Author Notes: warnings for terminal illness and major character death. the flashbacks do not necessarily happen in chronological order. it's okay - time isn't real anyway.
Disclaimer: Welcome to Night Vale belongs to Commonplace Books.
Cecil drives. The rumble of tires on worn, sun-baked pavement is reminiscent of other rumbling, long and low and deadly and loud, too loud as it cracks and fissures and envelopes-
Cecil swerves haphazardly back into his own lane at the blare of the semi-truck's horn. As he pulls over to the graveled shoulder, the world in his periphery blurs into a smudge of faded watercolors - taupe and sage and indigo in the expectancy of a late sunrise. He doesn't bother wiping at the chapped skin surrounding his eyes. Windshield wipers fighting a downpour, he thinks to himself wryly. On an unconscious level, his body is protesting the trip. He's been awake too many hours with too little food. Untouched casserole beckons from the lunch sack the Secret Police slipped into the back seat of the coupe out of concern. His stomach gurgles in longing, but the smell of gravy and tuna brings the memories of all the words he received in conjunction. It'll be okay. Time can heal all wounds. He's in a better place now.
Fiction. Well-intended fiction from caring friends, but fiction all the same. The only truth was a simple sentence curled into his fingers with a folded knapsack of corn muffins.
We should all be so lucky.
As in all things, Josie must be right in this too, though Cecil can hardly fathom it yet. Lucky to be dead, lucky to be gone from this miserable world, lucky to not wake up to an empty bed in an empty house meant for two.
Maybe he understands more than he thinks.
"How long is eternity?" Cecil asks lazily. It's intentional, the way his hips sway in an almost feline motion indicative of mischief, flirtation, enchantment. Carlos is far too distracted by a notebook in his lap; the playful saunter is most definitely a trap to entice him. The scientist pretends to not notice as he buries himself deeper into leftover work from the lab. Illicit pencil scratches scrawled equations against the paper in place of an answer. Cecil charily runs delicate fingertips along a set of pipettes neatly arranged in a wooden box. They tinkle at his touch; the scientist's chestnut eyes flit to the sound, and the pencil ceases its scratching.
"A long time," Carlos mutters distantly after nearly a full minute. He had promised to make dinner as soon as the equation is settled, though Cecil has to admit he's slightly less interested in dinner than the unspoken suggestion of what could come after. Careful to not genuinely disrupt anything, he very stubbornly inserts himself in the cramped inches between scientist and experiment. The flicker of frustration immediately abandons his boyfriend's face as Cecil settles into his lap, arms lazily draped across the shoulders of his lab coat.
"That's not a very scientific observation," he murmurs, his voice honeyed with seduction. Dark skin flushes a shade deeper red as chemical-scarred hands wind their way effortlessly around the interruption's waist.
"Well, you can't exactly quantify eternity. It's an abstract concept." Deft fingers slip the thick frames of glasses from the scientist's face. "I suppose it's relative," he stammers valiantly on, despite the fact Cecil is practically inhaling the words off his lips. "To an ant eternity is different than it is to us. To our universe itself, eternity may be infin-" and Cecil is paying attention - really he is - but Carlos smells so wonderfully of cinnamon and chlorine and lavender chewing gum, and when those lips shape complex scientific terms they're entirely irresistible.
But Cecil really is paying attention. Because two years later, he knows Carlos is wrong.
Eternity is quantifiable. Eternity is six months. The words fall gently from the doctor's lips, landing somewhere amidst a shuffle of brochures. It had all started with such an unassuming approach. Headaches that didn't go away, complaints of blurred vision, sentences that ended where they shouldn't without the speaker's consent. Cecil had written so many isolated occurrences off as stress or quirks or bad weather. He had kissed greying temples, offered to read scribbled notations aloud, tried his best to stitch together broken conversations. It wasn't until the third time he received a desperate call to retrieve the lost scientist from a long-familiar location that he suggested they seek medical help.
If Carlos is afraid, it doesn't show. His hands remain still, his voice steady as they accept pastel-colored pamphlets of options and optimistically-skewed percentages. The calm stretches on even after, as he resumes work at the laboratory the next morning and the morning after that. There is no mention of sickness, no discussion of medicine, and no fear until nearly a week later when Cecil can't stand the affected normalcy for another night.
"Why won't you at least try to fight this?" Cecil demands, voice raised in heated frustration. They never argue like this, and his vocal cords are scratchy in protest of the elevated volume. "Can't we just talk about options?" The only response is the clatter of dishes as the scientist scrubs out his exasperation in sloppy circles of citrus soap. Cecil slouches against the doorframe to the kitchen and watches him, notices the lack of focus in his dark eyes, the slightest wobble in his square jaw.
"Because I don't want to die like that. I don't want to die sick and frail and.." the sentence is lost with the remainder of his careful nonchalance. Cecil is there immediately, arms around his waist, soothing words in his ear to ease the collapse. The scientist's entire frame shakes along with his voice. "Cecil, I'm so scared."
They don't talk anymore about tumors or treatments. Instead they talk of traveling. Carlos makes a list of everywhere he wants to go; Cecil makes the required sacrifices to Station Management in return for extended leave. They catalog museums and tourist traps in blurry photographs until Cecil begins to notice the gradual appearance of gaunt shadows beneath his boyfriend's eyes. They switch to writing the adventures into private broadcasts that Cecil reads out at the end of each day to his favorite, most captive audience. Carlos watches him intently every time as if memorizing the way the shapes form words, occasionally brushing fingertips to Cecil's throat to feel the vibrations.
The shorter the list grows, the more exhausted the scientist becomes. Their last stop is a little motel a few hours from home. It's not an expected destination, but Carlos is so tired so early in the day. The flat, sprawling buildings are worn, the once-garish awnings faded by the desert sun. Their room is small and upholstered in colors long-since out of fashion, but Carlos can't hold back a giggle as Cecil sweeps him up and through the doorframe and the sound floods the room with light and warmth and color. They fill the mustard yellow jacuzzi in the corner and slip beneath the bubbling water. Cecil can wrap his arms around the scientist without effort, count his ribs with alarming ease. Even his once-perfect hair is thinned and considerably more grey, but he's still so radiantly beautiful as he nestles in against Cecil. Dark fingers dance above the surface, a ring glimmering faintly in the dim light streaming through a dingy window. Cecil laces his fingers in the gaps between, matching gold band - a whimsical decision made somewhere in Nevada - clinking pleasantly as he presses a kiss to the point between neck and shoulder.
"I love you, I love you, I love you," he whispers, a mantra against all else. He says it as often as he can these days. Every night before bed as a promise, every morning he wakes up as a grateful prayer of thanks for the gentle reassuring puffs of warm breath against his chest.
Carlos does so well to keep conversation lighthearted for the entire trip until that last night. Beneath scratchy sheets in a cheap motel, limbs entwined as neither of them pays attention to a late-night sitcom, a soft confession: "I didn't think I would go like this, just waiting for a numbered countdown."
"Shh," Cecil soothes, his hold on the scientist in his arms tightening a fraction. "You're not going anywhere. I won't let you." Carlos smiles up at him; the expression is empty, resigned, tired. It sounds like a flimsy, impossible promise, but Carlos is always asleep too early to see the intricate spiderweb of chalk sigils etched beneath his half of the bed. He never hears the meticulous prayers unfurled in the ancient tongues every night while he sleeps. Cecil hasn't given up. It isn't supposed to end like this.
Hands grip and relax on the steering wheel in a stuttered rhythm. The tattered awnings over the doorways are so bleached as to appear nearly white in the pale sunrise. The stucco of the squatty motel lobby is cracked and peeling into abstract speckles. Everything seems so faded; for a moment he muses that he can even see sunlight filtering through reality itself. What he wouldn't give for a wooden door to nonexistence. He needs to leave the car, needs to go inside and face what's next before he loses what careful grasp on courage has brought him this far.
The aging woman behind the desk seems confused by his request for a room so early in the morning. Driven mostly by pity, he assumes, she reaches for a chipping fob from the key closet. As she presses the plastic to his palm, she grasps his wrist with her other hand. "Are you alright?" Her brown eyes are wide with concern. It isn't until Cecil catches a glimpse of himself in the key cabinet glass that he can understand why. His face is red and splotchy, his eyes swollen into dark rings from a week of no sleep. His hair is a tangled mess, his clothes rumpled and mismatched. He would be concerned about himself too if he hadn't stopped caring by now. Instead he pastes a smile and slings his bag further up his shoulder with a nod.
The room is nearly exactly as he remembers, though this time there's no vibrant laugh reverberating off the shabby paneling. No water bubbles into the tub, and there are no honey-brown eyes or pearl-white smile to even lure him in that direction. Cecil drops to his knees on the shag carpet and pulls out a bundle from the bag at his side. Chalk drags through napped fibers in practiced angles and arcs.
"Does it matter which order they're in?" Carlos is fumbling with trinkets: a half-used packet of asters, a cheap pocketwatch, a credit card bill bearing their recently-deceased neighbor's name, an embroidered handkerchief, a rusted titanium flask.
"The most valued possession, the one that bears the most emotional significance and represents the strongest personal bond should always be placed due North. The other cardinal points are less crucial, but it's good practice to go clockwise in importance." Cecil has patiently explained the process of spiritual contact several times now and gathered everything they need, but Carlos still seems unsure about the experiment. It was his idea in the first place. Paranormal science is a dream he'd never imagined he could pursue before Night Vale. Cecil's helped him with a few experiments in the field, but this is the first involving contact with the other side. The scientist shuffles the items, placing the pocketwatch next to the candle marked with an N. Cecil's surprised by the choice. "Not the handkerchief?" Carlos shakes his curls vehemently.
"The inscription is from his wife. The handkerchief may be his, but what matters infinitely more is what's hers. That's what he's more connected to. It means more." It's a definite statement, though his expression is that of an unsure child seeking approval.
"So it is," Cecil agrees, not even attempting to keep the admiration from blossoming into his approval. Carlos really is the smartest person he's ever known. The scientist offers the chalk back to his instructor with a satisfied little smirk, but Cecil shakes his head. "You wanted to try paranormal science, you have to construct the pentacle." Unpracticed hands etch shaky lines across the floorboards, quavering at every chink in the wood until dextrous fingers slip over top to smooth the motion into graceful arcs. "This is the safest ritual you can summon," Cecil reassures him. "It's a simple one-sided conversation with an echo of a soul. It's truly them, but only a fracture of them. You tell them what you want them to know, and then before the candles can burn out you need to release them like I taught you. It's only good manners, like saying goodbye before hanging up the phone."
"And his belongings?" Carlos asks as he dusts excess chalk onto the lapels of his lab coat.
"You have to dispose of them. Salt them and burn them. Otherwise he could haunt you. Not in any way unpleasant necessarily, but can you imagine spending the rest of your life and potentially your afterlife with a man who spent his days yelling at people for stepping on his grass?" Carlos chuckles a little nervously as he lights the candles counterclockwise. "You ready?" Cecil asks, brushing a fingertip along the scientist's cheek. He nods, and Cecil plants a quick kiss before stepping out of the chalk lines and allowing Carlos to begin the ritual. The candles flare once, violently, and Carlos flinches.
"Mr. Liebfried, a-are you here?" he asks in as brave a voice as he can muster. Two loud clicks on the closet door behind him. His eyes shoot uncertainly to Cecil, who nods in encouragement. A flicker of a smile sparks on the scientist's face as he reaches for his notebook.
A photograph of the two of them from their first Christmas together, a pair of safety goggles, a flannel shirt speckled with bleach stains, a packet of lavender chewing gum. Cecil arranges them clockwise with care, reaching back into the bag for a lab coat. He sets it at North, but the pentagram feels unbalanced. It doesn't matter what belonged to Carlos. What the scientist cared about most is what belonged to Cecil. With shaking hands he reaches for the buckle of a watch that still keeps perfect time. There's no going back. The items will be destroyed. A reverent finger runs around the silver frame of the timepiece, tracing the familiar crystal. The shirt still smells faintly of chlorine and chemicals. The photograph is faded, but the people within are so alive. He lifts it closer, memorizes every line, every detail of that perfect smile.
He had expected the end to be so different. A thousand times the scenario played through his mind. A beeping monitor, a fragile scientist drowning in a sea of sterile white. He would tell Carlos he loves him, watch those glassy eyes fill with fear of what comes next, force himself to meet that gaze until those pools of amber flitter closed. He'd hold his hand even once it lost its grasp, press his lips to cooling skin.
He did not foresee the burial of an empty coffin. He did not expect his last memory to be that perfect smile.
The rumble had been deafening as the earth shook. There were screams, but they were growing louder because the frightened people were being ushered away from the collapsing buildings and toward safety. Once he received word of earthquakes the seismometers and citizens could simultaneously confirm, Cecil had hurriedly finished the broadcast before joining the others at the site of the epicenter. He arrived to see the last remnants of a successful rescue mission rush away from the ground where it fell away in chunks. All that was left in the open street was a smudge of dark in a blur of tattered white. The scientist's eyes met Cecil's from a block away. For an instant the world went entirely still before a sound like a thunderclap broke what was left of existence into shards.
The ground fissured like a shattered mirror. There was fear in those dark eyes, until suddenly there wasn't. There was peace. One last moment, one last smile, and then he was gone, swallowed by the earth. Cecil was screaming the man's name before the reality of the situation even registered with his mind. He was scrambling forward on unsteady ground as the quakes tossed his body aside like a rag doll. Arms yanked around his waist, pulling him back as voices shouted at him, telling him he needed to get somewhere safe. But Carlos was just right there, he had to be, and if Cecil could only make the mouth of the fissure, if he could reach in and save him...
"Carlos, are you here?" Cecil asks as the candles spark to life. The question doesn't need to be asked, neither does it need to be answered. Cecil would recognize the feeling anywhere - the puzzle of his soul pieced to whole once more. The relief is overpowering. Suddenly he can't recall anything he planned to say. "I miss you." A pause as he remembers why he has to do this. "I love you," he chokes around the words stuck in his throat. Cecil isn't here to tell the echo of his lover things he already knows. "I'm sorry." The confession is so soft he almost can't tell if he said it aloud or simply imagined it. "I'm sorry I didn't save you. I'm sorry I couldn't-"
It's okay.
He feels the words in his soul, clear as day. It isn't supposed to work this way. He summoned the echo, communication shouldn't flow two ways unless...unless Cecil isn't the only one still holding on.
They've only been living together for two weeks, and Cecil can't figure out how to best answer when Carlos asks what's wrong. It feels strange to bring it up at all, but it's obvious his boyfriend isn't going to settle for a vague response.
"Today's Earl's birthday," he hesitates. There's no way to clearly explain it without starting from the beginning, but Carlos is patient. He listens without judgement to a story of childhood infatuation and young love and naive mistakes. "He asked me to run away with him," Cecil finishes, knees tucked to his chest. "I was young, I didn't want to go. It's a choice I never would have made. But I still wonder sometimes..." He feels so exposed saying it aloud. "If I had said yes and gone with him all those years ago, would he still be alive now?" Carlos is silent for several minutes, and Cecil begins to think telling the truth was a mistake. Finally the scientist reaches for him and pulls Cecil gently down until he's lying in his lap, the way he's discovering Cecil likes to be when he's upset. Fingers gingerly wind their way into his hair, imperceptibly possessive.
"There's a scientific theory, an interpretation of quantum physics," Carlos explains simply, as if to a child. "It claims that there is an infinite number of universes, each created by the different choices we make."
"So there's a universe where I said yes and maybe he's still alive?" Cecil asks haltingly. Carlos nods. "Do you believe that's true? I mean, is it scientifically even possible?"
"It's nice to think maybe there's a universe where I made different choices," Carlos smiles faintly. "Where I was brave enough to take the chances I've missed." Cecil mulls over the possibility for a very long time. The scientist's thumbs never stop their circular patterns through his boyfriend's hair.
"I'm glad I'm in this universe," Cecil replies finally, reaching up to trace along the man's cheek. It's all the reassurance they both need and for now it's enough.
"You told me once of a theory," Cecil murmurs to the candle flames. "You said our choices created new worlds, different universes of reality. I like to think there's a universe where I saved you." A fresh spill of tears hits the carpet with soft patter. "Where I prayed harder or left the show sooner, and maybe there's a world where we're old together, sitting on the front porch yelling at kids for stepping on the grass." He laughs a little at the thought, taking comfort in the idea. "There's a version of us where we're happy and safe and together." The candles are flickering, nearly out. This is how it has to end. This is how it always has to end.
Josie is right, as Josie always is. We should all be so lucky. Lucky to be loved and cherished and cared for. Lucky to get to choose our fates, to determine the length of our eternities, to earn a valiant death as a hero in the midst of saving lives. And then, to be set free to embark on the next journey.
"But this here, this us - we have to let go." He whispers the words and the candles go out in a single breath. The scent of cinnamon lingers in the air as he gathers the items into a small box filled with salt. From its bed of grainy white, the watch face peeks up innocuously. For one selfish moment, it's so tempting - the idea of a life and an afterlife spent with his precious Carlos, but it isn't fair for either of them that way.
We should all be so lucky as to find rest.
"I love you," he breathes one last time as the first flames catch in the box. "Be at peace." It's there once more, that feeling in his soul, and he can almost hear the words echoed back to him aloud in familiar tones like silk and caramel.
Be at peace.
End Notes: comments and critique are, as always, so appreciated! if you'd like to yell at me for writing this or headcanon jam with me or quietly creep on my virtual existence, you can find me on tumblr at montressorspacep0rt. Thanks for reading!