Cabanela: 90% sparkles and daydreams (4% nose)

Sometimes the past weighs on Cabanela too. [technically FFVI AU but reads like a no-reset scenario]

Happy Ghost Swap @siverwrites dearest!!! Some good old-fashioned comfort for our whitecoat...

Sometimes a love language is being stubborn in your general proximity and hoping it sticks.

Happy Ghost Swap dear @yunalystelle! Cabanela lightening Jowd’s mood, coming up!

“I’m still not sure… She told me about the time travel, but…” There was still an issue there. He didn’t know the details of it or if it would even work in his case. Plus, there was also his confusing feelings for the werewolf girl. 

“Not sure I want to go that path. Of course I want to feel alive again, have a normal life… But I just don’t know yet. I guess I’ll just have to keep looking for the solution.”

Not that he would tell everything to the inspector. The only one he truly trusted was Seluna and he was sure that she could help him find a solution to his “curse” without having to sacrifice everything.

“But there are pitfalls there, tryin’ to retroengineer it.”

“...do you? Normal lives, maaan... they’ve got pros and cons. Anyhoot. Nothin’ wrong with lookin’ into things.”

“I’ve…never been tortured,” she says slowly. “So please understand that I’m not…trying to make light of what happened. Making light is, as always, your job.” A weak smile there, but she continues.

“Yes, no one can hurt you here,” she takes his hand, tracing her fingers up his, “or here,” moving to his face, “or…anywhere else on your body that’s a literal injury. And gods know I don’t want you to be vulnerable to that pain any more than you do.” She places her hand on his chest, over his heart. No beat. No breath. But it’s the symbolism here that matters anyway. “But this, here, can still be broken.” She draws her hand up and taps her finger on his forehead. “You depriving yourself of pleasure is destroying you just as tidily as anyone who ever took a knife to you.”

The bile rises in her at someone hurting him that way, and the fury she rarely shows rises in her at this thought. “They want to take you from us any way they can, and they’ve already started, by letting you do their work for them. In a way they’ve already won! How many times have you wanted to kiss Jowd this year? Or dance with me until we’re both laughing too hard to speak?  Do you remember what it was like to eat and drink with us? To feel our hands in yours? Is the fire you gained worth the fire you lost?”

She turns away and bows her head. “A mere year in this state has brought you to the point of asking me for clarity. What will ten years look like? A hundred? Jowd and I will do anything to keep you safe with us, but we aren’t eternal. Eventually we’ll be gone and those who want to hurt us will have won whether you see that now or not. When that day comes… Sissel will still be Sissel because that’s who he knows how to be. He doesn’t know what it was like to be a Cabanela, with all that entails. But you do.. and you won’t be him anymore. You won’t even remember him.”

When was the last time he even thought about kissing? Dancing, yes, on his own, experimenting with guiding his body in new, impossible ways. New pleasures that can’t be shared. But kissing... first it had been a convenient reprieve from the constant, forbidden yearning that used to be the background noise of his friendship with them. Then things changed and at first it was almost fun to see the tables turn and let them desire him for a day, a week, a month, what’s a little tease, they’d have their payoff eventually... and then it didn’t cross his mind at all.

“I should be wanting to kiss you right now,” he admits. “I love you alright. I know that hasn’t changed. It never will. But there was a part to it that just ain’t there now.”

There is some very fake, very pointed blinking as he grapples with the fact that at least two people see him better than he can see himself. That this one change is undeniable and she says there’s more where that came from, even though he didn’t feel himself changing, day after unending day. To trust them now, from this position of safety and power, feels like jumping off a very tall building, with no ground in sight.

He remains silent. This usually either means he’s candidly admitting a defeat so thorough that it doesn’t warrant a response, or that he’s about to do something very stubborn and generally unadvisable and doesn’t want to be talked out of it. In this case, for the record, it’s the former.

It’s the most human response he could have given and to hear it from his mouth is honestly such a relief that Alma has to give out the tiniest gasp. He gives and gives, all to keep others safe. All to keep judging eyes off his own internal terrors. He’s a hero and sometimes that means that, well…he’s just a little bit of a fool. Her heart is breaking that this dear, brave, beautiful soul is so strong and yet so brittle. She aches to hold him, to reassure him, but:

“You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met,” she says. “Brave enough to torture yourself for an entire year (and apparently five years some other when). Tell me, how is self-imposed mental torture for one of the most intelligent people I know any better, in the end, than physical torture?”

Before he can answer, she adds, “And you’ve added physical torture–sensory deprivation too. So you’re voluntarily subjecting yourself to two types of torture to save yourself from one? Dearest, I know you like a bargain, but this particular BOGO seems like a terrible deal.”

Her tone is flippant but she is absolutely serious. “You’re not a coward. Jowd and I have loved you and will love you whatever your choice, but please. Stop torturing yourself, because to see you in this pain is torture for us too.”

“Yes, oh yes it is,” he answers, a bit too hastily, as if to cover up an old wound. “Nobody can take a knife to me now. Nobody. I’ll melt it off their hands, too. No more.”

There’s a gallery of old wounds, really, flaring up again through the blessed fog of his current detachment. But he has been listening, too, to all her arguments. And he slowly raises an eyebrow as the realization hits, like a dog who is just now starting to see that the room is in fact on fire.

“I have a promisse I intend on keeping. Plus no one came to disturb me.” There was the other inspector, the one with the black coat, but he wouldn’t mention that for now. Plus, that didn’t go too far, so it wasn’t worth it.

“I’ve been occupying myself in trying to search for an alternative. A way to bring Sissel back from the dead kinda thing. That or another way to make myself a new life. I already know Sith and his people are bad news, thanks to Seluna.”

“That’s a head start.”

Keep it calm and reasonable, Cabanela, tone down the anger AND the sparkles, there’s a whole timeline at stake here. Oh this is so much easier without nasty neurons firin’ up all their nonsense.

Well, I would definitely not refuse a handsome man like you to join me in bed.

“And on any other year, baby, I’d join you in a whiff. As iiis, no offense if I stick to theoretical answers on internet memes? You’re definitely one of the celebrities I’d have a threesome with. Or even kick the third fella off the bed for some privacy.”

 The Inspector was beeing too nice, which was suspicious, but if he wasn’t showing hostility, there was no need to be hostile either.

“Well, I haven’t killed or harassed anyone.”

“This time of the year is not good for me. Lots of awful memories… The spooky atmosphere doesn’t help either, so I’ve just been sad and brooding as usual.”

“Thaaat’s good to hear.”

Heh, do you think it is a trick question, mein Lieber?

You tell meee, Mister Celebrity!

Ray was a bit touched by how much care cabanela was holding him. He hasn’t been held this way… in a very, very long time.. “…” He goes quiet for a moment, taking in the joys of such a small action. Finally letting his weary ‘bones’ relax as he’s held.

It’s nice.

He does snap back to himself when Cabanela spoke again. “That sounds wonderful my friend.. I’m terribly sorry for the trouble again!” He spoke, a hint of guilt in his voice. However he doesn’t dwell on it long as he receives a few gentle pats on his head.

Oh god he could cry right now!

“Oh? Who would that be?”

“My bestest friend in the whooole wide world has got the smartest daughter!"

Having found a comfortable position for holding the lamp, Cabanela trots along at a good pace. He thinks he can feel the old ghost relax, so he’s generous with the ‘head’ pats.

“She can build a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g, I’m sure she can patch you up!”