I'm Shaking So Much / Why Don't You Show Up, Make it All Right? (Led Zeppelin)


Knock, knock.

Carlos looked up from his experiment and called out, "One minute, please!" to whoever was knocking on his office door. He figured that it must be a visitor because he told his scientists that he would be busy all afternoon.

Once he reached a safe pausing point, Carlos walked over to the door and opened it wide. In front of him stood Cecil, soaking wet and shivering slightly. Although, he seemed not to notice and waved at Carlos.

"Hi Carlos!" he said cheerily. "I was just walking over to get a slice of Big Rico's pizza after the broadcast and thought that I'd stop in before I ate."

"Cecil," Carlos stopped him. "You're soaking wet!"

Seemingly surprised, Cecil looked down at himself and said, "Oh, yeah. It's raining really bad outside. Like thunder and everything."

Carlos turned and looked out the window in his office and saw the torrential downpour going on.

Wow, Carlos thought to himself. How did I not hear that?

"I'm surprised that you didn't hear anything," Cecil told him, giving a small chuckle. Carlos shot him a lopsided grin. Cecil always seemed to know what he was thinking.

Just then, a hard shiver racked Cecil's chest and he closed his eyes for a second. Carlos immediately pulled him inside of his office.

"Cecil! You're cold and shivering," he said and he went over to his desk and pulled a bag out from underneath. "Here, take these into the bathroom and change out of those wet clothes." Carlos handed him a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt.

"Oh, no it's alright, Carlos," Cecil said as he literally stood there trembling. But Carlos insisted and, eventually, Cecil gave in and grabbed the clothes, turning on his heel to go into the bathroom connected to Carlos's office.

When Cecil was out of sight, Carlos went into the main lab work area and walked over to Rachelle.

"Hey," he greeted as she looked up from the textbook she was reading. "Do you have a few minutes?"

"Yeah," she said with a yawn. "This Night Vale school textbook is insane. This is only the fourth book out of like thirty. And look at this font! It's miniscule!"

"Oh," Carlos said as he looked down at the page. "Yeah, that really sucks to have to read."

"This series is just the fourth grade one," Rachelle told him pointedly. Carlos sucked in a breath.

"Well, would you wanna take a couple minutes break and grab a few pizzas from next door for everyone?" he asked as he produced his wallet. "I'm paying."

"Yeah, sure," Rachelle grinned as she took Carlos's money. Then, her face donned a concerned expression. "How's Cecil? He came in here soaking wet."

"Yeah because he walked here from the radio station and then it started raining."

"Oh jeez," she lamented. "That sucks."

"Yeah, he's changing in the bathroom right now," Carlos told her and Rachelle smirked.

"Changing?" she inquired. "Into what, may I ask?"

Carlos huffed. "Just my sweatpants and sweatshirt. Will you please go pick up the pizza?"

At Carlos's determination to change the subject, Rachelle laughed and got up from her seat, grabbing her umbrella next to the desk. "Alright-y boss. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Thank you," Carlos called after her exasperatedly. He walked back into his office where he found Cecil sitting on the sofa in the corner of the room. As Carlos got closer, he could see that Cecil was still shivering a little. He grabbed the blanket that he kept on the floor next to the sofa for when he has to sleep there at night. Carefully, he unfolded it and threw it over Cecil's shoulders.

"Thank you, dear Carlos," Cecil said and he held onto the edges of the blanket tightly.

"You're welcome," Carlos said. "Rachelle went over to Big Rico's to get some warm pizza. She should be back in a couple minutes."

"Sounds delicious."

They sat in silence for a minute before Cecil asked what experiment he was working on.

"Oh, uh, just testing the strange oranges that came from John Peters—you know, the farmer's—farm a little while ago," Carlos told him. "I want to know just how Strex managed to make people phase in and out of reality."

"Hm," Cecil pondered. "It was pretty cool."

Carlos laughed at his phrasing. "Yeah, I guess so. Except for the 'out' part."

Cecil merely shrugged. Just then, someone knocked on Carlos's door and it opened to reveal Dave.

"Rachelle's back with the pizzas," he told the pair, who thanked him and followed him out to the table in the main lab work area.

"Still warm!" Rachelle called over to Carlos. "For our shivering friend," she added as she noticed that Cecil was clutching the blanket from Carlos's sofa over his shoulders.

A blush crept up Carlos's cheeks as he handed Cecil a paper plate and took one for himself. They each grabbed a slice of pizza and sat down at one of the empty lab tables. Everyone else gathered around and sat down as well and the team, plus Cecil, all had a nice indoors picnic for dinner.


Person A is near Person B's house and decides to walk over, but it unexpectedly starts pouring rain. By the time A gets to B's house, they are completely soaked through and shivering. Seeing this, B immediately goes into a frenzy of getting them into warm, dry clothes, putting an excessive number of blankets on them, and making them warm food.