Ii. About - Blog Posts
“Look me in the eyes when you leave me.”
— T. // excerpt from a letter I’ll never send #51 (via 89words)
⌕ . ˚ ⅋. 「 RYAN GOSLING. FORTY THREE. CIS MAN. HE/HIM. 」JACKSON "JACK" AMBROSE, otherwise known as TALBOT, joined the libertalia thirteen years ago as a PHANTOM. around libertalia, the PISCES has a reputation for being DRIVEN & DISCONNECTED perhaps because they're best known for recovery of the florentine diamond of which they are most proud. while preparing for a heist, they listen to LE PERV by CARPENTER BRUT. makes sense considering they remind me of: long and spidered scars covering spare flesh across the back, shoulders & chest; a mouth always busy with gum, toothpicks, or licking lips to keep fixation at bay ... to keep from lapsing into old habits; the dregs of a southern accent lost to the wages of time and purposely forgotten; && a switch flicked to turn on work mode, where humanity and emotion are dropped in lieu of efficiency in the vein of a job well done - nothing less than 100%.
triggers for military mention, child neglect, gambling && emotional / physical abuse.
one thing was incredibly clear to jack ambrose from the moment he could comprehend the hand that life had dealt him: nothing would come easy, and nothing would be worth the time if it was.
his mother always had the ability to making a decent living for her son and herself, but squandered all of her earnings on selfish means instead. she was certainly a beautiful woman: alluring both physically and with a wit sharp as a blade’s edge, but all of her attention had always been selfish. surely it was habit taught to her from a young age, something she never bothered to break before she involved herself in other human interactions, but it was likely her beauty and charm that had seduced the man who impregnated her - and the likes of his name were never so much as whispered around offspring. jack has never known the his name.
babies should be a joyous occasion, and yet alessia ambrose found a way to make it entirely self-involved. her body had to bear the pain, her child was what made everyone so pleased, her creation. anyone who dared to involve themselves in the mess of his mother’s life was sure to see how narcissistic the beautiful woman was, and yet no one pressed a finger onto the issue.
but such is the way of the world, so often are children abandoned to their fates.
he was a beautiful baby, but grew to be an awkward toddler, an awkward little boy. alessia made no attempt to hide her disgust at how her creation could be so gangly and ungainly, could stow away for hours with quiet toys that suggested knowledge more than play with other children. but perhaps that was for the better — she couldn’t very well brag and show up with something like him, her offerings would be meager in comparison to children who were the spitting images of their beautiful parents. simple genetics, the awkward transitional period of a child, were held against he who knew nothing of the world or such disgust from his mother. jack was six, and alessia ambrose was the love of his life. all mothers should be, for little boys.
but as he grew older, as his awareness developed, and as the blinders fell from his eyes jack became aware of his mother’s feelings. while he was utterly devoted to her, drew pictures of her at school or told stories about my mom and me, she was ashamed of his too-long legs and thin cheeks. his loss of innocence came across the dinner table ( boxed macaroni and cheese again, so mom could go out again for the night ), when he told her “ i love you, mommy ” and alessia heaved a sigh and responded with a perfunctory, “ yea. ”
grades meant nothing. educational achievements meant nothing. unconditional love from a child meant nothing, and jack began to realize that if he wanted something more than boxed macaroni and cheese for dinner every night ( if alessia even bothered to make it ) he would have to get it himself. however it wasn’t as simple as taking it — simply taking things earned him a swift but stern slap across the face and if he hadn’t learned in his younger years, jack surely understood alessia’s feelings with those.
he learned his charm from her, but it wasn’t easy being the odd child he was. still, with a desire to achieve, jack applied himself to the art of manipulation. he discovered it was simple with the charm of youth: people were more likely to assist if you added a few tears, a little naivety. his teachers began to understand his plight as home was difficult when he spun the yarn of his mother having become deathly ill. his peers found him appealing when he shared goods pilfered or traded from others ( without their knowledge for the former ), and the reputation he earned himself in his prime formed the personality that perfected at puberty.
while all of these tricks worked outside of the household, jack never managed to pull the wool over his mother’s eyes. but where unconditional love once stood in tolerance for alessia and her narcissism, now contempt remained. jack fell out of love with his mother at twelve, and never looked back.
on the summer at the end of his freshman year of high school jack left an odd-looking boy. in the fall of his sophomore year he returned transformed, as if the summer heat had been a chrysalis and the ugly caterpillar emerged a butterfly. now if you held up a picture of alessia ambrose beside jack you could see he was her child, all it took was a shot of growth hormone and the deepening of his voice. ice blue eyes were the stark difference between the two of them ( ignoring the blond hair that sprouted from his face if he didn’t tame it back to stubble every four or so days ), and alessia noted how much she despised the way he stared at her now. it made her skin crawl if only because it seemed as if he was looking through her.
and he was. now he saw her for what she was: a selfish woman who had only wanted him to brag about her own achievements. but he hadn’t been worth bragging about when he was small, and now that he towered over her she wanted him to be seen with him. but jack refused, perhaps a little too politely for her to understand at first, and it was only in a binge of some substance abuse that he took a stern hand with her. only when she struck him first out of a dead sleep — staring at him for near twenty minutes before lashing out at him. it was the threat of never touch me again that he punctuated so perfectly, threatening to hold back no means to defend himself should she raise another hand at him.
alessia mourned for herself the loss of her baby boy. all that was left was a man who was nothing more than a reminder of her failed relationships throughout the years. you’re just like them. you’re just like them.
but he was nothing like them. perhaps the only similarity being how much he despised her, as they all did in the end.
he finished high school unceremoniously, didn't bother to inform his mother when he graduated (the day, the time) and moved on with his life. she couldn't recall the last time she saw her son, but alessia understood that she never would again. and like so many wayward young men from broken homes, he'd sought a chance to make something of himself: the military.
boot camp, where drill sergeants shouted the smirk off of his face. then the navy, where he learned how to hold his breath for an incredible amount of time. then the SEALs, where he learned that his body was both softer and stronger than he'd ever imagined. breaching, combat, triage, whatever they needed of him and jack couldn't deny it. he excelled at the tasks he was given, specializing in the collection of information and specifically the reconnaissance involved with his specialized unit.
this was what captured the attention of the professor. initially hoping to acquire jack as an asset just a few years prior, he was required to finish a tour before he could formally be discharged from the military. at the age of thirty his CO shook his hand and once more jack disappeared from sight.
his skills with breaching came in handy. trading his name for talbot - trading military tact gear for private sector (as he liked to call it), trading existing formally in the world for more off-the-grid, his life changed. talents from his youth (pilfering from his classmates, sleight of hand) were polished and combined with the formal training the US military had provided ... talbot was a phantom, and a damn good one.
of his accomplishments under the professor's employ, talbot's primary distinction was the recovery of nelson's chelengsk: acquired with old connections and information, skill, and a bit of luck. presently he's pleased with his contract ... existing in a gray area where even his closest of "friends" only knows him by his alias, where he's been able to make much more of a life for himself than he ever would have if he'd stayed back home in the southern united states.
