Chapter Text
19.
The hot water in Cecil's apartment was astonishingly plentiful. Carlos wondered what, precisely, Cecil had sacrificed this time in order to make it work so efficiently and in such abundance.
He'd made Nijeia shower first. Carlos was proud of himself for that. He’d never expected to have children, and in the space of a single evening he’d probably proven that he was the worst foster parent ever, but he’d picked up enough from his abuela to know, at least, that Nijeia’s needs came first, and that a hot bath and an early bedtime were the proper remedies after a long and miserable day.
(Privately, he was just grateful that the seventeen-year-old version of Nijeia was grown up enough to see the sense in his suggestion. If she'd fought him, he doubted he would have had the nerve to put his foot down. She was practically grown now. Did he have the right to make her do anything, anymore?)
At any rate, Nijeia was safely in bed now, and it was Carlos's turn in the shower. He was enjoying it. This shocked him, slightly; after everything he’d just been through, it seemed wrong that he could take pleasure in anything. But the noise and the sensation of the hot water beating against his body was like a shield, or a dampener, preventing him from feeling anything else too much. He wanted to stay for as long as the water heater held up. But he was already getting light-headed, and he knew he needed to get out soon. He'd lost blood when the Orphanarians ran his car off the road. Not enough to require hospitalization or a transfusion, but enough that it took several minutes for the water to run clear while he was rinsing his hair and scalp. Carlos knew that Cecil was hovering just outside the bathroom door, ready with clean clothes, towels, and a steady arm in case Carlos collapsed. The first two things sounded nice; the third would be adding far too much drama to an already overly-theatrical night of events.
Carlos was just reaching, reluctantly, to turn the water off when Cecil knocked. It was a worried-sounding knock—tentative, lasting a beat or two longer than it should have.
"Come in," he called, and, turning his scrubbed face up to the hot spray one last time, he cut the water. As soon as it was off, the air conditioning began burning him with cold. In a distant, clinical way, he was aware that he was in some form of shock. But that was okay, he told himself, chuckling under his breath. If a year spent in Night Vale was good for anything, it was for building up an immunity to shock.
"Everything all right?” said Cecil, sounding dubious, as he entered. Carlos was still hiding behind the shower curtain, so there was no point nodding. Instead, he reached a hand over the top of the curtain rod. Cecil immediately handed him a towel. He rubbed his hair gently, mindful of the still-oozing abrasions on his scalp, then patted himself off and wrapped the towel around his waist. He didn't quite succeed in pulling the curtain open, but Cecil did it for him, not even glancing at Carlos's clumsy, fumbling fingers. He extended an arm for Carlos to brace himself against as he climbed over the edge of the tub. Ccil had placed his pajamas in a neatly folded pile on the lid of the toilet.
Carlos knew that Cecil was about to excuse himself so Carlos could dress in private. But surely they were past that point now? If Cecil had resisted the temptation to maul Carlos in his sleep, he could be trusted not to feel that Carlos pulling on a pair of boxers and a t-shirt in his presence was equivalent to making a promise he didn't intend to keep. So Carlos turned his back and dressed quickly. He heard Cecil catch his breath when he dropped the towel, but Carlos knew that, once again, it was the sight of the bruises and scrapes that Cecil was reacting to.
Would they ever do this in a normal way—share an intimacy that wasn’t forged from some kind of horror? Would they even have anything in common if their emotions weren’t always being stirred to a fever pitch over traumatic events? Maybe ordinary life, if they ever achieved such a thing, would feel like some kind of bizarre disappointment in comparison to all the drama they’d been through. Maybe Cecil would lose interest in him when he no longer needed to be rescued and looked after. Or maybe Carlos would never get over this; maybe he’d always be broken and vulnerable, and Cecil would eventually get bored of that.
Carlos took longer than necessary, adjusting his t-shirt and pants. He turned to the sink and brushed the sand and grit from between his teeth without meeting Cecil’s eyes in the mirror. Of course, Cecil never looked at mirrors, so maybe he didn’t notice.
Carlos was shivering slightly when he rinsed his toothbrush and turned the bathroom light off. Cecil reached for his arm, and Carlos let him take it. He did not, however, let Cecil take him to the bedroom, despite his gentle tugging in that direction. He went to the living room instead. Cecil followed, rather than be separated from him.
Once he was out in the open of the largest room in Cecil’s apartment, Carlos began pacing. He checked each window, one by one. Those that weren't already locked, he locked, pulling the shades down for good measure. He could feel Cecil tensing behind him. Of course, making the windows opaque went against a lifetime of training, for Cecil. But Carlos really couldn't give a damn, and he was ruthlessly prepared to take advantage of Cecil's unwillingness to refuse him anything at the moment. Everything of importance that was going to happen tonight had already happened. The police were already up to speed on all that. The only thing left was his impending breakdown, and Carlos preferred to minimize the number of people who witnessed it.
"Where is he now?" Carlos asked brusquely, as he secured the final window. The door should come next; yes, Cecil had been preoccupied, getting the three of them into the apartment earlier. He could easily have forgotten to lock the door. (Except that Cecil wouldn’t take chances with Carlos’s safety, not if he could help it; he’d said so, he’d made that officer look in every room before he even let Carlos inside, it wasn’t Cecil’s fault that—)
“He’s in the custody of the secret police," said Cecil gently, not needing to be told which "he" Carlos was referring to. "He's in temporary holding while they decide precisely what to charge him with. There are some jurisdictional tangles. The Orphanarians have a claim on him as well. It's been a long time since anyone crossed them. I think they'd like to make an example of him."
"Well, they can't." Carlos unfastened, then refastened each of the five locks and deadbolts on Cecil's front door. "He's got rights. He's not from here. And he crossed state lines when he came after me; that makes his crimes federal." It was strange to Carlos how little connection there was between what he was feeling and what he was saying. A federal crime? What ridiculous TV show did he pluck that bit of trivia from? Even if it was true, the last thing he wanted was to draw outside attention to Night Vale.
“The representatives of the vague, yet menacing government agency are welcome to put in a claim for him if they like," said Cecil in a slow, careful voice that came much too close humoring him for Carlos's liking. "I doubt they will, though. They're as scared of the Orphanarians as everyone else."
"Well, I'm not going to let them lock him in a cave for the rest of his natural life, or feed him to a five-headed dragon, or make him into some kind of archaic harvest sacrifice," Carlos snapped. "I've got rights too. If this had happened in New Mexico—”
"It didn't happen in New Mexico," said Cecil. "It happened here. He broke into my home and threatened to kill us. He kidnapped you and Nijeia. You can argue with the secret police all you like, but I’m afraid it won't make a difference."
“No, of course not.” Carlos laughed bitterly. “It’s not like listening to me has ever, I don’t know, saved their lives. What was I thinking?”
“Everyone in Night Vale knows what they owe you,” said Cecil, his voice persuasive, urgent, alarmed. “All the more reason for the police to want the person who hurt you swiftly and severely punished!”
“But not enough to give me any say. Not enough to take into consideration how the actual victim of the crime might be feeling.”
“You will get a chance to say anything you want to say.” Cecil worried at his lower lip. His hands were clasped tightly together in front of him. “The officer who took our information earlier sent me a text. He said they’re coming by tomorrow morning to get our statements.”
“What about the trial? Do you even have those here, or are they just held in secret?”
Cecil opened his mouth, then closed it, and shrugged helplessly.
“God.” Carlos pulled at his hair. It stung the scrapes along his scalp, so he stopped. "What is it with this place anyway? Do people just not care about human life? There’s no justice system, no social services, people die in droves—how do you even sustain your population from one generation to the next? Nothing about this place makes sense! Nothing, Cecil, are you hearing me?"
Not until he saw the tears standing in Cecil's eyes did the flow of angry words dry up. But he couldn't make himself apologize, or take any of it back. He needed answers. He needed things to make sense. He needed…
"It must be wonderful, where you come from," said Cecil, discreetly wiping a tear away under the pretense of scratching his cheek. "I guess the police there never make mistakes, and all the children get to be taken care of by people who love them, and justice is easy. Obviously, it can't be perfect, or that man would never have hurt you there, but I guess that once he was caught, everyone would have known how to keep him from hurting anyone else, without being harsher than he deserved. But Night Vale is my home, Carlos. I'm the person I am because I've always lived here. I guess I hoped that you would grow to love it the way I do, even if it isn't perfect. That…if you grew to care about me, you could see Night Vale the way I see it.” He sniffed once. “Maybe that was too much to expect."
Carlos felt his chest growing tight. He was faintly aware that his mouth had fallen open, like it was prepared to spill an avalanche of scathing retort, but he knew perfectly well that he had no retort to make.
Scientists owed a duty to fact, and to truth. As a boy, he'd hurt his family by turning away from many of their beliefs because he knew even then that serving the truth, to the limits of his understanding, was his calling in life, a calling higher than any other loyalty or bias he possessed.
He wasn’t thinking like a scientist now. If he were, he would have to acknowledge to himself that Night Vale was only shocking because its flaws were different than the flaws he was used to. They weren’t any worse, probably. Even if they were, that wasn’t a qualification he was qualified to make. He wasn’t a sociologist, or a philosopher.
He was, at the moment, just a guy. A hurt, angry, frightened guy, lashing out irrationally because he didn’t know how to make himself feel better. And that wasn’t just unscientific: it was stupid. Because the person he was lashing out at was the last person he wanted to hurt, and the only person who could make any of this even marginally better.
Carlos covered his face with his hands and sank down onto the sofa beside Cecil. Cecil’s arms opened immediately, and Carlos slumped against his chest, which was soft from the fuzzy, inside-out sweatshirt Cecil was wearing.
"I'm sorry," Carlos mumbled. "I shouldn’t have said those things. I didn’t mean them.”
“Didn’t you?” Cecil sounded hopeful.
"Things aren't wonderful where I come from either.” Carlos wrapped his arms around Cecil’s waist. "The police are racist and sexist and corrupt, people who ought to be locked up get off scot free while innocent people are killed or put away for life. Children go hungry and homeless and don’t get the education they deserve. Night Vale isn’t any worse.” He paused, swallowing. “And I do love it here. You taught me how to love it.” He sighed. “Night Vale is bizarre and inexplicable and terrifying, but it isn’t the problem.”
"Robert is the problem," said Cecil immediately, suddenly confident again. "The fact that a person can claim to love you and then hurt you is the problem. You’re used to making sense of things, but that is one fact that doesn’t make sense anywhere. Of course you’re frustrated and angry. I am too.”
Carlos swallowed and tightened his grip on Cecil's shirt. His body felt starved of warmth, which was ridiculous in July in the desert. "He would never have come here if it weren't for me. I didn't take adequate precautions after he assaulted me in Albuquerque. He could have killed you. He could have killed Nijeia."
“Now, don’t start that,” said Cecil sharply. “It’s not your fault that he hurt you. You went out of your way to make it hard for him, and he chased you just so he could do it again. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find Night Vale when it doesn’t want to be found? It wasn’t an accident. He must have wanted this badly enough to make a lot of sacrifices for it.”
Carlos opened his mouth automatically to point out that sacrifices weren’t a thing outside of Night Vale, but…weren’t they? What did he know? A sacrifice was just something you gave up, in an effort to get something else that you wanted. And Robert had thrown his life, his whole career away, to chase Carlos.
“I can feel you thinking,” said Cecil, tapping Carlos’s head. “Maybe you should let it go for the night? It’s been a very long day. I’m sure you could sleep, if you tried.”
It was on the tip of Carlos’s tongue to deny this. He still felt tense and wary, like even if he went to bed, sleep would be a long way off. Yet, the longer he lay with Cecil, the blanker his thoughts became. With each rise and fall of Cecil’s chest beneath him, his body seemed to slow and quiet, like a temporary blackout had fallen on his mental laboratory.
"I think your hypothesis is sound," he told Cecil.
“Come on.” Cecil dislodged him gently and got to his feet, reaching for Carlos’s hands. “It will all look different in the morning. Maybe not better, but different.”
“I could use a little different,” sighed Carlos, allowing himself to be led.
*
Carlos got his wish over the next few days.
The first night, he barely slept. Or rather, he slept many times, never for longer than an hour before another nightmare jerked him up to the surface of consciousness again. Each time he woke, he found the light still on, Cecil already reaching for him, already stroking his hair. He was a mess when he finally gave up, shortly after dawn, but around lunch he took a long nap, and when the police came, the freelance shrink from the Night Vale Psychiatric Association came with them, toting a free sample bag full of sedatives. Which was hardly safe or sound medical practice. But Carlos wasn’t complaining when he got a deep, dreamless ten hours of sleep that night.
Giving their statements to the police was a tense experience. In the interests of scientific rigor, Carlos forced himself to disclose the full history of Robert’s various assaults, which meant that Cecil heard a lot of the nastier details for the first time. Only the knowledge that Robert was already in custody, and the fact that Carlos kept his hand clamped in an iron grip, seemed to be keeping Cecil in his seat as he listened. But when Carlos ended the story with a plea for what he considered to be Robert’s basic human rights, and what the Night Vale secret police officer entered in his notes as “extreme leniency”, he saw Cecil and the officer exchanging a look. It was clear that Cecil still wasn’t a big fan of Carlos’s “Robert is a human being” argument, and that the officer agreed with him.
Yet somehow, Carlos found it impossible to be angry with Cecil, even though he had essentially just given the secret police his tacit approval to do their worst. Cecil had a right to his feelings. Robert had hurt him too. And Carlos had done much more than his duty by arguing Robert’s case sincerely.
At least matters were out of his hands after that. Whether he was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, or whether it really had just been the right thing to do, he’d gone above and beyond to be Robert’s advocate. Now he just wanted a quick resolution, so he could get back to his life.
Carlos’s normal life—or at least, the routine that had become normal over the last year—was definitely on suspension for the time being. Responding to the combined influence of his own over-wrought nerves and Cecil’s ill-disguised anxiety about being separated from him for any amount of time, Carlos didn’t set foot outside the apartment for a week. On the afternoon of the second day after Robert’s attack, Carlos, more than a little humiliated by the necessity of the request, asked Nijeia if she would like to go and oversee things at the lab for a few days in his absence. Her response was a measure of how much she’d matured inwardly, as well as physically. The twelve-year-old Nijeia would have rolled her eyes and informed him she’d been planning on doing it anyway. Her older counterpart just grunted, and said that was probably a good idea.
There was no denying that Nijeia was in better shape than Carlos, but events had taken their toll on her too. The day after the police had come by to get their statements, Cecil had taken Nijeia back to to the Orphanarium one last time to collect her things. When they’d returned, laden with overstuffed boxes of books, 3-D science models, logic puzzles, and a small but carefully curated collection of monstrous stuffed animals, Nijeia had shut herself in her room for a long time. Cecil, in low tones, had explained to Carlos that the experience of being out in the open and completely visible to everyone had been something of a strain on her. She wasn’t used to anyone looking at her; the fact that certain people not only looked, but stared, completely without apology, had been baffling at first, and a provocation to violence after awhile. Cecil had only intervened on one occasion, because, he explained, for the most part, the objects of her wrath really had deserved it. Cecil said he didn’t see why men like that weren’t mauled by young women with machetes more often, really.
Carlos had checked in on her, but Cecil had also swung her by the lab to pick up her laptop. Nijeia never been able to take her computer home with her before, because the Orphanarium ran on some kind of power that was, apparently, generated by the Orphanarians, and not compatible with electrically powered devices. Faced with the unprecedented riches of unfettered internet access, Nijeia had barely had a word to say to either of them all week. Carlos wondered if he was failing in his parental duty by not monitoring the amount of time she spent online, but whenever he poked his head in to see how she was doing, she was either chatting with Tamika or marathoning Mythbusters. In the end, he decided there were far less productive ways a seventeen-year-old could be spending their time, and decided to leave her to it.
All in all, the first week after Nijeia and Carlos moved in with Cecil was about as pleasant and tranquil as the week following a kidnapping and assault with deadly weapons by a deranged stalker could possibly be. Which was to say, moderately tolerable, with some extremely tense moments (Carlos was not okay with waking up to find both Cecil and Nijeia gone, even when they’d only been making a run to pick up breakfast burritos), some awkward ones, (stumbling out of bed wearing only his pajama bottoms was one thing, but boxers-only was definitely not the recommended form with a teenage girl in the house unless you wanted to become the subject of endless mockery) and some delightfully cozy and domestic interludes (Nijeia had discovered, then forced Pokemon on Cecil and Carlos, resulting in marathon nights of popcorn and takeout) that boded well for the future of their lives together.
In fact, Carlos was just settling in to the new routine, mentally steeling himself for a return to the lab, and organizing his ideas for how to approach Nijeia’s education (he wasn’t certain if she’d ever been to a real school, but she was definitely ready to study the sciences at university level) when everything threatened to fall apart again.
It was Saturday night, six days after Robert was arrested. Cecil had a temporary arrangement with the radio station, recording his shows in the early afternoon for later broadcast, so that he could be at home with Carlos in the evenings. He was watching television. Nijeia was in her room, as usual, and Carlos was making lasagna for dinner.
They’d been eating fast food pretty much all week, because anything more than the briefest of grocery store runs was still a trial for Carlos’s nerves. But he’d felt well enough that day to send Cecil out with a complete shopping list and await his return without getting too fretful. (He and Nijeia had watched Pokemon the whole time. It was an effective distraction.) When it came time to cook, Cecil had tried to shoo Carlos from the kitchen; he was still in the fussy, over-protective frame of mind that made him want to wait on Carlos hand and foot. But a week without work had made Carlos listless. He needed a distraction, and cooking was essentially chemistry, so he’d threatened Cecil with a spatula until Cecil let him get on with it. He was just assembling the layers of lasagna sheets, sauce, and cheese in the pan when Cecil’s phone rang. Cecil paused his show, looked down at the caller ID, and frowned.
He didn’t say “hello”, when he answered. He said, “What’s happened?”, in a brusque, unfamiliar tone that made Carlos stop what he was doing, arms falling heavily to his sides.
“I see,” Cecil continued. His face was dreadfully blank. He stood, abruptly, and walked to the window, peering outside. “No, nothing. Yes, I’m certain.”
Then, possibly for the first time in his life, Cecil deliberately pulled the window blinds down. Carlos sagged back against the countertop, suddenly breathless.
“Yes, we’ll be here. Yes, that’s fine. Just make sure they remember the coded knock. Yes, I’ll tell him. Goodbye.” Cecil ended the call and slipped his phone into his pocket. He didn’t look at Carlos.
“Cecil,” Carlos tried to say. His mouth was very dry. “What…”
Ignoring him, Cecil walked down the hall to the closet with the fold-out doors that held the washer and dryer. He leaned in and started poking around, and for a moment Carlos heard fairly normal, closet-rummaging noises.
Then Cecil emerged, holding his rifle, and Carlos was abruptly lightheaded. “What the hell,” he choked.
Cecil continued not to look at him as he checked the rifle over. Apparently, he’d been keeping it loaded and in good working order, because his examination was brief. He carried the rifle into the living room and laid it down on the coffee table. Then, and only then, did he look at Carlos.
“That was the secret police,” he said. “There’s been a breakout from one of their secure facilities. Robert is missing. They’re sending a couple of officers around to stay with us while they get the situation under control.”
Carlos blinked. At least, he tried to. But his body no longer seemed to be under his command. All he could do was stare at Cecil, while bile churned in his stomach.
Behind him, the oven gave a shrill series of beeps to indicate that it had finished pre-heating. He jumped, whirling to face it, like it was signaling an alarm.
A moment later, Cecil was next to him, pulling him out of the kitchen and over to the sofa. He made Carlos sit down. He did not, contrary to custom when Carlos was upset, immediately enfold him in his arms and make a nest for the two of them among the oversized couch cushions. Instead, he held both of Carlos’s hands tightly, while keeping his feet planted on the ground and his stance open. A second later Carlos got it: Cecil was keeping himself at the ready to grab the gun, in case he needed it.
“Don’t be scared,” Cecil told him, pointlessly. “At least, try not to be more scared than you can help. He’s spent a week in an abandoned mine shaft—and it wasn’t the one with the king size beds and HBO. If he’s got any sense of self-preservation, his goal will be to flee the town as fast as he can. He’ll have had a taste of what punishments lie store for him.”
That sounded dire, but just then Carlos didn’t have it in him to feel even slight concern for Robert’s well-being. “He’s scared and alone in a strange town. Sometimes people run for what’s familiar. He might come here, thinking I’ll protect him. Or that he can steal your car. Or—”
“We can only hope he tries, because that’s the most certain way for him to be re-captured quickly. The Sheriff doubled the number of officers assigned within a three block radius of my apartment last week, and they’re sending more reinforcements as we speak.” At Carlos’s arched eyebrows, Cecil gave him a brief smile. “It’s possible the Sheriff owes me a favor. From when we were in high school. You’d be amazed how the interest on a life-debt accumulates.”
Carlos barely registered the joke, if it was a joke. He looked blankly around the living room, trying to think. Thinking, that was what he was supposed to be good at. What could he do? What would make them safer?
“Nijeia,” he said, jolted by the remembrance of her presence. He tried to get up, but Cecil held onto his hands, shaking his head.
“There’s no point alarming her,” he said. “She’s in her room with the door shut and locked. She’s as safe as possible.”
Carlos swallowed a few times. “We won’t be, if she finds out we kept this from her.”
“Ha. True. But I’m willing to deal with the consequences.” Cecil patted Carlos’s hands. “We’re going to be fine. We’re going to wait here, behind my locked door, close to my rifle, with our ears keenly attuned to any strange noises, and we will wait for the secret police to knock their coded knock. Nothing is going to happen to us. I won’t let it. Night Vale won’t let it.”
It was true that this time, at least, they’d had warning. Maybe that would make a difference. He certainly had no desire to believe that he was simply fated to die at Robert’s hands. “Are you about to tell me that Night Vale itself is some kind of sentient entity with an autonomous consciousness and a fondness for scientists?” he said weakly. “If so, you really ought to have mentioned it before. I need to factor that kind of thing into my research.”
Cecil chuckled. “Night Vale is just an ordinary town,” he said. “And like any collective human habitation, greater than the sum of its parts, reflecting the will and intentions of those who reside in it. People here are very fond of you. You’ve done a lot for them.”
Carlos reddened. “Haven’t done much lately, hiding out here,” he mumbled. “I didn’t even try to solve that…malevolent shadow energy that was vaporizing people last night.”
“And yet, here we all are. Sometimes even terrifying and inexplicable phenomenon simply run their course and move on.” Cecil relaxed a bit, leaning back into the cushions so their shoulders were touching. “Funny you should bring up that malevolent shadow energy. According to the officer on the phone, that was how the prison break occurred. The guards at the mineshaft were apparently neglecting their duties to huddle up near the heater in the break room over a game of poker. The shadow energy swooped in and took them out, all at once. It got a few of the prisoners too, but unfortunately, not all of them. And there was nothing stopping the rest of them from climbing out of the mineshaft, presumably using a rope made of human hair, and making a run for it. Several of them have already been re-apprehended.”
“But not Robert.”
“Not him.” Cecil pursed his lips. Carlos had noticed before that Cecil said Robert’s name as little as possible. Even hearing Carlos say it seemed to offend him.
They sat in uncomfortable silence for about five minutes. Carlos counted the seconds off in his head, one, Mississippi, two, Mississippi, because his only accurate timepiece was back at the lab and counting focused his thoughts. At three-hundred-twenty-five, Mississippi, Carlos couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Did they tell you anything else?” he asked. “Like…do they have an approximate idea of his location, or anything like that?”
Cecil adjusted his glasses. “Very approximate,” he said. “He was spotted heading towards the outskirts of town.”
“What direction?”
“Um. East, I think?”
A tingling of alarm, new and distinct from the alarm he was already feeling, sets Carlos abuzz. “Would that be close to the area east of Night Vale where the Whispering Forest is located?”
“Ahh…maybe?” Cecil looked confused.
Carlos sat up on the edge of the sofa and turned to face Cecil. “Robert is a scientist. If he sees an enormous pine forest rising out of nowhere in the middle of the desert, that’s where he’s going to go.”
“Right.” Cecil nodded slowly. “Well, if you think so, you should certainly tell the officers when they—”
“Cecil, the Sheriff’s secret police refuse to go anywhere near the Whispering Forest! Remember? You asked them to look for me there the day I went to find P—” Carlos’s stomach sank. “Oh no. Oh my God. Perry.”
Cecil just looked confused. “Your lab assistant, Perry? Cactus June’s son?”
Carlos stood up shakily and took a few steps toward the kitchen, only to stop and brace himself against the nearest wall. Thanks to the temporal distortion that turned his four-day trip to Albuquerque into a month long absence from Night Vale, he hadn’t seen Perry in weeks. Carlos had left him to his campsite out in the middle of the forest. Since he’d been home, he hadn’t had the time to spare more than a thought for his assistant.
But if Robert was headed for the Whispering Forest—and the police refused to follow him there—and if Perry was still there, alone, blissfully collecting samples and recording his notes in the dead zone where phones couldn’t reach him—
He was aware of Cecil watching him, tense and concerned. Carlos forced himself to draw a deep breath. “For the last month or so, Perry’s been camping out in the Whispering Forest, doing independent research. He’s alone. The forest isn’t that big. If—if Robert approached him, Perry would never think to be suspicious of him until it was too late. Even if Robert tried to avoid him, I’m pretty sure Perry keeps a special eye out for anyone wandering into the forest, in case they get stuck there.” He pressed the heel of his hand against his temple, where he could feel a headache beginning to gather. “Robert might take him hostage. Or—or hurt him so he can steal his gear, or—”
“Slow down.” Cecil walked over to him. “Let’s not jump to the worst possible conclusion yet.”
Carlos swallowed, but he forced himself to square his shoulders and meet Cecil’s gaze. “I have to go to Perry.”
“No!” Cecil barked the word, not even pausing for thought. His face was a mask of alarm. He looked much more frightened now than he had when the police called. “You can’t, Carlos!”
“I have a responsibility!” Carlos didn’t quite shout at Cecil, but he came closer to it than he ever had before. “I’m the only person who knows he’s in danger!”
“Then we’ll tell someone!” Cecil was in his face, blocking any attempt Carlos could make to maneuver around him. “We’ll find a way to help Perry, but we’re not going to do it by giving Robert another shot at you. I won’t let you, Carlos! I’m sorry, it isn’t in my nature to be controlling, but if you try to leave I will have to stop you.”
Carlos wasn’t angry with Cecil, not really. But suddenly, Cecil was a convenient excuse to be angry, and the anger was a welcome distraction from dread.
“That sounds an awful lot like you do want to control me, if I’m honest,” Carlos said between gritted teeth. “The last person who wouldn’t let me leave the house wasn’t very nice.”
He regretted saying it before the words had even finished leaving his mouth. Cecil’s face crumpled and tears sprang to his eyes. Carlos felt sick.
“Carlos,” he said, choking. “I didn’t mean—I just don’t think you’re thinking clearly. We can help Perry, and we will, but it won’t help anyone if you’re in danger. Please. Let’s…let’s just talk about it, okay?”
Carlos reached out, tentatively, and held Cecil by the shoulders. “I’m so sorry,” he said, in a hoarse voice. “I had no right to compare you to him. You’re right, I’m not thinking clearly. I’m sorry, please don’t cry.”
Cecil leaned down, touching their foreheads together, and Carlos looped his arms around Cecil’s neck. He held him for a moment, listening to Cecil sniffle and catch his breath. After a minute, Cecil straightened up and dropped a kiss on the top of his head.
“Do you still have June’s number in your phone?” he asked, in a fair approximation of a steady voice.
“Um, yes, I think so.”
“Call her. June will know how to find Perry in the forest much faster than either of us. Did you know she’s also the second deadliest woman in Night Vale? She led the Girl Scouts for ten years before Lucy Guttierez took over.”
Relief flooded Carlos’s body, but he was still hesitant. “I still can’t just call her and tell her that I got Perry into this mess, but that I don’t plan to do anything about it.” I won’t be a coward again, he thought fiercely.
But to his surprise, Cecil just smiled. “Don’t worry. If she wants your help, she’ll tell you exactly how to make yourself useful. But she’s not going to ask you to face Robert—no offense to you, my brave, resourceful Carlos, but she’s much too well trained in covert maneuvers to involve an unarmed Outsider in the apprehension of a violent criminal.”
Just then, there was a knock at the door, or rather a series of knocks, beating out a deliberate rhythm. Cecil squeezed his hand reassuringly even as he tensed up.
“It’s the police,” Cecil told him. “I’ll talk to them. You make the call.”
*
Not until after Carlos got off the phone with June did he realize how certain he had been that June would be furious with him when she heard what he had to say. He wouldn’t have blamed her for being angry in the slightest—wasn’t it his fault that Robert was in Night Vale at all? And didn’t Perry deserve better than to have been left out of the loop when there was a dangerous criminal in town, gunning for his boss? Carlos definitely blamed himself for every conceivable aspect of the whole mess. It would almost have been a relief if she’d yelled at him.
But June, it turned out, was well up to speed on the local gossip and had already heard a not-entirely-garbled version of Robert’s kidnapping attempt, although the prisoner breakout at the secret mineshaft was news to her. She took Carlos’s stammering explanation calmly. And when Carlos attempted to apologize, she cut him off, the first sign of impatience she betrayed through the whole conversation.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve had to straighten out a violent, possessive asshole,” she informed him, in clipped tones. “It’s not your fault. Tell that useless cop at your place to radio for a defensive perimeter to the north of the Forest. I’ll flush the bastard out, and they can lock him up again.” Then she’d hung up on him.
With shaking hands, Carlos put his phone away and relayed the message to the skinny, gender-indeterminate secret police officer who was sipping the coffee Cecil had given them. The officer made a call to secret police headquarters on their radio. Carlos, not knowing what else to do, returned to the kitchen to finish making lasagna.
When they’d finished their call, the police offer looked over at him and made a chiding sound behind their balaclava. “Dr. Scientist, I hope that’s not a wheat by-product you’re cooking with. It would be a real public relations disaster for the secret police if we had to send you to quarantine after all this.”
Carlos put the box containing the unused lasagna sheets on the island, so they could inspect the label. “Jerusalem artichoke flour,” he said, pointing, before he put the pan in the oven. “Much less gummy than rice flour.”
“Ooh,” said the officer brightly, examining the list of ingredients on the side of the box. “Any chance I could try a bite? Or maybe get a recipe? I really miss lasagna.”
*
Two hours later, the officer received another call on their radio, telling them to stand down. There was no explanation until a few minutes later, when June called Carlos back.
“Perry’s safe,” she said over the speaker, and Carlos’s knees nearly buckled underneath him in relief.
“Thank God,” he whispered. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, and he took his glasses off to pinch the bridge of his nose. “What about Robert? Do the police have him?”
“He’s not going to be a problem anymore.”
“I—what does that mean?” Carlos looked instinctively to Cecil, who walked over to him and took his hand, standing quietly as he listened. “Is he…alive?”
“Perry heard screaming,” she said, her voice almost without inflection. “He went to investigate, but by the time he got there, the trees had already taken care of things. Turns out, when they want someone, they don’t always take no for an answer.”
Carlos thanked her, and said goodbye in a near-uncomprehending daze. He stared ahead blankly.
“Carlos?” said Cecil, concerned. He squeezed Carlos’s hand tighter. “Are you okay?”
“I—I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how I feel.”
“You don’t have to feel anything.”
“Yeah, I know, I just…” He looked up at Cecil. “You said—you said Night Vale wouldn’t let anything happen to us. Sometimes I feel like this town has been trying to kill me since the moment I got here. So I wasn’t really…prepared to take you literally.”
Cecil smiled sadly and brushed a few tendrils of hair behind Carlos’s ear. “We work in mysterious ways,” he said. “We lead mysterious lives, and only the odd coincidental link between cause and effect permits us the illusion that there is any predictability to existence. We are continually at the mercy of both annihilating and creative forces. Sometimes, there is tragedy. And sometimes there is justice. Occasionally, justice even finds the time to be poetic.”
“The universe is governed by set laws, the effects of which can be observed,” said Carlos faintly, trying to translate Cecil’s words into science. “But we are also observing the effects of random and unknown variables that act upon the experimental conditions of our lives. It’s true anywhere, but in Night Vale those variable are…more random. More unknown.”
Cecil beamed at him. “My dear Carlos,” he said. “You do understand, don’t you? I think, perhaps, you might not really be an Outsider anymore.”
A fragment of an old verse, stowed away in his memory for decades, emerged from Carlos’s lips as a conscious thought. He clung tighter to Cecil, lifting his face to look at him. “Whither thou dwellest, I will dwell,” he said quietly. “Your people will be my people, and your god, my god.”
“That is so sweet!” Cecil exclaimed, cupping Carlos’s face between his hands. “If you’re serious, it’s probably time we got you your own bloodstone circle.”
The laughter that overtook Carlos then was probably more than slightly hysterical sounding, but it was better, he supposed, than tears. He’d had quite enough of those. If he was going to embrace lunacy—and embracing Night Vale probably amounted to the same thing—better to be the laughing kind of lunatic.
From the end of the hallway, there came the sound of a door opening. Nijeia poked her head out, scowling, a pair of large noise-cancelling earphones hanging around her.
“What the hell is so funny?” she demanded. “I’m trying to watch my show!”
“Why don’t you cue it up on the television in the living room?” said Cecil, holding tightly to Carlos as he tried to get his breath back. “We’ll watch it together over dinner. Carlos made lasagna.”
*
That night, when Carlos came to bed, he noticed Cecil studying his bare torso with an expression of thoughtful curiosity. “They don’t hurt anymore,” he said, thinking that Cecil must be looking at the cuts and bruises he’d acquired when the Orphanarians ran his car off the road.
“Hmm? Oh. I’m very glad about that. But I was actually looking at the, erm. Your tattoos. Or rather, the evidence of my foolish mistake with the tattoo marker.”
Carlos glanced down at himself, surprised. The original boundary lines Cecil had drawn on his body had been joined more recently by lines that circumnavigated his hips, circled his navel, dipped below his collar line, and set off one asymmetrical patch on his back that was freakishly ticklish. Cecil’s hypothesis, that the tattoos appeared where they were needed, seemed to be borne out by the fact that they had multiplied to such an extent in the aftermath of the kidnapping. He’d felt vulnerable and unsafe after that last exposure to Robert’s possessiveness, even when he knew, rationally, that he was perfectly safe. His discomfort with intimate touch had correspondingly intensified.
“I’ve wondered about them myself,” said Carlos. “Actually, after…you know, what happened today, I’m wondering if maybe you were onto something when you said that…that maybe I’m not really an Outsider anymore.” Cecil arched an eyebrow inquisitively, and Carlos explained. “You said the tattoo marker shouldn’t have made a permanent mark, or created any new marks, because I wasn’t from Night Vale. But it did. So maybe…maybe I’ve been here long enough to have been exposed to some environmental factor that made the ink respond to me like it would respond to a Night Vale native.” Or maybe, he couldn’t quite bring himself to say out loud, because it was so ludicrously unscientific, it knew before I did that Night Vale had started to feel like home.
Cecil looked thrilled. “What a lovely thought! Yes, perhaps that is what happened. I’m no expert, but I feel quite confident hypothesizing that stranger things have happened.”
Carlos laughed, and climbed into bed next to Cecil. Burrowing under the covers, he rolled onto his side so he could fit his head into the crook of Cecil’s arm. “I think your hypothesis is supported by sufficient data,” he mumbled into Cecil’s chest.
“Actually, I was just going to point out…” Cecil grasped Carlos’s arm and pulled it gently from beneath the covers. He stretched it out between them, and his finger hovered, not quite touching, over the inner crease of Carlos’s elbow. “Look. The first marks I drew on you are gone.”
Frowning, Carlos looked down. Cecil was right; the diamond shapes that had once mapped out a small patch of thin, sensitive skin inside his elbow had vanished.
“May I?” said Cecil. “Just as an experiment?”
Carlos considered this for a moment, then nodded. Cecil ran his fingertips from the top of Carlos’s bicep, over the elbow crease, and down to his wrist. He looked closely at Carlos’s face, and when Carlos didn’t flinch, his fingers traced the same path over again.
“How does that feel?” said Cecil, looking concerned by Carlos’s silence.
“It…it feels really nice, actually.” It was true. Rather than being unpleasantly overstimulated by the whispery sensation Cecil’s gliding fingers, it just felt…gentle. Soothing. Similar to having his hair petted. Something dense and heavy in Carlos’s chest seemed to lighten. “I guess…despite everything that’s happened recently, in some ways I feel safer than I did before? Maybe some of the other marks will go away over time. Maybe…maybe I’ll get those pieces of myself back, some day.” A year ago, it would have seemed like an impossible dream, to think that he could touch and be touched by someone who loved him, and never have to be afraid, or compromise himself. It felt more like a promise now.
“I hope so,” said Cecil quietly. “I hope one day you’ll have to struggle to remember how it felt to be afraid. I hope one day you forget entirely.”
“I’m sure there will be other things to feel afraid of eventually,” said Carlos, but he was smiling, and he felt no dread. “I live here now, after all.”
“And I’m very grateful that you do,” sighed Cecil, pressing his lips to the top of Carlos’s head. “Dearest Carlos. Welcome home.”