livejournal fics//joncer

Dreaming In Color

Author: silver_etoile

 

*

Jon has always seen in color. He sees the vivid blue of the sky in Arizona, the robin's egg color spreading across the cloudless expanse above. He sees the green trees pressing in around as they drive down some winding highway in the Pacific Northwest. He sees the yellow of William's shirt stuffed down behind the couch, the color burning into his mind and he just wants to capture it somehow.

He sees the pink converse the girl wears at one of the shows, the ones Tom bends down to sign later afterwards, his name scrawling across the canvas. He sees the dusk with its inky shades of blue, sees it pass into dawn with blue becoming white and yellow, then gold and pink and finally blue again.

Jon sees in color and he loves his life that way. He likes the way it all comes to him, like a rainbow of the world crawling in through the windows and doors so he can see it all.

When Jon meets Spencer, though, he sees black and he sees white.

The tour is somewhere in Europe and these kids are too young to be here, but it doesn't really matter at all. What matters is that Spencer isn't in color.

Jon sees the way Ryan's vest is covered in fuchsia roses, each one carving out a shape and a new color against his skin. He sees the blue eyeliner traced over Ryan's cheekbones, delicate and strange. He sees the blue that flows from Ryan's pen into the blank notebook pages that he leaves lying around busses and dressing rooms.

Brendon is always a burst of color; blue hoodies, brown shoes, red-framed glasses. He's the energy the others aren't. He's enthusiastic where the others avert their eyes and stare at their shoes.

Jon sees how Ryan stares at his notebook, purple pen poised and ready to flow the blue words onto the page. He sees how Brendon eats pink poptarts in the morning and stumbles on The Academy's bus after a show in his orange tee shirts. He sees Brent with his blue shirts and brown hair, scuffed blue jeans, the mahogany bass in his hands night after night on stage.

But Spencer. Jon doesn't see Spencer.

Spencer stays close but shies away. Jon doesn't understand.

Jon wants to see Spencer in color, wants to see the color of his shirts, the design on his shoes, the paleness of his skin. But Spencer is in black and white.

On The Academy's bus, they drink. The bottles are bright and red, blue, green labels. The couch is old and dark blue, stains and cigarette burns. The alcohol is brown, clear, mixed with orange, pink, red.

Jon has had too many and the bus is too crowded. He can feel the colors swirling around him as he weaves dizzily to his feet, heading for the door.

The sky is inky blue, dusky twilight over the dark trees surrounding the parking lot. There's a flickering streetlamp that spreads a wide circle of orange on the pavement, falling short of the bus about twenty feet. Jon stumbles down the steps of the bus, tripping his way onto the ground and reaching up to the bus to steady himself.

A dark figure is leaning against the bus, near the tail end, and Jon pauses. If he looks harder, he can recognize the curve of the back against the metal, the shoe propped up against the wheel. The person doesn't move as Jon comes closer, sliding his hand against the bus, over the wave of purple painted on the side, spliced in between silver.

"Hey," he says when he gets close enough and Spencer looks over, body looking tired and still dark. "What are you doing?" If the words slur a little, Jon ignores it, leaning a heavy shoulder against the bus and watching Spencer shift.