Disclaimer: Welcome to Night Vale belongs to Commonplace Books
The sun hasn't begun to rise yet; the sky isn't even remotely working its way from cobalt to pale cerulean, but Cecil could swear it's been hours since they dozed off. Carlos is asleep, deeply - a rare occurrence and the cause of his boyfriend's current predicament. Cecil doesn't want to wake him, but he can't get comfortable when Carlos is pressed so close, the scientist's fingers slipping mercilessly against the exposed skin of Cecil's stomach.
"Hey," he finally whispers because he's sore and exhausted and he can't wait any longer for the night to catch up to the time his wristwatch claims it to be. Carlos stirs against him, and Cecil shudders a bit at the movement. He deftly escapes the scientist's grip on his waist and slides towards the edge of the bed.
"Cec'l you 'kay?" Carlos slurs as the emptiness of his arms registers with his barely-conscious mind.
"I'm just going to sleep on the sofa tonight," Cecil explains, taking his boyfriend's outstretched hand and pressing the palm to his lips.
"What?" It's a more awake response, but still not entirely lucid.
"Go back to sleep. I love you," Cecil whispers, leaning down to kiss his forehead for good measure. Carlos's eyelids flutter closed and he's already snoring quietly again.
"Are you home?" Carlos asks as he closes the front door of Cecil's apartment behind himself. It's been an ordinary day, in as loosely as Night Vale defines both ordinary and day, but Carlos has been anxious to get to Cecil's as soon as work at the lab ends. After waking up alone with not so much as a note, he's a little desperate to find out what he unknowingly did to find himself in the proverbial doghouse. Doghouse he emphasizes, in case the Secret Police have been attempting to monitor thoughts again and mistake his intentions for illegal activity. A small noise drifts out from Cecil's bedroom as the scientist sets his keyring in the little dish by the door. He follows the sound to find Cecil curled into a ball on his bed - long, chestnut hair pulled into a messy bun, wearing his favorite sweatshirt and brightly patterned boxers. The sweatshirt is a ratty unspeakably bright red thing, all covered in paint stains and holes; but it's soft and it drapes so wonderfully over the backs of his hands and off one shoulder and just everywhere that Carlos doesn't mind that Cecil's almost always wearing it around whichever house they find themselves, perpetually proclaiming to have caught a stray chill.
Cecil scrambles a little when Carlos walks in, mumbling about dinner and apologizing for missing phone calls and texts and his phone was just so far away.
"I don't mean to stay," Carlos interrupts. "I know you have to leave for work in a few minutes, I just wanted to see you."
"I called in sick," Cecil shrugs, finally managing to sit upright. He hugs himself for a moment before wincing and giving up the motion. "I'll make you dinner," he says with a smile. Carlos protests, but Cecil pushes past him and makes it to the end of the hallway before stopping to stretch with a groan.
"Are you okay?" Carlos asks, all concern because Cecil isn't typically like this. Cecil is always vibrant and energetic and youthful for his years.
"It's just the Lyme Disease," Cecil shrugs with affected nonchalance. "It's mostly gone, but some days it still flares up pretty bad. My prescription for it ran out, and Teddy Williams won't renew it unless I go back in to see him. I haven't gotten around to it yet." Carlos tries to think to what he knows of Lyme Disease, but draws a blank. Medical science is not his field. Cecil answers the unspoken question - an unnerving habit of his that Carlos is still working to adjust to. "My joints ache deep down, and my skin feels like it's on fire, if fire crawled and tingled and stung at any sensation of pressure."
"Can I help?" Carlos offers. "Does anything make it better?"
"Stimulation. P-physical stimulation," Cecil stammers. "Just touching." Carlos finds it incredibly endearing that even after all the nights they've spent together and lazy mornings they've woken up together that Cecil's copper skin still blushes vibrantly crimson every time he accidentally stutters himself into innuendos. It's a remarkably common occurrence for someone who makes a living on elegant syntax.
"C'mere," Carlos reaches out for his hand with a little laugh. Cecil allows himself to be led back to the bedroom. Carlos sits him on the edge of the bed. He tugs at the hem of the sweatshirt, and the tips of Cecil's ears flush slightly red again.
"Carlos, I honestly didn't mean that kind of stimulation. Really everything kind of hurts in general right now, and I don't think-" the sentence trails off as Carlos crouches down so he's at eye level with Cecil.
"I don't know what you were possibly thinking of," Carlos teases as he gingerly removes Cecil's tangerine glasses and folds them neatly on the bedside dresser. Then, more seriously, "Please let me take care of you." Cecil complies this time, slipping out of the sweatshirt, with a shy little apology that it's the only thing soft enough against his skin to not irritate it. Carlos takes off his lab coat and jeans to even things out. The combination of dinosaur boxers and worn out trekkie t-shirt seems to put Cecil more at ease.
"Lie down for me? On your stomach if you can," Carlos coaxes. Cecil does as he's asked, leaving enough room for the scientist to kneel beside him on the bed. Beneath the layers of bright clothing and seat-belt accessories and cat sweaters, Cecil's scarred nearly head-to-toe from a childhood in the scouts and an internship at the station and a life in Night Vale. Carlos often suspects it's why he really wears jackets all the time; but here, spread out beneath him, the scientist can't help but think Cecil is his own form of artwork. A landscape painted in shades of sienna, freckled with a night sky of dark stars, the pale tracks of comets visible in every curving scar. He has to fight the urge to kiss each mark, cover the canvas with his lips until Cecil learns to love every inch just as much as he does.
He can't bear the thought of causing Cecil pain though, so instead he begins by brushing out Cecil's long hair with his fingers, carefully avoiding any tangles. Cecil hums beneath him softly, encouraging the process. Carlos trails his hands down a little further, pressing gentle circles with his thumbs into the overly-tight muscles of the man's neck. Cecil shudders and squirms a little. The scientist pulls away quickly with an apology.
"Is-is this better?" he asks as he tries tracing a single fingertip softly along the outline of Cecil's shoulder blade.
"Mm, that's nice," Cecil murmurs into the pillow. Carlos settles for the new approach instead, outlines the taut areas until they relax at his touch.
"You know, I thought you were upset with me last night," Carlos says easily. He had been worried for nothing, he's realized by now, but his unexpected visit still feels like it bears explaining. "I woke up and you were gone, and you didn't text me back all day."
"No," Cecil coos, tilting his face so he can catch a glimpse of the scientist. "No, I wasn't upset. Cuddling was just a bit painful. I told you I was going to the sofa in the night. You seemed mildly coherent; I was hoping you'd remember if you woke up and I'd had to go home." Carlos thinks back, and yes, he does vaguely recall being told to go back to sleep. A kiss to his forehead and then something else.
"Did you tell me you loved me last night?" The relaxing muscles tense up all over again beneath his hands, though Cecil's voice doesn't even hiccup from it's natural smooth cadence.
"I might have. I tend to do that sometimes." Carlos lets the words hang there, not sure quite how to respond besides continuing to trace parallel shapes gently into Cecil's skin. "Does it bother you when I tell you I love you?" Now the tightness has reached Cecil's voice, constricting the question ever so slightly.
"No," Carlos admits after a moment of thought. Cecil relaxes again slowly. "I just..." the scientist drags a fingertip up Cecil's spine, waiting until he's counted each vertebra to continue the sentence. "I don't know if I'm ready to say it back." He draws an abstract little spiral just beneath his boyfriend's ribcage, then another on the other side to mirror it. Cecil is silent, and Carlos tries to figure out how to express what needs to be said before the silence turns to pain. "Those words mean a lot to me. And I know they mean a lot to you too. And I just don't want to hurt you. I just want to know for sure before I give you any false hope."
"Okay," Cecil says. It's a soft word, barely even audible, but it stabs Carlos somewhere deep inside nonetheless.
"Cecil," he breathes, absently twirling the soft ends of Cecil's hair between his calloused fingers. "Cecil, it's not that I don't-" There's no expression for this, this exquisite unexplainable feeling. "I like you." It's such an understatement for the collision of sparks in his stomach that he's grown to just accept as normal ever since that night at the Arby's. No, since before that. Since that first day in town when he turned on the radio and wondered who this caramel voice was who loved him so immediately. "A lot," he adds, and feels the little chuckle that runs through Cecil's body. "I like this a lot," Carlos continues, leaning down to allow his lips to barely ghost against first one shoulder, then the other - for symmetry. A shiver runs down the man's spine as the scientist lets his fingers wander down the length of his arms. Cecil catches them with one hand and brings them to his lips.
"Okay," he repeats, still soft and sincere, but Carlos doesn't believe him because it isn't okay. "No, it is," Cecil assures him so warmly that Carlos forgets to be unsettled by the lack of verbal communication. "It's okay," Cecil says again, pulling Carlos's fingertips to his lips for a second time before working his way back into a sitting position. "Thank you for always taking such good care of me," he murmurs as he leans forward for a kiss before climbing off the bed.
But it isn't okay - it's asymmetric, the way they love eachother - Cecil with everything and Carlos with broken bits that he can't piece into a full picture. The conversation feels so unfinished. There are things Carlos wanted to say before the spell was broken, but Cecil's already wriggling back into his sweatshirt and talking about take-away restaurants and what might be on tv tonight. Carlos was going to tell him about how he can't love Cecil - not yet, not while he's still such a mess on the inside. He can't bring himself to reciprocate that depth of emotion until he can find a way to be everything Cecil wants - beautiful and brave and perfect - because Cecil is everything he's ever wanted and it isn't fair.
Cecil wanders into the adjacent little bathroom and starts digging through cupboards for something to alleviate the remainder of the symptoms, but there's still so much Carlos wants to say. How he spoke with the shapeless form of his landlord just last week about canceling his rent check for the next month because it gets harder every day to go home to a place without Cecil. How nothing feels like home anymore without Cecil's voice and his little ceramic kitten figurines and that awful red sweatshirt slung over the back of a different chair every day.
Cecil's still talking, a muffled explanation of why Jerry's Tacos would be the best choice for supper if only they provided faster delivery but oh, they have a lovely cactus pudding. He pokes his head out from the bathroom after a moment, retrieving the hair tie from between his teeth and gathering up his messy auburn waves. "Carlos?" he says as he pulls the hair into a loose knot that's negligibly neater than it was before.
"Hm?" the scientist replies, fascinated and entirely enamored with every mundane little movement unfolding before him.
"I like you a lot too." Cecil smiles, all dimples, and a small voice somewhere beneath the layers of self-consciousness and doubt in the scientist's mind grows slightly louder.
Tell him.
Tomorrow, he thinks to himself. The Secret Police had sent him a flyer via carrier pigeon just that morning. All it said was CONDOS and TOMORROW, and maybe he'll ask Cecil to go look at one with him. And they can go for a walk after, and he will hold both his hands and explain how Cecil is the moon and all the stars in his sky and he'll apologize for having taken so long to put it into words. "Tomorrow," he whispers to himself with growing courage. Tomorrow will be a very good day.
Maybe tomorrow will even be perfect.
Author Notes: this is the result of a discussion I was having about how Cecil is canonically battling Lyme Disease, which I'm familiar with. These are just the symptoms I experienced, and I think if it's stage 3 they're probably a little different, but I tried to portray it accurately. if you'd like to join me in discussing these nerds at length or in howling at the void, I am on tumblr at montressorspacep0rt. thanks for reading!