A/N:
Whoa there, melodrama alert.
This fic is spawned from a horrible headcanon by my friend after I jokingly suggested that Desert Bluffs could be a future version of Night Vale, and Kevin a future version of Cecil. I wish I hadn't said that.
Naturally, what followed was a suggestion that all the teeth and hair in the Desert Bluffs studio was Carlos. Naturally.
You begin your night at the station, your legs carrying you up the stairs to the highest point of the tower, to the job that you very much love, of course. The power is already on, and the low, steady thrum of static electricity blankets you. The men's bathroom is your first destination, and you absently drag the pads of your fingertips against the raggy back of a cat's coat before you soak your fingers in tap water and run them through your hair, all without looking in the mirror. This is a habit; your mother had warned you about mirrors once.
The show starts and you think to yourself briefly that the atmosphere is different tonight – the hue is a deep brick red, the background ambience is hushed, guttural and sputters like stunted conversation and without knowing why you glance over your shoulder and in to the hallway. With a vague sense of surprise and curiosity, you see that the shadows behind the station manager door are moving, thronging and writhing behind the frosted glass like a licking flame. How strange, you think, before forgetting you ever saw it.
You cough, clearing your throat wetting your lips before saying , as you often do, "welcome to Night Vale".
Reports are few and far between – John Peters, you know, the farmer writes in to say that a particularly hospitable family of large, jade-shelled locusts have set up camp in his right most field. They are quite charming, John says, and if it weren't for their daily requirement of one bovine sacrifice, they would be the most perfect house guests.
"And now, the weather" you say, and right on cue the secondary door to your studio clicks open and beautiful, stunning Carlos steps across the threshold. He plays with the sleeves of his Wednesday lab coat nervously – you know it's his Wednesday lab coat because it is singed at the collar and button holes – and takes the only other seat in the room.
"Cecil" he says, before coughing and saying again "Cecil". He repeats this twice before sighing, and you smile because he is absent-mindedly running a finger across the charming grey hairs at his temple.
"Uh-huh?" You say, and it is appropriate because Carlos nods and says once again "Cecil".
"I needed to see you urgently, Cecil" and you can only imagine what such urgency entails.
Placing your chin on the heel of your palm, you lean forward and repeat "uh-huuuuuuh?"
Faintly, you notice the wall behind Carlos' perfect head shifting from brick red to cardinal and back. It is beautiful to watch, but Carlos is even more so. You love him, you know, and you hope that he feels the same, so it only makes sense to be so enraptured. All attention reverts back to him and you place your hand on his forearm, gently squeezing.
You are aware that the weather track is almost over, and that you should really get back to reporting the news, but for the moment you are too involved in glancing at Carlos. Giddily, you hope that he may ask you on another date – a real date this time, you admit you jumped the gun before. He doesn't, but he does offer you a wry smile before asking if there has been any more news from Intern Dana about the Dog Park. You worry your lip with your teeth, thinking you really shouldn't, but surely if it were for scientific advancement, it couldn't do much harm, and so you tell him everything you have been privy to up to that point. He nods, smiles, and then places a hand atop the one on his forearm, stroking the inside of your wrist with his thumb in gratitude. He looks as if he begins to say something else, but both of you are distracted by a commotion in the hallway.
A horrible, sickening sound, like sharp, ragged claws against tin shudders throughout the small studio. The sound latches to the carpet and claws its way from wall to ceiling. It drips languidly through the fixtures and spreads territorially across the door in to the hallway. Instinctively, you both stand and your arms move out to your sides and behind you, forming what you hope is a marginally protective semi-circle around Carlos. A glance over your shoulder tells you that he is rooted to a certain fixed point of the carpet, and you don't blame him, because you are scared too. You press your body backwards as the sound, in a tense, drawn diminuendo, dissipates around you and for a moment you think – hope – that the threat has passed.
The entire station is filled to the brim with an oppressive white noise and you think in your head "I've done it again, I've talked about things I shouldn't" when all at once the door to the station managers office bounces open, falling off one hinge, and a throbbing obsidian mass hurtles down the hallways towards you. The sound makes your teeth click and your joints pop, a thousand tortured mammalian moans and screams forcing their way inside your ears. The mass is almost as the door and you move without thinking and shove Carlos out of harm's way.
There is a dull, striking, splintering sound but you do not think of it initially as you close your eyes. You feel the mass split on each side of you, and the smell of putrid food and wilting flowers fills your nostrils and throat, and the pressure in your head is so great that you could swear your eyes just popped. Breathing is difficult, and moving is impossible and so you just stand and you can single out one of the many mammalian moans. You think that it is louder than the others, and impossibly closer, and it is during this thought that the smell vanishes completely, and the mass slithers in to the vent above the switchboard and leaves the office indefinitely.
You narrow your eyes, and it seems darker than it had be, and the colour seems duller and you blink in the half darkness. There are two points in the room that grasp your immediate attention – one is the flashing green light above the door of the office, reading "ON AIR" in thick, white lettering. The other comes to you slowly and in pieces. A twitching stretch of leather and cloth, a jerking motion quickly followed by intense shuddering. Your weakened vision follows this movement the whole way up and in that instant you feel the carpet pulled from beneath your feet and faintly, the dull thud as your knees hit the floor.
Oh God. Oh God.
The window is broken, shattered in fact, and a vibrant glow from the outside sky illuminates the smear spread across the jagged glass. A low whine builds in your throat as you take in a medium sized section, and the noise threatens to escape you when you see that, on one of the shards, a large patch of skin is impaled. There is a clump of thick, black hair that is matted with sweat and oh God,there is blood leading down from it in a thick, steady swipe.
Oh God.
You see him. You see him and the noise that was grotesquely building in your throat snaps out in a whistle. Carlos is shaking, and his eyes are unfocused and he is babbling. You want to block your ears, you wanted to ignoreas you have been so conditioned to do, and your hands raise to the side of your head and you almost do it before he croaks your name, the two syllables so broken and disjointed.
Ce-cil?
Oh God.
Instead of covering your ears, your hands fasten themselves to his shoulders and he gasps. You use your knees to shuffle closer. He says your name again and you note that it sounds different from usual for many reasons.
One, there are gaps in his mouth that weren't there before, and the syllables whistle past them, distorting them.
Two, there is a thick gurgle in Carlos throat that is accompanied by a heavy rattle, and it sounds like Cecil's name is difficult for him to say.
Three. Oh. God.Three, it comes to you in a rush.
Carlos is dying.
Carlos is dying, and he is dying because of you.
Carlos is dying.
Your hands move from his shoulders to his back and you scrabble at it desperately. His eyes swivel, they look above your shoulder, beside your thigh, at the ceiling, but they do not land on your face once. One of your hands moves to cradle and support his head, and you moan faintly when it comes back wet. You instead start to run the hand through his hair, pulling gently each time it catches on a curl.
Ce-cil.
You open your mouth to say something, something like "I'm sorry" or "you're going to be okay" but all that you can say is "oh God, there is so much blood" and you would cry if you weren't so sick. You can feel the ebbing pool seeping in to your shoes and knees and it's too much. Pulling Carlos' face to yours, you kiss him full on the mouth and you don't know why you do it, it won't help, but you do it anyway. You do it twice, three times, four times, and he does not return a single one of them. You stroke under his eyes with your thumbs and pull back and that is when you start to cry.
Carlos is looking at you now, and he is afraid. He is looking at you, and he is dying.
Carlos is dying, and it is all your fault.
His eyes flutter and then drift closed and his perfect mouth opens slightly with the exertion of simple breathing.
Ducking your head, you whisper frantic apologies in to his neck and you know they are not enough. The studio is sponging up the blood, but there is still too much, everything is covered in Carlos' blood, and there is a clump of his hair stuck on the glass from impact, and his loose teeth fall and clatter to the floor, and you think to yourself "is this Hell?" and you know that it is.
The haggard breathing next to your ear is deafening. Your fingers tighten in the scratchy back of the lab coat and you refuse to pull away because if you do it will all be too real. You kiss at Carlos neck and you taste salt and copper. It turns your stomach but you do not stop because the skin is warm and the pulse, though weak, is right below your lips and it is the only indication that Carlos is alive. The kisses grow harder with every passing second as the pulse grows weaker, as if they could capture it, but it is futile. The haggard breathing next to your ear was deafening, but then it is not.
Carlos is dead, and you killed him.
Your hands drop and you pull back and the mere sight winds you, forcing all the breath from your body in a low groan. You heart tears from your chest in grief as you take it all in. He is so beautiful. The thick lashes that framed his eyes, his intense, captivating eyes, rest lightly against his cheeks. His skin is more ashen but it is still gorgeous, and his full, chapped lips are as intoxicating as ever. His hair is sopping the sweat from his forehead and it fans out around him like a halo as his head rests against the wall. You cannot bear to look at him any longer.
You stand, and shakily make your way to the chair. The show has long ended, and through the set of headphones perched on the edge of the desk you can hear the static sound of dead air, and it seeps out and envelops you. Time trickles past and you become drowsy and sluggish and thoughts lazily coat your brain of their own accord, as if they were someone else's.
I am a woeful beast, you think.
You could forget.
I am the devil.
He will still be here when you forget.
I am wicked.
You can become new, and you can forget.
I am vile.
Smile. Smile eternally and forget.
I am a vicious wretch of a man
Close your eyes and forget.
You blink, and it is hollow. You are sure it wasn't before. The sound of your eyelids closing over reverberates through your skull, and you smile at the sound. You suddenly find that you have many reasons to smile, although you cannot recall any of them. Smiling, you find, is a good thing, and so you decide to keep smiling. You blink again, and your smile widens, and you can feel it reaching your lobes just as you can feel the air in the studio brushing past each and every one of your teeth. You blink once more before deciding to close your eyes for just a moment, simply because it seems like a very good idea at the time.
When you open them, you are no longer lethargic. You are still at your desk, and your studio looks as you believe it has always looked. Splaying your hands on your desk, you note that your show is almost ready to begin. Taking a sip of your beverage, you shuffle your foot against the teeth peppering the floor impatiently. You glance over your cup and out of the always broken window, and smile at the afternoon outside. You love doing shows in the afternoon, you think. They are always so pleasant. Placing the cup down, you pick up the stack of paper sitting in the IN cage of your desk organiser and leaf through all of the reports and letters addressed to Kevin.
Addressed to you.
You spread them out evenly on your desk, taking care to ensure that the type is still legible amidst the blood that the paper quickly soaks up and you cough, clearing your throat and wetting your lips before saying, as you often do, "welcome to Desert Bluffs".