do you ever experience a wild moment of sudden empathy for everyone in the world. like yeah i knew a guy who bullied people a lot, and who i really used to hate, but then i found out he got beaten by his stepdad and watched his sister die a horrible and graphic death first-hand, and suddenly the hate didn't come so easy. yeah i knew a girl who abused me for the better half of my life, but looking back, she also definitely had no one in the world who loved her, including her own family. my issues with her are a lot more personal, but i just don't have it in me to really loathe her the way i once did. i've never had a good relationship with my father, but he never had a parent worth looking up to. and i'm not saying any of that trauma excuses being a horrible human being, and i'm not saying you have to forgive everyone who ever wronged you, or even really that you should.
but i guess i'm saying maybe i forgive the people who wronged me.
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just me being pathetic
it's always about the same theme. love.
if you make yourself unlovable by being unable to love you'll never have to worry about losing that love. cause you can't have it in the first place.
it works with me. i can't love anyone. my heart is stone. i'll never feel anything for you. all my emotional needs are channeled towards an unattainable band dude who i'm free to idealize and will never hurt me. he's the only one i accept love from, and it's all in my head, but honestly?? it works perfectly. it's all in my head but it's just as fulfilling and it's secure and im content
you know what you can't escape from? what you can't find surrogate love for, what demands to be loved and you just can't do anything about it?
it's fucking dogs. i never thought i'd have to protect myself from dog love because dogs can't leave you right?? they love you until they die, unlike people
now they wanna take my dog from me???? the only non virtual being ive ever allowed myself to love? the only one i felt secure about?? you take her away?
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June of Jesper 2023 Part 3
it's here! it's late! it's Jesper angst again!
@brotherbandarchive
Isolation
(this is actually part of a longer piece I've been working on on and off for over a year. maybe it'll motivate me to finish it)
It had to be past midnight now, and the cell had finally quietened. Most of the men were sleeping, backs pressed together for body heat, and the few who weren't probably wouldn't start anything at this hour. There was time for Jesper to take stock.
He sat with his back pressed into a corner, the stone chill but slowly warming through his shirt. His shoes were gone, confiscated when the guards found his boot knife, and the few coins in his pockets had been taken almost as soon as the cell door had slammed. The big man sleeping in the centre of the raft of snoring bodies had most of them, he thought.
Not that eight Skandian kroner would do him much good in a Toscan prison, but Jesper supposed it was the thought that counted.
His shirt was torn, and there were new bruises rising across his ribs and cheekbone, but it could have been worse. It could have been far worse.
It could get worse, yet. Jesper was sharply aware of the fact that he was the youngest in the cell by a good margin, and one of the smallest, and a foreigner to boot. A perfect target, and the little broken Toscan he spoke wouldn't do shit to save him if one of the other prisoners decided it was time for a show of strength.
Nothing much he could do about that.
Jesper was reminded of the little dockside lockup back in Hallasholm. He'd spent too many nights there to count, back before he'd worked out how to avoid getting caught or to turn it into a joke if he was, and it had been empty and freezing on the good nights, and cramped full of half a dozen drunks on the bad. After a hunting party had returned, or a wolfship had come in from a long haul, usually. But that had been meant as a deterrent more than anything, and he'd known he'd be sent on his way in the morning with a cuff and a half-hearted caution.
This was different. There wasn't going to be a lecture in the morning, a fresh bruise or perhaps a scrap of bread if the guard on duty was one he knew. His picks were gone, and he doubted anyone else in the cell would have managed to keep hold of a knife or set of hairpins or scrap of wire.
All he could do was wait, and hope that the Herons would come for him. They wouldn't leave him behind. Jesper knew that, but the little voice that was never too far from the back of his mind hissed that perhaps this was the last time, perhaps Hal would decide to cut the losses and dead wood and sail, perhaps Thorn would tell them that a crew had to make sacrifices, perhaps—
Perhaps Jesper, his skills and his weaknesses, wasn't worth the risk.
No. He pushed the thoughts aside. Hal was as loyal to the crew as they were to him, and even if he weren't, even if Jesper has been so wrong in his trust all these years, Stefan would come for him. Stefan wouldn't let them walk away. Jesper still wasn't certain he deserved Stefan, but he wouldn't, couldn't doubt what they had. Stefan would come.
Idly, he rubbed his wrist, feeling for the cool weight of the bracelet he usually wore. He'd taken it off for this task, and he missed it now. The bracelets had been reissued after they'd returned with the Andomal, and not all of the Herons wore them, but Jesper kept his close. It served as a reminder: that he had a crew now. A family. People he couldn't let down, people who wouldn't let him fall.
People who would come for him no matter what.
Jesper leaned back against the wall, tipped his head to the stars through the barred skylight, and waited for his crew.
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