I Miss You (Anonymously4_told and ArykJayIchijou)

A

Aryk Jay Ichijou

Guest
After a whole year of his brother gone, finally. FINALY! He had done it. He had brought his brother back from the dead. Waiting, waiting. It takes forever, he knew that. Spells, dark magic, it all took so long to perfect and do. Will it be worth the wait?

About an hour of waiting the boy opens his eyes and takes his first sharp inhale. He looks around, dazed and confused. There are two thin rods from his head, his body was now filled with stitches and scars, but he was back. Jake looked towards his older brother for the first time in a year. One eye green and the other now blue.
 
They all warned him of the repercussions that came with resurrecting the dead. It was a sin to play god – to sit on the almighty’s throne and dictate who lived and who died was like playing with fire. He’d only get hurt in the end of it all. He knew that! He understood it clearly, and yet he ignored the warnings and threw caution to the win when he decided to see his brother again. He rebuilt him from the ground up, so to speak. He collected the necessary limbs from other corpses, stabbed rods into his skull to give neural endings the jolt of life, and sewed him back together again.

He wasn’t perfect.

He was far from what he once was. But, in a way, he was his little brother. He didn’t stare at the same emerald hue of his eyes when he woke up. They were different colors in fact. Once unblemished skin was now riddled with scars and stitches that kept him in one piece. Upon Jake’s awakening Deven could feel the imperfection as he gently gathered his brother’s face into his hands. The bumps and ridges were there beneath his fingertips, the rough texture of his skin unlike anything he had felt before.

Again, he wasn’t perfect.

And yet Deven couldn’t help but to smile that genuinely happy smile he hoped his brother would remember. “J-Jake?” He choked back a sob and took slow and steady breaths to prevent the tears from falling. “I-I don’t…I mean….I missed.” Where was his words when he needed them the most?! Damn it! What was wrong with him?! He was the oldest! He wasn’t supposed to be a blubbering mess on the verge of crying his eyes out. To hide the embarrassment, Deven pulled Jake into a tight embrace. “You must be hungry, right? I-I mean I can cook you anything. I can even cook you those disgusting pancakes without burning them this time. I-I can do anything. Say the word and it’s yours. Just tell me I’m not dreaming.”
 
Jake stared blankly at this man in front of him. He was almost like a zombie as his body was still cold. Jake finally blinked and looked at his brother. He slightly raised his hand and pushed him away, "nnhhhhggg...." He wasn't yet used to talking, it would take a few hours, maybe even weeks for him to get his coherent voice back.

Jake looked into his brothers eyes, "...I... Don't like pancakes...." He words were slurred and almost disoriented. His eyes were still dull and he looked around, "...De...von...." He said, remembering the name and face. He couldn't recall, his mind was a blur and it was jumbled with memories from different times and lives.

"Where... We...?" He got off the table and stumbled to the ground. He stayed still while he played there, his breath wasn't even. He tried to push himself up only to fail once more. He looked around again.
 
It had only been a year since his brother’s passing.

Compared to a lifetime many spent mourning for loved ones, 12 months didn’t seem that long. He had no excuse for hating the world the way he did, but within that short timeframe he had lost him, Deven had changed so drastically that sometimes he couldn’t recognize himself even when he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. His heart dropped when Jake denied comfort from arms that encircled him. He had said his name but just like his brother’s body, it came out like a garbled mess he could barely comprehend; not that anything from there on out registered in his head when his entire being went on auto pilot.

He caught Jake before he fell to his knees. Carefully, and ever so gently, he settled Jake onto the mahogany flooring of what remained of his barren apartment. “Look at me.”

‘Don’t do this Deven.’ The warnings came at him in waves that crashed furiously in his head. ‘It won’t be your brother. He won’t be the same.” It wouldn’t stop! The truth of it all kept on ringing persistently in his ears. ’The person you’re bringing back won’t by a person at all…it’ll be a monster. Jake can’t come back.’

Deven shook the thoughts from his mind and took Jake’s face into his hands. He didn’t mean to grab him as roughly as he did, but he needed Jake to understand who he was. “You like Pancakes, you hear me. You like them so fucking much that I went through hell trying to cook them for you when I was 10. I almost burned the house down because of those stupid things!” All he needed was a little patience then maybe Jake could recall the memories he practically spat at him. But he went through so many trials and errors within the year that patience was far out of reach. “So don’t tell me you hate them! Don’t tell me these lies! What I want you to tell me is your name! What’s your name?!”
 
Jake just blinked in confusion, he understood every word but he didn't know what to say. He spoke nonsense for a while, not even words that came out just a jumble of letters formed together. Slowly he looked at him, "name...?"

Jake used his brother to stand up, he looked around, looking for something. His legs trembled as he held tightly to Deven's shoulders, looking aimlessly for what was not there. "...de....von...." He repeated once more. He looked around more, "mir...ror..." It must have been what he was looking for. Perhaps he would remember who he was if he saw a reflection. But no, not all of him was him, it was a fifty-fifty chance.