Snippet #1215496

Jasper took in Amunet's words with neither reply nor discernible physical response. Indeed, it was not until he heard her enter her own room that he even moved at all. Derris... some part of his brother remembered him, it seemed. He wasn't quite sure how to take that. On the one hand, of course, he was glad of it. What person wouldn't want the only thing in the world they could say they loved to love them back? Remembrance was certainly a step in the right direction in that sense.

Yet... how much did he really want his brother to remember? Their lives had been hard, and painful. There were nights when they gone to sleep next to dumpsters, the gnawing pain in their stomachs a constant reminder of their poverty. Jasper had lost count of the number of times he'd gone without to see his brother fed, but never had it been enough.True, before the disease struck, they were living relatively stable lives in Exodar, but did he want Derris to remember what he'd had to do to secure that? Jasper was a thug, pure and simple. Not in the sense that he extorted from people or did anyone's dirty work, but it would be impossible to believe that there wasn't blood on his hands all the same. Blood, mixed with the filth of underground dealings and illegal fights.

He'd kept as much of it from the frail little boy as possible, but Derris wasn't stupid. What was he supposed to think, when Jasper came home bloodied and bruised more often than not? That just couldn't and didn't add up to anything savory, end of story. He hoped the dreams in which his little brother cried his name were not nightmares, but he knew deep down that they could not be otherwise.

For a moment, the young man lost his poise, and closed his eyes against inescapable memory. Running a hand through his thick black hair with a frustrated noise, he stood, desperate to be anywhere, doing anything but all this damn thinking. Whether or not he wanted Derris to remember was irrelevant. He would or he wouldn't irrespective of that.Which meant that Jasper would just have to take things as they came, and cross these bridges when they came to him. Would Derris despise him when all was said and done? Maybe, but that wouldn't stop him from protecting his brother. Not now, not ever.

Checking to make sure the door was, in fact, closed, Jasper headed for the shower. Amunet was right about one thing at the very least: he needed rest. Maybe the hot water and some sleep would help him forget these troubling thoughts for the moment. He knew not what would become of any of them tomorrow, but then, he never had, and he was still alive anyhow.