I was always there for him... the moment he came into the world. The moment he learned to walk, to talk, to live. I held his hand and comforted him when his first crush dumped him.
He was always the nervous type, I'll never forget that. His shy smile, his curious golden eyes, blinking softly at the worm he held in his palm that one night after the Thunderstorm.
And it hurt... it hurt to look at him now. I didn't see a dead man, and I didn't see stitches and green skin. I saw my brother. I saw the boy I taught to fish, and swim. The boy who cried in my arms when he broke his wrist on his birthday.
I saw Jayne.
But that was all over now.
I couldn't even look at him while he held the redheads hand. I couldn't stand to hear him talk, hear his voice speaking to someone other then me. I couldn't watch him care about someone else in such a manner... his golden eyes still the same from years ago. He didn't change. He was still my brother.
He wasn't that boy's. He was nothing to him. That boy wasn't there for him when he scrapped his knee's riding his bike for the first time. Or when he built his first tree fort.
No, he wasn't there. He knew NOTHING about him. What right did he have to hold his hand and look up at him with such adoring blue eyes.
None... he had no right.
Jayne, how could you? after all I've done. After ten years of crying, sleepless nights, endless searching... hopeless dreaming that you might still be out there. After ten years of carrying an empty, broken heart. Ten years of watching my own damn family turn their backs on you, not even bothering to mark your grave. Like it mattered, your body was never found.
They called me a fool for hoping. For staring up at the stars and talking about how you were still alive. I knew you were. I knew it all along... but it hurt. It hurt, Jayne, my brother. It hurt to be alone with my memories. To pull out your picture of the night before you left me... the night we spent alone at the bar, and the first time you opened up since the case of the boy's missing parents you were so obsessed about. You were smiling, your soft eyes full of joy and peace. Ha, the food wasn't even that good, stale french fries and burger... but that didn't matter. It was just us.
It felt like a hand ripping my heart out to glance at the picture. Simply stare for hours, never caring about the sleep I lost. About the family I left behind. You were to dear to me, my only little brother. I loved to see you smile, even if it was only a picture. I knew someday I would see you smile again.
It killed me inside, so many years of hoping, looking. But I found you. I did... and I didn't care about what you looked like, I didn't even care you were a zombie. Fuck that, you were my brother. Still my brother... nothing can change that.
You forgot me, you didn't even care anymore. I saw you walk away, I saw you turn your back for the boy you loved more then me. It was like tearing my old wound open and pouring salt over it. All my hopes, my pain, my agony... it sprayed across the ground in front of me. But you failed to see the blood. You failed for so many years, you had no idea how I hurt. That boy, he told me I never cared. He told me I let you die. He told me your family didn't even care to search for you.
I did, brother. I did. I never stopped caring. I never stopped hurting. If I were there when they hurt you, I would have taken the blow. I would have let them kill me... just to see you walk out alive, alive and well. I would have, Jayne, I would have... you don't understand the fucking steps I would have taking just to set you free.
To make you remember me...
You forgot me.
But I never forgot you.
And now I can only watch as you turn your back on me like I never mattered. I know you're remembering me now, brother. I can sense it. I know you stay up late with the new but lost memories that flood you. But you ignore them, you push them aside like they don't matter. All for that boy, the one you love more then anything in the world. More then you ever did me.
You can try and forget me. Try and act like I was never there for you when you needed it.
Was he? did that boy you love so much stand by you for so long?
No. I did.
And no matter what you do you can't erase that. I am your brother, and you know it, Jayne.
Don't act like you don't have a name, or past.
I looked for you, I found you. You betrayed me like yesterdays trash.
I'll make you suffer. I promise you this. I'll make you see the blood I shed for so many years. I'll make you feel the back stabbing agony.
And if it means taking the one thing you love the most away, then so be it, brother. But remember... you caused this. You broke your promise to me. You left.
Now its my turn.