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Trying to see reality for what it truly is is a noble endeavor.
It’s also an inherently doomed endeavor -almost certain to take the mind and life of the attempter. In a world which may merely be a collective delusion, where truths can change shape or even attack outright, there is something marvelous about even half-hearted attempts to understand. Nevertheless, hidden under mundane impossibilities lurk truths that should never be revealed. Truths better off with their screams silenced; abandoned to the mercies of the void. And that is what Carlos, dear, dear Carlos simply does not understand.
Carlos tells Cecil during dinner- Carlos mentions it casually, like its an ordinary, uninteresting tidbit.
“The Librarians got out today.”
“What?” he states, because there’s no way he could have heard right. Cecil’s hearing may be far beyond that of a humans’– which he totally is, by the way- but he must have misheard.
“Someone escaped before they were able to collect a book fine. Don’t worry, he ended up mostly alright. Anyways, after they left the library, they started rampaging towards the town. Luckily, one of the high school students was nearby; she managed to find both Tamika Flynn and me before they got too far. The only upside to the whole mess was it finally allowed me an opportunity to see how the new anti-librarian mace I’ve been experimenting with performs. It could be more effective than I originally predicted. I’m not completely sure, the Librarians may have smelled Tamika Flynn around that point.”
The corner of his mouth bends in fond amusement.
“I still want to develop the serum further, but by now it’s certainly stronger than the usual bear mace. Do you think you could suggest people bring some with them on library visits? If I ask, they’ll probably praise me, then immediately forget what I said.” His voice dips in annoyance at the last bit, but throughout most of his story Carlos looks as if he’s outlining some internal puzzle. “Please tell me your day went better, or at least not as terrible- Cecil?” Concerned, Carlos touches his knuckles to Cecil’s.
Cecil can only listen to Carlos in horrified silence.
Cecil first fell in love with Carlos because he was perfect. Because his soul was beautiful but also delicate– meaning he would inevitably fall mad and die even faster than the average brand of lost human. Yet Carlos refused to do what was expected of him. Rather than die, he simultaneously accepted the impossible nature of Night Vale and confronted it. He not only learned the rules, he bent them to his will. Slowly and subtlety at first, but later picking up speed and magnitude, Carlos was doing something Cecil had almost forgotten was possible- surprising him. He began watching Carlos more and more to compensate, and in the process of doing so, something shifted inside him. For almost the first time, Cecil quit observing and started looking. Then the impossible occurred. Carlos began slowly looking at Cecil in return.
Now he’s trapped in a relationship with someone he loves more dearly than life itself, who is indisputably, hideously perfect when he is so not.
And, of course, Carlos is still going to die.
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One dull, dying afternoon, the ground begins to shake.
Something massive and grey rips down a telephone pole. One after another they collapse, each pulling more of their fellows down with them. Cecil sighs, adjusts his mike and mentally prepares himself to describe what will follow. Something that is not quite a heart aches when he imagines how the bodies will look piled up in the street tomorrow, but he’s as accustomed to death as any citizen of Night Vale.
What he is not accustomed to is the sudden appearance of Carlos sprinting towards the devastation. The liquid circulating throughout his body ices over as Cecil digs the ball of his foot digs into the floor. It’s looking less and less like human anatomy with every second Cecil wastes attempting to scrounge up even the semblance of a plan. An impassable distance away, Carlos withdraws something bulky and white from his lab coat. There’s a cloud of smoke, and the creature stumbles once, falls. Everything heavy churning in Cecil’s chest evaporates, and he doesn’t remember ever feeling so light before.
It’s still not enough.
______________________________________________________________________________
The lights above the Arby’s have long since departed by the time Management deems Cecil worthy of release. Carlos looks half asleep as he greets Cecil at the door; Carlos is always perfect, especially in the moments Cecil doesn’t want him to be. “You realize you might have forced me to watch you die today,” he mutters into Carlos’ hair.
Carlos regards Cecil through blank eyes. “Cecil, if I wasn’t there, people would have died.”
People rarely acknowledge the unwanted, in Night Vale. When reality commits offences like contradicting the City Council’s decrees, or even simply ruins the mood, it is ignored. Carlos’ blunt recognition of the coldest reality of all leaves Cecil shaken, but this isn’t a matter he can quickly dismiss.
“Carlos, as your partner, I think you should at least notify me before making potentially life-ending choices. It’s- difficult for me to leave the booth while I’m recording, even in the best circumstances. If you were ever hurt, as you were in the bowling alley, I ….”
The lines of Carlos’ mouth tilt upward sweetly, and there’s a light blush staining his dark cheeks. He’s adorably flustered. Normally, Carlos would look positively delectable. Today, the sight only clogs Cecil’s throat with sentiments he can’t name and for all his skill as a radio host will never find the words to express.
“Cecil, I’m a scientist. I never dismiss dangerous possibilities. I’ve studied data from my experiences preventing disasters in Night Vale.” He gestures awkwardly with his hand, frowns. “I know circumstances are too unpredictable to be mapped out in data sets, especially in Night Vale. But sometimes you have to do something, especially if you’re one of the few people who can actually do something. I’m an adult. I know what I can and cannot handle. I understand Night Vale disasters far better than when I first arrived. If whatever’s happening is beyond my capacities, I swear, I’ll stay out of the way.”
The lines of Carlos’ face are set with implacable determination. He has already become too involved. He was too involved the moment he decided to investigate the town of Night Vale, to set foot on its soil. But as Cecil looks at Carlos’ face, he knows there’s nothing he can say which will change his mind.
“It’ll be alright,” Carlos says later, curled up with Cecil in bed.
Carlos is, of course, lying.
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Before Cecil met Carlos, nothing ever mattered.
What he thought before was a lie. Even before Carlos Cecil could never-not love Night Vale: a pharynx always loves the throat to which it belongs. But the world before Carlos was muted. He was once satisfied with the colorlessness. In Night Vale, holding something too close to oneself is dangerous, because eventually it will evaporate at sunrise or transform into ducks, or most terrifyingly of all, turn out to have never existed at all. This is what will befall Cecil: if anything ever befalls Carlos, he will break with him.
Cecil thinks he used to be human. He thinks he had a mother and went to school and was a Fear Scout. He thinks one day he came home from his internship and everything was gone and only the mirrors were left. He thinks he turned away too late, that something entered him, crawled up inside of him and changed him.
Yet there are also days in which he thinks he is old, old enough to have seen Rome and watched its fall.
In between are days which spit in the faces of all his conjectured pasts. He thinks he recalls agony in his mother’s eyes as she caught him directing shadows on the porch one horribly sunny afternoon. He has a vivid memory of muttering to himself in front of a mirror, trying to force the words to become familiar in his mouth.
Memories are notoriously unreliable, in Night Vale.
Cecil blinks dully at the TV. He’s working an early shift today, but Carlos is always in the laboratory from 8 AM to 5 PM. Unless of course, a crisis arises. Carlos is making a bagel. As he leaves for work he kisses Cecil on the cheek. The gesture is completely absent minded, brimming over with unconscious affection.
Carlos concentrates on what is in front of him single-mindedly, and there are days where what is in front of him is far away from what’s important. He doesn’t understand people as well as he understands his science; he insists on looking for straightforward answers where there are none. Yet Carlos’ faults are part of his perfection. How can Cecil accept the inevitable fate of their relationship when its collapse would bring his own?
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Carlos is cruel. Carlos does not compromise. He continues rushing towards danger in a land where there is an abundance to be found. He refuses to comprehend how he endangers Cecil along with himself. Perhaps nowadays, even Carlos is satisfied force-feeding himself lies. Nevertheless, Cecil doesn’t begrudge Carlos as opposed to how he occasionally resents himself and the rest of the city. Lies can be necessary to prevent oneself from falling into places they might never climb out of- for preserving what one does have. But Cecil’s a reporter, so something inside him, however, pushed to the side, is fascinated by truths.
Imagining Carlos relinquishing this aspect of himself hurts something he can’t even name. In another world, Cecil might explain to Carlos how he’s jeopardizing more than only his own life with the risks he’s choosing. But he has no right to dictate the path Carlos is creating to him, especially not with what he himself is hiding. Even if he had, he would never act on it. Forcing Carlos’ hand would wound something inside Carlos Cecil never wants to die.
StrexCorp arrives a few months later. Cecil observes their arrival through narrowed eyes, but underneath his long-hardened crust of cynicism, he’s almost optimistic. He blames Carlos: life with him may not be perfect, but it’s far gentler than life before him.
Cecil’s nascent hopefulness does not last long. Lauren’s casual threats against Janice strips away even Cecil’s pretentions. When Lauren’s questions slowly begin to take a personal tone, Cecil is too busy to notice. StrexCorp’s tightening chokehold over his show, Tamika Flynn’s rebellion, the words “red dots on what you love!” echoing over and over in his head….
He doesn’t understand what they suspect, what they know, until he wakes up handcuffed and chained to the ground, symbols inscribed into anything with a surface. Above him, a man who is not a man grins.
“You hurt my feelings, friend,” says Kevin.
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One day Carlos asks how old he is.
“Why do you ask?” Cecil replies quickly. It’s probably an innocent question. f Carlos suspected, there would be signs. He wouldn’t be entangled with Cecil on the couch so comfortably for one.
“I realized today I don’t know.” He tilted his head downwards to stare disorientated at the wall. “It’s odd not to know the age of your partner, isn’t it?”
“Not particularly. There’s an expression which goes ‘age is just a number.’ and I endorse it whole-heartedly.”
Carlos grins, amused by something Cecil doesn’t understand. “I’d still like to know how old you are.” Carlos’ eyes bore into Cecil’s. After a minute his gaze morphs into a scowl. Cecil needs to herd Carlos’ interest towards a new direction now.
“Do you think I should add another segment to my show? I’ve already come up with a few ideas to get it past management…” Cecil tosses conjectures into the air and watches them clunk against the floor. He pretends his throat doesn’t hurt as Carlos watches him through the corner of his eyes.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chained on his back to a filthy surface with every particle inside him roiling because wherever he is, it isn’t in Night Vale, Cecil plays with fate. “I don’t know what you mean,” he tries.
He knows his attempt is useless the moment the words burst from his mouth. Even if through some unlikely miracle Cecil convinced Kevin to doubt himself, he’ll never let Cecil leave alive. It’s not in his nature.
“Don’t lie to me!” Kevin’s smile momentarily fractures before twisting itself into its usual rictus. “I’ve been looking for something like you for a long time, Cecil. It was interesting; discovering what I’d searched so long was directly in front of me. My own double: it makes sense, considering. Amidst all of the effort of binding oneself in service- cutting off parts of yourself in dedication to and twisting parts of yourself for, it becomes difficult to recognize…. I was beginning to think that my search was in vain and that I truly was alone. But I found you. The light of the Smiling God’s shone down upon me the whole time. If I let him devour you now, how proud of me will he be, for my sacrifice?
It is around this point Cecil begins truly struggling, usual deference to human limitations be damned.
“-“ Kevin begins.
The sound is a pickaxe, slowly breaking apart Cecil’s skull. Then Kevin’s voice rises, and Cecil feels like his brain is being shoved out his ear.
“ --“
He can’t move, he can’t breathe and his body is unraveling. His human body, his other body, and he can’t control his limbs at all. They’re everywhere, over everything, and he won’t fit. All he can think of is how he’s going to destroy the room, the building, perhaps even a substantial portion of Night Vale, and continue on until everything is ruins and dust. An eternity out of control, destroying what he loves.
Kevin’s words crawl through his mind like insects. They’re bright, too bright. They’re burning him and they’ll never go away.
There’s a crash followed by the sound of glass shattering. Someone roars out, and Cecil can breathe again.
His body crumbles. He wants to fall asleep, but fingers dig into him. They hurt, especially with his body still returning to his preferred form, but’s it’s nothing compared to the pain of moments ago.
Hands force him upwards. “Cecil. Cecil!”
He opens his eyes. Carlos is there, which is nice. He is also drenched in crow-colored blood, which is not so nice.
Something within him gnaws at the relieved daze cocooning him. Carlos shouldn’t see him in this form. People don’t react well to creatures like him- if Cecil can’t find his control something bad will happen. But Carlos only looks sad and tired.
“Do you truly see it now, what lies before you?”
Halfway across the warehouse, black liquid seeps down in baptism over Kevin. Some hidden-away part of his body is hurt, but only the wound is visible.
Kevin’s grin lights up his entire face like a child at a birthday party.
“How disgusting you are? How disgusting your limitations are? Carlos, is that your name? I see you. Nervous, distracted, preoccupied with inane concepts at the expense of what you love. And Cecil. You’re a monster like I was, but there’s no use for you, not there is me. However, because we’re kindred, the Smiling God has granted me opportunity to help you. I will devour you and through loosing you after discovering a person akin to me exists, the last bits of myself untouched by the light of the Smiling God will be purified. In giving me more use, you will shed your imperfections and be reconfigured. As a creature restricted to the darkness, you will finally be given light.
Carlos tightens Cecil’s grip on his hand. With the other, he rummages through a wide pocket in his laboratory coat. When he finds the pistol, he fires twice between Kevin’s eyes. Carlos stumbles back slightly and shoots again.
Kevin’s features flatten under the new blood Carlos spilled, and his teeth are now no longer looking remotely human, but he doesn’t stop talking.
“With effort, you can become a better person. Become a stronger person, become a more accomplished person. Even become all three. But you can never truly escape your imperfections. They change, are watered down and worsen, but no matter how hard you scrub they refuse to fade. Failure, love, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, your very self and existence hold you back from becoming truly perfect. I’m killing you to save you, because the Smiling God grants light. The Smiling God can remake you as a perfect. Nothing inside you will remain, so nothing inside you can be unclean. And one day the world will finally be purified of all stains and become one white, faultless canvas.”
Kevin paces back and forth as he talks. His shadow is far larger than he is. It writhes like a dying creature.
There is something familiar in the mania Kevin’s engulfed by. It dawns on Cecil that it’s natural he recognizes it because he’s seen it in himself. Kevin may be far from the worst horror Cecil’s seen, he’s the most repulsive. Perhaps because although they could be the sun and moon in terms of the people they became, something in the underlying construct of their souls is the same. Yet it’s because of this commonality Cecil thinks he and Carlos might stand a chance.
Carlos’ entrance disrupted the ritual. Cecil can finish the rest.
The damage Carlos caused to the runes while entering isn’t enough to allow Cecil to ignore the boundaries completely, but there’s a gap wide enough to manifest a tendril where there wasn’t one before and project it full force into Kevin’s skull. Cecil twists and blood and matter drown more of the runes. Kevin’s jaw is pulp on the floor, but its absence doesn’t prevent a loud, inhuman wail.
With the runes surrounding Kevin gone Cecil reaches his second form. The warehouse’s ceiling collapses as the top of his body shreds through it, thousands of claws and shadows all lunging towards Kevin.
Kevin wails again, and Cecil crashes against something hungry and burning. Still, he reaches out, ripping a hole right through into Kevin’s core.
Cecil feels more than hears his scream, and he counts several weak thrashes before Kevin fades away forever. Cecil thought he’d feel relief after Kevin’s passing, but with Kevin now in tatters on the ground, all Cecil wants to go home and sleep until he can forget everything which occurred.
Only now does Cecil remember Carlos.
In an instant he’s returned to human form, acutely aware of the warehouse in ruins around him.
“Carlos!” he cries out. He knows Carlos could be hiding from him- he hopes this is true. The idea makes him feel sick, but the other possibility for his silence is ….
“Carlos!”
He sinks to his knees. A deeply repressed part of him wants to fight, to destroy, but even this urge is buried under how hollow he feels.
“Cecil! I’m right here!!”
He runs towards the voice, doubling back once he realizes he’s sprinted past it. Carlos is leaning against a collapsed wall, face white but otherwise unharmed. Cecil maneuvers him against his chest and wraps his arms around him with all of the strength his second form can muster. After a second, Cecil realizes what he’s doing and lets go.
“Well don’t stop now…” Carlos grumbles.
Cecil frantically examines Carlos for injuries, engraving this last picture of him in his memories as he moves along. Carlos appears fit enough to drive, but Cecil’s interviewed enough witnesses to know the havoc shock can wreak.
“Did you drive all the way out here?”
“Of course.” Cecil recognizes the expression on Carlos’ face. He’s trying to piece together the words to be understood- Cecil hasn’t seen him struggle so unsuccessfully for quite some time.
“Do you mind if I drive on the way home?” As much as Cecil needs Carlos safe, he wishes he didn’t have to volunteer as a driver. He doesn’t want to see Carlos’ reaction after the shock wears off. What he wants is to sit down and never get up again.
“You were just kidnapped!” Carlos responds heatedly. “How- Do you need a doctor? Cecil may be injured, but he’s in better straits than Carlos if judging by his present reaction he thinks sourly.
Carlos’ hand is threaded in his hair. He looks horribly worn out. “Is…” He turns his face towards Cecil. “What happened with Kevin before I got here?” Something in Carlos’ voice comes loose. In all of Carlos’ time at Night Vale Cecil has never heard him sound so audibly distraught. “The substances Kevin used, do any of them cause you physical damage? What the hell were your bosses doing, I mean God, aren’t they supposed to protect you? I can’t stand it, how these things keep happening to you-”
Cecil keeps his face carefully blank. It feels like something in his mind short-circuited. Clearly either he or Carlos overlooked a head injury. “What do you mean by the substances Kevin used?”
Carlos throws his hands up in the air. At least Cecil isn’t alone in his confusion. “You know the blood and the salt and whatever else that psychopath used against you. I know you don’t like to talk about it-“
It occurs to Cecil that despite Carlos’ haggard appearance, his eyes meet Cecil’s without hesitation. He’s interviewed the citizens of Night Vale after tragedy more times than he can remember. As much as Carlos looks like he wants a drink, he doesn’t look like he’s in the midst of the same reaction they were undergoing.
“You knew,” Cecil whispers.
“About what? Oh that. Of course I knew.” Carlos says softly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” By now, Cecil’s voice is so quiet he can barely distinguish his own words.
Carlos turned away, his cheeks red. “I was waiting for you to say it,” he answers quietly.
Cecil feels his throat close up. He’s a radio host. His limits can be stretched further, be more bruised and traversed than anyone else’s in Night Vale. Today, Cecil buries his head in Carlos’ neck and cries.
______________________________________________________________________________
By the time they park outside the house the first rays of the desert sun are beginning to pierce the sky. Cecil needs to find a method of dealing StrexCorp as soon as possible. His condition however, is still too poor to perform his duties as the voice of Night Vale today. Cecil hopes the intern will be alright- err, not completely catatonic.
After they shower Carlos collapses under the covers and motions for Cecil to join him. He curls into Cecil and is asleep in moments.
As he falls asleep it occurs to Cecil that their relationship will continue to face challenges. Carlos is a scientist who is competent enough to fight Night Vale’s disasters and win, and he has Cecil’s support both as a radio host and on the battlefield if the situation calls for it. Nevertheless, there’s always a possibility that Carlos will make a mistake or that Cecil might not arrive in time. Cecil may respect Carlos’ choice, but he doesn’t think he’ll find peace with the idea of repercussions of these possibilities unfolding. They will still quarrel occasionally because the art of fitting two people together cannot fill all the cracks between them and will never be easy. But there will also be standing side by side and mornings waking up together and laughing. In the end, maybe it’s this which is all that truly matters.