Carlos waited with uncharacteristic impatience (a scientist is always patient) for Cecil to come home that night. He didn't have much in the way of Pride memorabilia but he grabbed one of Cecil's rainbow socks (that is, it wasn't actually rainbow colored but it did have around two dozen colors) and put them on.

Strictly speaking, he wasn't under any obligation to make dinner tonight. Still, he knew he wasn't going to be getting any science done and he rather felt he should probably do these things occasionally when he wasn't required to. He wasn't a brilliant cook by any means (he was on board with cooking being a science but an art?) but the dinner he set on the table five minutes before Cecil walked in was perfectly serviceable.

One of the nice things about Cecil was that he never made you feel unappreciated. Unless maybe you were Steve Carlsberg but even that seemed to be getting better (not that he had wanted to risk drawing Cecil's attention to this, just in case).

Cecil walked in, sniffing the air happily, and beamed at Carlos. "You made dinner! Oh, Carlos, that was so thoughtful! I'm going to add this to the list of reasons I'm glad you came home!"

Carlos might think that Cecil was overreacting about dinner except he'd been back for less than two weeks and the last he had seen the list had over four hundred things on it. There were perfectly normal things like every day they woke up together or Carlos making him dinner but it also included things like Cecil tripping over some science equipment that Carlos had left in the hall and nearly falling down the stairs and waking up in the middle of the night because Carlos accidentally set off the fire detector. It also included things completely unrelated to Carlos but that Cecil just appreciated about Night Vale since if Carlos hadn't returned Cecil wouldn't still be there to see it.

Basically, Cecil was still really glad to see him and Carlos was torn between being pleased at how much Cecil loved him and guilty for what he put him through over the past year. Cecil had gotten to the point where he'd resented and planned to leave Night Vale! And while Carlos was well-aware that it wasn't nearly only his absence that had done it, he knew it'd have been easier had he been there.

He tried to focus on the gladness instead.

"What are you even going to do with that list?" Carlos asked. He wondered if Cecil would ever finish the list or if he'd continue adding to it for the rest of their lives.

Cecil blinked at him. "I hadn't thought of it. I just like having it. Maybe I can look back years in the future and get all nostalgic."

He could use it if they ever had a big fight and he needed to remind himself but Carlos wasn't going to bring that up. They'd never really had a big fight, even when they were diametrically opposed on the subject of Carlos coming home, and it sort of felt like a bad omen to bring the possibility up even though it would probably happen eventually.

They sat down to eat and Cecil proved he could function as a food critic if that whole 'Voice of Night Vale' thing didn't work out while Carlos, eating the same food, could only taste that it was pretty good. Idly, he started theorizing about a scientific explanation while Cecil told him about his day.

When they were nearly done, Carlos reached across the table and grabbed Cecil's hand. Cecil smiled at this but seemed unsure as to why. Maybe he hadn't heard? Cecil was just a little bit ridiculous about his refusal to pay attention to the outside world. The minute Cecil's Michael Sandero story was over and he had signed off, Carlos had called him and attempted to deal with Cecil's bizarre inability to pronounce the names of states. Even the ones whose pronunciation was phonetic like 'New York'. And where did he get the idea that there was a T in Michigan? Carlos had quite given up (he mispronounced every single state!) but he was beginning to suspect it was a lost cause.

"I have some good news, Cecil," Carlos said, grinning so hard his face almost hurt.

Cecil took a moment to adjust to Carlos' smile (he hadn't seen it much the year Carlos was gone and his tolerance was completely shot) and then said, "I do love good news. What happened?"

"Earlier today, the US Supreme Cart legalized gay marriage!"

Cecil bit his lip, looking confused. "I see. And that's…good news?"

Now Carlos was confused and his smile faded somewhat. "Of course it is! Why wouldn't it be?"

"I just don't understand. Gay marriage? What about lesbian marriage? Bisexual marriage? Self-marriage? Can non-humans even get married?"

Ah, well it was a little unexpected for Cecil not to know this but if he really wasn't following the news then he supposed he could understand the confusion.

"It's also called same sex marriage," Carlos explained. "Gay marriage is just a bit of a catch-all. It also provides for lesbian marriage and bisexual marriage although I don't know if there were any special provisions for that. I'm nearly positive that self-marriage is illegal and you've heard Hiram McDaniels' account of life outside of Night Vale. It's largely bereft of non-humans."

"Well that's an outrage!" Cecil complained. "Why can't you marry yourself?"

"What, uh, possible reason could someone have for marrying themselves?" Carlos asked. "I think loving yourself that well is more narcissistic than even Marcus Vanston."

"Marcus Vanston, back when we were allowed to know about him, was a very wealthy and thus very excellent citizen," Cecil argued.

Carlos rolled his eyes fondly. "I know, I know. But it's not like self-marriage for any other reason than love makes any sense. You don't need visitation rights or insurance or anything like that."

"Well that depends on the insurance, doesn't it?" Cecil asked rhetorically.

Carlos blinked at him. "Right. Would marrying your double count as self-marriage? Because I guess I might be able to see someone wanting to do that although usually people just kill their doubles. Marrying them is probably healthier."

Cecil shook his head in that way he had where Carlos had inadvertently said something completely ridiculous. "Marrying your double isn't self-marriage. Everyone knows that doubles have no rights. That's why the Faceless Old Woman kept implying Dana was one to try and get her removed from office. And while that might very well be true, I don't think we'll ever know for sure and it's not like it would change anything if we did."

"And…you're upset by the lack of rights hypothetical dragons who really don't exist in most of the world have but not about the lack of rights very real doubles in Night Vale have?" Carlos asked slowly.

Cecil raised an eyebrow pointedly at him. "You have met my double, haven't you? Although all evidence points to him having existed before the sandstorm so he may not be a proper double. Besides, just because there aren't a lot of non-humans in other places apparently is no reason to oppress them!"

"I can assure you that if a fire-breathing dragon did come to get married it would probably not have a great deal of difficulty getting people to agree," Carlos said.

"Well what about all the nonlethal and nonhuman people?" Cecil demanded.

Carlos frowned at him. "Like what?"

Cecil thought about it. "Ghosts?"

Carlos decided against asking why a ghost would want to get married or, if they did, why they couldn't just come to Night Vale. Maybe some did, he didn't know. "Well that just adds a whole new set of complications! It's 'til death do us part.' What if someone's spouse died and they remarried and the ghost popped up? Or if the couple wanted to remain married. Would the ghost need to remarry their living spouse? Or what happened when the living spouse died. Would a third wedding be in order? Or what about-"

Cecil held up a hand to stop him. "Dear Carlos, I am not a legal mastermind. That is all for the world government to decide. In Night Vale, vows are renewed once a ghost pops up unless either party is disinterested in continuing the marriage. The living partner remarrying is usually taken as a sign that they are not interested in waiting for their ghost spouse to maybe not even show up."

"That does seem sensible," Carlos was forced to admit. You know, as far as the subject of ghost marriage went. "But I do find your lack of concern with doubles to be highly alarming."

"And I find Kevin highly alarming," Cecil said. "I know he's your friend but it's okay for us not to have the same friends. And I really don't want to consider the possibility that Dana's double killed her and it's really a double I've been friends with all this time. We weren't very close before she distinguished herself from her predecessors during the sandstorm, after all. I couldn't even really be mad if it turns out she's a double, not that she knows, because if so the double was always my friend."

"And if Dana is a double and she's a wonderful, caring person and a pretty good mayor then don't you think that goes to show doubles deserve rights, too?"

Cecil cocked his head and considered it. "Nope."

Carlos' jaw dropped. "Well okay then."

"And what's this about same sex marriage?" Cecil asked rhetorically. "I assume since marriage seems to exist for these people the marriage of a man and a woman was legal but what about other genders? Was all the marriages except the ones of those sharing a gender legal? That seems unlikely but then this whole thing is very confusing."

"Uh, well, I think the only concern was for the genders people were assigned at birth," Carlos said, scratching the back of his head. "I'm not an expert. I also don't know if people who came out as a different gender and had their legal gender changed were allowed to but I'm kind of doubting it."

Cecil shook his head despairingly. "All those genders out there and the only thing these people care about is chromosomes?" He flashed Carlos a pleased little 'see, I know science words' smile.

Carlos shrugged. "It is pretty strange and there's a lot more work to be done. But now that same sex marriage is legal and opposite sex marriage was always legal, I don't believe two humans no matter what their gender would be unable to get married. They just might be misgendered while doing it."

"Because that's exactly what you want to happen on your wedding day," Cecil said sarcastically.

"This is just one more step forward," Carlos said. "We have to appreciate our victories while still remembering that it's not over yet."

"I also want to know why your UC Suprine Count-"

"Oh, come on!" Carlos objected. "You know all of those words!"

Cecil ignored him. "Only decided to legalize same sex marriage now."

Carlos shrugged. "I guess things just hit a tipping point. No one really talked about homosexuality a few decades ago. Some cultures were more accepting of it than others, I guess, but I believe the concept of sexual orientations was rather lost on them. In this country, at some point homosexuality was outlawed and it wasn't until the 1960s that that started to change. I think it was gaining acceptance but then, you know, the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and suddenly people legitimately thought God was just killing people for being gay and that changed."

"That is terrible science."

"It does not even deserve to be called science," Carlos agreed. "It wasn't until, what, 2003 that the Supreme Court forced the last few holdout states to decriminalize homosexuality. A few years back states started to legalize gay marriage, or at least civil unions. And now, in 2015, the Supreme Court has legalized same sex marriage. And there's a lot of work still to be done and I know that I just got back and we're nowhere near that step but…Cecil, baby, we can get married!"

"Yes," Cecil agreed, looking at him strangely. "We can."

"I was, uh, expecting something a little more," Carlos admitted.

"Well of course I'm glad to know that marriage is a possibility for us and the fact that you brought it up means it's not totally out of the question for you," Cecil said. "But this isn't exactly a proposal. I mean, should I celebrate the fact that we could adopt a child, too, even though we've never talked about it?"

"You could if you wanted to," Carlos said. "But Cecil, how can you be over this already? We couldn't get married before and now the Supreme Court has made their ruling so we can!"

"Ah."

Carlos cocked his head. "Ah?"

"I just understand what's going on now," Cecil said. "It seems we've been speaking at cross purposes."

"I'm speaking from the purpose of letting you know gay marriage is now legal."

Cecil gave him a fond look. "Carlos, marriage between two consenting adults has been legal for all of recorded history."

"Cecil, that only stretches back about seven years," Carlos pointed out.

"Yes, well, I'm fairly certain it's been legal for my entire lifespan," Cecil said.

Carlos always listened to Cecil's shows, even when Cecil had been on vacation. "Yes, but exactly how long was that?"

"Carlos," Cecil said, faux-scandalized.

Yeah, that was about what he expected to hear.

"I don't understand," Carlos said. "I know individual states had legalized gay marriage before the Supreme Court ruling but I'm not entirely sure what state we're in so I don't know if this was one of them."

"Night Vale clearly at some point legalize it," Cecil said reasonably. "That or it was never actually illegal at all."

"I don't think towns just get to do that," Carlos protested.

"Carlos, why does it sound like you're objecting to our civil rights?" Cecil asked. "Especially when I know you don't think we have as many as we should."

"I'm just saying, reeducation sounds like something out of 1984," Carlos complained.

"I'm sure plenty of people were reeducated in 1984," Cecil agreed. "But please stop saying things like that unless you'd like to stop having to guess and start knowing all about reeducation."

Carlos thought it was sweet of Cecil to worry but at this point he had so consistently failed to be taken in that he found it hard to stay worried. One day he might be in for a very unpleasant shock but for now he was enjoying his seeming immunity to reeducation.

"I have got to get you that book."

"I know nothing about it except that I'm almost positive it isn't municipally approved."

"I'll have Tamika get you a copy," Carlos said.

Cecil shook his head. "That wasn't actually my concern!"

"Look, I'm not upset that apparently gay marriage has been around for a long time in Night Vale," Carlos assured him. "I think it's great. I just don't know that cities can do that. It's kind of like how California just sort of ignored the federal government telling them that marijuana wasn't legal and acted like it was anyway for years."

"I'm not sure that's the best comparison," Cecil said, tilting his head. "Seeing as how Calyfoenya clearly could make whatever law they wanted."

"California," Carlos corrected.

Cecil gave him a pitying look. "Everyone knows it's pronounced Calyfoenya, Carlos."

"I'm fairly certain I'm the only one in this whole town who has ever been there," Carlos said. "Assuming Night Vale is not in California."

"So you really should know how to pronounce it," Cecil said disapprovingly.

Carlos opened his mouth to argue then thought better of it. "We'll get back to that. California is at least a state. Night Vale is a city."

"A town," Cecil corrected. "And Carlos, do you remember how you reacted when you found out that we had legalized time travel and the federal government hadn't? Or when we were only reluctantly finally outlawing murder? Or your reaction to Michael Sandero's head-removal surgery? Leann Hart's permission to kill news bloggers? The lottery? Or the much-appreciated rage about 'human trafficking' when you found out about Lot 37?"

Oh yes, Carlos remembered that one. Even now, more than a year later and with all that mess being sorted out, it still made him angry. Seeing the look on Cecil's face it had been clear that if Cecil hadn't already been completely gone on him, he would have been after that little rant.

"Given that apparently the other government has always frowned on murder in some cases-"

"All cases," Carlos couldn't help correcting.

"Do we really need to have that conversation again?" Cecil asked rhetorically. "Is it really so strange that the marriage laws are different, too? I mean, if you wanted to right now and he wanted to you could marry Hiram McDaniels and I could marry the Faceless Old Woman. Neither of us could marry Erika, for obvious reasons, but that's pretty much it."

"I guess not," Carlos conceded after a long silence. "I just really hadn't thought of it. People don't talk about these things in Night Vale."

Cecil shrugged. "There's never really any need. Do you regularly bring up things that have been legal and universally accepted decades or centuries ago?"

"Not that often," Carlos admitted. "But Cecil, this is important. This directly affects us."

"And I thought that after we had that talk about how nobody had any sort of weird issue with the fact that I loved you or that we were dating you understood," Cecil said. "It really didn't occur to me that you didn't know."

"Well I do now," Carlos said. "And today isn't the day, as I already said, but one day. One day."

"I could celebrate that," Cecil said, beaming at him. "And I am not so hard-hearted that I cannot celebrate that a very strange people are now being afforded the same basic rights I've always taken for granted. Well, some of them, at least, even if they clearly are setting themselves up for an inhuman lawsuit."

Carlos smiled back. "See, this is what I was trying to get at earlier."

Cecil raised his glass. "To the slow dragging into the light of a clearly reluctant populace."

Carlos clinked their glasses together. "To gay marriage."