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*
Carlos's phone buzzes on the nightstand with a text. He grabs for it blindly and holds it over his face, about a centimeter from his nose so that he can read the screen without his glasses. It's from Cecil. "Awake?" it asks.
There isn't an easy answer to that. Carlos is still in bed, awake enough to have already started imagining how he might deal with Night Vale's latest scientific conundrum, but not yet awake enough to have edited out the more superfluous details—like showy martial arts moves and large, intentional explosions—and replaced them with more realistic possibilities: namely, the shouting, stammering, and frantic arm-waving that typify doing science in Night Vale.
A scientist is precise, but it's morning and it's early. He texts back, "yes."
His phone rings instantly.
"Ugh," says Cecil. He sounds groggy. "I can't believe I did that. I am so. Sorry."
"No, no, it's all right,” Carlos assures him. “You were tired, and I called really late."
"But everything you were saying was so interesting and full of imminent disaster! There was no excuse for me to fall asleep."
"I didn't mind," Carlos says. Last night, he'd had a late dose of coffee as he tried to figure out what was going on with the strange source of energy that was approaching the town, but not emanating the kind of light that such a source should. He had given up sometime around two in the morning, but still too keyed up to sleep, he'd called Cecil, hoping he might still be awake and willing to talk.
Cecil had been, but just barely, and not for long.
"It was kind of nice, actually," Carlos muses, feeling warm all the way to his toes, and reckless. They haven't ever talked first thing in the morning before, and it's wondrous and new to be cradling Cecil's voice against him in the early sunlight while wrapped up in the sheets, especially after the sound of his voice—well, the sound of his snores, technically—was the last thing he'd heard before going to bed. “It was almost like having you sleeping next to me."
Cecil makes a strangled noise. "That— That's not fair," he sputters. "That is absolutely not fair. You can't just say things like that."
"Why not?" asks Carlos. He rolls over, tugging the sheets after him, cocooning himself.
"Carlos. We haven't even been on a date."
Carlos frowns, because that is... accurate. And perhaps, he realizes, a problem.
"I'm thrilled that you've been calling me regularly for personal reasons, I really am. But I haven't seen you in weeks."
And that's accurate as well. After his near-fatal encounter with the denizens of the tiny underground city in the pin retrieval area of lane five, he'd been prescribed strict bed rest for proper healing, which of course he'd completely ignored, because science wasn't just going to wait for him. But it had at least kept him confined to the lab, out of fear of what the doctors would do to him, with their bone saws and tasers, if they discovered that he was flagrantly disobeying their orders.
If he's honest with himself, as a scientist should always try harder to be, this is an excuse, not a reason. The reason has more to do with how perplexing and incalculable Cecil is. Carlos is finally making an active and unsuppressed effort to understand him, and the most reliable way to do this is to introduce one variable at a time, eliminate as many other factors as possible, maintain a stable environment. He doesn't expect to arrive at a Grand Unified Theory of Cecil anytime soon, but he has to start small and he has to start somewhere. So phone calls it's been.
"I may be the voice of Night Vale as foreordained in prophecy, but I am also more than just a voice," Cecil reminds him. "In case you've forgotten."
"I haven't," Carlos promises. "It's just been— There's been a lot going on."
"I think I've waited long enough," Cecil says darkly, though he then adds much more casually, "Unless we're all immortal, in which case it shouldn't matter! And yet, somehow, I'd still rather see you soon than in some distant future, regardless of the horrific certainty of endless eternity."
Cecil has a point. They should see each other. Especially if Carlos has reached a level of comfort with their phone conversations that allows for blatant, if sleep-muzzy, flirtation.
He does some mental math—sluggishly, pre-coffee—and determines he can probably take an evening away from the lab without the samples from the Whispering Forest transmuting into anything hazardous. (So far they've been stable, if impossible to get accurate readings on, since every graph of measurements he tries to generate comes out looking like sheet music for a complex, modernist orchestral arrangement.) Though really he should be establishing some sort of baseline among the other trees and tree-like flora in Night Vale...
"Is today soon enough?" he asks.
"Hmm," Cecil considers. "Well. Since time travel is technically legal now, you could do a lot better than that. I mean, it doesn't seem like you're trying all that hard."
"Time travel," Carlos sighs. “Uh huh. And how would I manage that?" He expects Cecil to reply with something like “I don’t know, you’re the scientist,” accusing and adoring at once in a way only Cecil can manage. Instead, Cecil rattles off an explanation that involves the teleporting clock tower, giant magnets, and fishing line, and Carlos will definitely have to ask him about that again sometime when he can take notes.
They go over where to meet and when. Cecil won't tell him where they're going, but he instructs him to dress nicely—that is, unless he wants to be guillotined on arrival by the easily offended waitstaff.
"And Carlos?"
"Yes, Cecil?"
"Don't be late."
*
It's not a race to anything, but no one would know from the way they're breathing, sucking air in desperate pants as though they've been trying to outrun a pteranodon.
Carlos has not been trying to take it slow, necessarily. He has been counting on this, despite the fact that he can still count the number of real dates they've had on one hand. He has filled out a terrifying series of forms for the inevitability of this, opting to bypass the pages upon pages of checkboxes listing what he can only assume are obscure and arcane sexual acts, in favor of scrawling his consent to do "Probably whatever Cecil Palmer wants. Probably" in the section reserved for comments/proof-of-blood-pact. He has been shattering beakers in uncharacteristic clumsiness and disregard for the inherent preciousness of scientific equipment when his thoughts have drifted too far in this direction, despite all mental chastisements that a scientist is disciplined and does not fantasize about his boyfriend in the lab, even if there are quantified reaction rates involved.
In a way, he is ready. In another, he is not. There is just so much about Cecil that needs to be discovered and explored, and there is a methodology for this, a logical progression.
Cecil, as usual, defies all logic.
Cecil, without previous precedent, grinds against Carlos's thigh.
"Mmmngh," says Carlos.
He pushes Cecil's shirt up far enough that he can get his hands under it and resumes kissing down the side of Cecil's neck. Cecil—sweet stars and quasars—keeps pressing against him and making these small bursts of noise that are the auditory equivalent of a meteor shower, and Carlos, for his part, keeps kissing, finding the best spots, sucking, nipping just a little, while also running his hands over every part of Cecil’s torso he can reach, which is not nearly enough of it, until, until, until Cecil lets out a wonderful groan, low and deep. The sound must match the resonant frequency of Carlos's body, because there is no other explanation for the way every part of him thrums from it. Carlos almost can't bear the thought of looking at him, but then he has to look, and what he sees is Cecil beneath him with his head tipped back against the arm of the couch, breathing raggedly, his eyes squeezed shut.
And if Cecil's going to be like that about it. If he's going to be like that about it, well.
Carlos kisses him hard on the mouth and moves a hand to the crotch of his pants—orange plaid and fur-free this time—and rubs over the fabric with his palm.
Until Cecil swats his hand away.
"You don't have to," Cecil says, abruptly coherent.
"Wha?" Carlos asks, baffled, because if he has managed to misread this situation then he is really out of his depth in Night Vale. He pulls back far enough to get a good look at Cecil.
His head is ducked, he might be blushing, and he won't meet Carlos's eyes.
"That is, I don't need you to. I, um, I already— ”
Realization hits Carlos, and it’s like he can suddenly feel the ground quaking the way all scientific measures suggest that it should be.
"Cecil, that's—" He's compelled to say "flattering," but it sounds demeaning and wrong in his head, so he blurts out the first other adjective he comes up with. "That's great."
Cecil coughs like he’s choked on something, then darts a glance at him and swallows hard. "Really?"
"Sure," Carlos confirms. And it is, mostly, great. It is also terrifying that Cecil could be attracted to him with the utter abandon he claims, terrifying to have even more evidence pointing toward Cecil's genuine, constant eagerness for any and all things having to do with him. Carlos doesn't mention these things—because it could, of course, be a false correlation. Instead, he offers Cecil what he hopes is a reassuring string of explanations about physical responses and biological processes, which are not technically his field of study, though he has dabbled. He skids to a halt with: "I don't want to make assumptions, but maybe it's been a while since you were last...?"
Rather than offended, Cecil looks relieved. "You have no idea."
"I might," Carlos admits.
He feels Cecil's fingertips flutter against his back before kneading into his seriously askew lab coat.
"Let me help, then," Cecil murmurs, shifting to position them differently. His fingers move to skitter across the waistband of Carlos's jeans, making short work of belt buckle, button, and fly, and simultaneously, Carlos's ability to produce speech.
Cecil uses his thumb to smear pre-cum down Carlos's erection, then wraps his hand around the length of him. However eager Cecil was to get Carlos through the door and on the couch, now, now, of course, he takes his time.
Carlos swears vaguely.
And yes, maybe there are things he'd hoped to know about Cecil, things he thought Cecil should know about him, before anyone got their hands in anyone else's pants. But did he really expect to show Cecil all the scatterplot matrices from his childhood before they reached this level of intimacy? This is ok. This is fine. Multiple paths to the same point. And who is he kidding? This is incredible.
Well, the angle is weird, because there is really not enough room for both of them to be mostly laying down on the couch, and his legs are trapped closer together than is comfortable in the jeans that only made it down as far as his upper thighs, but it hardly matters.
Doesn't matter at all, actually, because Cecil moans with each stroke of his hand, as if he is the one receiving thorough and well-paced stimulation to one of the most sensitive parts of his body, rather than the other way around. It is encouraging, and Carlos stops trying to be quiet, stops trying to keep his hips still, stops trying to think, stops trying to do anything except enjoy this as much as Cecil clearly wants him to.
And he does, until he just can't possibly anymore, and he comes with his purportedly perfect teeth clenched around Cecil's name.
After a moment of absolute stillness, Cecil pulls Carlos against his chest and runs the fingers of the hand he hasn't just wiped on his garish pants through Carlos's hair.
They stay like that for what feels like an eternity, but which is still, apparently, not enough time for Carlos's heartbeat to slow to anything resembling a normal resting rate.
“It’s late,” Cecil murmurs eventually, and extricates himself from Carlos's arms. “I’m sure you have work in the morning. I should probably go?”
Carlos says, “I guess,” at the same time Cecil says, “Unless…”
“I should probably go," Cecil repeats, decisively, and pulls a face. "I'm, uck, you know, kind of a mess."
Carlos, also kind of a mess, does his pants back up and hangs around in the foyer while Cecil washes up—at the kitchen sink, because Carlos didn’t have the forethought to cover the bathroom mirror.
Carlos’s legs feel like jelly.
On his way out, Cecil lingers, and Carlos briefly entertains the idea of tugging him back inside. But that would not be the logical progression of things at all, and as long as there is some hope of salvaging logic, Carlos must try, because he is a scientist, albeit one who is probably very desperately in love.
"When can we—" Cecil licks his lips, as though he might find the words he wants to say waiting on them. "When can I see you again?"
The question automatically starts Carlos running through dates and times and calculations. "Ah, well. There's an experiment I was hoping to start this week. We just got these ellipsometers shipped in, and we have to calibrate them and..."
The look on Cecil's face brings him up short.
"No, wait, I mean. Tomorrow," amends Carlos. "I'll take a lunch break," he adds wildly. He has no memory of ever taking a lunch break before in his life. "We can get coffee and—" What do people who take lunch breaks even eat? "—sandwiches?"
"Coffee and sandwiches," Cecil echoes. He grins. "I'll pick you up."
"Great," says Carlos, hoping he doesn't regret this in the morning when he gets to the lab and there is all that science waiting, but right now with Cecil standing in front of him, rumpled and a little dazed, he would promise him anything. "I won't be able to be gone long, though. But maybe after your show, in the evening, we could meet up again? Go see a movie, or stargaze, or..." Carlos trails off, having reached the end of his repertoire of date ideas that are only implicitly scientific.
"We'll figure it out at lunch," Cecil decides, before planting a chaste kiss on Carlos’s lips.
There's nothing Carlos can do about the shy grin that seems to want to take up permanent residence on his face. He's still grinning it out into the starry, voidy dark when Cecil calls over his shoulder on his way down the walk, "See you soon."
*
When Carlos finally gets to Cecil's, dinner is laid out on the table, painstakingly arranged and completely cold.
The candles on the table—there are candles on the table—have burned down to nubs.
Cecil is nowhere in sight.
Carlos has let himself in. He has his own key now—it's covered in runes, it's the length of his hand, and it feels even heavier than it looks, which is saying something.
Carlos calls for Cecil, but he doesn't answer; nor does anyone or anything else.
Beyond Cecil's tiny eat-in kitchen, the rest of the apartment feels dark and silent.
Unsure what to do, Carlos sits at the table.
Cecil never cooks. Cecil hates to cook. Apparently he'd decided to brave it anyway. It looks like he'd managed it well—better than last time, with the flames and the screaming and the smell of rotten eggs and the rotten eggs themselves. If not for the congealed, plastic-like sheen they've taken on—no fault of Cecil's—the broccoli, midnight-blue potatoes, and herb-roasted scorpion would look appetizing.
"Carlos," says Cecil's voice behind him, without any joy in it.
Carlos's spine straightens. He can't bring himself to turn, just stares straight forward into the dark. The tiny candle flames gutter at Cecil's movement.
"Here," says Cecil, and puts something on the table next to the salad and arthropod forks by Carlos's left hand. "Apparently you're the one who could use this."
Carlos looks at what Cecil has set down.
It's his watch, the only accurate time piece in Night Vale. That is, formerly his watch, because he gave it to Cecil not long ago for their first month anniversary—actually a month ago exactly, now that he thinks of it, which means Cecil's been keeping track, hasn't he? Even with his recent confusion over what year it is, after that horrible journey on the subway, he's remembered what Carlos has managed not to. Tonight's date plan wasn't just Cecil being caring and wonderful, this was their second-month anniversary dinner he missed.
The watch face glints at him in the candlelight. He doesn't reach for it.
Cecil sits down across from him and rocks his chair back, arms crossed in front of his chest. He doesn't meet Carlos's eyes.
Carlos goes to speak and nothing comes out the first time. "Cecil," he tries again. He might throw up. "What are you saying?"
"What?"
"The watch— I— Are you giving it back? Is that supposed to mean..."
A look of pure horror crashes across Cecil's face, clear as day even in the heavy shadows and low orange candle glow, and all the angry tension in him dissolves.
"Oh, Carlos," he says. "Not that."
Cecil grabs the watch back and fastens it on his wrist. He lurches to his feet, and Carlos is quick to stand and pull him into his arms and steady him.
He holds him.
He wants to say "I love you," because it is what he feels most, but the words are still so new between them, so fragile and precious, he doesn't want to misuse them patching over his mistakes. There were reasons he was late, valid reasons, but they're nothing Cecil hasn't heard and rolled his eyes at before. They won't help him either.
Instead he says, "I'm sorry."
Cecil nods, accepting, and then pushes Carlos back to arms’ length, not yet forgiving. "I was angry. I am angry. But I didn't mean that." He slumps back into his chair at the table, elbows in front of his place setting, and puts his head in his hands. "Just—do better next time, all right? I hate having to wait."
They sit in silence for a while. They've both just been through a lot of feelings, and Carlos, for one, needs to catalog his.
"I ruined dinner," he observes eventually.
"You did," Cecil confirms.
"And most of your evening."
"Hm," says Cecil. "But not all, maybe. We'll see."
"Should I, um. Should I go get take-out?"
“Sure,” Cecil allows. “Whatever you want. Surprise me." He retreats to the living room, flipping the lights on as he goes. "And while you're gone, I'll add a few more ideas to the list I started of ways I can passive-aggressively get back at you for standing me up. Get it all out of my system."
"If it makes you feel better," Carlos says, meaning it.
"I probably won't actually use them on you. I might not even save the list,” Cecil says archly, smiling just the littlest bit.
Now seems much more the moment to say it, so Carlos does: "I love you.” He collects his car keys and calls from the doorway: “I'll be back soon."
Cecil answers with a snort. ”Let’s hope."
*
Cecil is in the shower, and Carlos sits on the closed lid of the toilet, trimming his fingernails. The humidity of the enclosed bathroom settles over him like a thick blanket, hot but so different from the dry desert heat that awaits them. It helps with his sinuses, which are suffering from the cat dander no matter how much Claritin he takes. It also relaxes him, as much as he can ever relax lately, with Cecil on edge and the whole town being bought up and what severely limited civil liberties Night Vale ever offered being systematically stripped away.
The bathroom is the most secretive place they have, in their own home. There are no windows; and there’s the faint hope that the spraying faucet will produce something akin to white noise if they’re being recorded. It’s an uncomfortable place for having conversations that usually end up being uncomfortable enough on their own.
Carlos suspects Cecil, master of short showers, conscientious desert-dweller that he is, has been wasting water waiting for Carlos to articulate his latest doubt.
"Are you sure Night Vale is ready?” he asks.
Cecil takes long enough to answer that Carlos wonders if he's heard him over the water.
“Cecil? Are you—“
"No," Cecil answers. “I’m not sure. But what can we ever say with any degree of certainty?"
"Cecil..."
“It's going to work out. I know it will. It has to. I believe in Night Vale. We are an incredible, powerful, and supportive community.”
“I think so too,” Carlos says quickly. “I’m just— concerned. For you. For everyone. It’s dangerous to rush into things without taking precautions.” He should know. It's kind of his specialty.
"I know you’re only trying to help, Carlos, but you don't know Night Vale like I do. It's my home."
And that is so very true, but what is Night Vale if not Carlos's home, too?
Where is Carlos's home, if not Night Vale?
Carlos says nothing.
"This can't continue," Cecil says. “I can’t allow—Night Vale can't allow these…these sun-worshipping corporate drones to take over our entire town without resisting. It's gone on long enough."
Carlos is not a tactician, but he is a scientist, and that means he's good at observing phenomena. There isn't enough support. If Cecil would just wait a bit longer.
Carlos knows that Cecil is taking the full brunt of Strex's takeover at work. Of course Cecil is ready to fight: Strex has reduced his job to a joke, they threaten his livelihood every moment of the day, they nearly murdered his cat. But Carlos isn't convinced that most of the other residents of Night Vale have been given cause enough to stage a revolt on the scale required to overthrow a corpocratic regime.
"But if the plan fails..."
Cecil says, "We can't fail," which doesn't mean "won't." "But you know, if you'd help us—”
“Cecil, I'm a scientist. I'm not a revolutionary. My team has a lot of research to do. We’re in the middle of so many important things right now."
And if he doubts that people will listen to Cecil, with his hypnotic voice and aptitude for the circular reasoning that Night Vale residents find most compelling in an argument, he is sure they won't listen to him, an outsider.
“Your work is very important,” Cecil says, and Carlos can’t tell through the water-garble whether he's sarcastic or defeated.
There isn’t anything else to say. They’ve reached a standstill. Cecil turns the water off, and Carlos hands him a towel.
Routine, blessedly, keeps them moving forward, out of this moment and on into others.
They do what they normally do. Despite the unpredictability of Night Vale, the non-existence of some days and the disorienting repetition of others, they have their own version of normal. Though obviously disgruntled, and tugging maybe a bit harder than necessary, Cecil still combs Carlos’s wet hair. They help each other find the spots they’ve missed shaving without the benefit of mirrors. They bump elbows as they brush their teeth.
This is the way they have come to be with one another: schedules reconfigured for optimal togetherness, morning routines aligned, habits shifted to accommodate each other.
Most of the time, it works.
At breakfast, Cecil taps on the table, long short, long long long, short long long; and again: "Now, now."
"Practicing," he explains grimly. "I can't mess this up."
But that doesn't mean "won't" either.
*
From the otherworld desert, Carlos says, "Be patient with me."
Carlos says, “Soon,” and can tell from the way Cecil sighs that the “soon” he means isn’t the “soon” that Cecil wants to hear.
The difference between patience and impatience, he knows, is a difference of subjective emotional experiences of time.
Since they are both aware that time isn’t real, it shouldn’t matter. Rationally speaking, the difference between now and the future, between waiting and not having to wait anymore should be arbitrary. If time isn’t real, there is no difference, really.
And yet, it always seems to matter so much.
That’s the trouble with trying to apply rational thought to subjective emotional experiences.
Carlos finds a rocky outcropping to huddle under, far enough away from the masked warriors’ encampment for privacy, and pulls out his still-charged phone. He holds it in his hand and wonders what this call will be like, what subjective emotional experience Cecil will be in the midst of. Innocent, kind Cecil. Mercurial, impatient Cecil.
"It was worth it, wasn't it? Waiting?" Carlos imagines asking, teasing, when he returns. Because he will return. Just not yet.
Sometimes, Carlos manages to find just the right time to call—a quiet shred of night that is also night for Cecil. It’s difficult to happen upon favorable conditions. Too often, Cecil is mostly asleep or wretchedly drunk or cranky or, more often lately, a combination of all three. But sometimes, Carlos’s timing is perfect.
On those rare occasions, Cecil moans yes, and yes, and yes, and Carlos, who wishes for so little while in the otherworld desert, imagines that Cecil's warm affirmatives are in answer to a question he has not yet asked.
*
When he goes to leave it's only to pick up Cecil's dry cleaning, before the opening night performance at the newly rebuilt Old Night Vale Opera House, and maybe just briefly to check on the desert hellscape cactus samples waiting at the lab, because they are fascinating. The cleaners is on the other side of town and the lab is where it’s always been, but it shouldn't take long.
It shouldn’t take long at all.
"You won't even notice I'm gone," Carlos says and presses a quick kiss to Cecil’s forehead.
Cecil shakes his head.
“What?” asks Carlos.
"I will.”
“Will what?”
“Notice. I will notice you're gone. I always do."
And far be it from Carlos to try Cecil's patience again, he stays.