A Celebratory Soul

"All right, everyone! Let's start the celebration!" 10 years after the Temsik incident all is right with Jowd's world. But what of Alma? What's behind that gentle smile? NOT A SPOILER FREE BLOG. Very open to playing other points in canon, multi-universes, and crossover/fusion AUs. Currently finding her legs (and given that she's more or less ALL leg, that's A Lot.)

[celebratorysoul]

Starting Ghost Swap week off with a triple drabble using an anonymous prompt: "On a version of events where Sissel isn’t there, Emma learns of the justice minister’s fate."

I wish I could tag you, anonymous prompter! But thank you for the delicious delicious angst!

Triple drabble under the readmore:

The typewriter stops. Heels clack, the receiver lifts; her voice, fussy and crisp at a more civilized hour, but now only exhausted impatience, questions. Answers. Urgency greets her from the other side. No holy deadline is too important to supersede his need for her justice. She must come. Time is passing.

Damn him, she wants to say, but something stops her. She wakes her feverish angel, calls her editor, has another glass of wine. Types a few more precious words. Worries.

At last, the car comes, whisking them away from her stuffy little rooms. Tentatively, a rat begins chewing on a large dictionary tucked under the bookshelf. Only they inhabit this haunted building now.

The halls of ministerial injustice blaze with unholy light—burning yellow, cold blue, passionate red. They oscillate in sickening rhythms with no apparent pattern guiding them. A typewriter case, a wine glass, a manuscript, a cigarette lighter clutched in a small hand: they bounce to the ground and scatter, shatter, forgotten on cold stone. She rushes forward, screaming a name lost against a foreground of death and spilled crimson. Distantly, she considers how beautiful the scene will be described in her next novel. She knows already what she will see and turns her face to it like a flower.

His papers, so like hers, scatter around an office chilled by a lazy ceiling fan and doors flung wide to vile light. One hand on the phone, his other outflung, fingers extended centimeters from his empty pill bottle: oh, her dearest minister.

Her passion seems so foolish now.

Her darling angel grabs for Emma’s hand, holds tight. Emma's cold fingers repudiate the proffered message of warmth. Her memory of principled resistance to injustice is the only joy she will ever see in this night of all nights.

[celebratorysoul]

nooothinglikeme​:

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.

“…thanks for that boiling rage, by the way. That’s beautiful, that intensity. I’ll cherish it.”

She sees all that blinking, she hears the unspoken words in that silence that, this time, doesn’t need to be filled, and she nods, satisfied to let him have the last word. And then blushes, just a little, as his next words sink in.

“...you deserved better.” From whom, she can’t say. It’s not as though she knew what was happening at the time. If she had, she doesn’t know what she would have done. She does know she doesn’t want it to happen again. Ever. Beyond that, there are some questions that, perhaps, she’s not sure she wants to know the answer to.

As she begins to ask him “so what’s next,” Lynne comes barreling through the door, presumably home from a shift at the precinct, and an indecipherable look flashes across her face to see them both home and talking.

“Uh...hey, you guys? Is everything all right?” Her eyes are watchful as she takes them in.

[celebratorysoul]

nooothinglikeme​:

“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.

“…is this what it looks like to you? Pain? Torture? I don’t… feel… in pain.” One could even say he’s not feeling much of anything, compared to what he used to, but who remembers that after a year! And anyway! The cat is fine, and what’s fine for the cat is fine for humans, right?

“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.”

[shiftythrifting]

ah yes i was looking for a soap dispenser labeled “ketchup” with a picture of grapes

[artenega]

I really want this bottle in my bathroom. I’d place it next to matching decorative soaps and towels as if it seems like it fits, but I’ll actually fill the thing up with ketchup. So when I have guests over and they decide to use the bathroom, they will see this bottle and have a moment of cognitive dissonance, “This [Soap Bottle] in the [Bathroom] is labelled [Ketchup], so surely it must dispense [Soap] instead of [Ketchup] despite the label saying [Ketchup] right?” and then let them have a moment of realization followed by abject horror as they pump viscous ketchup all over their hands instead of soap

[nooothinglikeme]

@fourminutesbefore @celebratorysoul

[celebratorysoul]

All fun and games until two certain girls of ours wash their hands and then go in for a hug...we’ll keep that in the bathroom you use, all right? This musn’t fall into Lynne’s hands.

[celebratorysoul]

nooothinglikeme​:

Gods, she gets it. That’s usually when he gets any ol’ excuse to back off and keep his deepest pains stewing in private until he patches them up somehow, but not now. She gets it and that means he’s gotta spit it out. Three, two, one, just say it.

“…I don’t want to be tortured again.”

“Tell me this is the coward’s way to go about it and I’m callin’ it off stat.”

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.”

[ray-of-light-tonight]

💡Ray from Ghost trick RP blog.💡

Shining light By Milo.

Indie, canon divergent, Non-selective, Crossover, OC and duplicate friendly.

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Mobile blog as of now. This will change in the future so have patience with me

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-🐝

[celebratorysoul]

nooothinglikeme​:

Ghost cores… he still needs to get to the bottom of that. Can’t bring up the topic now or it will be a toll on her, but… he’ll think of something.

Her words cut right through him, and thank goodness he’s invulnerable. They still draw blood, somehow. Right where he needs to bleed, needs to feel grounded again. He bridges the gap between her fingers and his skin. Can’t feel it, but the sight’s enough.

“To come to you, when I’m havin’ trouble on my own… imagine that,” he says with a sheepishness that’s almost discordant on him. It’s not like the blinding spotlessness of his coat is hiding anything unworthy, that’s not an issue. But problems… are nasty things to be taken care of discreetly, under that mantle, not to be paraded around. Can he afford to be seen, in his contradictions? Here’s one for measure:

“If you could riddle me this too, then…” He shakes his head. “there’s this and that advantage, I like to fly, it’s handy to stop a chase dead in its tracks by makin’ tires explode, Mister Luck they call me by now… and now I know a little what it’s like, this thing I caused. One year, nine to go, but now I know….now I know and I need to be able to make it, like Sissel does. But… tell you the truth…”

Gods, why is it so hard to cough up the words. He tries to meet her gaze.

Alma understands the power and the danger of silence in a way few do. She knows that if she lets it linger, silence will be filled one way or the other, and so she lets him talk. She’s pretty sure he doesn’t need her words right now, just her to be there for him.

When he finally brings himself to meet her gaze he’s met with no judgment whatsoever; in her eyes there’s only warm love and relief that, at least and at last, he trusts her, too, with his soul. His core, in a way that even Jowd is unequipped to handle.

[celebratorysoul]

nooothinglikeme​:

“Thank you, baby. I’m not in the habit of askin’ people to lend an ear, but this is quiiite the pickle.”

“It’ll be one year soon. I know part of it feels like I’ve got a point to prove, and Jowd says I should think of what points I’m tryin’ to prove, and to whom. Say it like this and it’s so simple… do you think it could be? For real? As soon as I don’t say it out loud like he did, it’s a swamp again. I haaate swamps.”

“I suppose it’s a little unfair to wish you’d ask me to lend an ear a bit more often,” Alma begins, and frowns. “But what I want is really not the issue here, is it. I would have thought it was obvious that you have something to prove. I can’t recall a day I’ve known you where you haven’t. You’re one of the most pointed people I know, and this whole situation has...stripped you of distractions.”

She reaches for him, but hesitates, her fingers a cosmos or mere centimeters away from his back. “We’ve seen your core this past year. Not your, um...your ghost core...” she shakes her head, just a little, but rushes on before the vagueness can overcome her, “but you. Your heart and soul.” She's a little embarrassed to say this, but... “Jowd more than I, perhaps, but I still know. It’s...cleaner this way, for you.”

Her hand drops to her side. “It’s just one more stain remover, that shard. It takes you away from the messiness that is being human.” Her sigh is not a happy one this time. “If there’s someone to whom a point must be proven here, it... seems to me that the only one who’s still struggling with it is you.”

[celebratorysoul]

Did you know? Recent findings show that your husband has a point sometimes. Scientists remain baffled.

His wife remains baffled too, but he’s got a certain “something” to him, don’t you think?

[nooothinglikeme]

I thiiink it’s the beard! No mere mortal can resist that charm.. not a few immortals, either. Which brings me to my poooint - got five minutes to talk?

[celebratorysoul]

Alma takes a good long pause to consider the merits of excellent facial hair and, as always, has to sigh in soft and happy wonder that she has unfettered access to two people with the best in the business.

"For you and those incredibly charming sideburns of yours, always!"

[celebratorysoul]

Did you know? Recent findings show that your husband has a point sometimes. Scientists remain baffled.

His wife remains baffled too, but he’s got a certain “something” to him, don’t you think?

[celebratorysoul]

nooothinglikeme​:

“I want you. I’ve wanted you for so long that I’m almost grateful for this limbo that’s stretching the thrill and expectation of even a first kiss into months. The feeling’s ridin’ high, baby.”

He caresses her cheek with the back of his fingers and fiddles with a lock of her hair. This contact is dizzying even without a body to feel it with, and he gasps for air, softly, going through the motions of the gesture to remember what that felt like. They really make a pair, husband and wife, with their anxieties. Freedom… he does feel free. There are bad days, he won’t deny this to himself, but he doesn’t like to talk about them (bulldozing through them is more his style) so he’s not sure how much she or Jowd or anyone could help. Like, seriously? Talk about his problems? Eeew, gross. As for the virtues of his pretend girlfriend…

“I’m free with you. I’m free with many of my friends - I’m free with Seluna, I’m free with Larry or with Klavier. I do need an excuse at work and with my other friends for havin’ gone from soul of the party to social recluse within 24 hours. It can be any ol’ excuse, but I do need one, ‘cause even that dumb blue suit has started sniffin’ around and it goes without saying that none of them can find out the real reason behind my sudden loathing of social gatherings. ‘I was at another party, you knooow me, got five invites any night of the week’ can only work until they get nosy enough to check with people who were, in fact, at the other party, ya feeeel?”

That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? Mutual want all around. She frowns, just a little, against his shirt. “You may be grateful for this limbo but I suppose I’m a little more impatient. It makes everything feel more urgent and more unsure, at least for me.” She sighs. “But that’s really my own thing to work out, isn’t it...you‘re who you are and it’s exactly who you’ve always been, and that’s who Jowd and I fell in love with. That hasn’t changed. We... I don’t want you any less for the waiting. I just want you to know we wouldn’t hold you down, ever.” She pulls back and grins wryly up at him. “But who’s holding who, here... I mean, don’t think I’ve forgotten I’m talking to the man who apparently waited five years just to see his “rival” again for a few minutes. What’s a few months?” She tweaks his chin, just to get back to the playful mood they’d lost.

She thinks for a minute. “I don’t think a girlfriend is going to do the trick on explaining the ‘social recluse’ thing though...no one who knows you would believe that you’d pick someone who doesn’t enjoy going out. Maybe a hobby? One that’s uncharacteristically difficult for you? Like having mantis shrimp or something.” She makes a face. “I don’t think anyone would believe that either though when everyone knows you’re perfect at everything you try. Those shrimp would be doing high kicks by the time you were done with them.”

[celebratorysoul]

With @nooothinglikeme​ from here:

Alma listens, taking (real) deep breaths. She can’t help but feel he’s humoring her a bit, but she can’t deny that what he’s saying are truths. Cabanela and Jowd live dangerous lives and she’s already been the collateral for it once with no desire to do it again or to see her daughters wrapped into it (although Lynne is choosing it for herself, but that’s another entire kettle of fish). Safety and freedom at a price Cabanela chose--she understands. She does. And the deep content she’d felt when Jowd, at last, admitted to what she’d known he felt for so long, and the things that came after--she wouldn’t change those either. There is so much to love about this life they’ve built, but someone else has paid the cost.

She rubs her forehead, then leans forward and and rests it against Cabanela’s chest, wrapping her arms around him again, but around his waist this time. Even she finds her own anxiety tiresome and this entire light-heartedly begun discussion has devolved into an unexpected exploration of deep worries, but he’s stolid and real against her face. For now, she nods against the fabric of his shirt, letting herself be more or less persuaded--forget half full, her cup does indeed runneth over. She has almost everything she ever could have asked for (her mind carefully dances around the empty spot of the soul connection. The glass remains unbroken). Her convictions stand, however, and the question he brought to her still remains. ‘Paola’, or what she represents, is a different kind of freedom than the freedom of the dead, or the undead. Cabanela has the latter, but she doesn’t know how to grant him the former. Perhaps a ‘Paola’ is the only price she can pay for what he’s done for their sake, but Alma still has reservations.

“Neither Paola nor I...or Jowd, for that matter... can give you anything you could actually eat or drink. I’d go out and dance with you any day - and I’d give a lot to see you do the same with Jowd - but I know it’s not the same for you now, so help me understand. What would you do with a Paola if you had one? If these powers are freeing, I want you to feel free. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

[celebratorysoul]

With nooothinglikeme from here:

Alma focuses on the feeling of her hand in his, the cool pad of his thumb brushing the warm skin of her palm as he tries to reassure her. Her heart’s beating so hard she can feel it in her throat and she tries to get her breathing back under control. She’s so alive, damn it. So very alive, and he is not, and it is just so wrong somehow for it all to be that way. She’d wanted to believe that the life that has always overflowed from him, the fire and warmth of him, didn’t need the body he’d always seemed too large for anyway, but he does, doesn’t he? He does, or or he needs something that won’t constantly remind him of it. 

“Yes, anxiety is talking here, that’s true. Sometimes that’s what anxiety is for, to tell the harsh truths we don’t want to hear any other way.” She swipes her other hand over her eyes, impatiently sweeping the frustrating tears away. There’s no time for them, no room for regrets over what’s been done, but this situation is untenable and she’s been too complacent. She can see it now. He worked himself into an early grave of the body for them. She won’t let him do the same for his mind, his heart. It’s not that she fears he’ll become another Yomiel--he would never, but this is the path on which true death lies. She may not remember what it was like for herself, but she won’t have it for him.  Not like this.

“You’re right about one thing. We will not lose you to the dark. I won’t let it happen.  But... if you need to take some time away from Jowd and I, from the city, to find something new… I’d... well, I can’t speak for Jowd in this, but if ‘Paola’ is what you need right now, I can’t…won’t stand in your way.” Another thought strikes her. “Or, maybe… if you need some time away from your body, we’d find a way to protect it while you’re gone.” Maybe he needs to stretch the bounds of his existence, to know how very much more light there could be. If it brings him back to them in the end, it would be worth it. Wouldn’t it?

She gives him an uncertain smile, her dark eyes shadowed and sad as she turns her hand in his and clenches it in a grip she knows would be painful...if he were able to feel it. “We love you so very much and we’d miss you...beyond what words can say, but you have to do what will keep you…you. You’re worth more than the...smallness you’re constraining yourself to for our sake. I don’t...” She swallows, but forces the words out, “...want there to be a ‘Paola.’ I admit that, but I don’t know how else to help you. You’re just as important to us as we are to you, Cabs. Don’t forget that, no matter what you do.” She forces herself to let her hand relax again, letting him be free to make his choice.

[celebratorysoul]

With nooothinglikeme from here:

Alma sobers. She can see in his face that he’s unexpectedly serious about this, and so she stops braiding his hair into tiny spikes and draws back so she can cup his face in her hands. Her eyes search his and her face drains as she takes in what she sees. “We... we’re holding you back, aren’t we. Don’t try to deny it—you did this to yourself,” she gestures at his belly, where she knows his piercing is, “for us, to protect us, but it’s killing you! And don’t even start with the quips, because you know what I mean. Your protection shouldn’t come at the cost of your soul, Cabanela. That’s not what we’d ever want from you. Or for you!”

She drops her eyes, trying to hide that she’s struggling to breathe evenly. “Jowd and I don’t want to lose you—not to anything, but we made you feel like you had to die to keep us safe. That’s…horrible, isn’t it? To know you love us so much is such a…it’s a miracle, but…you saved us and we’re losing you by bit by bit anyway.” Her eyes tear as the momentousness of what she’s saying hits her. “Perhaps you’d actually be better off with a Paola, if ‘she’ wouldn’t make you willingly take that path for ‘her’ protection. I’m so… I’m so sorry we made you feel like our lives were more important than yours. Again.”

This is what she’s feared all along, ever since she heard what he’d done. They will lose him to the strange machinations of this chosen kismet of his if this goes on much longer. Her hands drop to her sides and clench around the soft cloth of her dress. Perhaps these are the words she should have said from the beginning of all this. She hadn’t been expecting to have this discussion today, but perhaps it’s been too long coming.

[celebratorysoul]

With nooothinglikeme from here:

Alma’s face is betraying her again as she pictures Jowd obliviously going through his days at work while the rest of his entire district creates a gossip firestorm behind his back about the so-called chicken girl. Her eyes dance as she points out, “They might think you decided to toss all that love you’ve been throwing your oblivious best friend and rival at some other charmingly oblivious soul...oh dear, I’m feeling rather sorry for the poor girl! No, perhaps ‘Paola’ - that’s her -  should be let down gently, you’re right.”

She ponders, while gently toying with his hair and destroying his hairstyle in a small revenge. Since he can’t feel it he won’t know until he looks in a mirror, right?  ...So probably about 20 seconds after she lets him go, but clearly the only answer to that is not to do so. Logic, and she beams at him as she says, “No, I think your only recourse is to either come up with someone else who can outshine the sun (and we all know there is no other such person imaginary or not, Cabs dearest) or you’ll have to settle for the likes of such poor mortals as Jowd and me, and your colleagues can mind their own business.”

[celebratorysoul]

Do you think I should make up a girlfriend? As a cover story?

Her jaw drops and she stutters, for a moment taken completely off guard. “I--you--what?” Darn it, he got a rise out of her. He’ll crow about this for months, she knows it, unless-- “Hmph. And who or what do you think you’d be covering up, exactly?” OK, yes, there’s a little flash of unreasonable jealousy there, even though she knows how ridiculous it is. She knows perfectly well the reasons why he might feel it was better to cover the relationship between the three of them, but still... She tugs on his scarf, bringing him close, then closer, until she can drape her arms around his neck. “Hmm, maybe you should. Tell me about this hypothetical girlfriend, then. What’s she like? Does she like chicken with an absolutely ungodly amount of ketchup?”

[celebratorysoul]

Sissel makes little biscuits on alma’s lap before circling into a small kitten void-ball and ‘sleeping’ there.

Alma drops a hand to pat him. Since she found out the truth about the kitten, it’s certainly been more comforting to have him around; he doesn’t avoid her in fear of her discovering the secret anymore. If he’s feeling comfortable enough to relax on her lap for a while, she’s honored! (Even if she had been planning to get up and do some laundry, but that’s just cat gravity and it doesn’t take a Sissel to exude it.)

He doesn’t exactly feel like a living cat, but he certainly passes for one easily enough. She curls her fingers under to scratch his tiny chin and cheeks, marveling in the smooth coolness of his black fur and enjoying the fact that he’s not shedding all over her lap.