tw for drug use, eye trauma, and the blood, gore and violence typical of Desert Bluffs in the podcast
Author Notes: please pay attention to the trigger warnings since this is much darker than my usual Night Vale writing. mostly I wanted to try pushing myself completely out of my fluffy little comfort zone, and I also wanted to get my headcanon for Kevin out there before it loses all plausibility
There is no warning. If there had been any advance notice, Gabriel would have abandoned his shift at the StrexCorp laboratories and set at a dead run for the radio station. He would have pulled Kevin from the booth, packed him into his little hybrid coupe, and driven them as far away as they could get through the desert. But there are no whispers from the StrexCorp higher-ups, no warning sirens. Only a bright light that seeps through the cracks in the door of the underground holding cell during the weekly employee incentive meeting.
Hours pass before the physics department deems it safe to leave the meeting. Complacent StrexCorp employees stream from the bunker into the decimated expanse that was once their home.
There is almost nothing left of Desert Bluffs. There is hardly even rubble. The bombs have destroyed businesses, roads, entire neighborhoods. The employees - the ones who lived in Desert Bluffs long before the arrival of the yellow helicopters - wander numbly through the wreckage looking for any piece of home. Occasionally a StrexCorp official will gently redirect one of them with a warning about radiation levels in the area and a guarantee that all the demolition will make construction of a new, more productive town much more efficient!
One such official attempts to herd Gabriel back from a collapsed heap of rubble and twisted, blackened limbs. Gabriel feigns compliance, reaches around the man's neck, and flips the switch to power him down. Biomechanics and chemical engineering - alterations to natural human life. Gabriel Vega is the head scientist of the department.
He isn't sure why his feet insist on walking the familiar path to the station. Maybe it's because he so desperately wants to find it still standing. Maybe because he needs to see the scorched bones to convince himself that Kevin's really dead. The toe of his boot scuffles through charred wreckage. Twisted plastic, melted rebar, a stake of wood still smoking with the ember of a long-dead fire. The toxic smoke stings his eyes, causing him to turn away from the remnants left of DBCR. Something small pulls at his attention then - a shattered bit of ceramic still intact enough to be recognizable. He'd bought it for Kevin for their two-month anniversary, just a silly little mug all spotted with sunflowers. Sentimentality prods him to reach down for a last memento.
A memory surfaces: a rainy Saturday morning, Kevin tiptoeing around the house in one of Gabriel's old t-shirts, coffee sloshing out around the edges of the sunflower mug. Gabriel can remember every detail of the raindrops spattering against the window, the airy little giggle as Kevin crawled back into the bed, the neon orange polish on his nails as he brushed back an unruly curtain of long sun-bleached hair.
Something stirs in the wreckage as a soft moan drifts out from below collapsed rubble. Gabriel reaches down, frantically digs away through blackened sand and charred remains until there's enough of a hand to grasp. One of the StrexCorp officials eventually takes notice and aids in the digging. Kevin comes up coughing and sobbing and covered in ash. Blood is dripping from a gash in his forehead and pooling above one of his eyes. Gabriel doesn't care if the blood and ash stain his best lab coat. He scoops Kevin up into his arms and carries him the few blocks back to the safety of the bunker. As they sit awaiting medical attention, Kevin mumbles incoherently about how many he watched die until the shock renders him silent. Gabriel whispers soothing things into Kevin's hair as one of the medics butterfly stitches the wound in his head.
"Looks like you got a bit of a bump in the process, but just think how happy you'll be when all this construction is done!" the medic chirps before moving on to the next of the wounded.
"Happy?" Kevin chokes softly as his green eyes flutter closed.
There are other survivors. Some of them experienced mutations due to the radiation. Most of them are unresponsive and kept for testing. All of them live in holding cells beneath the StrexCorp laboratories. All except one.
Gabriel isn't nearly high enough in the StrexCorp hierarchy to be considered important, but being the head of biological alteration does carry some clout. He keeps Kevin at home in their newly-built apartment and assures his superiors that there are no signs of any side effects. Since he's a model employee, they believe him, even if he doesn't fully believe himself.
Kevin says he sees the ones who are dead. At first, Gabriel assumes it's an aftereffect of the trauma. After three months of Kevin waking up in a cold sweat, staring into the darkness, Gabriel begins to believe him. As a part of rebuilding a more productive city, Gabriel's department is tasked with creating a very specific drug. It's designed to numb negative emotion, leaving behind only complacency and happiness - perfect for increasing positivity with a minimal loss in efficiency. Prescriptions are optional, of course, but most everyone still left after the bombing trickles through the laboratory for a diagnosis.
Gabriel gently offers to diagnose Kevin, but he insists he's feeling better. He tries to force a smile, but it doesn't stick. His hands shake as he repeats assurances that he's fine, and Gabriel puts away the medical forms and simply holds his hands instead.
Kevin goes back to work at the new radio station as soon as it's built. Although the job gives direction back to his days, he still isn't coping well. His body is wracked with near-constant tremors, and it becomes a nightly routine for Gabriel to wake up to an empty bed and the sound of Kevin retching in the bathroom. Every night he sinks down onto the cold tile floor and strokes Kevin's hair until he stops sobbing. Every night Gabriel offers to take him away, and every night Kevin whispers the same response.
"Where would we go? This is our home."
He doesn't recover, even as their new life settles in around them. Gabriel can count the times Kevin smiles on one hand - far less than the number of times Kevin stares at nothing and converses with emptiness. For his birthday, Gabriel plans the evening off for a nice dinner. He's understandably surprised to receive a phone call from Kevin's manager asking him to come down to the station.
Kevin's leaning against the station door when Gabriel approaches him. He can't help but take a step back when he catches a glimpse of his lover's face. Blood streaks down from empty eye sockets. His face is twisted in a distorted grimace stitched and bleeding to his cheekbones. His eyelids too are stitched open, though Gabriel can't understand why.
His first instinct is to back away from the grotesque imitation of his partner, but Kevin whimpers a quiet version of his name, and he is suddenly reminded that this isn't an imitation. This is his Kevin, blindly reaching out for him. His Kevin, who sings pop music in the shower and snitches more cookie dough than ever makes it into the oven. His Kevin, who loves more than anything sunflowers and old black and white movies.
He takes Kevin's outstretched hand and pulls him into a close embrace. "What have they done to you?" he asks, shooting a wary glance to the station behind them.
"They said I had been so productive lately," Kevin murmurs into Gabriel's lab coat. "They asked if there was anything I wanted for my birthday. I said I didn't want to see the dead ones anymore. I just wanted to smile again."
Gabriel swallows back bile.
It takes some adjusting for Kevin, and Gabriel does all he can. He lets Kevin feel around the house for himself so he can learn to find his way, but he helps him with the little things when Kevin begins to give up. In the evenings, Gabriel braids Kevin's honey-blond hair for him and paints his nails cheery colors, all the while describing to him the shades of that day's sunset. Sometimes Kevin almost smiles, but then the stitches pull and he grimaces again.
"We could leave," Gabriel offers with a kiss to his shoulder.
"I'm still trying to learn how to live like this," Kevin says with a shake of his head. "I'm not ready yet to leave the only familiar place I know."
At night he still wakes crying, but the drops now stain his cheeks deep red. Gabriel accidentally tells him this once, and every night after Kevin wipes frantically at his cheeks and then onto his clothing. Gabriel has stopped trying to wash the bloodstains from his sleeves.
It's a rainy Saturday morning when Kevin reaches for his hand and confesses something Gabriel has expected for a while now. "I can't go on like this." Gabriel listens to the rain against the window and remembers a time when Kevin was smiling, green eyes sparkling as they listened to that same rain. This would all be for the best. This would help them be happy.
"Will it hurt?" Kevin asks quietly as they stand outside the door of the laboratory the following Monday morning.
"Diagnosis won't hurt a bit," Gabriel assures him. Kevin feels for his cheekbones, traces fingertips down to his lips and then presses a kiss to them. He's getting better; each kiss is less clumsy than the one before. "I love you," Gabriel reminds him. "Things are going to be better after this."
Gabriel doesn't like the idea of them touching Kevin again after everything they've done to him already. He would have done the diagnosis himself if he hadn't been so terrified at the thought of Kevin's unconscious form spread on the cold exam table in front of him. As it is, he's already in the recovery room when they walk Kevin in.
There's something different about him. It doesn't take Gabriel long to notice the choppy, uneven way they've cut his long hair and bleached it to white. His stitches are gone, his cheeks having healed themselves into a scarred smile that stands out starkly against his copper skin. He blinks, and for a brief moment Gabriel can imagine that his eyes will open to familiar jasper again. Instead they are still hollow, but curiously haunting now even after weeks of him adjusting to their unnerving gaze.
Kevin reaches out for him again, but not as clumsily this time. He takes measured steps and grasps Gabriel's hands with no fumbling. "They took out my stitches while I was already under, and gave me a first dose to jump-start the regimen," Kevin explains. "There's a new dress code at work too, so they took care of my hair so I can be fully compliant. Do you like it?"
Gabriel runs his fingers through the uneven locks as Kevin bites his lower lip nervously.
"You look wonderful, Kev," Gabriel manages after a moment. He can't stop himself from staring at Kevin's eye sockets, trying to figure out what's changed.
"What are you staring at?" Kevin asks, self-consciously shifting his weight. Gabriel goes pale.
"You can see me?" he stutters. Kevin seems confused by the question.
"Of course I can see you, Gabe."
"And...the others? Can you still see them?"
Kevin glances around the empty waiting area quickly before nodding with a faint, twisting smile.
"Of course I can."
Things are better on the surface. Kevin smiles and laughs and seems so alive for the first time in so long. Gabriel has missed seeing him happy, and accepts it without question for the first few months, until Kevin starts coming home with blood on his sleeves again. Even then Gabriel explains it away, thinks Kevin must have missed his medication and cried at work. Some days it's true. Gabriel can always tell because Kevin will shake all over, just tremors, and he'll stumble a bit as if he's losing his vision again. But other days the blood isn't his own.
The first time Kevin kills someone, Gabriel is called to the station. On the drive over he prepares himself for a fight. No matter what Kevin's done, he couldn't possibly have done it intentionally. Gabriel rehearses the words of his defense once more as he opens the door to Kevin's studio.
Even though he works in a laboratory often filled with the grotesque, Gabriel is unprepared for the sight. The entire room is coated red in the remains of an innocent station intern. The station manager, a small woman, stands proudly at the desk, positively beaming as she babbles on about what a lovely job Kevin's done with his new studio. The radio host is curled up in the corner of the room, staring at nothing. Gabriel immediately kneels down beside him in an attempt to pull him from his trance.
"Kev, what's happened?" Gabriel pleads softly.
"I redecorated," Kevin replies with unnerving simplicity. His expression seems clouded, confused. It's the same expression everyone in Desert Bluffs wears when everything inside them is trying to feel negative. In the absence of any positive emotions, the drugs will simply level things out at a slight unease.
"See," the manager continues, "we called you down here because Kevin's not as excited as we feel he should be. We wondered if maybe...just maybe he needs a bit higher dosage." She takes a step closer to the two of them, and Gabriel can't help but bristle at her approach. There are so many horrible words trapped behind his teeth for what they've done, but he can't force any of them out. "We just want you to be happy, Kev!" she adds sweetly.
A look crosses Kevin's face, one that isn't supposed to still be possible under a dosage as high as his. It's a look of sheer malice and it's pointed directly at her. "Don't ever call me Kev."
She immediately takes a frightened step back, and Gabriel almost smiles.
They're sitting on the fire escape outside their apartment watching the sunset that evening when Kevin breaks the silence. "If I ask you something, do you promise to tell me the truth?" Gabriel nods. "Are...are you happy?"
He looks at Kevin for a long moment. Kevin, who's smiling sweetly at him. Kevin, whose hollow eyes see even the unseeable. Kevin, covered in someone else's blood. Gabriel doesn't want to lie.
"I like seeing you smile again."
"Yes," Kevin allows with a giggle. "But are you happy?"
Gabriel lies.
That night he forges one of the other doctor's signatures on a prescription form for himself. It's not nearly as much as Kevin takes, but it will be enough to soften the edges when he listens to Kevin go on about his conversations with the dead - especially since their numbers have only risen since the bombing. Next time Kevin asks him if he's happy, he won't have to lie.
One night Kevin skips his evening medication. Gabriel finds him sometime around midnight, slumped along the bathroom floor and clutching his boyfriend's old t-shirt from a lazy Saturday so long ago, now covered in blood as is everything Kevin wears these days.
"This isn't my blood is it?" Kevin asks quietly. Gabriel doesn't answer. "What have I let them do to me?" Gabriel sits with him in silence until the sun rises.
There are several nights spent this way. Gabriel hates admitting to himself that they're his favorite nights. Much better than compliant Kevin making dinner, or smiling Kevin pulling him towards the bedroom by the lapels of his lab coat. Nights spent on the bathroom floor are reminders that somewhere inside the Strex-approved shell, the real Kevin still exists.
The morning after every one of those nights, Kevin will fumble through the kitchen clumsily stirring coffee in a plain white mug and rubbing at the edges of his eye sockets as if to clear his vision. And Gabriel will whisper the same offer to leave and start over somewhere better where they wouldn't have to live like this. But every day Kevin downs his coffee with his morning dose to forget the night before. And every day he replies with a smile.
"Why would we leave, when we're happy?"