#siverwrites

But there Jowd was, the immovable man, doing just that in lieu of his best friend. It was the greatest gift Jowd had ever given him; Jowd had come here first. He’d taken the choice to live first back into his hands. He’d taken the last gifts the unstoppable Cabanela could bestow in this life. What more could a man who followed the spotless path ask? He’d saved him and he’d likely destroyed him again.

The besplotched hero could stride out into the last night of the world because someone had left him a clean and tidy way to do so. It was something to be proud of.

Except.

It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. There was so much more that had to be done, so much more that Cabanela needed to say. Well, wanted to say. So he should just say it, surely, while his heart still beat and the sound of the name could hang lovely in the air.

“Jowd.”

His vision was getting dimmer, but he could imagine the look he was getting from the room’s only other human occupant. All right, fine, it wasn’t a lovely name. It was a heavy name, a name that thudded into the still air of the room like a boulder. But it was still lovely, because it was his.

“Jowd’s gone.”

The voice was flat, no-nonsense. The fingers binding his wounds and stripping away the ruins of his coat were gentle, but the sounds hung too loud in the air. He sounded a little choked, as if he were struggling to get the words out

“I know, man,” Cabanela said, his eyes squeezed shut. “Indulge me, baby. Could I get some tea?”

“Probably not a good idea. You have some internal damage and they may want to get you straight into surgery.”

It hurt to laugh. 

“Sure,” Cabanela said instead, twisting his mouth in an ironic smirk. “They’re gonna stitch me right on up, nothin’ like a few scars. Just let me bike riiight on over to the hospital.”

A sigh. “Lovey, if you would.”

Cabanela felt the familiar, careful weight settle on his chest. Well, he certainly wouldn’t dare to unsettle the lady. 

“The ambulance is on its way. Just be still.” The fierceness he heard surprised Cabanela. Surely that wasn’t concern for him. It was Jowd, always Jowd, that needed the concern. The caring. Cabanela could, as always, keep his own nose clean.

“Yeah, yeah, baby, you know me. Not movin’, nothin’ like it.”

“When you’re injured to the point that you are, you’ve got that right.” Footsteps, as the other man moved away. Lovey cooed, gently. It sounded like a name.

Jowd.

Lovey stayed. A little time passed. A junkyard required attention and so its supervisor attended it. And Cabanela…ached. There was a Jowd in his head, a ghost that was Cabanela’s alone, and Cabanela passed the time talking to him. He wasn’t sure any longer whether it was aloud or not, but still he could move his mouth if nothing else.

“Solved the case at last, old friend,” he began, a little tentatively. “Is it enough?”

“Enough for what?” Jowd’s familiar warm rumble. Cabanela’s chest rose and fell in a sigh. 

“For you, man. To move on.”

“Ha ha ha! You ask a lot of me to move on without you.” Cabanela’s fingers twitched and he raised them in a shaking caress to the air, to his Jowd’s chest, beyond caring what anyone in the room might think.

“Cruel to tease me, baby, even if you’re imaginary. I know you won’t have any problems.”

A torpor spread along his limbs, weighing him down even more than the living one on his chest. It felt as though he was being gathered in. Unheard, a pigeon squawked in alarm. The red lights flashed along white stripes in the road as the ambulance rushed to him. And his Jowd picked Cabanela up and held him close.

“I’ll have all the problems if you don’t make it,” his Jowd said, the words shivering through Cabanela’s limp body. His head dropped to Cabanela’s, his beard warm and scratchy along Cabanela’s jawline. “Stay here. For once in your life, wait for me.” 

It hurt to laugh.

“Heh. Been doing that along… old friend…” In the world, his hands drooped to his sides and he sagged. Paramedics swarmed. And yet, someone had his back. There was warm breath against his temple. A soft kiss, a cold breeze, a caress full of warning. Not Jowd. Who… ?

“Then, please, wait a little longer,” she whispered in his ear. “Please save him one more time by saving yourself. For your sake and mine…”

“Alma… I’ll… I’ll tryyy….” His heart was thudding heavily in his chest, like footfalls. Like a name.

Jowd. Jowd.  Jowd.   Jo–----

“Fools, you’re losing him!” Sharp voice and cold hands and bright lights and pain. Pain.

He could have gone right then, to where it didn’t hurt and the Jowd and Alma in his head stood tall and beautiful and full of light, inviting him into their embrace. But somehow, Cabanela fought back to the pain anyway. Not yet. The real Jowd still needed him and he could and would keep moving to the end of the world. Time to rest? Ha!  

It hurt to laugh. 

But he was alive to do and that helped him struggle back to consciousness as the paramedics strapped him onto a stretcher and rolled him into the waiting ambulance. He twitched a hand at Lovey and her human in a parody of the jaunty wave he’d given Jowd on the way out the door.

It could hurt all it wanted to. The pain could keep coming and he’d welcome it, for the sake of the important lives in his charge. Cabanela kept on anyway. What choice was there?

Somewhere, he thought Jowd might be laughing. And so, he’d stay. He’d stay until the world ended, for the sake of laughter that fell into the world like boulders, and then, together, they’d move on.

There are days when Cabanela cries for their lost years. As much as he tries to make it quick and sanitized, compartmentalizing these imperfect outbursts in hidden and shameful brackets in time, he lives his life too intensely in all things to just snap his fingers and rein in his grief. So he takes his leave and sobs for hours on end for all the past that won’t come back, missed birthdays, lonely nights, the fractures that can’t heal, that one bad call he made that brought down the entire world in its fallout.

Jowd has no words for him (this is not quite accurate: he would have plenty of words, such as “defeat looks nice on you”, but while true, he has been reliably informed that they would only make the situation worse and keeps them to himself). The thing is, all these big pains dragging him down, they’re true. They’ll never stop being true. But they’re trash. Jowd wishes that this silly terrible man who loves so intensely and whom Jowd has come to adore knew how to take a loss and let go sometimes, but if he did, Jowd wouldn’t be here to wish for it in the first place. They are here thanks to that unnatural stubbornness. It’s a tricky balance.

Let him be the rock for once, then. He sits next to him in the space between a sob and the next, making Cabanela aware of the space he occupies in this present thanks to Cabanela’s past actions. As they sit next to each other, unsure of how to reach out, one of Sissel’s latest litter of foster kittens jumps and claws his way up Jowd’s leg to rest in his lap with a satisfied yawn. Cabanela, ever quick to bow to sensible leadership, follows the little guy’s example and deflates against Jowd’s shoulders, stifling a sob and not moving one muscle more than he strictly has to. It’s contact, of a sort. Some gap has been bridged, they’re in this together. He doesn’t know what to do but by the gods they’re in this together. He puts a hand on his back, fingers spread out to almost reach both shoulders at once, protecting that strange heart. It’s not magic, but it works well enough to slow down the drumming, even dam the tears somewhat. Jowd takes his hand in his, running his thumb against its back. The skin feels thin, almost brittle, and the circles drawn by his thumb make waves of little wrinkles.

“I love you,” he would say, awestruck by every sign of time on their bodies, by this rare fragility. But he doesn’t, because it would sound like he only loves him when he’s dragged down to his worst.

Instead he says, “Our mistakes should have buried us long ago,” which was the other pressing thought on his mind at the moment and which in hindsight does not sound much better. He winces. So much for helping.

But Cabanela chuckles and buries his head against his shoulder, knowing Jowd well enough (past all the lost years) to understand that the key word there is ‘should’, and in fact they didn’t, they didn’t because someone fought and won, and so it’s a compliment, a display of gratitude of sorts. In this present, they are here, together.