"...It seems that all is finally quiet in Night Vale again. The parasitic worm has been captured, thanks to John Peters, you know, the farmer, and is currently being held in a mason jar in a dark room in his basement. The scientists are still unsure if they want to study it or not, as releasing it may cause another black hole to open up, well, anywhere. Interstellar Worms and the holes they create are still a new science, and I agree that keeping it locked tight is probably for the best. Those that suffered massive losses from the Worm Hole in the middle of town can call in to the Mayoral Office by heading outside and lamenting to the dark night sky only to come to the realization that life is in fact meaningless and your cries mean nothing. Stay tuned next for the sweet release of sleep, followed by harrowing nightmares and a soft voice telling you horrible things about the dark spaces in your home. Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight."
~o~o~
It took a few days for Carlos to get back on his feet. After fixing his leg on Cecil's day off - Cecil was delighted to help with the scientific surgery, but couldn't, as the room had to remain sterile and there was cat hair everywhere which was an honest danger to the surgery- Carlos had to take another day or so to strengthen the bone again and make it work like normal. Luckily, with the help of science, that didn't take too long at all, and Carlos was up and hobbling again on his own legs in no time. Once he was walking on his own, though, there was nothing stopping him, and he immediately started work again, even though he was hobbling around with a cane and it was probably better advised that he rest more. The labs were, of course, happy to see him, and also extremely happy Carlos had been collecting data the entire time he was in the desert void. To them, his excursion wasn't wasted time, and was worth something, and there was something about those words that Cecil found awful sounding. It was probably him.
However, something was up, but it wasn't that. Cecil could tell at dinner a few days later that something was incredibly up with Carlos. Carlos had been back to work for all of three days and, up until that night, he hadn't talked much about all the science he was reacquainting himself with. Usually, Cecil was used to Carlos coming home and blabbering on about everything, only stopping to shove food into his mouth before continuing on. It had bothered him, at first, but he had grown accustomed to it, and at that point he hoped to revel in a scientific story or two in the evenings, since he'd been months without. And with this much experimentation going anew with all the data he'd gotten, it was honestly extremely surprising that Carlos was quiet. So quiet, in fact, that dinner was a little uncomfortable.
"Carlos?" Cecil eventually questioned, done with his meal, having spent the entire time in a deafening silence with Carlos saying nothing at all and Cecil unsure how to start conversation. Carlos looked up from stirring around his instant mashed potatoes, which he'd eaten very little of. He hadn't really been eating dinner a lot, honestly, and that was just as worrying. "Is everything... alright?"
"Of course it is, Cecil. Everything is fine. Scientists are always fine, remember?" Carlos smiled, and it wasn't a forced smile, but it was missing something. It was lacking, just slightly, like he wasn't really feeling the happy behind the teeth. It was an eclipse of his face, the sun visible around the edges of his smile but the middle gone, dark, uninviting and unyielding and unhappy. "Why?"
"You're just so... quiet." Cecil was concerned still, smile not abating his worries. And of course he had reason to worry, and that was the problem, as anything could be wrong. Carlos had come back from being lost forever in a void they knew little about, and he could have all sorts of illnesses or be suffering from a lack of something that didn't come back, or an addition of something that shouldn't have come back, or any other number of things. It wasn't uncommon for parasitic interstellar visitors to hitch onto people traveling through dimensions, like Carlos did, and with what had happened the day before, well...
"I've just had a long day." Carlos sighed, and there it was, the weight that he'd been hiding on his shoulders, making him heavy and melancholy. It was almost visible now, the smile with the eclipse broken now, gone. "It's okay, though. Long days happen. It's scientifically proven that some days are a lot longer than others. Even in Night Vale, where time doesn't work." He was trying to be bright, and happy, and science, but it wasn't working. It was easy to see through it, and Cecil wasn't going to stop being concerned.
"Did something happen?" Cecil asked. He got no response, just Carlos going back to stirring his potatoes and ignoring his food, which was Carlos trying to avoid a subject. That meant something did happen, of course, and Cecil's heart started racing. Most people might have left it, but with how worried Cecil was, he couldn't leave it alone. "Did something happen at the labs?" Again, no response, but Cecil pressed a little harder, taking a stab at a direction, hoping for a response. "Does it have to do with... the desert?" That caused a reaction in Carlos, his hand, once reaching for his glass, knocking it over by accident, spilling water over the table and the glass clattering to the floor. He reached for his napkin and attempted to clean it up, but he was agitated, and gave up quickly. Cecil reached out to take his hand, and he dodged the attempt.
"Can we please leave it alone?" Carlos stood quickly, forgoing the potatoes. "You're right, you're right, something happened, something happened in the desert behind the old oak doors. And I can't explain it, I don't know how to explain it. And neither can they, and I just... I need a little bit. To sort it out, to-to sort myself out, because there isn't a scientific explanation for this, and there has to be." He paused, hands clenched, looking back at his boyfriend with a sad frown, perfect teeth hidden, water dripping softly onto the carpet from the table. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He glanced at the floor, only to glance up, realizing how he sounded. "But-but it's not about you, I promise." He spoke urgently there, reassuring, needing Cecil to know, approaching him at the table where he still sat. "It's not about you, it's-it's not anything to do with us, I just... need to sort this out. Okay?"
"...Do you want to talk about it?" Cecil asked, standing to meet his boyfriend's gaze without him needing to lean down. Carlos's hands were on Cecil's arms like Cecil might run, or leave, or react badly, and Cecil took them and held them gently. "I could help, if you needed it. I'm, well... I know I say I'm into science, and I am! But I'm not... a good scientist. And I probably won't be able to help you science it out. So I don't know if I can help with that much. But I can try? And-and I can listen, and nod, and maybe, you know... Help that way."
"I... don't know how to talk about it, Cecil, that's the problem." Carlos pulled away gently, sadly, heading towards the front door. "Scientifically it's not possible. Scientifically, it's not a thing that happens, and I checked, I asked them in the labs, and it's just not... a real thing. Based in science, based in... in everything I base my decisions around it's simply not possible, not real, and I don't know how to explain it, because if it's not real then what is it?" Carlos turned, hands in the pockets of his casual lab coat. "I... I'm a scientist, Cecil. I'm supposed to be able to explain things. That's what science is. That is the essence of what you are supposed to accomplish with science - answers. And when science can't answer things, I... Before Night Vale, that didn't happen. And even in Night Vale, you just need... weird science to explain it, creative science, but it can be explained, mostly, and it's still science. And this... I don't even know how to start with this."
"Well, how about this." Cecil said, slowly approaching Carlos so as not to startle the scientist, since scientists did startle easy. He was being gentle, soft with his words and his approach, and it seemed to visibly calm Carlos. "You take as much time as you need to sort this out for yourself. And whenever you're ready, I'll be here. And we can go for a walk, and you can tell me what's going on. And I can stop worrying you have space worms in your head."
"Well, if it helps I can confirm I do not have space worms." Carlos smiled, reaching out and taking Cecil's hand. It was the first affectionate contact he had imitated since they got home, and it felt good. "I... I'll try and get it sorted enough by tomorrow, okay? Give me that long. And I'll try to explain. I probably won't explain well, but I'll make an attempt." Cecil gave the hand he was holding a squeeze, leading Carlos away from the door and into the den.
"And I will provide the upmost support that I can. As best I can." Cecil sat down on the sofa, pulling Carlos down next to him. "Unless you were mistaken about the space worms. That I don't think I can help with." They both chuckled, relaxed now, the conversation disappearing around them in a mist of Food Network and soft conversation about nothing much at all.
~o~o~
It took another three days before Carlos was ready to talk. He arrived home from the lab late one night, much later than usual, which already had Cecil on watch. He was a bit jumpy these days, and while it was rightfully so, he felt silly none the less, as Carlos always came home. Eventually. When he did arrive, he had a notebook tucked under one arm, and a serious look on his face.
"Carlos?" Cecil asked, from the kitchen. "You weren't home for dinner, so I just had leftovers, but I can warm you something up if you're-" He didn't get to finish as, without speaking, Carlos simply grabbed the host's hand and pulled him back to the door. "Okay, you can eat later." Cecil nodded, following along. He paused to lock the door, and when he turned Carlos was already at his beaten up little car, and Cecil had to jog down the stairs before he got left behind. Once in the car, they idled a moment, before Carlos peeled out of the driveway, speeding heavily down the main road through town.
Cecil said nothing, because he knew from the set frown and furrowed brow of Carlos's face that he wouldn't get an answer, or if he did he wouldn't get much. Instead, he gently reached for the notebook, flipping through it as they drove. It was a lot of science, collected scans of articles and things, and they all... had to do with gender? Well, mostly biological sex, with lots of pages on chromosomes and one that looked suspiciously like a DNA reading labeled "Carlos". He closed the book, unsure, but somehow... ready. Somehow he felt ready to help, even though he honestly had very little idea what was going on.
Eventually they reached the desert, and Carlos swerved hard into the sands, nearly doing a 180 before the car grinded to a halt. Cecil had not been ready for that, though, and clutched at the arm rests with angry cat hands. "Is... everything alright?" He basically squeaked, feeling afraid to let go of the car in case Carlos launched them onto the road or into space or something. With no answer, Carlos climbed out of the car, taking the notebook from the floor where it landed and slamming his door hard. Cecil scrambled out of the car, watching his boyfriend take the notebook and throw it, over handing it as hard as he possible could out into the desert before flopping into the sand to sit. Cecil sat next to him, silently, and put his arm around Carlos's shaking shoulders.
"According to science, I'm not... complete." Carlos finally said. It was a heavy statement, and it hit even Cecil fairly hard. The idea of being incomplete wasn't a new one to Night Vale, as people did tend to be missing things a lot of the time. But to hear that Carlos felt incomplete, to hear he felt unwhole, well, that hurt. And it hurt even worse to think how much it hurt Carlos. "I did a lot of research. I looked into everything. And I think... I think I came back missing something important."
"You seem complete to me." Cecil said, reassuringly, comfortingly, giving Carlos's shoulder a squeeze, feeling the muscles tense up under his arm. "Start from the beginning, Carlos. Tell me what's wrong."
"Well." Carlos stood, walking out into the desert in front of Cecil, hands in his pockets. "I guess the beginning is... the doors. When I got trapped, I... I started conversing with the native people. The stone people, you know, Dana's friends. And, Cecil, they're incredibly sophisticated for a race made of stone." He turned around, actually excited for a moment about the science. "They make weapons out of sand and lightning. They forge with lightning storms that come by, and they carve out of rocks with nothing but their weapons and their hands. They're astounding, Cecil, and-and there's a lot of things they don't need. They don't eat - there isn't any food out there, so it's probably some kind of evolutionary ideal that came about through natural selection - and they don't need water or sleep. And I think the desert actually does something to people, because I didn't sleep, either. Or eat. I wasn't ever hungry, or tired, or thirsty. I didn't need these things, though I missed your cooking quite a bit." He flushed a little, smile bright with science.
"And... there were other things they didn't do, didn't need." And here it dropped, fled the scene, his face now lax and almost a little sad. "They didn't refer to each other in third person a lot. They spoke of themselves as a whole, as "we" and "they". And while they look different, they didn't have... gender. There weren't males and females, just... stones. A collective of stones. And they didn't understand what I meant by using male pronouns, and I didn't press it. I became part of the... collective, the "We" and the "they". And then I'd call you, or I'd hear your show on the radio - I still tried to listen as often as I could - and I'd hear he was a hero, which," Carlos flushed, ruffling his own hair awkwardly, "I'm not really a hero, I'm just-just a scientist, um." He coughed, reinstating himself in his story. "But it would sound... weird, honestly. It sounded really strange to hear you use he, and I thought it was just the place and just the fact that I wasn't hearing it elsewhere that was causing it, but then I came back, and... and it stopped feeling weird and started feeling bad." Carlos looked at the ground, agitated and shaking again. "It felt... bad, weird bad, to hear the other scientists talking about me using he, and I couldn't tell why, and it was bothering me and I'm not ever really bothered like that, you know," He gestured wildly at nothing, trying to form an example and getting nothing.
"So I started looking into it. What it meant. And I found a lot of things, in the uh," He turned, realizing he'd thrown his research into the desert, and for a hot moment he was so caught off guard he couldn't continue forward. He regained his conversational skills after a second, and continued, "Well, they're in the book, which, I'll just, um... I'm just gonna leave it there. But I found a lot of scientific articles from other people on gender, and sex, and that... " He paused, looking back at the book. "People can change genders, which I already knew, and people can identify as a third gender, which I was vaguely aware of already not being a gender base scientist specifically and focusing more on the paranormal, you know, and I found that a lot of people say they don't have a gender, but when I asked in the lab, since one of them is a gender scientist and they work with that a lot, they laughed and said that... that you have to have a gender, because it's not like you don't have genitals you can't just outright ignore gender, even though sex and gender are in fact entirely different things of course... and, and, they said... even if there was a thing like having no gender, that... people knew. Before. Before they're my age. Scientifically speaking I am too old to be questioning this kind of thing because most people hit puberty between twelve and sixteen and are generally done growing and done learning about their basic bodily ideals by the time they're out of college and compared I'm old."
"You're not old." Cecil made a face, the first words out of his mouth during all that protest at the idea that Carlos was old. Carlos waved him off.
"That's not the point, that's... that's entirely not the point. I just... I was so comfortable how I was before, you know?" Carlos headed over, sitting down beside Cecil, speaking quietly. "I was comfortable with being male, and it's not like I'm changing genders because she feels even worse, but... I think... I think when I came back from that desert, I left my gender behind." He looked lost when he looked up at Cecil, confused and lost. "I had a gender, I had one. I was male. I enjoyed being male. And then... I come back, and that's gone. I feel empty, like I've got a whole in my chest. I'm not complete, Cecil, scientifically speaking I am an incomplete human being."
"Now you listen to me, Carlos." Cecil took Carlos's hands in his own, looking him right in the eyes. He made sure to keep Carlos's attention while he spoke, earnest and strong in tone. "First, I think your scientist friends need to get out more, because there are people who don't have gender, and that's perfectly okay. There are plenty of people in Night Vale that don't have gender. Some have identified that way for years. Some have had it stolen in the middle of the night. Some left theirs at the beach by accident." Cecil nodded, shifting a little closer, still serious. "Second- If you don't feel comfortable with male pronouns, then, that's who you are now, and that's perfectly okay. I don't know if your gender simply got left behind, but you are complete, and still you and there is nothing missing. You're not wrong, or incomplete, because you've still got a good heart," He gently poked Carlos in the chest, "and a great mind," And he poked Carlos's forehead, "And no matter what you identify as, or don't have, or have lost, you're still my boyfriend, or sciencefriend, or significant other, and there is nothing else that matters." He smiled. "But, if it makes you feel better, we can think of new pronouns for you. It's not fair to keep using male pronouns if they make you uncomfortable, and then once we think of new ones for you, we can get everyone to start using them. Because the most important thing is making sure you're comfortable here." Cecil nodded, smiling softly. "Would that be okay?"
"Yeah." Carlos smiled, brightly, the first time since his return, and then, quickly, gave Cecil a chaste kiss. "I like that a lot."
"Then let's go home and fix you dinner before you forget again." Cecil said, helping Carlos to his feet. "And... is significant other okay?" Cecil asked, softly, as they walked to the car. "I mean, instead of boyfriend, since you're not... a boy so much anymore."
"That works - though I did really like sciencefriend." They both laughed, holding hands tightly as they headed to the car.
~o~o~
"Now, listeners, .let us take a moment to talk about gender. Now, for those that don't know, gender isn't a scientific concept. Mostly. My ScienceFriend, Carlos the Scientist, has been doing a lot of research into the subject, and let me tell you, listeners, there is a lot more to gender than just boys and girls..."