fic:: when you lay me down you'll bury only bones [Welcome To Night Vale]
This story came about as a response to a discussion I was having with 
thingswithwings a while back about Night Vale, queer theory, safe spaces, race, and many other things. It's about Night Vale as the small town in the desert that can be home to everyone, in its way, which isn't enough, but is something, I guess, and that in itself goes a lot of the way to why I love this stupid show so much.
(Also, it's about the federal government shutdown. I'm super-predictable.)
fic:: when you lay me down you'll bury only bones
by Raven
7000w, Welcome To Night Vale, Cecil/Carlos, Dana and Intern Vithya. Dana's back. Intern Vithya is new. Cecil and Carlos are just the same, but different. Today, Night Vale is the safest place on earth.
This above all: no matter what else is happening, it is a blessing to have Dana back. Even if it's just on a temporary basis - and Cecil both hopes and fears that this is the case - he has found himself getting used to the rhythm of his day again, coming into the radio station in the early afternoon with doughnuts (glazed for Dana; jam and sprinkles for Vithya) and returning whatever nail polish he may have borrowed over the weekend. He sits down at his desk and writes in the late-afternoon sunshine, windows and door propped open so the light breezes curl through the dust. Carlos has been visiting a lot this week, bringing more junk food, but today he doesn't have time, so he texts - so nice to have wheat-based pizza for lunch xx; also so nice not to have pizza for lunch xx; love you, so much more than pizza for lunch xx - and Cecil is content, alive to the familiar warm thrum of the desert and the rainbows scattering through his eyelashes.
Vithya gets coffee for them all and Cecil drinks his in slow sips, not tasting it particularly, trying to remember not to chew on the pen. It's a fountain pen. Carlos bought it earlier in the week and told him to use it regularly, so the iridium point will shape itself to his handwriting and one day it will be a pen that only Cecil will be able to use. He likes that idea, likes it and fears it, in the usual equal measure. And once he's finished and night is falling, the day's heat burning off into the sky, Dana comes in and says, "Hey, Cecil, you ready?"
Cecil looks up. "I think so," he says, hesitant, and below his left hand his phone buzzes. It's Carlos, with loving brevity: luck <3
"Sure?"
"Yes," he says, and sets up for the show as normal, closing the doors and watching with fondness as Dana and Vithya expertly gather up their papers, brush away the last of the doughnut sugar, and settle in behind the glass, waving as Cecil pulls the microphone to him. "A friendly desert community," he says, and the unaccustomed nervousness fades at the familiar opening, "where the sun is hot and the moon is beautiful. Welcome to Night Vale.
"Hello, listeners. To start off, I’ve been asked to read this brief notice. The City Council would like to remind everyone about the status of the dog park at the corner of Earl and Somerset near the Ralph’s. They would like to remind everyone that although the dog park is open, in these troubled times there may not be park maintenance being undertaken as usual. Park employees are non-essential personnel and as a consequence there may be rubbish or broken glass and other unsafe items in the dog park. Please be aware. Thank you.
"Now, as you will be aware, listeners, this week I have had very little to report. The sand wastes have not been echoing to the sound of distant screams; the City Council have issued no statements other than the one I just mentioned; although the red light on the radio tower continues to blink on, then off, then off, then on, it somehow lacks the hypnotic effect of earlier days. Station management have been quiescent just recently but I don't believe we ought to take our audience for granted, listeners, and Intern Vithya has made a suggestion for today's show. Now of course you know that I do not often talk about my personal life on the air" - under his hand, Cecil's phone buzzes in outrage; he ignores it - "but Vithya, as a part of her internship at Night Vale community radio, has been naturally curious about how I, and my colleague Dana, came to do the jobs we do. You, listeners, will remember how Dana's dedication to journalism, resourcefulness and sheer courage brought her to community radio."
Outside the booth, Dana is covering her face with her hands and blushing. Cecil smiles up at her.
"My story is not so dramatic. But it is a story worth telling. I think. " A pause, for a return of that earlier hesitancy, and then he goes on. "The first time I ever spoke over a radio, it was… somewhere else, in another language."
Cecil breathes out and looks up again. This time, Dana blows him a kiss.
*
Carlos is listening to the broadcast in his lab, the night breezes creeping in through the window. Today in Night Vale, the sun set at the same time, give or take a minute or two, as it did in Albuquerque; give or take a minute or two more, at the same time as it did in Phoenix, Tucson, San Diego and Tijuana. Although he's almost sure what he's going to find, Carlos has been collating information all afternoon, checking and re-checking, occasionally looking up in wonder at the clock on the wall. Some of his data is from the National Weather Service. Today in Night Vale, you can check the National Weather Service. (It's partly shut down, but Carlos thinks, well, you can't have everything.)
On the radio, Cecil's voice is shifting into something familiar, low and intimate. Carlos has heard this story before, after dark, across the shared space of two pillows. Quietly, he lays down his pen - the novelty of that luxury hasn't worn off - and gets up to stand by the window, looking out at an ordinary night, listening.
"It's hard to begin," Cecil is saying, and Carlos nods. Cecil, like Carlos himself, comes from a background defined by absence: how to begin. But there's a great story in Cecil's history, as there is, Carlos supposes, in everyone's. "My grandfather," Cecil is saying. "My mother's father. He was born, not here, but not far from here. In 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he joined up, but not through Selective Service. He was asked to join a small number of other men of Navajo descent, who spoke the Navajo language, to become code talkers for the US military. The Navajo people who took part in the project learned enormously complex codes in order to transmit orders safely to US forces in Asia. I learned this in history class, as well as from my grandfather; I am sure that those you listening who were educated in Night Vale know something of the story."
Cecil is a journalist. Carlos knows that that one-word identity is important to Cecil - that to be a professional, with the rights, obligations and vocation that implies, shapes more than just his working life - and perhaps that's why, here on the edge of self-revelation, he's sticking to these bare facts. This from a man who has cried, been possessed by a non-corporeal entity and eaten an enchilada on air, Carlos thinks, with a loving, almost painful ache in his chest.
"My grandfather was an old man when I first knew him. The military work had been unclassified in the sixties, but I think he had gotten used to silence. We used to sit, in silence, on the porch looking out on the desert, so we could see anyone coming from far away, their tyres raising dust. When the lights go out and return, I remember that, before I remember anything else.
"I grew old enough to understand. I asked him about the work he'd done, and he told me that it was classified, but then." Cecil pauses. "He told me about it as though it had happened to another person, as though it were a story about all of us. And then, when I was a little older than that, we found the pieces of a shortwave radio in the basement and we set it up. It was a summer project, finding the parts to make it work. But when it came together and the power came on and it was time to make the first broadcast, to - to say something, I couldn't. I couldn't speak into the dark when everyone listened. He wrote down for me some things I could say.
"It had only a limited range. It broadcast to the reservation. I don't remember, now, those words. Just that they were, you know, the Navajo language" - Cecil's voice falters - "Diné bizaad.
"But I said them. And after that I could say some things of my own, about the weather, and the dust, and something the council had said that day. I don't know if anyone heard me other than my grandfather. I think - I think I amused him? I think… I think that he loved me."
Carlos says, to the empty lab, voicing something from somewhere deep within: "Yes."
"But after that I found it hard to learn how to be silent." Cecil laughs a little, and Carlos smiles helplessly. "I am not the man my grandfather was. I don't suppose I ever will be. But I believe that a voice out of the darkness will bring you home, listeners, sometimes when nothing else will. Thank you for listening. We break now for a pre-recorded message from our sponsors."
Suddenly, Carlos wants Cecil close to him. It's occurred to him, belatedly, that Night Vale has no night terrors tonight; he turns off the radio in the lab, picks up the broadcast on his phone and sets out towards the radio station, Cecil's voice soft in his ears.
*
"He did good," Dana says, very softly, her eyes on Cecil. "I don't think I ever got him to talk about his family before."
Vithya is pretty sure that most people do not, as basically their first assignment in a new internship, persuade their reticent new boss to talk about something deeply personal on air on a community news show that normally deals with plagues of venomous snakes and trees that want to have your babies.
"It wasn't sexual, with the trees," Dana says, still thoughtfully sotto voce, "although I don't know, maybe people wanted to, like, date first."
But then most people - Vithya sighs. Most people do not work in Night Vale. In her first week here, a friendly secret police officer who knew her middle name, and hinted about all that mess you left behind, helped her move in; when she came to look around her new place she found Gurmukhi in the spiderwebs and a strange shadowy thing in the toilet cistern; and on the Friday she got lunch at a neighbourhood taco place and happened to ask, half-kidding, why the waitresses didn't have pencils. She supposes that by that point she was beginning to understand what Night Vale was like. Her memories of C-SPAN and the rest of the outside world were perfectly crisp even though her RSS reader had become nothing but scrolling purple and green cat animations, and in retrospect, that's probably why she was the first person to notice what was happening; nevertheless, most people do not end up banging on their boss's door at ass o'clock in the morning before they've even met the guy.
And - she shudders - it was, and is, Night Vale; he could have been eleven feet tall or regular height and green and made of radiation, so she's kind of proud of herself for having gone and knocked. But he opened the door after she'd been banging on it for three straight minutes and he was about five inches taller than she was, so just like everyone else, and he had a statistically common number of limbs, and he was fully dressed even though it was the aforementioned ass o'clock in the morning.
"I'm your intern," she tried to tell him, "I thought you ought to know…."
Behind him someone was saying, "Cecil, what the hell" - but Cecil merely walked out in the street with her and said, "Yes, I ought to know" - and that was Intern Vithya's first day on the job.
"You shouldn't mind being called Intern Vithya," Dana says, apparently reading her mind. "It's like… a mark of respect around here."
Vithya smiles. "I know. I mean… I don't mind." She doesn't have to get in line for her morning coffee order. People nod at her in the street. Her landlord came over to get rid of the shadowy thing in the toilet. "You're Cecil's intern," he said cheerfully as he did it, in the same tones as people say, Cecil's scientist. There are worse things.
Like, for example, the batch of texts she's getting all in one batch so the amount of data is basically breaking her phone, now that Night Vale is (temporarily?) accessible by the outside world. Vithya are you- / Vithya why- / are you- / when- / call- - but only the first few words each time as she scrolls through, deletes them without opening.
"How long do you think it'll last?" she asks.
"What, the shutdown?" Dana shakes her head. "I don't know. I don't know if…" She trails off, and Vithya doesn't know what to say to someone who might be whisked away into the desert at the dawn of time at any moment. "I think... well, I have my clothes all in a backpack, and I loop the strap around my foot when I take a shower."
This time Vithya is pretty sure she isn't kidding. "Oh," she says, idiotic. The second thing she did on her internship, after getting Cecil out at first light, was go with Dana to the drugstore and get her some electrolyte replacement solution and Swedish Fish. Sometimes Vithya thinks she arrived in this weird-ass town several chapters behind everyone else.
"You're doing okay, you know," Dana says, softly, and okay, so she probably isn't actually a mind-reader, especially not now, but Vithya turns to her gratefully, blushing with the praise.
*
Twenty-two minutes later, Cecil whispers, a little shakily, goodnight, Night Vale, goodnight, and Carlos texts: outside, but take your time.
Of course this week he has help - Dana, as well as the new intern - and they won't be too long packing up for the night. The next show is a commercial-free three hours of iced tea being stirred, and Carlos listens to it absent-mindedly for a few minutes before taking his earphones out. He leans against the side of the building and shivers momentarily, not quite understanding why - although the nights in the desert are cool, he's dressed for it - and then someone moves out of the shadows on the opposite side of the street. After a second's panic, Carlos remembers it can't be a mysterious hooded figure. The shape resolves itself into just some guy with his hands stuck in his pockets, some Night Vale resident (and by now, Carlos counts himself among them), walking with feet wide apart. The chill remains, however, some inarticulate menace in the air, and Carlos wonders what he might do if Cecil were here with him: if he might freeze, and let go of Cecil's hand, like he's done a thousand places, but never, until now, here.
"Carlos!" And that's Cecil, darting out of the front door of the station, sounding brittle and bright. "Sorry it took a while, we got to talking while we cleared up - oh, wait, you haven't met yet, have you? This is our newest intern, Vithya. Vithya, this is my boyfriend, Carlos."
"We have met, very briefly." Carlos shakes the outstretched hand and smiles. Vithya smiles back; she's a tiny girl with brown skin and almond-shaped eyes. Letting go of her hand, Carlos glances across the street to where he saw the shadow, but now there's nothing there.
"We're waiting for Dana to lock up," Cecil is saying. "I asked her and Vithya both to dinner with us, if you don't mind, Carlos? I thought," he adds, a little wistfully, "now that Dana's here… and of course we really ought to get to know Vithya better."
Carlos grins. "Sure. We can order in pizza, if you like."
Cecil grimaces, and Carlos has a strange impression of something unfamiliar in his face. "I'll cook."
Dana endorses that idea, when she skips down the stairs with the keys jangling in her hand. They walk home through almost-silent streets - somehow, the radio station is within walking distance of everywhere in Night Vale - and although they see no hooded figures or unmarked cars making smooth patrols, Carlos feels as though there is something off about the air, something stale and overheated. An absence of haunting, perhaps.
Once they're inside, Vithya lingers in the doorway, polite, holding on to a glass of water with tightly-curled fingers, but Dana sits herself on the edge of Carlos's desk, swinging her feet comfortably, while Cecil potters in and out, gathering up mugs and plates, and Carlos puts away his papers and books. He mutters to himself while he puts things in order, perhaps a little more loudly than intended, because when he looks up Dana is grinning at him. "Getting a lot of work done, are you?" she asks, her expression wicked.
Carlos shakes his head in wonderment. "I don't know whether to run around doing tests on everything, or kick back and take a vacation," he complains. "Night Vale is still the most scientifically interesting town in America! But now it's because of what's not there, as well as what is."
"There aren't tourists coming in any more," Vithya says, startling Carlos. She's so quiet, he'd almost forgotten she was there, but when he turns to her she meets his eyes, and he grins. Of course, she's one of Cecil's interns - she's made of stern stuff. "They're being turned away if they have to cross any federal land to get here, I guess? But I'm sort of… hearing more from the outside world, as well."
"You're not from Night Vale," Carlos says, realising.
"Not originally. Well, no" - she looks confused - "no, what does that even mean. But I grew up out east."
"Come and sit down," Carlos offers, and clears the couch of Cecil's show notes and his own year's subscription to Scientific American, which arrived all in one go two days ago. Sitting down, he has a direct line of sight through into the kitchen, and Cecil smiles vaguely and waves a spatula. "Yeah," Carlos says, "I'm hearing from my sister that people aren't getting benefits, food stamps, other things you'd kinda think they'd need."
"It happened once before, back in 1995," Dana says, thoughtfully. "Cecil was an intern at the time and some people say it was why he lived. Me, I was only a kid, but I remember I cried for two weeks because of missing Alice."
"Alice?" Vithya asks.
"My secret police officer." Dana frowns. "I used to make her play house with me. I'd be mother and she'd be the faceless old woman."
Carlos chuckles, and Cecil pauses in the doorway. "That reminds me" - and he steps out with such determination that Carlos can't help but follow, alight with scientific curiosity.
Cecil opens their front door and sits down on the step. "Egbert," he says, clearly. "Egbert, I know you can hear me. I'm cooking chilli verde, can you smell it? It's Carlos's mom's recipe but I cook it better than he does."
"Hey," Carlos says, without heat; Cecil might be right about that.
"It's in a giant pot, there's lots to share, you should come have some. Look, I know you've been furloughed. Cash has got to be tight right now and I'd feel better knowing you'd gotten something to eat."
After a pause, Egbert emerges from the shadows. Without the usual leather balaclava and shock stick in hand, he looks smaller. Carlos realises for the first time that their secret policeman is a guy about the same age as himself, a white guy with large blue eyes and hair that sticks up in wisps. "Hey, Cecil," he says, awkwardly, and even more awkwardly, "Carlos."
"Hey, Egbert."
"I'm not sure it's appropriate," Egbert says. "You know, Cecil, I know things are kinda different right now, but Big Rico's and the White Sands Ice-Cream Shop are giving out free slices and cones for government employees, we're getting by."
"People cannot live by ice-cream and pizza alone, Egbert." Cecil is stern for a minute, then relents. "All right, if you won't come in, let me put some in a Tupperware for you, okay? Just wait here and I'll get it for you."
He does that, leaving Carlos on the doorstep for a minute or two to make yet more awkward small talk before Cecil returns with the covered dish of something that does, Carlos will admit, smell better than he ever makes it. Egbert takes it with thanks and disappears into the strange-textured night; behind them, Dana chuckles. "You know, Cecil," she says, as they go back into the den, "sometimes you sound exactly like your mother."
From the surprised, pleased smile on Cecil's face, that's a compliment.
*
Cecil doesn't cook by rote, tasting things as he goes, and it tastes right. They set the table and sit down to dinner with all the efficiency of hungry people, and from the movement of the shadows in front of the door, Egbert has wisely chosen not to let his share get cold, either. "Thanks, Cecil," Vithya says, blushing a little as she picks up her spoon. "Thanks all of you, this is really great."
Cecil waves a hand. "You're my intern, this is the bare minimum. Do you have family in Night Vale?"
Vithya shakes her head. "They're back out east, too. They're not… they didn't want me to go into radio. They thought I might go into academia, or something like that." She glances apologetically at Carlos as she says it; he grins and nods at her.
"Tell them it's a terrible life and you'd hate it. You set out into the desert on environmental research fieldwork and you never come home. Although," he adds, thoughtfully, "you may find yourself lying, about the first part."
Vithya grins back, looks at Carlos and then at Cecil. Cecil thinks she probably understands what Carlos means, perhaps more so than Cecil does himself. He's left Night Vale a few times over the years: he has a four-year college degree he obtained outside Night Vale and he once surprised Carlos by correctly naming a band they'd both seen, one summer in San Francisco, but something of Cecil is always here, has been here all along. This is the house he grew up in.
Dana gets up to clear when they're finished, and Vithya and Carlos help. Cecil is tired, suddenly, leaning back in his chair with his apron strings hanging off the back. He closes his eyes for a moment, then sits back up as Dana says: "Cecil, I'm dealing with the leftovers. Where have you put the serving spoons?"
She's been in and out of this house since they were both teenagers, but Carlos's presence has led to some kitchen re-arrangement. Cecil leans back again and closes his eyes, then sits up again sharply, feeling like he's had sand thrown in his eyes while looking out over the desert, with no sight of anyone coming. "Urgh. Fuck."
"Shhhh," Dana says, and at first Cecil thinks it's his language - and he ought not to use profanity in front of his interns, she's absolutely right - but then he opens his eyes and realises it's just a verbal caress, something to soothe. "Shhh, it's okay. I'll find them myself."
She does, and she sorts out boxes of chilli for herself, for Vithya, and for Cecil and Carlos, carefully refrigerating the last. Cecil smiles involuntarily at her utter competence, and gets up and goes to the front door. He's not sure what he's looking for, lingering on the doorstep breathing in the night air. Egbert is gone, leaving only a faint scent of spices, and Cecil realises abruptly that for the first time, perhaps in his entire life, he's unobserved. The night feels cool and clammy, laden with strangeness, as though the darkness is hiding something he doesn't understand. He's thinking about the world beyond the penumbra of the porch light, of the closed-off land between here and everything else. He breathes in, and shivers.
*
In the kitchen, Dana asks, "Is Cecil okay?"
"I'm not sure," Carlos says, sighing as he scrapes the plates. "Dana, he really has missed you."
Dana smiles, and Vithya, glancing at her, envies her that quiet serenity, as though she's been cleansed by fire of uncertainty and doubt. Vithya wonders if just living in Night Vale, maybe when it's back to its ordinary self, will have that effect on her, and then she remembers Cecil's broadcast, and thinks probably not.
"You don't have the… thing Cecil has, do you?" she asks.
Dana shakes her head. "Nope. Cecil doesn't have it either, right now. I just figured, something's not right."
"Something's not right in Night Vale generally," Carlos says, motioning at the window. "Tomorrow I'm going out to check my seismographs, if you want to come along and see if anything's newsworthy. If Cecil were here he'd say it so I'm going to say it: come for breakfast first."
"Did Cecil's mom express love with food, too?" Vithya wonders aloud, remembering what Dana said earlier.
"Mine does," Carlos says, grinning. "Doesn't yours?"
"Yeah," Vithya says, perching herself on the edge of the countertop; it seems like Carlos and Dana have the clearing up under control. "Yeah, for sure. Sambar and idli, idli and imli, more, beta, finish everything on your plate, oof, you don't love me."
Carlos laughs at that. "Let me sing you the song of my people, yes."
"Carlos," she says, quickly, "can I ask you something?"
"Mmm," he says, motioning to her to go on.
"Are you out to your family?"
It is, she knows as she's asking it, an incredibly personal question: but somehow she doesn't have it in her to regret it. This is Night Vale, where everything, even the air that you breathe, can be lethally transformative; she may not have the time to wait until it's polite to ask. From the thoughtful, not displeased expression on his face, Carlos understands that. "Yes," he says, at last. "But I live here now."
From Dana's expression, Vithya thinks she's about to say something, but she holds her silence; after the two of them leave, turning to wave to Carlos and Cecil on the doorstep, Vithya thinks again that she'll say something, maybe something journalistic and open-ended, like, what's your deal, then, or so I guess your parents are raging homophobes or just, what are you running from, Vithya?
But Dana doesn't: she leads the way along the sidewalk, meeting Vithya's gaze every so often and smiling, and when she does her eyes hold nothing but kindness.
*
They've been going to bed early every night this week, spending the time talking, kissing, having sex in non-municipally-approved fashion. Carlos lingers by the window while Cecil hunts around downstairs for his book - he's reading The Velveteen Rabbit, which until this week was banned by the City Council for its wanton descriptions of the moon - and remembers standing in the lab, earlier, listening to Cecil speak of history. It takes him a minute to realise that Cecil is in the room with him, by the door, making no move to turn on the light.
"Cecil," he says, quickly, hiding his surprise, "are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Cecil says, flat. He takes another step inside, but just one, and Carlos can make him out only by the moonlight, in edges and angles.
"I saw you, earlier," Carlos adds, remembering, "when Dana asked you about the spoons, and you…"
"I didn't know where they were," Cecil interrupts. "I tried to look, but - I forgot I couldn't."
"Oh." Carlos comes away from the window and sits on the edge of the bed, considering. "Cecil, I have to ask you. Doesn't it worry you at all that the federal government shuts down and suddenly you don't have the clairvoyance you've had since childhood?"
Cecil shrugs and, as always, Carlos gives it up.
"It's not just that, though," he goes on, carefully. "Something has been upsetting you all evening and I wish I knew what it was."
Cecil looks at him. "The show," he mutters. "Was it - was it okay, Carlos?"
Cecil has gaps and shadows in his self-esteem like every other human being alive, but not about his show. Carlos glances at him sidelong and is surprised when Cecil doesn't meet his eyes. "Shit," he says, to no one in particular. "Cecil, look - just come here."
They clamber on the bed together, still in the dark but knowing their way around each other by touch. Carlos settles down with Cecil tucked by his side, his fingers working through Cecil's hair.
"My grandmother." Carlos pauses, then deliberately looks away from Cecil, towards the window glass. "My abuela," he adds, getting the word out with difficulty. "She's… oh. She's a powerful old lady. Old Woman Josie reminds me of her, a little. I mean, I think if she lived in Night Vale, she'd have angels changing her lightbulbs. But I… I haven't had a meaningful conversation with her since I was seven years old."
"Why not?" Cecil asks, out of the dark.
"I started kindergarten, and I was already a year behind and…" Carlos sighs. "After they stopped speaking Spanish to me at home, I did… well. I did very well. I caught up, in high school I was into debate, I was admitted by prestigious schools and I graduated with honours. But… I can't go back. Do you understand?"
He turns around and meets Cecil's eyes, gleaming in the darkness. He suspects Cecil does understand, as well as they have ever understood one another about anything. He's heard Cecil refer to himself as Diné, and then not, as though the solidity of that certainty shifts, like the sand of the desert.
Cecil says nothing for a long moment. When he finally speaks, it's a whisper. "Yes."
"I listen to Dora The Explorer," Carlos says, horrified that his voice has a crack in it, "in the background, in the lab."
Cecil laughs, a little shakily, and snuggles deeper against Carlos. "My father wasn't Navajo," he says after a minute. "You know people say that doesn't matter, that blood is… blood. But, you know" - he waves a hand - "I just. I'm supposed to be... "
He doesn't finish the sentence, but Carlos thinks he understands. This is Night Vale, and about the worst thing that has ever happened to Carlos in Night Vale involved picking Cecil up and carrying him across the threshold of this house with blood soaking into his clothes, slicking his skin; it was down to some unholy combination of a contract row with station management and a plague of moths made of razor blades and sharp glass. Carlos never quite understood all of that, but if blood is identity, then Carlos understands that just fine. Blood is easy to lose.
"Cecil," he says, and wants to say, I love you: but then knows, unfathomably and innately, that love can do many things, but it can't do this. It can't be enough. Instead he kisses Cecil deeply instead, his tongue slowly exploring Cecil's mouth, as if to say you are here, instead.
"I heard Dana talking, before," Cecil says, with studied casualness, as they draw apart. "The last time there was a government shutdown was 1995. I was sixteen, working for a summer at the radio station, and there was a team of scientists here then, too. One of them saved my life, you know? There was a cascade of toxin gas about to envelope the town and she found me a place of safety. I thought we were going to die. We hid for a day and a night until it was either stay where we were or perish of thirst. But when I came out of my hiding place the sun was shining and everything was clear. People were saying the money had run out, that everyone had lived. The scientists said that now everything was normal they were going to take the chance to get out while the roads still led somewhere. And they went. There have been other scientists since. There are always scientists. But you… you are the only one who's stayed. Who's even gone, and come back."
"Welcome to Night Vale," Carlos murmurs.
"A friendly desert community," Cecil offers, and there's just the hint of an emphasis on the last word. "Carlos…." He hesitates, then goes on. "Carlos, there's Dana - for Dana, I could do anything, you know?"
"I know," Carlos says. "I know."
Cecil shakes his head, then nods, then shakes his head. "But this is not… this is not the town I know. I just, I don't fit."
"I know, honey," Carlos says, low and sweet, and kisses him again. He thinks they're done talking for a while, and Cecil shifts in his arms, making a low sound in the base of his throat.
Before they get into bed properly Carlos gets up to close the drapes. They don't really need to, now that no one's watching, but it's force of habit. Standing by the window, Carlos thinks he sees, in the shadows on the street below, a shape that might be a leather balaclava, or a hood, or just some guy walking down the street, kicking pebbles under a sky only stars.
*
Most people do not turf their brand-new bosses out of bed at first light. Yet fewer people do it twice.
To be fair to herself - and Vithya tries to be - none of it's exactly intentional; her phone keeps buzzing and her head keeps whirling and she can't sleep, not really, and it's not too far of a walk to the Moonlight All-Nite Diner, where there might be company, even if it's just furloughed secret police officers and Hiram McDaniels' campaign team. And she can't be blamed for stopping outside the house - she has to pass it to get to the diner - when she thinks she sees a flash of movement behind a window. And then the porch light comes on, freezing her in place like a startled rabbit, and Cecil appears at her elbow like a ghost, and that's that.
"Come on," he says, gently, after a moment, and she sighs, gives it up as a done deal and follows him. As she steps through the doorway, something dark and fast flashes past her feet. Cecil laughs and reaches downwards. "I guess you haven't met Khoshekh? He's enjoying the outside world."
Vithya isn't much of a cat person, but Cecil clearly is: she reaches forwards and is surprised when her tentative scratch behind the ears yields a purr like an outboard motor. "Hi," she says, and Cecil grins at her, letting the cat leap out of his arms. Vithya strokes it gently while Cecil starts rummaging in the refrigerator. "I thought it was too early for breakfast," he says, turning to look at her, "but now there are more people awake in the house than asleep, so it must be time for breakfast."
She chuckles at that, and remembers, suddenly, the last time: the sky had only been barely stained with pink, but he'd been fully dressed. "You don't sleep all that well, do you?"
"No, and especially not now," he says, cracking eggs and lighting the gas. "Carlos puts up with it." He says it with affection, and in low tones, obviously careful not to let his voice carry and wake Carlos up. Vithya has a momentary spasm of envy for a love so quiet. "I guess you couldn't sleep either?"
She shakes her head and they sit in silence for a minute. Cecil is scrambling the eggs with chives and they smell like warm, fluffy heaven.
"I wanted to talk to you about something," Vithya says, abruptly, and at once the part of her mind that still has the manners that her mother taught her wants to know if she's heard of small talk or working up to things slowly, or if she were born in a barn. But Cecil doesn't seem alarmed.
"Coffee and eggs, first," he says mildly, handing her a plate. He fetches one for himself, covers the third portion in the pan and rummages for cutlery. Looking into the drawer, he says, "Before I forget. If, when your internship is over, you want to stay in Night Vale, then you should know of course I'll support you in that decision. I'm sure I used to own more than three forks and two spoons and a single kebab skewer."
"Cecil," she says, and stops. She's grinding her teeth and wondering whether to laugh or cry. "How did you" - and then she stops, because he is not clairvoyant, just perceptive, as though he were a professional journalist, or something, and it's not as if she isn't sitting in his kitchen with a cat in her lap, eating eggs that smell like home.
Cecil sits down opposite her. "You really want to stay?"
"If I live that long," Vithya says, and neither of them smile.
"Even when" - Cecil waves a vague hand - "everything is as it is, again?"
"Especially then," Vithya tells him, "especially then." She pauses, feeling like she probably does owe him something. Not because of the eggs or anything else, but somehow she wants to give up at least some of the answer he hasn't asked for. "It's my family," she says hesitantly.
"What are they like?" Cecil asks, damnably perceptive.
"Overwhelming," Vithya says, and is surprised to hear the fondness in her voice, the edge of laughter. "They're - oh, they're wonderful, Cecil. They really are. They're loud, they're opinionated, they're wonderful. But I'm not…"
"Not wonderful?" Cecil asks, eyebrows raised.
"It's not that." Vithya thinks about it. "I'm not - I can't…" She trails off, her hands frozen in mid-gesture, and Cecil looks at her for a long moment.
"Sometimes," he says, soft and deliberate, "you need time, and quiet space, and silence. Someone is coming. It might be you."
Vithya remembers listening to his broadcasts before she met him, before she ever thought of coming to Night Vale; she remembers listening to his voice in the dark in her car, driving along quiet roads under looming skies thinking that that voice could destroy shadows, not by shining light, but by making space for darkness. She smiles up at Cecil now, leaning back in his chair with his fingers steepled. She thinks that pretty soon now she'll be able to sleep.
*
Carlos heats up the eggs, makes a fresh pot of coffee and leans down to pet the cat before he says, conversationally, "Cecil, you really do nothing but pick up strays."
Cecil, dozing in one of the kitchen chairs, wakes up with a start. "Vithya's taking a nap on the couch, don't wake her," he says, crossly. "And I do not."
"You do," Carlos says. "You absolutely do."
"I don't - urgh." He leans back in his chair and scrubs his eyes. "Carlos, please, I know it's hilarious, or ridiculous, or something, that I'm always trying to do - whatever it is, when I'm also, always, this screwed-up almost person, I just…"
"Shhh." Carlos gets up and kisses the top of his head. "You are all that you are, and you are perfect, and you are enough."
Cecil doesn't say anything, but some of the tension drops from his shoulders. Carlos kisses him again. "Try and get some sleep in an actual bed," he says. "I'll be home this afternoon, okay? I'll come get Vithya and we can go and check out the seismographs."
"Okay," Cecil says, tiredly. Carlos goes to take a shower and get dressed, and when he gets back Cecil is still where he was, sleeping again, looking exceptionally uncomfortable. Carlos smiles, a little helplessly, finds a cushion to put under his head, waves at Vithya just opening her eyes, and sets out into the bright, fresh morning, his hands thrust into his pockets. If there are earthquakes in Night Vale today they will all feel it, and there's a lot of earth below them, full of cracks. Carlos is whistling tunelessly, the desert sunshine bright in his eyes. He thinks they'll be okay.
end.
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thingswithwings a while back about Night Vale, queer theory, safe spaces, race, and many other things. It's about Night Vale as the small town in the desert that can be home to everyone, in its way, which isn't enough, but is something, I guess, and that in itself goes a lot of the way to why I love this stupid show so much.
(Also, it's about the federal government shutdown. I'm super-predictable.)
fic:: when you lay me down you'll bury only bones
by Raven
7000w, Welcome To Night Vale, Cecil/Carlos, Dana and Intern Vithya. Dana's back. Intern Vithya is new. Cecil and Carlos are just the same, but different. Today, Night Vale is the safest place on earth.
This above all: no matter what else is happening, it is a blessing to have Dana back. Even if it's just on a temporary basis - and Cecil both hopes and fears that this is the case - he has found himself getting used to the rhythm of his day again, coming into the radio station in the early afternoon with doughnuts (glazed for Dana; jam and sprinkles for Vithya) and returning whatever nail polish he may have borrowed over the weekend. He sits down at his desk and writes in the late-afternoon sunshine, windows and door propped open so the light breezes curl through the dust. Carlos has been visiting a lot this week, bringing more junk food, but today he doesn't have time, so he texts - so nice to have wheat-based pizza for lunch xx; also so nice not to have pizza for lunch xx; love you, so much more than pizza for lunch xx - and Cecil is content, alive to the familiar warm thrum of the desert and the rainbows scattering through his eyelashes.
Vithya gets coffee for them all and Cecil drinks his in slow sips, not tasting it particularly, trying to remember not to chew on the pen. It's a fountain pen. Carlos bought it earlier in the week and told him to use it regularly, so the iridium point will shape itself to his handwriting and one day it will be a pen that only Cecil will be able to use. He likes that idea, likes it and fears it, in the usual equal measure. And once he's finished and night is falling, the day's heat burning off into the sky, Dana comes in and says, "Hey, Cecil, you ready?"
Cecil looks up. "I think so," he says, hesitant, and below his left hand his phone buzzes. It's Carlos, with loving brevity: luck <3
"Sure?"
"Yes," he says, and sets up for the show as normal, closing the doors and watching with fondness as Dana and Vithya expertly gather up their papers, brush away the last of the doughnut sugar, and settle in behind the glass, waving as Cecil pulls the microphone to him. "A friendly desert community," he says, and the unaccustomed nervousness fades at the familiar opening, "where the sun is hot and the moon is beautiful. Welcome to Night Vale.
"Hello, listeners. To start off, I’ve been asked to read this brief notice. The City Council would like to remind everyone about the status of the dog park at the corner of Earl and Somerset near the Ralph’s. They would like to remind everyone that although the dog park is open, in these troubled times there may not be park maintenance being undertaken as usual. Park employees are non-essential personnel and as a consequence there may be rubbish or broken glass and other unsafe items in the dog park. Please be aware. Thank you.
"Now, as you will be aware, listeners, this week I have had very little to report. The sand wastes have not been echoing to the sound of distant screams; the City Council have issued no statements other than the one I just mentioned; although the red light on the radio tower continues to blink on, then off, then off, then on, it somehow lacks the hypnotic effect of earlier days. Station management have been quiescent just recently but I don't believe we ought to take our audience for granted, listeners, and Intern Vithya has made a suggestion for today's show. Now of course you know that I do not often talk about my personal life on the air" - under his hand, Cecil's phone buzzes in outrage; he ignores it - "but Vithya, as a part of her internship at Night Vale community radio, has been naturally curious about how I, and my colleague Dana, came to do the jobs we do. You, listeners, will remember how Dana's dedication to journalism, resourcefulness and sheer courage brought her to community radio."
Outside the booth, Dana is covering her face with her hands and blushing. Cecil smiles up at her.
"My story is not so dramatic. But it is a story worth telling. I think. " A pause, for a return of that earlier hesitancy, and then he goes on. "The first time I ever spoke over a radio, it was… somewhere else, in another language."
Cecil breathes out and looks up again. This time, Dana blows him a kiss.
*
Carlos is listening to the broadcast in his lab, the night breezes creeping in through the window. Today in Night Vale, the sun set at the same time, give or take a minute or two, as it did in Albuquerque; give or take a minute or two more, at the same time as it did in Phoenix, Tucson, San Diego and Tijuana. Although he's almost sure what he's going to find, Carlos has been collating information all afternoon, checking and re-checking, occasionally looking up in wonder at the clock on the wall. Some of his data is from the National Weather Service. Today in Night Vale, you can check the National Weather Service. (It's partly shut down, but Carlos thinks, well, you can't have everything.)
On the radio, Cecil's voice is shifting into something familiar, low and intimate. Carlos has heard this story before, after dark, across the shared space of two pillows. Quietly, he lays down his pen - the novelty of that luxury hasn't worn off - and gets up to stand by the window, looking out at an ordinary night, listening.
"It's hard to begin," Cecil is saying, and Carlos nods. Cecil, like Carlos himself, comes from a background defined by absence: how to begin. But there's a great story in Cecil's history, as there is, Carlos supposes, in everyone's. "My grandfather," Cecil is saying. "My mother's father. He was born, not here, but not far from here. In 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he joined up, but not through Selective Service. He was asked to join a small number of other men of Navajo descent, who spoke the Navajo language, to become code talkers for the US military. The Navajo people who took part in the project learned enormously complex codes in order to transmit orders safely to US forces in Asia. I learned this in history class, as well as from my grandfather; I am sure that those you listening who were educated in Night Vale know something of the story."
Cecil is a journalist. Carlos knows that that one-word identity is important to Cecil - that to be a professional, with the rights, obligations and vocation that implies, shapes more than just his working life - and perhaps that's why, here on the edge of self-revelation, he's sticking to these bare facts. This from a man who has cried, been possessed by a non-corporeal entity and eaten an enchilada on air, Carlos thinks, with a loving, almost painful ache in his chest.
"My grandfather was an old man when I first knew him. The military work had been unclassified in the sixties, but I think he had gotten used to silence. We used to sit, in silence, on the porch looking out on the desert, so we could see anyone coming from far away, their tyres raising dust. When the lights go out and return, I remember that, before I remember anything else.
"I grew old enough to understand. I asked him about the work he'd done, and he told me that it was classified, but then." Cecil pauses. "He told me about it as though it had happened to another person, as though it were a story about all of us. And then, when I was a little older than that, we found the pieces of a shortwave radio in the basement and we set it up. It was a summer project, finding the parts to make it work. But when it came together and the power came on and it was time to make the first broadcast, to - to say something, I couldn't. I couldn't speak into the dark when everyone listened. He wrote down for me some things I could say.
"It had only a limited range. It broadcast to the reservation. I don't remember, now, those words. Just that they were, you know, the Navajo language" - Cecil's voice falters - "Diné bizaad.
"But I said them. And after that I could say some things of my own, about the weather, and the dust, and something the council had said that day. I don't know if anyone heard me other than my grandfather. I think - I think I amused him? I think… I think that he loved me."
Carlos says, to the empty lab, voicing something from somewhere deep within: "Yes."
"But after that I found it hard to learn how to be silent." Cecil laughs a little, and Carlos smiles helplessly. "I am not the man my grandfather was. I don't suppose I ever will be. But I believe that a voice out of the darkness will bring you home, listeners, sometimes when nothing else will. Thank you for listening. We break now for a pre-recorded message from our sponsors."
Suddenly, Carlos wants Cecil close to him. It's occurred to him, belatedly, that Night Vale has no night terrors tonight; he turns off the radio in the lab, picks up the broadcast on his phone and sets out towards the radio station, Cecil's voice soft in his ears.
*
"He did good," Dana says, very softly, her eyes on Cecil. "I don't think I ever got him to talk about his family before."
Vithya is pretty sure that most people do not, as basically their first assignment in a new internship, persuade their reticent new boss to talk about something deeply personal on air on a community news show that normally deals with plagues of venomous snakes and trees that want to have your babies.
"It wasn't sexual, with the trees," Dana says, still thoughtfully sotto voce, "although I don't know, maybe people wanted to, like, date first."
But then most people - Vithya sighs. Most people do not work in Night Vale. In her first week here, a friendly secret police officer who knew her middle name, and hinted about all that mess you left behind, helped her move in; when she came to look around her new place she found Gurmukhi in the spiderwebs and a strange shadowy thing in the toilet cistern; and on the Friday she got lunch at a neighbourhood taco place and happened to ask, half-kidding, why the waitresses didn't have pencils. She supposes that by that point she was beginning to understand what Night Vale was like. Her memories of C-SPAN and the rest of the outside world were perfectly crisp even though her RSS reader had become nothing but scrolling purple and green cat animations, and in retrospect, that's probably why she was the first person to notice what was happening; nevertheless, most people do not end up banging on their boss's door at ass o'clock in the morning before they've even met the guy.
And - she shudders - it was, and is, Night Vale; he could have been eleven feet tall or regular height and green and made of radiation, so she's kind of proud of herself for having gone and knocked. But he opened the door after she'd been banging on it for three straight minutes and he was about five inches taller than she was, so just like everyone else, and he had a statistically common number of limbs, and he was fully dressed even though it was the aforementioned ass o'clock in the morning.
"I'm your intern," she tried to tell him, "I thought you ought to know…."
Behind him someone was saying, "Cecil, what the hell" - but Cecil merely walked out in the street with her and said, "Yes, I ought to know" - and that was Intern Vithya's first day on the job.
"You shouldn't mind being called Intern Vithya," Dana says, apparently reading her mind. "It's like… a mark of respect around here."
Vithya smiles. "I know. I mean… I don't mind." She doesn't have to get in line for her morning coffee order. People nod at her in the street. Her landlord came over to get rid of the shadowy thing in the toilet. "You're Cecil's intern," he said cheerfully as he did it, in the same tones as people say, Cecil's scientist. There are worse things.
Like, for example, the batch of texts she's getting all in one batch so the amount of data is basically breaking her phone, now that Night Vale is (temporarily?) accessible by the outside world. Vithya are you- / Vithya why- / are you- / when- / call- - but only the first few words each time as she scrolls through, deletes them without opening.
"How long do you think it'll last?" she asks.
"What, the shutdown?" Dana shakes her head. "I don't know. I don't know if…" She trails off, and Vithya doesn't know what to say to someone who might be whisked away into the desert at the dawn of time at any moment. "I think... well, I have my clothes all in a backpack, and I loop the strap around my foot when I take a shower."
This time Vithya is pretty sure she isn't kidding. "Oh," she says, idiotic. The second thing she did on her internship, after getting Cecil out at first light, was go with Dana to the drugstore and get her some electrolyte replacement solution and Swedish Fish. Sometimes Vithya thinks she arrived in this weird-ass town several chapters behind everyone else.
"You're doing okay, you know," Dana says, softly, and okay, so she probably isn't actually a mind-reader, especially not now, but Vithya turns to her gratefully, blushing with the praise.
*
Twenty-two minutes later, Cecil whispers, a little shakily, goodnight, Night Vale, goodnight, and Carlos texts: outside, but take your time.
Of course this week he has help - Dana, as well as the new intern - and they won't be too long packing up for the night. The next show is a commercial-free three hours of iced tea being stirred, and Carlos listens to it absent-mindedly for a few minutes before taking his earphones out. He leans against the side of the building and shivers momentarily, not quite understanding why - although the nights in the desert are cool, he's dressed for it - and then someone moves out of the shadows on the opposite side of the street. After a second's panic, Carlos remembers it can't be a mysterious hooded figure. The shape resolves itself into just some guy with his hands stuck in his pockets, some Night Vale resident (and by now, Carlos counts himself among them), walking with feet wide apart. The chill remains, however, some inarticulate menace in the air, and Carlos wonders what he might do if Cecil were here with him: if he might freeze, and let go of Cecil's hand, like he's done a thousand places, but never, until now, here.
"Carlos!" And that's Cecil, darting out of the front door of the station, sounding brittle and bright. "Sorry it took a while, we got to talking while we cleared up - oh, wait, you haven't met yet, have you? This is our newest intern, Vithya. Vithya, this is my boyfriend, Carlos."
"We have met, very briefly." Carlos shakes the outstretched hand and smiles. Vithya smiles back; she's a tiny girl with brown skin and almond-shaped eyes. Letting go of her hand, Carlos glances across the street to where he saw the shadow, but now there's nothing there.
"We're waiting for Dana to lock up," Cecil is saying. "I asked her and Vithya both to dinner with us, if you don't mind, Carlos? I thought," he adds, a little wistfully, "now that Dana's here… and of course we really ought to get to know Vithya better."
Carlos grins. "Sure. We can order in pizza, if you like."
Cecil grimaces, and Carlos has a strange impression of something unfamiliar in his face. "I'll cook."
Dana endorses that idea, when she skips down the stairs with the keys jangling in her hand. They walk home through almost-silent streets - somehow, the radio station is within walking distance of everywhere in Night Vale - and although they see no hooded figures or unmarked cars making smooth patrols, Carlos feels as though there is something off about the air, something stale and overheated. An absence of haunting, perhaps.
Once they're inside, Vithya lingers in the doorway, polite, holding on to a glass of water with tightly-curled fingers, but Dana sits herself on the edge of Carlos's desk, swinging her feet comfortably, while Cecil potters in and out, gathering up mugs and plates, and Carlos puts away his papers and books. He mutters to himself while he puts things in order, perhaps a little more loudly than intended, because when he looks up Dana is grinning at him. "Getting a lot of work done, are you?" she asks, her expression wicked.
Carlos shakes his head in wonderment. "I don't know whether to run around doing tests on everything, or kick back and take a vacation," he complains. "Night Vale is still the most scientifically interesting town in America! But now it's because of what's not there, as well as what is."
"There aren't tourists coming in any more," Vithya says, startling Carlos. She's so quiet, he'd almost forgotten she was there, but when he turns to her she meets his eyes, and he grins. Of course, she's one of Cecil's interns - she's made of stern stuff. "They're being turned away if they have to cross any federal land to get here, I guess? But I'm sort of… hearing more from the outside world, as well."
"You're not from Night Vale," Carlos says, realising.
"Not originally. Well, no" - she looks confused - "no, what does that even mean. But I grew up out east."
"Come and sit down," Carlos offers, and clears the couch of Cecil's show notes and his own year's subscription to Scientific American, which arrived all in one go two days ago. Sitting down, he has a direct line of sight through into the kitchen, and Cecil smiles vaguely and waves a spatula. "Yeah," Carlos says, "I'm hearing from my sister that people aren't getting benefits, food stamps, other things you'd kinda think they'd need."
"It happened once before, back in 1995," Dana says, thoughtfully. "Cecil was an intern at the time and some people say it was why he lived. Me, I was only a kid, but I remember I cried for two weeks because of missing Alice."
"Alice?" Vithya asks.
"My secret police officer." Dana frowns. "I used to make her play house with me. I'd be mother and she'd be the faceless old woman."
Carlos chuckles, and Cecil pauses in the doorway. "That reminds me" - and he steps out with such determination that Carlos can't help but follow, alight with scientific curiosity.
Cecil opens their front door and sits down on the step. "Egbert," he says, clearly. "Egbert, I know you can hear me. I'm cooking chilli verde, can you smell it? It's Carlos's mom's recipe but I cook it better than he does."
"Hey," Carlos says, without heat; Cecil might be right about that.
"It's in a giant pot, there's lots to share, you should come have some. Look, I know you've been furloughed. Cash has got to be tight right now and I'd feel better knowing you'd gotten something to eat."
After a pause, Egbert emerges from the shadows. Without the usual leather balaclava and shock stick in hand, he looks smaller. Carlos realises for the first time that their secret policeman is a guy about the same age as himself, a white guy with large blue eyes and hair that sticks up in wisps. "Hey, Cecil," he says, awkwardly, and even more awkwardly, "Carlos."
"Hey, Egbert."
"I'm not sure it's appropriate," Egbert says. "You know, Cecil, I know things are kinda different right now, but Big Rico's and the White Sands Ice-Cream Shop are giving out free slices and cones for government employees, we're getting by."
"People cannot live by ice-cream and pizza alone, Egbert." Cecil is stern for a minute, then relents. "All right, if you won't come in, let me put some in a Tupperware for you, okay? Just wait here and I'll get it for you."
He does that, leaving Carlos on the doorstep for a minute or two to make yet more awkward small talk before Cecil returns with the covered dish of something that does, Carlos will admit, smell better than he ever makes it. Egbert takes it with thanks and disappears into the strange-textured night; behind them, Dana chuckles. "You know, Cecil," she says, as they go back into the den, "sometimes you sound exactly like your mother."
From the surprised, pleased smile on Cecil's face, that's a compliment.
*
Cecil doesn't cook by rote, tasting things as he goes, and it tastes right. They set the table and sit down to dinner with all the efficiency of hungry people, and from the movement of the shadows in front of the door, Egbert has wisely chosen not to let his share get cold, either. "Thanks, Cecil," Vithya says, blushing a little as she picks up her spoon. "Thanks all of you, this is really great."
Cecil waves a hand. "You're my intern, this is the bare minimum. Do you have family in Night Vale?"
Vithya shakes her head. "They're back out east, too. They're not… they didn't want me to go into radio. They thought I might go into academia, or something like that." She glances apologetically at Carlos as she says it; he grins and nods at her.
"Tell them it's a terrible life and you'd hate it. You set out into the desert on environmental research fieldwork and you never come home. Although," he adds, thoughtfully, "you may find yourself lying, about the first part."
Vithya grins back, looks at Carlos and then at Cecil. Cecil thinks she probably understands what Carlos means, perhaps more so than Cecil does himself. He's left Night Vale a few times over the years: he has a four-year college degree he obtained outside Night Vale and he once surprised Carlos by correctly naming a band they'd both seen, one summer in San Francisco, but something of Cecil is always here, has been here all along. This is the house he grew up in.
Dana gets up to clear when they're finished, and Vithya and Carlos help. Cecil is tired, suddenly, leaning back in his chair with his apron strings hanging off the back. He closes his eyes for a moment, then sits back up as Dana says: "Cecil, I'm dealing with the leftovers. Where have you put the serving spoons?"
She's been in and out of this house since they were both teenagers, but Carlos's presence has led to some kitchen re-arrangement. Cecil leans back again and closes his eyes, then sits up again sharply, feeling like he's had sand thrown in his eyes while looking out over the desert, with no sight of anyone coming. "Urgh. Fuck."
"Shhhh," Dana says, and at first Cecil thinks it's his language - and he ought not to use profanity in front of his interns, she's absolutely right - but then he opens his eyes and realises it's just a verbal caress, something to soothe. "Shhh, it's okay. I'll find them myself."
She does, and she sorts out boxes of chilli for herself, for Vithya, and for Cecil and Carlos, carefully refrigerating the last. Cecil smiles involuntarily at her utter competence, and gets up and goes to the front door. He's not sure what he's looking for, lingering on the doorstep breathing in the night air. Egbert is gone, leaving only a faint scent of spices, and Cecil realises abruptly that for the first time, perhaps in his entire life, he's unobserved. The night feels cool and clammy, laden with strangeness, as though the darkness is hiding something he doesn't understand. He's thinking about the world beyond the penumbra of the porch light, of the closed-off land between here and everything else. He breathes in, and shivers.
*
In the kitchen, Dana asks, "Is Cecil okay?"
"I'm not sure," Carlos says, sighing as he scrapes the plates. "Dana, he really has missed you."
Dana smiles, and Vithya, glancing at her, envies her that quiet serenity, as though she's been cleansed by fire of uncertainty and doubt. Vithya wonders if just living in Night Vale, maybe when it's back to its ordinary self, will have that effect on her, and then she remembers Cecil's broadcast, and thinks probably not.
"You don't have the… thing Cecil has, do you?" she asks.
Dana shakes her head. "Nope. Cecil doesn't have it either, right now. I just figured, something's not right."
"Something's not right in Night Vale generally," Carlos says, motioning at the window. "Tomorrow I'm going out to check my seismographs, if you want to come along and see if anything's newsworthy. If Cecil were here he'd say it so I'm going to say it: come for breakfast first."
"Did Cecil's mom express love with food, too?" Vithya wonders aloud, remembering what Dana said earlier.
"Mine does," Carlos says, grinning. "Doesn't yours?"
"Yeah," Vithya says, perching herself on the edge of the countertop; it seems like Carlos and Dana have the clearing up under control. "Yeah, for sure. Sambar and idli, idli and imli, more, beta, finish everything on your plate, oof, you don't love me."
Carlos laughs at that. "Let me sing you the song of my people, yes."
"Carlos," she says, quickly, "can I ask you something?"
"Mmm," he says, motioning to her to go on.
"Are you out to your family?"
It is, she knows as she's asking it, an incredibly personal question: but somehow she doesn't have it in her to regret it. This is Night Vale, where everything, even the air that you breathe, can be lethally transformative; she may not have the time to wait until it's polite to ask. From the thoughtful, not displeased expression on his face, Carlos understands that. "Yes," he says, at last. "But I live here now."
From Dana's expression, Vithya thinks she's about to say something, but she holds her silence; after the two of them leave, turning to wave to Carlos and Cecil on the doorstep, Vithya thinks again that she'll say something, maybe something journalistic and open-ended, like, what's your deal, then, or so I guess your parents are raging homophobes or just, what are you running from, Vithya?
But Dana doesn't: she leads the way along the sidewalk, meeting Vithya's gaze every so often and smiling, and when she does her eyes hold nothing but kindness.
*
They've been going to bed early every night this week, spending the time talking, kissing, having sex in non-municipally-approved fashion. Carlos lingers by the window while Cecil hunts around downstairs for his book - he's reading The Velveteen Rabbit, which until this week was banned by the City Council for its wanton descriptions of the moon - and remembers standing in the lab, earlier, listening to Cecil speak of history. It takes him a minute to realise that Cecil is in the room with him, by the door, making no move to turn on the light.
"Cecil," he says, quickly, hiding his surprise, "are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Cecil says, flat. He takes another step inside, but just one, and Carlos can make him out only by the moonlight, in edges and angles.
"I saw you, earlier," Carlos adds, remembering, "when Dana asked you about the spoons, and you…"
"I didn't know where they were," Cecil interrupts. "I tried to look, but - I forgot I couldn't."
"Oh." Carlos comes away from the window and sits on the edge of the bed, considering. "Cecil, I have to ask you. Doesn't it worry you at all that the federal government shuts down and suddenly you don't have the clairvoyance you've had since childhood?"
Cecil shrugs and, as always, Carlos gives it up.
"It's not just that, though," he goes on, carefully. "Something has been upsetting you all evening and I wish I knew what it was."
Cecil looks at him. "The show," he mutters. "Was it - was it okay, Carlos?"
Cecil has gaps and shadows in his self-esteem like every other human being alive, but not about his show. Carlos glances at him sidelong and is surprised when Cecil doesn't meet his eyes. "Shit," he says, to no one in particular. "Cecil, look - just come here."
They clamber on the bed together, still in the dark but knowing their way around each other by touch. Carlos settles down with Cecil tucked by his side, his fingers working through Cecil's hair.
"My grandmother." Carlos pauses, then deliberately looks away from Cecil, towards the window glass. "My abuela," he adds, getting the word out with difficulty. "She's… oh. She's a powerful old lady. Old Woman Josie reminds me of her, a little. I mean, I think if she lived in Night Vale, she'd have angels changing her lightbulbs. But I… I haven't had a meaningful conversation with her since I was seven years old."
"Why not?" Cecil asks, out of the dark.
"I started kindergarten, and I was already a year behind and…" Carlos sighs. "After they stopped speaking Spanish to me at home, I did… well. I did very well. I caught up, in high school I was into debate, I was admitted by prestigious schools and I graduated with honours. But… I can't go back. Do you understand?"
He turns around and meets Cecil's eyes, gleaming in the darkness. He suspects Cecil does understand, as well as they have ever understood one another about anything. He's heard Cecil refer to himself as Diné, and then not, as though the solidity of that certainty shifts, like the sand of the desert.
Cecil says nothing for a long moment. When he finally speaks, it's a whisper. "Yes."
"I listen to Dora The Explorer," Carlos says, horrified that his voice has a crack in it, "in the background, in the lab."
Cecil laughs, a little shakily, and snuggles deeper against Carlos. "My father wasn't Navajo," he says after a minute. "You know people say that doesn't matter, that blood is… blood. But, you know" - he waves a hand - "I just. I'm supposed to be... "
He doesn't finish the sentence, but Carlos thinks he understands. This is Night Vale, and about the worst thing that has ever happened to Carlos in Night Vale involved picking Cecil up and carrying him across the threshold of this house with blood soaking into his clothes, slicking his skin; it was down to some unholy combination of a contract row with station management and a plague of moths made of razor blades and sharp glass. Carlos never quite understood all of that, but if blood is identity, then Carlos understands that just fine. Blood is easy to lose.
"Cecil," he says, and wants to say, I love you: but then knows, unfathomably and innately, that love can do many things, but it can't do this. It can't be enough. Instead he kisses Cecil deeply instead, his tongue slowly exploring Cecil's mouth, as if to say you are here, instead.
"I heard Dana talking, before," Cecil says, with studied casualness, as they draw apart. "The last time there was a government shutdown was 1995. I was sixteen, working for a summer at the radio station, and there was a team of scientists here then, too. One of them saved my life, you know? There was a cascade of toxin gas about to envelope the town and she found me a place of safety. I thought we were going to die. We hid for a day and a night until it was either stay where we were or perish of thirst. But when I came out of my hiding place the sun was shining and everything was clear. People were saying the money had run out, that everyone had lived. The scientists said that now everything was normal they were going to take the chance to get out while the roads still led somewhere. And they went. There have been other scientists since. There are always scientists. But you… you are the only one who's stayed. Who's even gone, and come back."
"Welcome to Night Vale," Carlos murmurs.
"A friendly desert community," Cecil offers, and there's just the hint of an emphasis on the last word. "Carlos…." He hesitates, then goes on. "Carlos, there's Dana - for Dana, I could do anything, you know?"
"I know," Carlos says. "I know."
Cecil shakes his head, then nods, then shakes his head. "But this is not… this is not the town I know. I just, I don't fit."
"I know, honey," Carlos says, low and sweet, and kisses him again. He thinks they're done talking for a while, and Cecil shifts in his arms, making a low sound in the base of his throat.
Before they get into bed properly Carlos gets up to close the drapes. They don't really need to, now that no one's watching, but it's force of habit. Standing by the window, Carlos thinks he sees, in the shadows on the street below, a shape that might be a leather balaclava, or a hood, or just some guy walking down the street, kicking pebbles under a sky only stars.
*
Most people do not turf their brand-new bosses out of bed at first light. Yet fewer people do it twice.
To be fair to herself - and Vithya tries to be - none of it's exactly intentional; her phone keeps buzzing and her head keeps whirling and she can't sleep, not really, and it's not too far of a walk to the Moonlight All-Nite Diner, where there might be company, even if it's just furloughed secret police officers and Hiram McDaniels' campaign team. And she can't be blamed for stopping outside the house - she has to pass it to get to the diner - when she thinks she sees a flash of movement behind a window. And then the porch light comes on, freezing her in place like a startled rabbit, and Cecil appears at her elbow like a ghost, and that's that.
"Come on," he says, gently, after a moment, and she sighs, gives it up as a done deal and follows him. As she steps through the doorway, something dark and fast flashes past her feet. Cecil laughs and reaches downwards. "I guess you haven't met Khoshekh? He's enjoying the outside world."
Vithya isn't much of a cat person, but Cecil clearly is: she reaches forwards and is surprised when her tentative scratch behind the ears yields a purr like an outboard motor. "Hi," she says, and Cecil grins at her, letting the cat leap out of his arms. Vithya strokes it gently while Cecil starts rummaging in the refrigerator. "I thought it was too early for breakfast," he says, turning to look at her, "but now there are more people awake in the house than asleep, so it must be time for breakfast."
She chuckles at that, and remembers, suddenly, the last time: the sky had only been barely stained with pink, but he'd been fully dressed. "You don't sleep all that well, do you?"
"No, and especially not now," he says, cracking eggs and lighting the gas. "Carlos puts up with it." He says it with affection, and in low tones, obviously careful not to let his voice carry and wake Carlos up. Vithya has a momentary spasm of envy for a love so quiet. "I guess you couldn't sleep either?"
She shakes her head and they sit in silence for a minute. Cecil is scrambling the eggs with chives and they smell like warm, fluffy heaven.
"I wanted to talk to you about something," Vithya says, abruptly, and at once the part of her mind that still has the manners that her mother taught her wants to know if she's heard of small talk or working up to things slowly, or if she were born in a barn. But Cecil doesn't seem alarmed.
"Coffee and eggs, first," he says mildly, handing her a plate. He fetches one for himself, covers the third portion in the pan and rummages for cutlery. Looking into the drawer, he says, "Before I forget. If, when your internship is over, you want to stay in Night Vale, then you should know of course I'll support you in that decision. I'm sure I used to own more than three forks and two spoons and a single kebab skewer."
"Cecil," she says, and stops. She's grinding her teeth and wondering whether to laugh or cry. "How did you" - and then she stops, because he is not clairvoyant, just perceptive, as though he were a professional journalist, or something, and it's not as if she isn't sitting in his kitchen with a cat in her lap, eating eggs that smell like home.
Cecil sits down opposite her. "You really want to stay?"
"If I live that long," Vithya says, and neither of them smile.
"Even when" - Cecil waves a vague hand - "everything is as it is, again?"
"Especially then," Vithya tells him, "especially then." She pauses, feeling like she probably does owe him something. Not because of the eggs or anything else, but somehow she wants to give up at least some of the answer he hasn't asked for. "It's my family," she says hesitantly.
"What are they like?" Cecil asks, damnably perceptive.
"Overwhelming," Vithya says, and is surprised to hear the fondness in her voice, the edge of laughter. "They're - oh, they're wonderful, Cecil. They really are. They're loud, they're opinionated, they're wonderful. But I'm not…"
"Not wonderful?" Cecil asks, eyebrows raised.
"It's not that." Vithya thinks about it. "I'm not - I can't…" She trails off, her hands frozen in mid-gesture, and Cecil looks at her for a long moment.
"Sometimes," he says, soft and deliberate, "you need time, and quiet space, and silence. Someone is coming. It might be you."
Vithya remembers listening to his broadcasts before she met him, before she ever thought of coming to Night Vale; she remembers listening to his voice in the dark in her car, driving along quiet roads under looming skies thinking that that voice could destroy shadows, not by shining light, but by making space for darkness. She smiles up at Cecil now, leaning back in his chair with his fingers steepled. She thinks that pretty soon now she'll be able to sleep.
*
Carlos heats up the eggs, makes a fresh pot of coffee and leans down to pet the cat before he says, conversationally, "Cecil, you really do nothing but pick up strays."
Cecil, dozing in one of the kitchen chairs, wakes up with a start. "Vithya's taking a nap on the couch, don't wake her," he says, crossly. "And I do not."
"You do," Carlos says. "You absolutely do."
"I don't - urgh." He leans back in his chair and scrubs his eyes. "Carlos, please, I know it's hilarious, or ridiculous, or something, that I'm always trying to do - whatever it is, when I'm also, always, this screwed-up almost person, I just…"
"Shhh." Carlos gets up and kisses the top of his head. "You are all that you are, and you are perfect, and you are enough."
Cecil doesn't say anything, but some of the tension drops from his shoulders. Carlos kisses him again. "Try and get some sleep in an actual bed," he says. "I'll be home this afternoon, okay? I'll come get Vithya and we can go and check out the seismographs."
"Okay," Cecil says, tiredly. Carlos goes to take a shower and get dressed, and when he gets back Cecil is still where he was, sleeping again, looking exceptionally uncomfortable. Carlos smiles, a little helplessly, finds a cushion to put under his head, waves at Vithya just opening her eyes, and sets out into the bright, fresh morning, his hands thrust into his pockets. If there are earthquakes in Night Vale today they will all feel it, and there's a lot of earth below them, full of cracks. Carlos is whistling tunelessly, the desert sunshine bright in his eyes. He thinks they'll be okay.
end.
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