He is nothing. It's hard to really explain what comprehending that is like. To be forced to recognize that you, yourself, are worthless. Yet oddly enough this place is a lot like his work. Minus the beatings and harsh ridicule that is. No one here knows his name either, people here boss him around too. That's easy enough to deal with. This place goes to a whole other level. ******** level, Jeff thinks of it. He's acquired traits here he's never had and wishes he hadn't developed for they get him beat more. For example his stutter. Things like "yes" turn to a sputtering slur of the sometimes-vowel. Not to mention the flinching but it's not like he's the /only/ one who does that.
So is it so weird that when you are nothing small things mean /everything/? It doesn't seem so odd to him. Although he remembers always taking meaning in things other people haven't. Just ask a list of any of his crushes, or exes for that matter. Everything he relishes so much more, and since coming here he reaches out any chance he can. He tries to deny it to himself but he knows. He'll die here. It's not comforting so he rather at least /try/ talking to people. Sure there is a period where he starts losing hope. You can only keep that precious wall of hope up against Lazarevic so long. Every punch or j-just anything he does breaks you down. It breaks /you/ down. Jeff knows he's already nothing, he's not sure how much more broken he can be.
You eventually forget what it's like to have someone build you up. You forget comfort. You forget yourself. That's what is supposed to happen when you acknowledge yourself for what you are in Lazarevic's eyes. So when he tries to just ... give himself comfort, try and revert the damage he has been dealt here it's hard. /Jeff/. He tries to tell himself. Hell no one else calls him Jeff here-- he just needs to hear it and that's a start. That's a start to remind himself he is Jeffery Millar and he has a family and he isn't nothing. He isn't just Jeff the Cameraman either. Of course he never expected anyone else to treat him even slightly different than the nothing he was supposed to be.
Jeff decides anyone who can make you forget Hell is amazing. It started off where he knew he was nothing to this man too -- and still he's not sure how much he is -- yet things started to change. It was /meaningless/ Jeff is sure to the other man and he could probably never explain how come it was so much to him but when he was given a handkerchief his life literally changed. He had never believed in those moments before but it happened and it happened to a nobody like him. God every simple moment to him with this man /built/ him up. That was something he couldn't describe either. He just knew he was being treated like a human, like a person, like a /good/ person. This man could see past what everything it seemed and just.. it blew Jeff away.
It really boils down to something Jeff has learned quick in his time on this whole gig of following Lazarevic and ending up here: Good things don't last. They don't last and if things seem too good to be true they are. There is no such thing as luck for Jeff. He isn't Nate, he isn't lucky or extraordinary. He's ordinary Jeff. It isn't a problem he can accept that. He can even except that Elena had lead him on then turned him down because she just wasn't over Nate and then later asked him to come on this job with her. That was nothing to him now. He knew some of that had to do with Harry too (he had been so overjoyed to learn the man's name) since he was falling hard for the brit. The problem was simply time. He just didn't have much left. Good things don't last. He didn't want to have to admit it to himself but that, like admitting he was going to die here, it was undeniable. Jeff can deal with some the beatings, not well sure, but he can deal with them. Something about losing Harry hurt more than that. He had come here nothing and he had gotten a taste of something better and now it hurt tenfold to know it all had to end. Nothing left.
He doesn't know how much he means to Harry. he knows certainly how much he means to Lazarevic. How much he had meant to harry when he had come here at first but now--he isn't sure. He doesn't know and that doesn't bother him as much having not told Harry how much he means to him. He knows harry is broken too and he hates how he feels like he had been so selfish all along. Taking and taking whatever simple pleasures Harry could provide. Jeff just hopes that somehow he had given Harry something in return too. /Anything/. Small things to Jeff mean so much. More than anything though it nags at him he never got to explain all this, how these thoughts infested his mind--his /heart/-- for so long it seems. He doesn't know how to describe that it's not little to him. A handkerchief, a name, these things... they changed him, they changed his life.
All these small things had such a major effect on him. Such a positive change such a good thing came from Harry. Jeff knows he's a great person who deserves more than to work for some war-criminal and get treated worse than a hostage. He didn't get to tell him these things. He won't. He won't because right now Lazarevic has him on display for Nate, Elena, Harry and every other Lazarevic ******** goon to see. He's never really been one to have stage-freight but this is nothing like being in the lime-light. It's sickening to have your humanity shown to all, your mortality challenged. Jeff hates guns. He hates Lazarevic too. Right now the only thing he likes is Harry and he won't even get to ******** say a thing about it because last time he /tried/ to open his mouth he got a "tap" from Lazarevic with the butt of his gun.
He can only hope. That now broken ability he used to be so efficient at. He prays that Harry might know he loves him. He hopes that Harry won't break more from this. H-he wants Harry to be able to move on or whatever it is he's supposed to want for someone after he dies. He wants Harry to know that the little things he did weren't little to him. That someone like him who can care about /leverage/ when everyone else is breaking the nobody. Someone who can acknowledge that Jeff isn't nothing, who seems to care despite /everything/. Jeff hopes Harry knows that he loves him for that.
View User's Journal
Lightly Logs
 |
