Title: Good News
Summary: Not-yet-interns Vithya and Dana are dating. Dana has some good news. Well, Dana thinks it's good news.
Rating: T for vague sexual references
Word Count: 1091
Other Chapters: No.
Disclaimer: Welcome To Night Vale and all related trademarks belong to Commonplace Books and Joseph Fink. I do not in any way profit from the use of these trademarks.
Pairings: Intern Dana/Intern Vithya (romantic)
Contains: pre-canon setting
Warnings: mentions of minor character-death

Vithya loved winter. She loved the paper snowflakes all over the hallways of the school and in the mall, she loved the shining red and green Christmas antidotes on sale all over the city, and she loved the seasonal chants wishing for a white winter to freeze out Night Vale's enemies. Her mother always got nostalgic when those chants came on the radio. She'd tell Vithya about the real winters she saw as a child: winters with snow. Vithya could accept that there was snow in India, but any time her mother mentioned mountains, she changed the subject. It was a source of regular embarrassment to her that her parents believed in mountains. She hoped no one at school ever found out.

Vithya loved sweaters, too. She wasn't picky about colour, though she gravitated to green. She looked cute in them, and if she got a little warm while sitting in Dana's well(overly)-heated bedroom, waiting for Dana to get ready for their date, she could always use the excuse to take her top off.

That didn't happen. That never happened. Vithya joked, but she couldn't imagine the thought of Dana's parents or brother catching them like that, so she never did it. Besides, Dana never took particularly long to get ready.

They went out to Vithya's favourite Mexican place, and while they were still munching on the chips and salsa, Dana casually mentioned that Cecil Palmer had hinted to her that if she applied to be a Night Vale Community Radio intern, he'd see to it she got the job. Cecil was an old friend or cousin or ex-boyfriend or something—for all Vithya knew, he was all three—of Dana's mother's, so he was at Dana's house a lot, and he'd always encouraged Dana's interest in radio.

Vithya had always hated that about him.

She didn't say anything for a second. She let her eyes fall to the plastic red basket of chips and she tried to find a diplomatic way of saying no. Cecil surely had only the best intentions in promising her the job, but Night Vale Community Radio interns very often—No. She wasn't going to listen in every day just waiting for the day that Cecil said "To the friends and family of Dana the intern..."

No.

"Will you have time for volleyball if you do that, though?"

Dana shrugged and twisted one of her dredlocks around her finger awkwardly. "I've been thinking that I might... not... play volleyball next fall."

"Oh." That was even worse. Volleyball had always kept Vithya and Dana close. They hadn't met on the volleyball court, but they had become friends on it, and last fall, when their relationship was new, volleyball had been a constant, a rock to keep them together. It meant that no matter what else they had going on in their lives—and they both had a demanding load of AP courses and extracurricular activities—they always spent at least a few hours a day together. It had been good for them and it was important and Vithya didn't want to lose it, especially to Night Vale Community Radio.

Vithya let Dana catch her gaze, and it did relax her slightly to see the glitter in Dana's warm brown eyes. Dana was really good at making Vithya feel calm and sure when she wasn't. When Vithya looked into those eyes—

—She wanted Dana safe. She looked away from Dana and shut her eyes. She tried to tune out Cecil's voice on the restaurant radio, talking about a new ban on pens that the City Council was considering. Cecil's voice was the last thing that she needed to hear right now or that she wanted Dana to hear. She took a deep breath and looked back at Dana. "The team really needs you," she said quickly. "You're one of our strongest players, and if we're going to beat the Desert Bluffs girls—"

"You don't need me for that," Dana said. "The Desert Bluffs girls are terrible. They just distract you with the blood all over their uniforms so you don't play as well. Learn to block it out and you'll be fine. Besides, Sarah Iglesias will be a freshman next year, and she's amazing. She'll carry you through the season easily."

"It'll also take up a lot of your summer," Vithya pointed out, because she didn't think talking Dana back in to volleyball would be as easy as talking her out of interning.

"Yeah," Dana said. "I know."

"You won't be able to get a job that would actually pay you," Vithya said as a waiter sat their burritos down in front of them. "And you won't be able to spend as much time with me..."

Dana shrugged. "Sorry," she said. "And yeah, I know it would be nice to have the money, but I really think I might want to end up on the radio, and it's a really good way to get my foot in the door, and Cecil will show me the ropes and look after me—"

"Like he looked after Diego and Christina and Adrianna and—"

"—None of those were his fault!"

"Yeah but he didn't exactly save them, did he?! And what if one day that's you dying on the radio?"

"No," said a voice to Vithya's left. She turned and saw a City Councilwoman standing beside their table, holding a take-home box. "You won't die," the woman said, looking from one of them to the other with wild eyes. "You will never die. It's written in the tablets. You are destined for great things." She nodded to Dana. "Night Vale Radio Intern."

Dana smiled.

The councilwoman nodded to Vithya. "Night Vale Radio Intern."

"You couldn't pay me to," Vithya said.

Dana gasped, but the woman looked unfazed. "Good, because they won't."

"We're destined to be radio interns?" Vithya repeated.

"It is written." Then a bit of cheese started to bleed through the corner of her take-home box, so she licked her hand, grabbed a few napkins off Vithya and Dana's table, and rushed out the door.

Vithya looked back at Dana. She was still grinning.

"Cecil's going to be so excited!" she said. "They said the same thing to him when he was first starting out!" She reached across the table and squeezed Vithya's hand.

Vithya looked down at her food with no appetite. She knew she should be happy. She and her girlfriend were destined for great things and would never die. That sounded like good news.

It just really didn't feel like good news.