Conversations in White
I don't think I posted this here? I wrote it a while ago
Based on this picture that I’ve reblogged a lot. I really love it.
Chara: Stephanie Brown and Jason Todd
The brightness hurt even before Stephanie opened her eyes. The surface beneath her was soft but she couldn’t reason what it was she lay on.
There was nothing for her to see when she propped herself up with an arm and scaled the area. Whiteness consumed everything, blocking out a horizon that felt very far away until she blinked. Nothing but white, pure in a simple way and bright like nothing she was used to, and a boy. His hair was black and his skin light but his clothes looked familiar. He rolled and revealed the familiar Robin tunic, a verson of the same one she wore.
He looked at her from his laying position and eyebrows knitted together finally when he couldn’t place her.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Stephanie said. She pulled her knees to her chest and noticed for the first time her gloves. She didn’t feel them on her hands, nor could she feel any of her clothes next to her skin. It should’ve been chilling but she didn’t feel surprised by it. Which only left curiosity.
He pushed himself up and unto his feet, searching himself before scanning her.
“Who are you supposed to be?”
She stared up at him, scanning his bare legs on the way to his eyes. “Robin. Who are you?”
“Robin.” He looked down at her and she thought he was mad. He didn’t know the name had been passed down. Sure, she recognized him but he wouldn’t recognize her. She waited for the reprimand, the challenge and prepared a retort, something to steady her own doubt she realized she no longer had. Strange.
“Oh,” he said instead. He turned and surveyed the place, taking a few steady steps. The ground felt soft to her but his steps were level and even. She couldn’t see a seam where softness met stability. It shouldn’t bothered her. Knowing that it didn’t also should have bothered her. She hoped he didn’t go too far. “This is a crazy place,” he said.
That would explain it. A crazy place, with drugs that took away those uncertain feels. But she did feel certain and she knew that wasn’t the right answer. She wasn’t in a crazy place. He wasn’t either. Were they even in a place?
“How did you get here?” he asked, turning back to her.
“I don’t know,” she said. She couldn’t recall anything. Not the details, not her past but she didn’t feel lost or empty. It was just feelings without context. She knew enough, and knew that she knew enough. “You’re Jason Todd.”
He looked about fifteen with a voice that sounded changed but not matured. His attitude was apparent in his speech, like a dog barking to be heard. He gave another ruffled look. “How do you know that?”
She didn’t know how, only that he was. The tunic he wore was familiar, his face a strangers but still very obvious. “Because I do.”
He didn’t like the answer and took a few more steps.
“Why are you here?” she asked to distract him from the void between them.
His mouth frowned slightly, an unconscious move he wasn’t aware of. His eyes searched her’s as he tried to remember and she wondered if he could.
“I don’t know,” he said finally in defeat and sat down next to her. “But it doesn’t bother me.”
“Same here,” she said. “Weird.”
“Not for you.” She cocked her head to the side, confused. A few strands of hair fell forward to his forehead. “You’re an angel, so it wouldn’t bother you.”
“What does that mean? You said I’m an angel?” she couldn’t stop the laugh. “How’d you deduce that one?”
“You’re not wearing a mask,” he said. He watched as she touched her fingers to her face, feeling for something that wasn’t there. “Robins wear a mask.”
She felt the familiar warmth surge at the implication. “You’re not wearing one either. ” He tried to stop himself from mirroring her movement, instead settling on a weak glare.
“So?”
“So. I’m not an angel. I don’t think.”
“Oh.” He looked away to hide his hand from checking his face and her early anger drained. “Well I thought you were.”
“Not unless you are. Maybe we’re each other’s.”
He smiled at her. “Ha. Maybe.”
“So tell me something.”
“What?”
“Anything.” She released her knees and looked up at whatever was above her hidden in the white. “Do you remember anything at all?”
He followed her gaze up. “I was helping my Mom. I finally found her but I don’t think I saved her.”
Stephanie frowned and bit her lip. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
He kept staring up. “It’s okay. I don’t know why it is, but it feels like it is. It should bug me but…”
“But you know everything’s okay, too.” He nodded. “I feel the same. Like something happened, something I should feel bad about. But I don’t.” When she looked up he was staring at her. The color of his skin and hair and eyes was shocking against the white surrounding them.
“I always worried I wouldn’t feel like this,” he said.
“Like what?” she asked, wondering what exactly he did feel and if she felt the same and if she could tell if she did or not.
“That is was worth it.”
Her eyes lowered to his emblem that was white on his uniform like everything else, but still visible by invisible lines, and knew that what she felt too. Contentment.
“Peace.”
He nodded. He folded his hands behind his back and leaned backwards until he was lying down again on the soft surface.
“I like this place,” he said and she saw that peace in his eyes. It looked well-earned, like sleep to an exhausted soldier.
“Me too. I guess.” His eyes closed and she watched him for a long moment before joining him. They lay there together. Neither knew how long or cared. They talked some but no a lot. There’s wasn’t much to talk about when neither could remember much. They were both okay with that. She liked his eyes, the only bright color around and he liked her hair for the same reason. A falling star came to her mind without reason or source. Then the first sensation of anything but the serine hit her. Pain.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, propping himself onto his elbows.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think I belong here, though.”
“Of course you do. Where else is there?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. But I should leave.”
He started to say something but his mouth caught the words before they escaped and the boy she first met came back. It was understanding of a cause she saw now. He understood.
“Good luck,” he said, instead of “stay”. She lay down beside him again as another wave of pain hit. He hugged her until she woke up.
A nurse yelled something in a language Stephanie didn’t know over her to someone out of sight. Smells from everything bombarded her senses, noises shook her thoughts in her head. Nothing struck her memory and her body jumped in pain.
A face looked down at her that felt familiar without real recognition. “You’re okay now,” the doctor said. “We got you now.”
Words blocked her throat, as immobile as the rest of her body and Stephanie blinked away the white lights from above.