Chapter 10 - Partially Stars
We understand so much.

Carlos had tried to be more tolerant of Night Vale in the week that followed his and Cecil's expedition to the imaginary zone, but hard as he tried he couldn't seem to grasp the idea of simply accepting the world around him without question. Instead the questions ate away at him with renewed fervor; the sleepless nights grew longer; the thoughts slipped further towards madness. The deeper he attempted to dig into Night Vale, the more confounding the twisted little town seemed to become until one day as he tried to save it, it tried to claim him.

The first thought that crossed the scientist's mind was that his pulse was very loud. Extremely loud. Too loud. His eyes fluttered open to a dizzy out-of-focus mess of panicked faces. There were hands touching him, pinning him to the floor, crushing his ribcage. The next thought that crossed his mind was that dying didn't hurt as badly as he expected. Somewhere on the fringe of his consciousness he knew at least one - maybe two - ribs were fractured. Breathing seemed to make the faces above him even more panicked and cause the warm leaking sensation surrounding him to spread. So Carlos closed his eyes and held his breath as best he could and let his mind wander off somewhere safe and dry and far away so that he could die pleasantly.

He didn't know how long passed until the pain brought him back around. By his estimation it could have been hours - days even, but the same panicked faces surrounded him when he finally opened his eyes. In the mere minutes or moments that must have transpired, the whole world had shifted. There was fire shooting through his chest and down his right arm, which were both in the process of being bandaged by Teddy Williams, the slightly deranged owner of the Desert Rose Bowling Alley & Arcade Fun Complex. Carlos prayed to the deity he didn't actually believe in for Teddy Williams to be slightly more in touch with reality than his previous actions seemed to indicate. For better or for worse, the world was coming back into what focus it could, given the scientist had lost his glasses somewhere in the scuffle. It was tilting however. And not simply literally, though the world also seemed to be literally tilting at the edges of Carlos's vision due to the loss of blood. Everything else about the world also seemed to be spinning, adjusting, realigning itself precisely 180 degrees from where it belonged. He pushed away the excruciating pain that had begun to pulsate through his entire body; he pushed away the concerned, hushed voices until they became a dull murmur; he pushed away everything and focused on the strange new angled tilt of reality that was clicking into place.

That is to say - Carlos the scientist finally understood.

It had taken a whole year and nearly dying to do so, but suddenly he understood everything. All the scientific explanations and experiments and orderly rows of letters and numbers he had trusted in all his life were so pointless, when all along it had been so simple. Carlos understood that the questions he had asked for so long really had been wrong after all. He understood that the world was so much bigger and stranger than his books had always told him. He understood that all he would ever know with certainty from this point forward was what his curiosity could show him. The pain had begun to throb again; the worried sounds had begun to grow louder, but this time he heard a familiar voice amidst the murmur. Somewhere there was a radio playing, as there always seemed to be in Night Vale, and somewhere Cecil was saying his name. There was something wrong with his voice - it was broken, fractured like the rib that Teddy Williams had just set back into place with an agonizing stab of pain. Cecil was crying, and it was the only thing Carlos cared about. And suddenly, he understood that too.

It was where he had gone. As life was slipping away from him in a puddle blooming crimson around his body, he had closed his eyes and let his mind wander. In those quiet moments, he found himself lost in lavender eyes that sparkled iridescent with the reflection of fictitious constellations, in a shy smile that flickered like the flame of a candle, and a musical little laugh that seemed oddly higher pitched than the words that surrounded it. His final moments hadn't been a montage of his life or a list of all his regrets or a dark tunnel with a bright light. They had been Cecil.

"I'm fine," Carlos told the people hovering over him; his voice was shaking. "I can walk," he assured an objecting Teddy Williams; the floor was reeling beneath every step. It didn't matter. None of it mattered now that he finally understood everything Cecil had tried to warn him, to tell him, to show him - and just shy of too late. The drive to Arby's was painful and difficult, but the moment he saw Cecil across the parking lot, the pain didn't matter anymore either. Their conversation was quiet and words were few, but that too seemed vastly unimportant, because Carlos was beginning to learn that words weren't always necessary with Cecil. Somehow so much of the time, he just knew.

So Carlos sat there next to him on the hood of his car, one arm bandaged and still slightly bleeding, and they watched the lights for several tranquil minutes while he tried to piece together this new brand of logic. It was letting go, and he had never been good at letting go - not of his mother after she passed away when he was young, not of the bitterness when his heart had been broken by happy endings gone wrong, and now not of the unwavering trust he had put in reality for all his life. But as he looked over at the man content to sit quietly next to him, Carlos knew that for the first time he would have something steady to hold on to. So he reached out and placed a careful hand on Cecil's knee - a tether to this first and most basic fact in his strange new comprehension of reality. Almost instinctively, Cecil readjusted to gently rest his head on the scientist's good shoulder. And that was how they stayed for a long time.

End Notes: it's actually kinda interesting that the turning point in their whole relationship happens to be the shortest chapter so far, but I wanted it to be a bit scattered and unfocused since it's from Carlos's POV after all. also: the scene at the Arby's is the cutest thing ever and I intentionally didn't want to ruin it with whatever my version would be so I wanted to leave their conversation pretty much up to canon/reader interpretation and focus more on what it means for Carlos and his new outlook on life.

Thanks so much for all the favorites and reviews, I'm seriously so happy that other people are enjoying reading this as much as I'm enjoying writing it! :)