My second year doing @fyeahghosttrick's Ghost Swap event!
This year I only have one contribution to share and that is for a prompt by @siverwrites: Sissel, Missile and Lovey-Dove: animal shenanigans!
I hope this is satisfactory! I thought it'd be cute if Lovey-Dove picked up Sissel and flew him away with Missile chasing after them. If Lovey-Dove can pick up that heavy device, then she can certainly lift up a small kitten lol
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My Candyhearts gift to @siverwrites â¤â¤â¤â¤â¤ sharing this game with you and @zurefishnets has been such a joy and I've wanted to draw these two queens ever since I got Chompy! Here they are!
âLife has its twists and turns, you know!â
ââŚYeah.â Lynne did know. But if they were going to talk about that, Emma would need to get really cool about a bunch of things really fast, and Lynne would have to tell her that actually, she would take Emmaâs offer of a glass of wine while Kamila and Amelie played in the next room. And if Lynne did that, and the wine let her stop thinking about everything for a few minutes like people said it did, she had a nasty feeling it would be really, really hard to stop.
She didnât have a lot of time left, and she couldnât waste it.
For dearest@siverwrites as part of @fyeahghosttrick's Ghost Swap! Undercover Jowd, what will Cabanela do... push and prod for fun, daring him to blow his cover, and trusting that they're both well capable of playing along without slipping. It's a rewarding game of self restraint.
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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Emma takes it upon herself to inform and entertain her dubious but fascinated captive audience of Kamila and Amelie with a lovingly-crafted novelisation of the (heavily-fictionalized) top-secret tale of Temsik and the destiny which unfolded in that vanished night. It won several awards, probably!
(Otherwise known as: three Ghost Trick fans saw the concept art in the remake trailer and their brains went brrr)
Art: @laughingmango
Writing: @azurefishnets & @siverwrites
In celebration of Ghost Swap's 10th anniversary, its final year as a secret-Santa style exchange, and, most importantly, of the upcoming remaster with its delightful sneak peek at the original concept art. Here's to our darling game!
Summary: Cabanela waits for the paramedics. Cabanela waits for Jowd. Cabanela waits for death.
Cabanela really, really hates waiting.
Also, people need to stop making him laugh.
"Throw a battered Cabanela--physically or emotionally or both--at Jowd. He's the immovable rock; he can take it." W-well. It's ch.15 bait, you see. Happy? Ghost Swap??? to youuu, dear @siverwrites!
It hurt to laugh.
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. Heâd taken the choice to live first back into his hands. Heâd taken the last gifts the unstoppable Cabanela could bestow in this life. What more could a man who followed the spotless path ask? Heâd saved him and heâd 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 wasnât. It couldnât 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.
âJowd.â
His vision was getting dimmer, but he could imagine the look he was getting from the roomâs only other human occupant. All right, fine, it wasnât 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.
âJowdâs gone.â
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
âI know, man,â Cabanela said, his eyes squeezed shut. âIndulge me, baby. Could I get some tea?â
âProbably not a good idea. You have some internal damage and they may want to get you straight into surgery.â
It hurt to laugh.Â
âSure,â Cabanela said instead, twisting his mouth in an ironic smirk. âTheyâre gonna stitch me right on up, nothinâ like a few scars. Just let me bike riiight on over to the hospital.â
A sigh. âLovey, if you would.â
Cabanela felt the familiar, careful weight settle on his chest. Well, he certainly wouldnât dare to unsettle the lady.Â
âThe ambulance is on its way. Just be still.â The fierceness he heard surprised Cabanela. Surely that wasnât concern for him. It was Jowd, always Jowd, that needed the concern. The caring. Cabanela could, as always, keep his own nose clean.
âYeah, yeah, baby, you know me. Not movinâ, nothinâ like it.â
âWhen youâre injured to the point that you are, youâve got that right.â 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 CabanelaâŚached. There was a Jowd in his head, a ghost that was Cabanelaâs alone, and Cabanela passed the time talking to him. He wasnât sure any longer whether it was aloud or not, but still he could move his mouth if nothing else.
âSolved the case at last, old friend,â he began, a little tentatively. âIs it enough?â
âEnough for what?â Jowdâs familiar warm rumble. Cabanelaâs chest rose and fell in a sigh.Â
âFor you, man. To move on.â
âHa ha ha! You ask a lot of me to move on without you.â Cabanelaâs fingers twitched and he raised them in a shaking caress to the air, to his Jowdâs chest, beyond caring what anyone in the room might think.
âCruel to tease me, baby, even if youâre imaginary. I know you wonât have any problems.â
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.
âIâll have all the problems if you donât make it,â his Jowd said, the words shivering through Cabanelaâs limp body. His head dropped to Cabanelaâs, his beard warm and scratchy along Cabanelaâs jawline. âStay here. For once in your life, wait for me.âÂ
It hurt to laugh.
âHeh. Been doing that along⌠old friendâŚâ 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⌠?
âThen, please, wait a little longer,â she whispered in his ear. âPlease save him one more time by saving yourself. For your sake and mineâŚâ
âAlma⌠Iâll⌠Iâll tryyyâŚ.â His heart was thudding heavily in his chest, like footfalls. Like a name.
Jowd. Jowd. Jowd.  Joâ----
âFools, youâre losing him!â Sharp voice and cold hands and bright lights and pain. Pain.
He could have gone right then, to where it didnât 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! Â
It hurt to laugh.Â
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 heâd given Jowd on the way out the door.
It could hurt all it wanted to. The pain could keep coming and heâd 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, heâd stay. Heâd stay until the world ended, for the sake of laughter that fell into the world like boulders, and then, together, theyâd move on.
It hurt to laugh. But Cabanela smiled with Jowd anyway, and waited.
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...
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 wonât come back, missed birthdays, lonely nights, the fractures that canât 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 âdefeat looks nice on youâ, 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, theyâre true. Theyâll never stop being true. But theyâre 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 wouldnât be here to wish for it in the first place. They are here thanks to that unnatural stubbornness. Itâs 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 Cabanelaâs past actions. As they sit next to each other, unsure of how to reach out, one of Sisselâs latest litter of foster kittens jumps and claws his way up Jowdâs leg to rest in his lap with a satisfied yawn. Cabanela, ever quick to bow to sensible leadership, follows the little guyâs example and deflates against Jowdâs shoulders, stifling a sob and not moving one muscle more than he strictly has to. Itâs contact, of a sort. Some gap has been bridged, theyâre in this together. He doesnât know what to do but by the gods theyâre in this together. He puts a hand on his back, fingers spread out to almost reach both shoulders at once, protecting that strange heart. Itâs 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.
âI love you,â he would say, awestruck by every sign of time on their bodies, by this rare fragility. But he doesnât, because it would sound like he only loves him when heâs dragged down to his worst.
Instead he says, âOur mistakes should have buried us long ago,â 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 âshouldâ, and in fact they didnât, they didnât because someone fought and won, and so itâs a compliment, a display of gratitude of sorts. In this present, they are here, together.