - what?”
“White,” he answered for his brother. “You were wearing white. You were wearing white and your eyes were puffy and red. You were so pale too, almost white. Almost my color white, almost my room white.” He hated how he couldn’t see his brother because he couldn’t look at the piano. He kept his eyes on the wall.
White wall.
But he heard the shuffling of his brother’s feet. He heard the swift kick to the cardboard box.
Brown box.
“It’s none of your business,” his brother whispered harshly. He flinched. He hated this. He hated how his brother one moment would be up and the next down. He hated how there were all these secrets he didn’t know, and no one thought he needed to know.
He closed his eyes, his blood pounding, his heart racing. He snapped his eyes open.
White wall.
White wall, but he saw red. He saw the blood red.
Red walls.
He screamed.
“You!” he shouted. “You were the one who did this! You put me here. You were the one who made the flash!” His words were his thoughts, his thoughts in the back of his mind. But they weren’t what he wanted to say. He didn’t want to say anything that was coming out of his mouth. “How do I know you haven’t been lying to me this whole time, huh? Because apparently that’s all we were able to do before the flash!” He moved to the wall. His feet warmed the cool tile. He stared at the wall, he yelled at the wall.
He smashed his hand to it and yelled.
“No, Nick!”
He hit the wall. He pretended it was his brother, his colorful brother who made everything so hard. Why did his brother have to be who his brother was? Why couldn’t he have changed after the flash too? Why couldn’t his brother be like him? It was his brother’s fault after all. Why did his brother ever have to come see him? Day after day, time after time? Why couldn’t he just not know about his brother like for the first year he had been awake after the flash? It had been so easy then.
He cried, his hand hurt, but he couldn’t stop. It was an addiction, to the pain, to the mind numbing pain.
“Breathe!”
Hands frantically scraped at his shoulders. He shrieked.
“You have to - Nick, stop!”
Something wet trailed down his face. Something wet trailed across his hands. Something wet was in a pool under his feet. He couldn’t stop. He sobbed. He wanted to stop, but he couldn’t, over and over again his fists hit the wall. He tried to still, he tried to put his hands by his side, collapse to the floor, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.
“Please…”
He recognized the weakness. He recognized someone who couldn’t fight back, so he fought them. He swung blindly, his feet slipping on the floor, and he slammed to the ground. He pulled them with him, and he screamed and pushed them. He punched them and they barely fought back. Their hands fumbled to grab his. Each time his hand was caught in the warmth of another, he would pull away and strike harder. Each time he struck them harder than the strike before.
“Breathe. Just a breath.”
“I’m trying,” he sobbed. He wanted to win something. He wanted to win the battle. He just wanted to win something. Addiction to win.
“Plea-“ the word was choked off with a bubbling sound. Any resistance was gone to him.
He had won. He stopped, his knees on the ground. His knees were wet. His pants had ridden up to his thighs. His calves pressed into the floor. The floor was warm. He stood up, his legs shaky underneath him. He was all sticky. He looked around, at the room around him, his eyes carefully avoiding the piano. He looked at the wall.
Red wall.
His eyes trailed down to the floor.
Red floor.
He stumbled back. He watched his feet make red tracks on the floor.
Red tracks.
He followed his tracks to his brother’s crumpled body on the floor.
Red body.
He let out a strangled howl. His feet sloshed on the floor, through something wet and sticky.
Red wall. Red bed. Red curtains. Red door. Red floor.
White ceiling.
He pressed his hands to his face.
Red. Red. Red.
His face got sticky. Where were the people who came with the needles? Didn’t they know to come in? He slammed his fist into the other wall.
Hit. Hit. Hit.
He watched each new white place he hit, and each time it became red.
Red wall. Red spot.
It hurt. It hurt so bad. His heart, his hands, his head.
Then the door slammed open. There was no soft moan. There was no comforting moan. It was a sharp scream to his ears, and he screamed with it, his hands cupped over his ears. Someone grabbed his arm, and they tried to pull his arm away, but he wouldn’t let them take it away from his ear. It was blocking out the screaming. He wrenched away and their hand slipped off of his arm, like it was coated in oil. But it was just coated in wet blood. Someone tried to pull him down, and he fought back. His arms snapped out. His footing was weak. His hands hurt. They grabbed him and slammed him to the floor.
His hair was in a pool of blood.
Red blood.
He looked up at the ceiling.
White ceiling.
The only thing white. The only thing still pure he hadn’t been able to touch, to dirty.
They slammed something into his arm, and it hurt. It hurt as bad as his hands. It spread through his body, a stinging wildfire. He welcomed it, welcomed the burning pain turning the addiction to ashes. He sobbed: in happiness, in pleasure, in fear, in joy.
Black finally came. The physical red disappeared.
He dreamed in red, and he hated it. Just red, red, red, red.
Red blood.
Red sheets. Red walls. Red floors. Red windows. Red doors. Red hands. Red eyes. Red nails. Red shirts. Red lips. Red chairs. Red shoes. Red hair. Red skin. Red bed. Red lamp. Red pillow.
Red ceiling.
He screamed. The ceiling had been white. It had still been pure. If he had looked up, he would’ve still seen white, he would’ve still seen something pure.
But that wasn’t how it was in his dream. In his dream the ceiling was red. In his dream the ceiling was dripping red. It was oozing deep, dark red. The red trapped him, it encircled him, it caged him. He was an animal on display in a zoo. He was dangerous. He was evil.
His eyes snapped to white.
White ceiling. White floor. White curtain. White sheet. White window. White walls.
He reached up to touch it, but he couldn’t, his arm jerked back with a chain. He shouted. Why was he bound down? He had done nothing that was his fault. He jerked and screamed, and struggled and cried, and no one came. He sobbed ‘til he couldn’t see the edges of the white, and it was all just one big blur.
White room.
White cage.
He was tied down, and no one was coming to let him up. He finally faded into the black once more: sweet, secure black. There weren’t sticky droplets of blood on him, now it was just dried trails of tears and sweat.
Someone he didn’t recognize was sitting at the edge of the bed. They were reading something to him in a slow and steady voice. He turned away from them, and almost burst into tears because nothing was holding him back to curl up on his side with his hands, crystallized in a hard shell, pressed under his chin.
The person’s voice droned on and on, and he was able to fade back to black. He didn’t like it anymore. There was no freedom. He was either in a white cage or black cage. He was a caged animal.
He had a needle in his arm when he woke up one day, he didn’t even know how much time had passed since his room had been coated in red. With just the ceiling free. He looked up.
White ceiling.
He looked down at his arm, skinny and barely there, and he could trace the veins.
Blue veins.
They were trapped in his skin.
White skin.
They were trapped in his skin just like he was trapped in this room.
White room.
He didn’t even think like he normally did waiting for someone to come. Thinking made him think of when the room had been red. He hated remembering that, so he didn’t think. He just sat and stared and waited, without thinking. There was no concept of time around him. The curtains were drawn so tight.
White curtains.
There was still no handle on the door.
White door.
And he didn’t dare look to see if the piano was still in his room.
His brother had given him the piano. He didn’t want to remember his brother, not with what he had done to his brother. So he just knew people came in to change the wrappings on his hands, which had been changed over time from the hard cast, and to refill the IV. He could see the liquid pump through his veins if he stayed still enough and looked hard enough. The vein would pulse slowly.
Blue vein.
Then there was a knock on the door one day. His eyes shot to the door. His brother walked in.
His colorful brother.
Green cap. Blue shirt. Yellow pants. Red shoes.
His eyes raked it all in. He couldn’t get another of it, but then he stopped. He flushed and looked away from his brother. His brother had only taken one step into the room, and was staring at him, too. Except, his brother was looking at his hands.
The door closed softly behind him.
He darted too look up at his brother’s face. He swallowed back tears.
Purple eye. Yellow skin. Blue chin.
He looked at his brother’s arms, visible under the short-sleeve tee.
Purple and yellow and blue and grey skin.
Up and down his brother’s arms.
“I’m sorry,” they blurted out at the same time.
“I know,” his brother said.
“You know,” he whispered back. His brother walked to him, favoring a single leg, and he saw that with each step his brother winced. With each step his brother was in pain, and his face twisted. He had been the one who had done that.
His brother wrapped him on a hug as he sat on the bed.
White bed.
“I’m sorry,” his brother whispered to him.
He choked up; he should be the one to be whispering that, saying it over and over again as his brother was doing. But his brother was the one with the saying coursing over and over his lips. His brother was the one stroking his hair and rocking him back and forth. His brother was the one who held him as he cried.
His brother.
His colorful brother.
His colorful brother who cared about him.
His colorful brother who bled the same blood as he did; his colorful brother who was his family, and didn’t care if he was the boy before the flash, or the one after; his colorful brother who was his family.
~*~