tw: depersonalization, feelings of lost identity (just in case bc. yeah), child soldiers
please for the love of the gods, proceed with caution. like genuinely
Jason pursed his lips, his gaze falling to his hands as he threaded his fingers together unsure of what to say, how to say it, if he should he say it. Years of restraint and forging and discipline weigh on his shoulders, clawing at his back, all the while chaining him to the ground he found himself suffocating under.
Even as he glanced at Reyna who stared at him expectantly, her eyebrow raised as her hand rested limply, lazily on the handle of her sword, the words were lodged in his throat and unable to push past his teeth.
Uncertainty is a weakness, Jason Grace. Lupa’s voice rang through his head. Remove it, shatter it then burn it until there is nothing left. Uncertainty will kill you. She reminded him firmly, strictly with authority and no concern for the fragility that was taken the day he was abandoned.
Jason had never been defiant, he has never found the courage to break the barrier of orders programmed into his mind, his body, his soul. As the system of his brain threatened to shut down, errors covering every corner of his vision, he swallowed thickly. His breath hitched as if his lungs ceased to function, his oxygen stolen. “Do— do you ever…feel like you’re not— not real?”
Reyna furrowed her brows, tilting her head slightly to the left and Jason could see her mind working at a rapid pace. Her eyes almost glazed over, a look so distant and so far as she thought and thought and thought.
Years forced to hold his tongue, play the role with obedience, he learned to observe. It wasn’t the observation of a predator that was drilled into the core of his being, chipping away anything but a killing machine. It was also the observation of simply just existing on the sidelines.
How certain people moved, their habits and their tells, the rubbing of one’s fingers against the palm of their hand, how tones never match their gazes. Eyes are windows to the soul and Jason knew then, not many soldiers of the Legion were human. Their eyes dulled over time, losing the shine and although most would smile and laugh and joke, it never reached their eyes. Guilt and remorse written over their expressions but never reflected in the empty wells void of water.
Jason watched silently as Reyna followed through the same struggle of wanting to speak but unable to say it unless she forced herself to. It was eerie, almost impossible, for his throat to feel scratchy and hoarse like he screamed and shouted for hours. He swallowed again, resisting the urge to rub his throat and grimace as he tasted the faintest hint of metallic iron on his tongue. As if he ripped the stitches that held his vocal chords speaking out of line.
“I—“ Reyna began, turning her head to the side to cough with the back of her hand pressed to her mouth. A flicker of emotion fell through and her face faltered from the usual blankness they each held. “I don’t— I don’t. I don’t feel—“
Jason nodded and they fell silent. He watched as Reyna lowered her head, her eyes wide as short breaths escaped her lips like she ran for miles and she couldn’t stop. She had. They both had.
Reality suddenly warped around them and zeroed in like cameras, they were aware and everything felt wrong.
Each inhale felt foreign, every thought wasn’t their own and their bodies weren’t theirs to begin with. They remained standing, frozen and locked in place as they spiraled. Jason couldn’t see from his eyes the way he used to. His arms and his hands felt far away, fisheye lens placed over his vision to disorientate him and throw him off balance. He broke off from the act he was in, refused to read from the script given to him like he became a sentient robot.
But that’s what he was. It was what he and Reyna both were. Puppets on string, never deciding their own choices as they walked the plank over an endless drop. He was aware that each person there had free will, what they do or say or act determined their future.
Yet at this moment, like a deer in headlights, never breathing and stuck encased in glass, Jason didn’t know what to do with himself. Because in truth, fate determined his free will. And relief settled in his chest hours later knowing Reyna felt the same.
They were human but they weren’t human enough. They each lacked identity, basing their lives around the legacy they built for the world until Jason’s question acted like a wake up call. He was sure, though.
He was sure that he would never be more than a soldier but less than a human. Trapped in a loop of obedience and order, never to change or destroy, always to walk forward and refrain from jumping off the plank.
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for the prompt:
stress or caffeine ~or both~
A/N: Friend, you asked for this so long ago. I'm so sorry! You also asked for Crosby - this is my first time writing for him and it's a platonic relationship, I hope that's okay.
"Will you check on Croz?" Jack Kidd catches Grace Fleming in the infirmary before her shift is over.
"I'm a little busy, Major, but I'll see if I can track him down. Any idea where he might be?"
"He's still in his office."
That gives Grace pause. "Still?"
Kidd's hands are on his hips and he gives her a look as if to say see what I'm saying? Jack gives Croz a hard time, but the two of them have been here together since the beginning, and she knows they have a bond that's hard to find anymore.
"I'll see what I can do." Grace concedes, smiling at the worried Major.
"He hasn't been sleeping. I just--" He runs a hand through his hair, "He's putting too much pressure on himself."
Grace finds Crosby at his desk, a steaming cup of coffee next to him. She doesn't have much reason to worry yet, but she knocks on the doorframe to get his attention anyway.
He looks up, startled. "Lieutenant." He says, an exhausted smile on his face. "Almost gave me a fright."
"That's Captain to you, now." She says, a little haughtily, her own grin overtaking her features.
"I'll be damned. Congratulations, Grace."
"Thank you, Harry." She takes a few steps closer, and sits in the spare chair next to his desk without asking. "I've been hearing some rumblings." She says, gauging his reaction.
"Oh?" He's back at his maps, pencil tucked behind his left ear. "Anything useful?"
"More worried chatter about everyone running themselves into the ground before the next big one." She says it as if the "b" and "o" are capitalized. He raises his eyebrow - probably suspects some of the rumblings she's been hearing are from Rosie, and that she shouldn't really know anything about it.
"Between you and me, Captain, this is a big one. Everyone's working hard."
Grace hums. She wonders if she should even be in here, though who's she going to tell, anyway? Even so, something in her keeps her from glancing too hard at his maps to figure anything out. "Any advice for the stress?"
He chuckles. "Seems people should be asking you that, Gracie. Not me." He straightens, stretching his arms overhead. "I'd tell them to take a break so their minds are right. It's too important."
Grace nods slowly, eyes back on the heavy bags underneath Crosby's eyes. "Don't suppose you'd take your own advice?"
He freezes, meeting her gaze with wary suspicion. "Starting to think someone put you up to this visit, Captain."
Grace shrugs.
She's seen Harry Crosby evolve over the last few months, and she has no desire to put him on bedrest or anything else drastic, but she has worried about him. Ever since Bubbles Payne-- well, ever since all of it, really, he's been throwing himself into his work more than anyone.
He sits back so the chair tilts dangerously. He wipes a hand over his face. "I'm fine, Grace."
"You know, everyone always tells me that."
"Then it must be true."
"Or everyone around here has gotten really good at lying." She scoots a little closer. "I worry you're not getting enough rest. I know you're busy, but you have to take care of yourself."
"I'm fine." He says firmly. His eyes are dark and wide, begging her to believe him.
Something tells her that every working moment for him for months has been to try, somehow, to make up for all the losses. He thinks that if he works himself to death, he can at least keep everyone else alive.
"Fine." Grace concedes. "If you need something to help you sleep rather than keep you awake--" He at least has the decency to look sheepish, at that, "-- let me know."
She's halfway out the door when she hears his voice, uncharacteristically quiet. "Thank you, Grace."
.
When Harry wakes up days after the landings have already happened, his first instinct is to panic, and then he feels the frustration and disappointment all at once at the thought that he just slept through the biggest invasion the world has ever seen.
When Rosie is finished laughing at him, Harry sits heavily down at the edge of his cot.
"Did we-- did it--"
"Yeah, Croz. They did it."
Harry lets out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "I can't believe I slept through it."
"You passed out, literally."
"But why didn't anyone just let me get a few winks and then wake me? I had so much to do!"
"You did it all, Croz. I've never seen anyone more prepared than you were for that mission."
Harry shakes his head. "This was Grace, wasn't it? Her orders-- she--"
Rosie's eyes have gone a little flinty, and he shakes his head slowly. "Easy, Harry."
Rosie, ever jovial and friendly with Harry, doesn't give anything away, but Harry realizes his mistake and treads lightly.
"I just-- she came to see me a few days before. Tried to convince me to take a break."
Rosie is still giving him a wary look, arms crossed over his chest. "Seems she was right."
"I better go grovel."
Harry finds her in the hospital, a clipboard in one hand as she talks with three other nurses. She sees him out of the corner of her eye, and excuses herself.
"What are you doing out of bed?"
"Jeez, Captain. Give me a second before I get in trouble again?" He smiles, trying to let her know he's alright. "I owe you an apology, Grace."
She rolls her eyes. Gesturing for him to follow her outside, away from prying ears and eyes. They sit on a bench nearby, and she straightens her skirt. "Go on with that apology..." She says, looking out onto the airfield.
"I didn't mean to..." Harry says, trailing off, unsure of himself.
"To... ignore my advice? To take so many pills you didn't sleep for three nights? To keel over in the middle of the day and almost crack open that thick skull of yours?"
They're both quiet for so long, Grace starts to worry that she's actually overstepped.
Then he starts to laugh. It's the first real laugh she's heard out of him, out of anyone in... weeks? Months?
"Now I know you've lost it." Grace mutters, but she can't help her grin either, a giggle escaping her.
He leans towards her, bumping their shoulders together. "Thank you, Grace. I think I need some tough love once in awhile."
Grace makes a sound of agreement. "Next time I won't be so nice about it, Croz." She turns to face him. "You're one of our best. We can't afford to have you out of action. Not when our boys are going up."
She thinks of Rosie, still flying missions far past his twenty-fifth. Her heart clenches, but she forces it down.
He's one of the best, and so is Harry Crosby. As long as The 100th has them, they'll live to see the end of this war.
She's sure of it.
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“because he never accepts that it's never been about righteousness--it's about repentance.” except javert killing himself IS repentance.
well, it’s like 12 different things, because bro had gone days without sleeping and very little food and water and he already had low self-worth and kept asking the amis to kill him and just assumed he was going to die AND THEN valjean upended his understanding of the world and morality. he was really going through it & there are a lot of overlapping reasons for why he jumps into the seine.
but javert is like Number One Most Responsible guy in the whole story. taking responsibility is his Thing (forever bitter the musical doesn’t include the punish me monsieur le maire scene). how else, in his derailment, could he atone for his conceived misdeeds other than by handing in his resignation to god? in the brick he had already left a note urging his superiors to treat convicts at toulon better, which is another step in his repentance (and another crime the musical commits by not including it). jumping into the seine was another step.
honestly a lot of ppl who like the book think the musical was dead wrong to exclude him from the big heaven group sing, because it COMPLETELY undermines the themes of forgiveness and compassion threaded throughout les mis. like the musical was simply wrong lol.
This is helpful context! I am still finishing the brick, although I have fully read the abridged version, and that detail about the letter wasn't included, so I didn't know that occurred! (And thank you for the message--this is a long response but I'd love to hear more of your thoughts!)
I agree that Javert is certainly deeply distraught and remorseful; like you mentioned, his worldview is literally falling apart, and his actions reflect his mental state. But his death isn't really repentance--in the sense that it's not what God would have wanted. To me it reads like a Judas situation: a desperate realization of a huge mistake, and doing the only thing you think can make it right, namely, ending it all. That's the just punishment for someone so wrong, isn't it?
But true repentance, meaning the repentance that the Lord desires, is about changing your ways, not "paying a price." Had Javert really understood the beauty of Valjean's mercy (an image of Christ's, just as the bishop's undeserved mercy was to Valjean himself), rather than killing himself, he would have lived to also become "an honest man"--in heart. One who could forgive and understand forgiveness, for himself as well as others. One who could recognize that he is not The Law, that he can fall, but that he can also be "brought to the light." One who could accept that men like Valjean, and men like himself, CAN change, and be changed.
It's tragic to me because so much of "Stars," and his character in the book as well as the musical, is about wanting to be righteous, to rise above his birth and the sinfulness he associates it with. It's about wanting to please the Lord by his actions. But in his end, he shows he never understood what God really wanted from him, and that's where my original phrase comes in: not righteousness, but repentance. To live, and face the man you were, knowing it's no longer the man you are. That it's never been about what you've done or can do, but about what's been done for you. That's the Gospel that he could never fully accept.
To use another example you mentioned, that misunderstanding drives why he asks the Mayor (Valjean) to punish him--in his worldview, mercy is unjust, or at the very least, unfair. Evil must be punished; "those who fall like Lucifer fell" receive "the sword." But "as it is written," God "desires mercy, not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13). God would have wanted Javert to live, and Javert couldn't see that, and that's why it's devastating to me. In his misunderstanding of the heart of God, he misses what would have set him free from the chains of sin he's always been trying to escape.
That's why he's contrasted with Valjean, who (though he carries guilt about his past till the end of his life) is eventually able to face it and confess what he had done to those he loves. He knew there was mercy to be found, if only it was asked for. Javert was too blinded by pride and shame to realize it, and so, while broken, he never was able to truly repent.
For that, you must go on.
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