I should probably be working on my crossover or my M*A*S*H fics, but I wanted to write this. So here it is - another mildly depressing Carlos-centric sort-of-Cecilos fic!
Disclaimer: I do not own WTNV.
Carlos is sick of it.
He falls asleep next to his fiancé and wakes up in a different room entirely with someone who couldn't be less like Nathan if he tried. He'll spend what feels like the day there, then falls asleep and wakes up a moment later with Nathan again.
He's not sick of the dreams (because of course that's what they are), not by a long shot. He's not sick of the scientific impossibilities that fill this dream world. He's not sick of the mysterious lights above the Arby's or the mighty Glow Cloud ('all hail', he mutters automatically whenever he thinks if it) or the Faceless Old Woman he's honestly surprised isn't secretly living in his real-life apartment with its clean white walls and tiled floors that, if he's being truthful, never really felt like home. (Nathan chose the decor; Carlos always thought it looked too much like a laboratory environment even for a workaholic like himself.)
He's not sick of Cecil, whose appearance he can never quite remember on waking but whose scent still lingers in the morning even with Nathan fast asleep on the left side of the bed and the certainty that what they have isn't real, nothing is real, weighing down upon him.
What he's sick of is waking up.
Before he started dreaming, he'd loved his job. Now it just seemed mediocre. Everything worked just as he expected. People behaved just as he expected. Time passed at a regular rate, one second every second, just as he expected. There were no surprises. Before he started dreaming, he'd liked that. He liked the predictability, the sanity.
Before he started dreaming, he thought he'd loved Nathan. He remembered when they'd first met. He remembered how he'd fallen in love with his eyes, his smile, and how happy he'd been when they'd gotten engaged. Those eyes aren't quite so appealing any more. He can't tell if they're too light or too dark, or the wrong colour altogether and he doesn't care. They're wrong. That smile just seems too forced, too white, too all-American model human. It's decidedly off. And he wishes he'd said no.
He doesn't know what triggered the dreams, or what makes them come back night after night with infinite variation. He doesn't know why he wakes up every morning with echoes of a familiar voice (so much nicer than Nathan's) still ringing in his ears. He doesn't understand how the nightmarish visions created by his once-rational mind have become his sanctuary.
All he knows is he wants to go home now.
He calls in sick, fakes it convincingly enough that it's almost impossible to get Nathan out of the building (the problem is dealt with by means of puppy-dog eyes,sniffling and the old clichéd plea: "I don't want to get you sick too.")
He is alone.
He packs a single case - he's never needed much; after all, a scientist is self-reliant (until he becomes dependant on a world he knows to be a dream).
Then he takes a last long look around the apartment. There are pictures on the walls of Nathan's family that only confirm how rocky his own relationship with his parents has been for the past decade or so; the occasional painting he's always secretly hated. There's a few photographs of the once-happy couple. Carlos smiles sadly for a moment - but only a moment. He is moving on.
He locks the door behind him when he leaves.
He spends the rest of the day driving through the desert aimlessly. There is no point searching for Night Vale in daylight; all he can do is get as far from civilisation as possible. He doesn't look back once.
He tries listening to the radio, but he can't find the station he's looking for and turns it off in disgust. A sane man would look at this and figure Carlos has finally snapped - but he hasn't. It's not crazy to bank your hopes of future happiness for a dream world.
It's not crazy to leave your fiancé for a man who does not exist.
He drives until the stars begin to glow in the void above and his eyes begin to droop. He is not there yet, but he is close.
He kills the engine.
He writes a note of explanation on a sheet of notebook paper.
He removes his engagement ring (it feels good to have it gone) and uses it to secure the rolled-up note.
He gets out of the car. He can walk the rest of the way.
When Nathan comes home to find Carlos gone, he calls the police. They search for days.
Eventually they find the car abandoned by a canyon. There is a case in the back and a note on the passenger seat secured by a silver band.
It sounds like the ravings of a crazy person. It talks about floating cats and glowing clouds and five-headed dragons. It talks about dog parks and miniature cities and lights in the sky. It talks about love.
And it ends with 'I'm sorry.'
It is oddly beautiful.
Nathan is devastated, of course. He'd known something was wrong for months. Years, even. And he'd done nothing.
But the letter doesn't blame him.
It never mentions him at all.
He cried when they call him in to ID the body they recovered from the scene, far below the parked car.
The death of Dr Carlos Ramirez is ruled a suicide.
It's the weirdest sensation, though. It doesn't feel like he's dead. Gone, sure, but not dead. Just...somewhere else.
The sign welcoming him to Night Vale materialises out of nowhere and the figure wandering the desolate highway breathes his first conscious breath of Night Valean air.
He stops by the lab he rented back when this was all a dream to find that everything is just as he left it.
He keeps walking until he finds the building he is looking for.
"Cecil?"
"Carlos?"
"I'm home."