Snippet #1149298

Jasper stumbled heavily back to his apartment, one hand absently wrenching the door open and leaving it slightly ajar without much concern. His other arm hung uselessly at his side, blood dripping slowly from his fingertips to the floor. It left a trail from the entrance way through the living room and to the solitary bathroom, but he was heedless of it staining the beige carpet or pooling on the white tile floor.

Mechanically, he removed his jacket, exposing the wound on his upper arm to open air. Grabbing a washcloth from the towel rack, he ran it under piping-hot water before wiping the excess blood away, watching the pinkened liquid flow down the sink's drain without any visible reaction. The mirror, which he studiously avoided looking directly at swung aside to reveal a small assortment of medicines, but he ignored these in favor of a roll of bright white bandages. With the same robotic movements, he wrapped the wound before it could start to bleed again, lacking a proper disinfectant. Replacing the bandages, he flexed his arm muscles experimentally. There was a twinge of pain, but it was nothing he couldn't handle.

A few moments later, he dropped heavily onto his bed, closing his eyes against the tide of his thoughts, swinging as they always did towards his brother. A day and a night of searching, and still nothing. Well... not exactly nothing. He thought he'd had a lead there for a while, but as it turns out some thugs had decided to mug him instead. It had worked out even less well for them than it had for Jasper himself.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he should eat, but he ignored the gnawing in his stomach. That could be resolved later. After he slept. After he found Derris... it was not long before he slipped into oblivion, dreams still haunted by nightmare visions of what might have happened to to the only person he'd cared about in a long time.