this was originally written for father & son day of Earl Harlan week. Night Vale and its characters belong to Commonplace Books.
Time is unimaginably weird. Earl can feel it tick inside him with each asynchronous beat of his heart. Not only is the fractured timeline visible in the weathered texture of his hands, but in the way the moonlight casts shadows over his fingers as he unlocks the door to his house. The sun often sets too early since his return, with midnight encroaching prematurely before he gets off work.
The house is silent as he crosses the threshold. Presumably his son is asleep, though there's no guarantee. His son doesn't really ever do much. The entire first two weeks after Earl's return, the boy didn't even move from the same spot in the corner of the foyer, staring blankly ahead with eerie focus. He didn't eat, speak, sleep - he didn't even blink.
While caring for a zombie child turned out to be surprisingly simple, it had also just been generally surprising. All the internet videos on crash-course parenting had informed Earl that parenthood itself is defined by the unexpected. Also by routine bouts of ritualistic possession, but at least that was typically predictable. What surprised Earl most was that caring for his son was an ever-changing process. One morning Earl woke up to find the usual dish of leftovers from work that he left within his son's reach empty. The next week, the boy had moved - just to the next room over, but gradually further. Although there had still been no words, by now they had reached some sort of odd, silent routine. By the time Earl got home from work, his son would generally be asleep in one of the upstairs bedrooms, or at least lying still and quiet in a bed on the days when his behavior slipped closer to its original zombie-state.
For this reason, Earl is startled to switch on the kitchen light and find a pair of dark eyes peeking out at him.
"I didn't think you'd still be up, Sport," Earl says once he recovers from the surprise. There's an attempt at a chuckle, but it feels forced, so he ends it with a cough. It's hard to read his son. Earl wonders sometimes how he would have fared as a father if he had any recollection of his life or choice in the process whatsoever. He had always loved working with the boy scouts, and he often hoped to have children of his own someday, but he had always envisioned that future shared with someone else. Someone better with words, better at cues, better at relationships in general. Doing it alone was so much more difficult than he could have anticipated.
The child's head tilts slightly as he watches his father arrange a styrofoam container of urchin chiffon puffs in the refrigerator.
"Are..you hungry?" Earl guesses. In a blink, the boy is making a beeline for the pantry. A small hand tugs at the hem of Earl's apron when they reach the disorganized shelves. Earl follows his son's gaze to a baggie of granola bites baked out of longstanding scout habits and an underlying need for something familiar in a still-adjusting new life. He reaches for the snacks, and at the same time the small hand reaches for his, cold fingers pressing into the chef's leathery palm.
Earl is so tired - has been ever since he got back from the void. Everything has felt like catching up from behind, which PBS says is to be expected when time decides to suddenly throw fifteen years at you with no forewarning or preparation. Earl's attempts to reconnect with Cecil have exhausted him emotionally in ways he never expected; his attempts to reach out to his son have exhausted him mentally. In order to cope, he has taken to working long hours at Tourniquet: at least the physical exhaustion is familiar. He doesn't even have the energy to turn on the lights as they find their way to the living room. Instead they just sit in silence on the sofa, the only sound the crunch of granola and the secret police sirens' howling in the distance.
Somewhere in Night Vale's dark streets something has happened. Presumably it is something terrible, probably dangerous - possibly someone has died. As the sirens wail closer, Earl suddenly realizes his stomach is clenched with something powerful and protective. On an unfamiliar impulse, he reaches over to his son and runs his fingers through the boy's mousy hair affectionately. Whatever happens out in the darkness has thrown into relief that despite the confusion, the responsibility, the unexpected everything, there is also love. And the reminder that in a terrifying, inexplicably weird world, they have each other to look out for now.
"Hey," Earl rasps, his throat tight with the strangely powerful emotion. "Champ, what's uh-" he coughs a little, tripping over the words. "What's your name?"
He's used to talking to his son in one-sided conversations and unanswered questions, but this time those dark eyes light up with a bit of something and a small pitchy voice squeaks its first syllables.
"Roger," he replies with a toothy smile.
I like to think the zombie children from city hall, if taken in and cared for, eventually become more and more human (and if anyone knows how to protect and care for the kids in Night Vale, it's the scoutmaster himself!) also: I can just see Earl not knowing his son's name and using a slew of nicknames lifted from movies (champ, skip, sport, bud, etc) until he figures out how to ask..
if you would like to trade toxic tiramisu recipes or discuss the deboning of nutmeg, I can be found at ducktelepathy on tumblr!