In Night Vale, if Santa Claus is truly coming to town, then the best strategy is to be dead already.
Carlos leaned absently against the one open wall space in the hallway between the atrium and the kitchen, fidgeting with a Rubik's cube Cecil had brought to him the previous night in fascination. From the sink Cassie and Isabel's conversation drifted softly. It was early enough in the morning that the louder members of the family were still sound asleep, but late enough that the rest of them were enjoying a peaceful morning lazily preparing for the day's Christmas Eve festivities. Over and over the colors turned between his fingers without ever fully aligning.
"I'm ready whenever," Cecil's clear voice echoed up the staircase in the atrium as he swung around the banister at the bottom, tucking his sleeves into his jacket as he went. Carlos attempted a few more shuffled twists before his eyes focused beyond the cube in his hands to a pair of silver wingtips carefully aligned with his own worn-out red sneakers. With a grin, the scientist set the cube on the end table and turned his attention towards Cecil instead.
"I hear you're off on an adventure."
"It's just the mall," Cecil shrugged. "Cris says they decorate it elaborately. I'm assuming the tinsel here isn't technically a weapon, so I have to admit I'm excited."
"Kinda put your shopping off til the last minute, don't you think?" Carlos teased.
"Oh, I'm not going to shop. I just want to see what the mall is like here." Something about it didn't ring true since he had specifically asked Cassie if he could go along to shop the afternoon before, but Carlos didn't question it. Cecil wasn't normally one for surprises, but after all their months together, the scientist had to admit his boyfriend had a lot of incongruities and little mysteries still waiting to be solved. Cassanya coughed abruptly, dragging Carlos from whatever train of thought his mind was lazily traversing along. Both men looked up at her in unison as she pointed above them.
"Mistletoe," she sang. A sharp blush crept instantly to the scientist's cheeks.
"Tradition goes," he explained quietly, "those caught together under the mistletoe are required to kiss." Cecil eyed him suspiciously.
"You're teasing."
"Well come on then," Cassie interrupted. "If we don't have our traditions what do we have, really?" Carlos raised his eyebrows as Cecil pulled him shyly across the hallway. For a tender moment, Cecil's indigo eyes searched his face, memorizing all the tiniest details before softly pressing their lips together. There was always something sweet and slightly dizzying about Cecil's kisses that frequently and alarmingly literally seemed to stop time. Carlos assumed it was just another Night Vale anomaly, except that even there in the very normal hallway beneath very normal mistletoe, the very normal kiss still seemed to slow the world a bit. As softly and gently as it began, it ended and time resumed its normal patterns.
"I'm beginning to really like Christmas," Cecil whispered as he took a bashful step back.
"Hey, Cecil, I finally wrangled all the kids into the car. You ready to go?" Cris called as he stomped the snow off his boots at the front door.
"Yeah." Cecil turned back to Carlos. "Sure you don't want to come along?"
"I've been assigned to pie duty," the scientist sighed. "Text me if you need me." Cecil leaned in and kissed him once more, whispering an I love you before following Cris out into the snow. Carlos just stared up at the mistletoe to avoid his sister's gaze. Instead of the ribbing he was anticipating, she made a small sniffling noise. He stepped quickly around the countertop to confirm his suspicions. "Oh my god, are you crying?"
"I am not," she retorted as she blotted at her cheek with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.
"You are such a teenage girl," he teased.
"Shut up, Carlos. I just think you two are sweet. I mean there's love, and then there's love, where he eats left-handed because he refuses to let go of your hand under the table," Cassie explained as she began to measure flour into a dish.
"That's because Cecil's ambidextrous and a show-off," Carlos dismissed.
"Ah yes, ambidextrous. That explains why you practically finished each other's sentences during that story at dinner last night."
"I don't have a good excuse for that," Carlos admitted finally.
"All I'm saying, Carlito, is that I know what love like that is like. And my biggest regret in my life was not holding on to Alex as tightly as I could have. So you hold on to him until your fingers bleed, you got that?" Carlos absently sifted powdered sugar and tried very hard to not think about how literally he could one day have to take those instructions in the relative chaos of Night Vale.
Cecil eyed the children in line to see Santa skeptically as he listened to the phone ring. Three tones later, the scientist's silken voice echoed over the phone.
"Hey, is everything alright?" The question had been asked enough times over the past three days to make anyone feel like a small, incompetent child; however Cecil wasn't just anyone. He was well aware of his slight tendency to panic at deviations from the status quo. More than that, he never for one moment took it lightly that existence itself had aligned at a precise intersection to bring him someone as beautiful and smart and caring as Carlos; let alone that in the whole, wide universe, this tiny fragment of imperfect perfection chose to care about him and the minute details of his infinitesimal and rather dull life. So he just smiled to himself and reassured Carlos that, as always, everything in the world was deeply unpredictable and relative, but fine.
"Except," he added "I can't figure out why so many people want their children photographed with a Santa impersonator."
"Parents tell their children that Santa is the one who brings the presents Christmas morning," the scientist patiently explained.
"Exactly. It's terrible. The fact that they force the children to sit on his lap..it's all very upsetting, isn't it?" Carlos just laughed - all warm and bright and breathtaking, just like everything else about the scientist. Cecil loved making him laugh, even if he didn't always understand why the things he said were humorous.
"It's okay. Santa always scared me too. I mean, the guy breaks into your house. And the whole 'sees you when you're sleeping' thing creeped me out as a kid," he confided.
"I-I like that he wears red here too though. It's familiar, though traditionally deeper red back home. You know - supposedly stained with the blood of the children who have been naughty according to the Night Before Christmas poem." The phone line went temporarily silent. "I suppose not everyone is well-versed in the laundering properties of hydrogen peroxide," Cecil laughed uncomfortably. Even he could tell he was babbling. It was only a problem that presented itself when he was extremely nervous, or slightly tipsy, or when he was telling other people about Carlos. Before he could absently start in on any further bedtime stories, he tugged a folded paper from his pocket. The creases in the light pink diner menu were well-worn from months of covert scrutiny, the scrawled list on the reverse side so carefully memorized by heart. His eyes flitted down the list to the selection of colors. "Carlos, if you had to live the rest of your life in eternal sunlight, eternal moonlight, or..well, I suppose in an eternal lack of all light - which would you choose?"
"Moonlight," Carlos replied almost immediately.
"But why moonlight?" Cecil pressed.
"Well, sunlight is warm, but moonlight is soft. Shapes and colors are segregated by one, and equalized by the other. A lack of light is essentially useless in all aspects."
"And you prefer simplicity to receiving recognition?" Cecil continued quickly.
"I guess it depends on the situation. Why are you asking me so many questions?" Carlos sounded slightly suspicious.
"I just like knowing things about you," Cecil hurried. It was partially true. He did like knowing things about Carlos. Cecil wasn't one to forget much of anything (unless it was mandated, of course), but when it came to Carlos he didn't forget a single fact. All the bits of information spoken in passing in the kitchen or confessed late at night in the dark were collected and kept at the back of his mind in a steady murmur. He knew exactly how much sugar Carlos liked in his coffee and which shoe he always double-knotted first and the reasons why he wouldn't do certain things in bed and which dreams he would have followed if he hadn't become a scientist. And now he knew exactly what to buy him for Christmas.
"Well, which light would you choose?" Carlos countered.
"I would like to say moonlight, though I don't trust the moon. Then again, the sun is slowly dying, so perhaps I don't trust it either. Anyway, I have to be back at the main atrium in approximately," he checked the watch his boyfriend had given him all those months ago and realized that for the first time it actually seemed congruent with the hour, "22 minutes, so I should go." With one more assurance that he was fine and everything was still fine, he ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket. The menu too was folded and replaced carefully back into his jacket. He inhaled deeply through his nose and exhaled the air back out in a quick breath before turning the corner to the little shop.
For the house being an increasingly hectic mess of festivities, things went considerably well for quite some time. Cecil spent a good part of the afternoon helping Isabel make the eggnog. After she caught him slipping extra cinnamon in behind her back, her lips slipped into a sly smile and she pulled out a few more experimental spices. They took turns taste-testing their unorthodox recipe between dashes. Later, as the whole family gathered in the living room to pass around a guitar and sing carols, he hummed along with a fair number of them. When the guitar was placed in his hands, he quickly passed it along to one of the cousins, with the excuse that he had learned very different words to most of the songs. Cecil even helped hang the stockings along the mantle, all the while listening to Rosa explain how carefully she knit each one as grandchildren married and families grew. But there were increasingly frequent moments when he thought nobody was looking that he allowed a distressed expression to flit across his face. Once Cris finally got the tree set up in the window, Cecil went out of his way to give it a careful berth. During a few of the carols, he squinted his eyes shut tight and moved his lips soundlessly and very rapidly in an unreadable garble. When Martin and Leah stepped into the living room with arms full of garishly wrapped gift boxes, Cecil slipped away again.
Anyone who didn't know him the way Carlos did would have overlooked the slurred excuse, the immediate escape from the room. It took Night Vale to recognize the panic in his eyes. By the time he reached their bedroom, Cecil was curled up against the headboard against the wall. It was his reaction when things upset him to withdraw into as small a shape as possible, as if taking up the least amount of space in the universe would give it less of a reason to turn its attention onto him.
"It's that bad in Night Vale?" Carlos asked as he sat gently on the edge of the bed.
"No worse than most holidays. Legend has it long ago some of the early settlers cut down the lone tree that was able to grow in the desert and brought it into their makeshift home for a pagan celebration. The earth swore its vengeance, and now every year the trees appear within homes with no distinct pattern. It's practically a death omen, since Santa visits the homes with trees bearing unknown terrors bundled in bright-colored boxes," he explained in a hoarse whisper. From their conversation earlier, Carlos gathered that 'Santa' was something very real and very bloody in Night Vale.
"I thought he only went after the naughty children?"
"Let's just say Christmas is a dangerous time for everyone. Naughty or nice." Carlos opened his mouth to say something, but Cecil beat him to it. "I'm not stupid. I realize there's a difference between your world and mine. Old traditions just die hard," he sighed, curling even further into himself.
"That's why you don't like presents then?" Cecil nodded emphatically. "It's safe though, I promise," Carlos assured gently. "I wouldn't let anything bad happen to you." He offered a hand, but Cecil shook his head and reached instead for his carefully smuggled bloodstone from the outside pocket of the suitcase.
"It's just a lot of changes, all too fast," he explained guiltily as he clutched the bloodstone tightly between his fingers. Of course Carlos was a little disappointed. He had brought Cecil mostly to meet his family, but partially in the hope that his boyfriend would experience and participate in the traditions of the outside world and realize that there were alternatives to living in perpetual fear. But then his mind wandered back to his exhausting first few months in Night Vale when he quite genuinely doubted his own sanity and had nearly suffered a complete collapse due to the confusing, foreign terrors he couldn't come to terms with. Cecil had listened to his late night phone calls full of desperate ramblings, and had even braved the wrath of Station Management just to help him find answers. So instead of being upset or disappointed, he let his expectations go and placed a comforting hand on Cecil's folded knee.
"I know, querido. You don't have to participate in anything you're uncomfortable with." Alessandra chose that moment to burst into the room unexpectedly.
"Tio Carlos, Mama just found the ornaments and Lena already hung the angel on top!" She ran back down the hall stopping at various doors to dutifully call the occupants within back down to the festivities.
"Go on," Cecil nodded to the doorway. "It's tradition after all."
"Is he okay?" Cris asked as Carlos slipped back into the living room and sat on the sofa with Cassie. "Looked pretty pale there for a minute."
"He's fine, just tired." Cassie shoved a carton of wire hooks into his lap and handed him re-assembled ornaments to thread them through.
"You sure?" she whispered pointedly. He looked away from her inquisitive gaze. "Look," she continued quietly. "I understand being eclectic - which he definitely is - but there's something about him that I can't put my finger on. I get the impression there's some secret the two of you are trying very hard to hide, and I can understand and respect that. Just - is everything really okay?" Carlos handed a bright blue bauble to Nicholas and watched him teeter trying to reach the perfect branch to place it.
"It's complicated, Cass. When I say he comes from a strange town, I don't mean a backwards holler in the Appalachians or a secluded super-conservative compound somewhere. I mean he comes from the Twilight Zone, practically." He paused to hand out a few more finished glass balls to waiting hands. "Part of the reason why I was so eager to bring him home was in the hopes that he would see there are other ways to live that can be just as good. Instead, all this trip has done is make him homesick for the desert," he sighed.
"You don't call the desert home then?"
"It is, in some ways - a lot of ways," he corrected himself. "I'm happy there, but I miss a world that makes sense sometimes. Of course I'd never leave him; I'm just afraid he's completely terrified of ever leaving Night Vale again after this trip." He set the tray of hooks on the coffee table as the family took a collective step back to admire their finished work. The tree sparkled with lights that reflected in colorful patterns on the shining ornaments. It didn't take long before one-by-one sleepy parents carried sleepier children off to bed. Eventually it was only the two of them and Alessandra sitting quietly watching the lights, with little Nicholas sound asleep in the scientist's lap.
"I don't know the situation, Carlos, so I can't tell you very well what to do from here. But I can tell you that love is a choice. Not a one-time decision, but a daily choice to wake up in the morning and put your needs second to those of someone else. It isn't a perfect system, and it's easily abused, but if both of you make that same decision then you'll be happy wherever or however that may be." She rose to leave, gently removing the sleeping child from her brother's lap. "Santa's going to be stopping by in only an hour or two," she explained, then in a whisper "and she doesn't have any wrapping done yet. Feliz navidad, Carlito," she said with a ruffle of his hair before switching out the light and leaving him alone in the glow from the tree.
It wasn't even a full five minutes later that the floorboards squeaked ever so softly. Turning suddenly, he was surprised to see Cecil standing at the opposite end of the sofa, two large mugs in hand. Handing the scientist a mug of eggnog, he sat down wordlessly. The frothy drink had been unequivocally his favorite part of the festivities, as he very proudly watched for reactions to his original recipe. Carlos found it surprisingly good, even if it did have a bit of heat from some unknown mixture of spices that Isabel had uncharacteristically agreed to. Cecil was persuasive and charming enough that people normally went with his ideas. It was part of what made him such an indispensable part of Night Vale's community.
"I'm sorry," Cecil said, finally breaking the long silence as he set his empty mug on the floor and lay down comfortably with his head in Carlos's lap. Out of habit, he began to brush his fingers through Cecil's soft hair.
"You don't have to be sorry. I'm so proud of how well you've been managing, actually."
"But I could do better - try harder. I really do like learning about where you came from," Cecil insisted. He tugged restlessly at the sleeves of his violet pinstripe pajamas before sitting back up again. "I have a whole new appreciation now for how it must have been for you coming to Night Vale. Everything in your world is so...benign."
"I guess it is," Carlos agreed with a laugh.
"I'm sorry I missed your Christmas traditions though," Cecil said with a frown. "I know it was special to you, and I shouldn't have freaked out the way I did." Carlos dismissed it with a shake of his head. "I mean it," Cecil continued, scooting closer. "But since it's our first Christmas actually spent together, I was thinking maybe we could start some traditions of our own." He reached into the pocket of his pajamas and produced a small box carefully wrapped in festive paper. "It's not so scary if I know what's inside," he added as he handed it to Carlos. The scientist smiled and reached into his own pocket, removing a slightly larger box that was much less-elegantly wrapped.
"I guess we had the same idea then," he said with a grin. "At the same time?"
"No!" Cecil interjected unexpectedly. "I want to open mine first," he quickly added with a quirky little grin.
"Sorry the box looks like a train ran over it," Carlos apologized self-consciously.
"Not a train," Cecil drawled with a quick kiss on his cheek. "Maybe a semi-truck, but not a train." Carlos made a miffed little sound as Cecil giggled and tore the rest of the paper off to reveal a shiny purple pen. "It's my favorite color!" Cecil bubbled as he removed the pen from its box and examined it. "I never took you for such a rebel."
"It's a space pen. The tip is made from fitted carbide, and the ink is held in a hermetically sealed pressurized reservoir and is forced out by compressed nitrogen." Cecil gave him the bemused little stare that let the scientist know he'd gone a little too far into science. "It writes in zero gravity." This was a concept Cecil could easily understand. "It was meant for astronauts in space, but I figured maybe you could use it on Tuesdays-"
"At the Pinkberry," Cecil finished in unison. "I can't believe you remembered that." He leaned over and kissed Carlos softly, careful not to linger in case restless nighttime wanderings were a trait the rest of the family shared. "Your turn," he whispered as he leaned away.
"Mine looks like a truck ran over it and yours is flawless," Carlos mumbled as he carefully unwrapped the little box. He lifted the lid to reveal a simple silver ring contrasted against the box's black interior. "Cecil, what is this?" His voice was slightly trembling as his mind tried to process the implications. He looked up to see Cecil perched up on both knees on the floor in front of him, hair messy and glasses off-kilter in his striped purple pajamas.
"Carlos, do you want to spend the rest of our lives together?" Cecil rushed suddenly. The scientist was momentarily stunned as his mind tried to catch up to the reality of the situation. Cecil shook his head in confusion. "Sorry, I think that's supposed to come at the end, isn't it? Feelings first, question after. I'm getting this all wrong." He took a careful breath and gently removed the box from Carlos's hands, replacing it with his own. His voice softened into the tone he only used when something was very special, and very important. "Carlos, I know we haven't been together long. Only 557 days in fact, but it feels like so much longer. According to your science that's because time in Night Vale is slower than it should be, but I like to think it's also because of love. I love you, Carlos. I've loved you since I met you in fact, and I'm quite sure I'll love you until the day those lights above Arby's finally descend to disrupt the democracy and overtake our planet after annihilating all living things through the use of technology that I assume will be far beyond our own."
"In other words until the day you die?" Carlos whispered with a cross between a hiccup and a laugh.
"And should our existence beyond the grave be sentient and capable of thought and emotion, I'm sure I will love you long after that." He paused for a moment to gather the rest of his thoughts and try to stop the deep blush that was blooming across his face. "The lady at the jewelry store warned me that I couldn't marry you in Arizona, but I don't know that I really care because all I want to do is spend the rest of my life loving you in whatever way I can for however long that may be. So, my darling, wonderful Carlos," he reached back for the little box with the ring inside, "do you want to spend the rest of our lives together?"
In that single moment, a hundred different memories flooded through the scientist's mind. Some were memories of his past, the quiet life he had led long before his existence was spun upside down by an unexpected gravitational shift. Some were memories of his recent conversations with his sister, the realization of everything he would be giving up in the world for a concept he had never fully believed in until a year ago. But then came the memories of his new life, the one he shared with his strange radio host. The night they watched the lights at Arby's, their first kiss in the front seat of Cecil's car, the quiet moments in the morning when all the world seemed to disappear around them, the way Cecil blushed every time he kissed him, the way his eyes sparkled so deeply amethyst every time he said I love you - the very same way they sparkled right now. As he looked carefully at the man on two knees on the living room floor in his pajamas with his hair in a mess and his glasses at a tilt, suddenly every doubt and every second thought vanished, because Carlos knew. He knew that everything before Cecil wasn't worth remembering, every day without him wasn't worth living. Cecil was the most beautiful, unexpected, wonderful thing that had ever happened in his life, and even if the way he loved him was unexplainable, Carlos knew it was its own form of perfection that he would never find again. And so, as the Christmas lights sparkled all around them, Carlos said one sentence with absolute certainty.
"I think that would be pretty neat."
Cecil was on top of him in an instant, arms around his neck as kisses were planted quickly and quite thoroughly everywhere, finishing with one blissfully tender one that lingered a recklessly long time on his lips.
"So I did that okay?" he asked finally, climbing off Carlos's lap and settling in a slightly more proper distance away, but still close enough to practically be on top of his now-fiancé if he wanted.
"You did that perfectly, querido," Carlos beamed.
"I've been nervous for weeks," he sighed. "We don't do proposals like this in Night Vale. It's all very different with a joined prayer in the Old Tongue and then there's a cow involved and - well, it's all just very simple really. And back home we could get married - well, not necessarily married. Technically it's soul-binding, but we can choose to have a ceremony if we want to. I mean, not that we have to get bound or have a ceremony or even do anything, but we can-" Carlos leaned over and kissed him again, quite effectively silencing the nervous chatter.
"I think I'd like to make it official if you would," Carlos said as Cecil carefully slipped the ring onto his finger.
"Oh, I'd love it," Cecil sighed, collapsing back against the sofa and leaning his head contentedly on Carlos's shoulder. "I had no idea how proposals worked in the outside world. You'd never believe who I had to ask for advice." Cecil yawned. Carlos thought for a minute to which Night Vale residents would have a functional knowledge of the world beyond the desert.
"You didn't..." he said incredulously after a moment.
"Steve grew up in Arkansas, if anyone was going to know the outside world it would unfortunately be him." Cecil confirmed, wrinkling his nose.
"You asked Steve Carlsberg how to propose to me," Carlos chuckled quietly. "I can't believe he even helped you after all the crap you put him through on the radio."
Cecil shrugged. "I guess he figured I could make his life worse if he didn't cooperate. He was really helpful. We met for coffee and he made me a list of traditional settings and the proper format and the getting to your knees and everything. I've carried it around for months trying to figure out how to do this, and I still got it in the wrong order."
"You got it absolutely perfect," Carlos insisted as he wrapped an arm around Cecil's shoulders. The colorful lights of the tree glimmered off the silver band mesmerizingly. "Silver like moonlight," he realized quietly. "Gold would be sunlight, and black for an absence of all light?" Cecil nodded. "And it's simple and doesn't draw unnecessary attention. You really did get it perfect." Cecil was blushing beet red again as he buried his face shyly in the flannel of the scientist's shirt.
"Hey, how do you say 'Merry Christmas' in Spanish?" he yawned after a minute.
"Feliz navidad."
"Feliz navidad," Cecil repeated slowly.
"Mm, feliz navidad, mi cariño," Carlos whispered with a soft kiss to the top of his sleepy fiancé's head.
End Notes: So this happened. I've always secretly been a fan of surprise engagements in stories, so I figured why not? Besides I think Cecil trying to propose without the normality of ritualistic animal sacrifice would be endearing to say the least. And seriously: what about Santa Claus is NOT incredibly creepy? I mean really.