Chapter Text
I always feel like I don’t know who he is when I look at him. Maybe it’s those empty light lavender irises, or maybe it’s his empty fucking skull.
I sighed, straining my feet against the table in front of me, trying to see how hard I could push before it moved and simultaneously entertaining thoughts of flipping the whole goddamn thing over and crushing a few of my fellow scouts, the ones that wouldn’t leave him alone.
When would they get it through their thick heads that Cecil Palmer came here to see me? I was the best friend, the one who’d always been there for him, the one who made him laugh, the one who helped him.
Cecil was annoying as shit though, too. Because he ate it up. Their swooning and shit. Ever since everyone found out that Cecil was going to become the next Voice of Night Vale, everyone seemed to be under the delusion that he was a celebrity, or suddenly a different person. Even though he was the same over-confident silly bastard that paraded himself around like God’s gift to Night Vale. I mean, what fucking difference should it make that we’ve all recently discovered that he actually is in a manner of speaking, God’s, or maybe the World Government’s, gift to Night Vale?
I couldn’t really blame Cecil that much though, it was his nature. He’d always been oblivious and flakey. Weak to air-headed idol worship and full of himself. Kind of a jerk, really. Why did I like him again?
Oh right. Because I was in love with him.
Anyway, he hadn’t even glanced at me since he arrived in the school gym, which was a popular station for many of our scout meetings. Scoutmaster Abraham usually caught Cecil at the door, too, and pointed out yours truly, as if to say “there’s the guy you’re looking for.” But this time I’d watched my beloved scoutmaster, the man I looked up to, betray me. He didn’t point me out. He was too busy touching Cecil’s hair, or ruffling it, I guess you could say, to think about me needing my Cecil fix.
The more I watched this happen, the more I felt like being in love with Cecil Palmer wasn’t just my game anymore. It seemed like everyone was now, and that made him feel so much further away.
And you know what? I had him first.
I kept trying to entertain these thoughts as I felt the anger in my face grow wary. My eyelids drooped, my brow loosened, along with everything else. My fists, my jaw. He hasn’t even looked at me yet.
I started to wonder if he was even here to see me. He was an ex-scout, after all, and maybe he was just dropping by to pick up some nostalgia. And that meant I’d covered up and hid my Earl Palmer heart and arrow doodles for nothing.
Something changed in Cecil a few years back. When he first found out he was going to replace Leonard as the NVCR host. I can’t pin-point what it was, and everyone has tried to tell me that it was just the fame and excitement of it all. But it’s more than that. He feels different.
Sometimes I wish that made me love him less. But instead it just makes me worry about him more.
“Hey.” An eraser to my temple snapped me out of it. “What are you over here looking so somber for?” He spoke with so much effort and yet none at all. Every word was like a song and hearing his voice could bring about the best of spirits.
I scoffed. “Who’s somber?” and mumbled, gripping the stack of spiral bound books and guides on the table in front of me. I was doomed if I gave him the chance to sift through them.
“Okay, grumpy.” He plopped down in the seat next to me, hanging his arm casually over the back of it.
His shirt wasn’t buttoned up all the way, the first three were undone and when he positioned his arm like that it strained the fourth and everything in between was visible and I think I’ve been staring for too long.
I looked away.
It’s not like I’ve never seen him shirtless. I have millions of times, but there’s a difference between just regular shirtless Cecil changing during gym or after an activity and “hello look how haphazardly and carelessly I’ve decided to wear my shirt today” … “Also, let me now do the sexiest possible sitting pose I can think of.”
Plus it had been a while. And between now and that while it was obvious that he’d become more-
I swallowed
-toned. As he pushed his hair-back and shook his hand through it, his breast muscle flexed and my jaw hit the floor.
“Interning for the radio station is becoming so annoying.” He started, and I was always ready to listen to him speak. “I mean, I like it there!” He huffed. “But do you have any idea how many times I have almost died?” He looked right at me, making meaningful gestures with his hands as he spoke. It was a shame no one would ever get to see them through their speakers when he took over for Leonard. They added a lot to his words, and even better, were so often comedic.
“Thousands!” He huffed, and the arm he’d been using to dramatically wave around fell limp by his side. “And that’s way more than the average person!”
“Are you sure you should keep on…” I paused, concerned. “…you know…”
“What? I’m not gonna stop. I want to learn everything I possibly can. I just can’t wait to be the one behind the microphone asking other guys to go risk their lives.” He sighed. “It’s important work. I know that.”
His expression softened. “But today I almost got eaten by this giant see-through worm thing over by the community college. And if it wasn’t bad enough that it was trying to eat me, it was the most disgusting thing you’d ever see. Organs and brains and everything, all just totally visible through its slimy skin.”
“It’s not that I’ve had it.” He smiled wryly at me. “I guess I just gotta complain.” His next expression was slightly apologetic.
I grinned back. “Well, that’s what I’m here for!”
“Right.” He laughed. “Oh, and did I tell you about the time, last week, I had to interview Steve Carlsberg about the new tanning salon across from the Ralph’s? He’s going on and on about how we don’t need a tanning salon and how the sun is always there and free and this is the desert and blah, blah, blah, like he’s trying to say it’s more than or not actually a tanning salon.”
I snickered, because he had most definitely told me this story before. But that didn’t make listening and watching and just being there any less entertaining.
“And why can’t that guy just let us have something nice? What an asshole! I was really excited about getting a tan before he came along!”
I nodded, as if to agree, even though Steve Carlsberg had a point. He usually did, even though he was sort of a jerk. But try to tell Cecil that and he’ll look at you like you’re from a different planet. Literally. I once tried it and he seemed certain I’d been replaced by an alien replica. Swinging a make-shift microphone that he’d built out of a huge walnut and a stick at me and saying things like “let him go” and “give him back.” We were still kids then, but ever since then I decided not to do it again. A giant walnut to the skull hurts more than you’d think.
Also, where does one find a walnut in the desert?
God, now I sound like Steve Carlsberg. It wasn’t like you could just get a walnut anywhere, though. The Green Market doesn’t even sell food.
The sick thing was that I was so glad to see him so upset back then that I’d been replaced by aliens. It made me feel like he really cared, and that if something did happen to me, he’d miss me, and fight to save me.
“So anyway.” He finally sighed, and calmed his ranting. “How are things in the scout business? Any news about making Scoutmaster?”
I shrugged. “Abe has been talking about retiring. I’m already too old to really call myself even a senior scout, so it seems like it’s just about time.”
“You sure it’ll be you?”
I let out a “Ha!” And leaned casually back in my seat. “Who else?” I tossed him my best winning grin that I was sure I’d stolen right off his face.
He grinned back. “Point taken.”
o-o-o-o-o
“This would be a lot more comfy if you were a little fatter.”
Fuck.
He squirmed and shifted. “What are we even watching?”
I had my hand over my mouth because I was sure I was going to scream if he kept shifting his weight against me. Sometimes I swear he did it on purpose.
He sighed, and I still couldn’t move.
I was sitting, upright, on the couch, only slightly slouched like a normal person. He, on the other hand, was lounging on the same couch with one leg stretched to the other end and the other leg hanging off the edge. I was apparently his pillow, with his back against my chest and his cheek against my shoulder.
I wanted to touch him and he wasn’t being fucking fair.
A little background about how I’d gotten into this situation. Cecil’s mother disappeared a year or so back, and he’s lived alone ever since. I don’t ask him why all of the mirrors in his house have been covered since then, nor why he avoids them in other places, nor do I talk about the brother he had that he no longer seems to have any memory of. Best case scenario I’ve just decided that his brother was such a dick that Cecil intentionally denies his former existence.
Anyway, he lives alone, so there’s not really a question for me. If he wants me to come over, I can’t resist his sheer being and there’s no one else to stop me, so over I will come.
And that’s what happened.
I wondered if he’d think anything of it if I just slipped my arm over his waist, just casually. Just enough so he’d take it as my trying to get more comfortable.
Slowly, and trying to breath normally, I lifted my right arm off the couch. My fingers were shaking and I didn’t feel casual right now at all. I felt like my heart was going to explode.
I took a deep breath, and in the time it took to exhale, hurriedly put my arm down over him and shifted my weight beneath him for good measure.
He didn’t react at all. Just kept flipping through the channels, probably grumbling over a lack of things to watch.
A few flips later and he threw his arm over his head, effectively causing him to slip down so that his head and shoulders and in my lap and my sanity left the room.
He stretched and I may have moaned and I may have come in my pants I don’t know there wasn’t much left I could perceive.
I found myself just staring down at his adams apple as it bobbed because he swallowed and then his neck and those muscle creases that appeared when he turned his head. My arm was still on his stomach, and his button-up shirt was parted at the bottom. I could see the hairs under his belly-button and only imagine where they went
“Entertain me.” He demanded.
“It’s your house.”
He huffed. “You’re not gonna leave, right?” He rolled onto his side and all the things I was beginning to drool over disappeared, and I was able to blink myself back to reality. Even with his cheek against my thigh.
“What?” He thought I was leaving?
“I mean tonight. You’re sleeping over?” He sounded more like he was asking. And I mean asking, asking. Pleading. That worried me.
“I hate being alone here.” He pouted. “It gets creepy.”
“Of course I’m staying.” I didn’t have to think about it. I wouldn’t have had to either way.
I put my hand on his head and took his long locks of messy black hair between my fingers and pulled them and winded them around my fingers. He’d been like this ever since she disappeared, since they disappeared. He wouldn’t go into specifics, but it felt like he needed me. He didn’t tell me anything but always wanted me close, but I felt further and further away every time I looked down at him and wondered what he was thinking and why he seemed so afraid.
Afraid-Cecil wasn’t normal. Maybe in the midst of a situation with a giant see-through worm trying to eat him it was, but once the danger had passed he always recovered, was never scarred by it, never had a problem talking about it. So that meant whatever happened was too horrifying to imagine, or it was still happening.
And here I was, too wrapped up in my own feelings for him to even push for answers, even try to get him to speak. Not knowing what to do about Cecil: Story of my life.
o-o-o-o
He didn’t look tired. It had been his idea to hit the sack but while I was laying down, stretched out on my portion of the wrap-around couch, he was just sitting against the back portion, knees pulled against his chest and arms crossed on top of them.
“Earl.” He said, frowning.
I lifted my head from the pillow, full alert.
“I think something’s about to happen.”
“What?” I asked, and sat up more. He looked serious. He was finally going to talk about what was bothering him.
“Last week…” He pushed his palms into his eyes. “Station Management seemed… mad, and there was a letter.” He went on. “They don’t… I mean, Leonard says I’m not supposed to talk about it, but we never see them. They just push letters under the door to communicate. There was a letter addressed to me. It just said ‘Be prepared.’”
“It had tomorrow’s date on it.” He finished, and his face sunk behind his knees.
“So something’s happening tomorrow?”
He shrugged.
“Leonard has been acting weird too.” Cecil said. “Sad, I guess.” He scratched his head. “I’m… worried…”
I paused to take it all in. “…I would be too…” Was all I could think to say. “Maybe you shouldn’t go in tomorrow?”
He shook his head, and huffed, sounding stressed beyond even his limit. “I have to.” He insisted. “I… I mean, if something is happening tomorrow that obviously means I have to be apart of it, right? …I want the job…” He paused. “It has to be me…”
“It doesn’t.” I sat up more and pulled my legs out from under the blanket and my feet on the floor to show him I was serious. He looked back at me. “You could be Scoutmaster.”
He immediately snorted.
“You were just as good as me at everything!” I insisted. “Sometimes better.”
“You taught me all of it to begin with.”
I heard my voice crack, and my breath pick up. “Everyone loves you!” I needed him to see. “Abe practically thinks you’re the messiah! If you came back and asked for it… I know he’d give it to you…”
Cecil sighed. “Stop it.” He looked away from me.
My throat went dry, and started to hurt. I’m not going to cry. Not going to fucking cry. He… I don’t know why, nothing’s changed, but I can’t take it. I can’t take how scared he is.
“You’re trying to give me your dream since you were a kid because you’re worried about me?"
I shook my head in disbelief. “Of course I am.” My voice was broken.
“It’s okay, Earl.” He looked right into my eyes again, with those bright irises that tore through me and ripped me to pieces. “This is my dream. And nothing’s going to stop me from making it happen.”
Honestly, that’s exactly what I was afraid of.
“Let’s go to sleep.” He fell sideways onto his pillow after grabbing his blanket, and spread it out on top of him. “Everything’ll be fine.” He closed his eyes, and seemed to be sleeping before I’d even laid back down.
o-o-o-o
Well, ladies and gentlemen, as you may have predicted, everything was not fine.
Leonard was gone the next day. Disappeared. No one knew how, or where. The only reports on the news were witnesses of a bright light behind his house, and the night before. his wife confessed that he had mentioned something about angels, and began to cry. She said he had been a little down lately, but that she hadn’t seen him in tears since before high school. That’s how she knew something was wrong.
Worse still, guess whose heart-wrenching voice was reading this news, coming through the speakers on Abraham’s portable radio and into my ears.
Yeah.
“Cecil.” I whispered it to myself as he went on. It was done. He was finally where he wanted to be. His dream, the thing he’d talked about, what everyone talked about, since he was fifteen years old. I was happy for him. He… he actually sounded happy.
I had to smile by the end. He sounded happy. I was worried for Leonard, everyone was… everyone loved Leonard and that wouldn’t change even when everyone loved Cecil. Because they would. Every single person in Night Vale would, just like they did Leonard, and just like everyone who met Cecil did.
…And I’d be just one in a million.
No. That wasn’t true. I was his friend. His best friend, the one he chose to spend his terrified night with. That was something. And I’ve known him longer than anyone.
Even if I couldn’t have him the way I wanted—and, I haven’t given up on that either, by the way. But even if I can’t, he’s still my best friend. Forever. And I’ll support him no matter what, even if every single other person in town is doing the same thing. Even if he doesn’t need me anymore.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o
The city council announces the opening of a new dog park on the corner of Earl and Summerset…
I woke up to the sound of Cecil saying my name that day. I dosed off while listening to the static that played endlessly before and after Cecil’s show every day. At least I thought it was my name, that he’d mentioned me, until I ran the sentence through my head and realized he was just mentioning the street I was named after. It was where my parents first met, and where they often parked together.
I blinked, rubbed my eyes, and cleared my throat, waking myself up to listen. This was about all I heard of Cecil these days. He was always so busy. When he left the radio station, he went straight home, it seemed, and the few times I tried to meet him at the station afterward he said hello, asked how I was doing, but then said he was tired, or needed to catch the next episode of Breaking Bad and stressed the fact that I didn’t watch the show more than I would have.
I didn’t bother anymore. I called him sometimes, and we talked about dumb things. He laughed sometimes, and that made my stomach churn, only because I hadn’t seen his face in weeks. Hearing his voice made me want to die, but simultaneously, right now, I felt like the radio was the only thing keeping me alive.
Speaking of Josie (Ah—Radio Cecil has just mentioned her, and something about angels, and light bulbs…) …I hadn’t seen her in a while either. I wondered how she was doing. She, Cecil, John Peters--- you know, the farmer? and a few others used to go bowling together. That hadn’t happened for almost a year, but still. I met her through Cecil, so it made sense, I guess.
A new man came into town today. Who is he? What does he want from us? Why his perfect and beautiful haircut?
It’s been unsurprisingly easy to fall in love with Radio Cecil. I might argue just as easy as the Cecil I used to know, except that might have to do with the fact that I was already in love with him. But he’s completely different from Leonard, his style is different, everything is new. He’s darker, but also quirky, spontaneous, and funny… I can’t be the only one who sits behind my speakers, alone in my house, and dreams of marrying him. The only difference left is that I’ve dreamed of that all my life.
And somehow that didn’t feel like such a big difference anymore. I felt so incredibly small. And worthless. And pointless.
That new scientist, we now know is named Carlos, called a town meeting.
I made Scoutmaster, by the way. It’s official now. I like it, I like the scouts, especially the youngest, and newest ones. They’re the one thing that helps my mind stay off it, the one thing I have left to care about. When I’m with them I feel almost like they’re my own children, and my responsibility to them knows no limits or exceptions. Cecil might slowly be becoming priority two, and that’s a little scary.
Old Woman Josie brought corn muffins, which were decent, but lacked salt.
It’s getting better. Maybe. Maybe I just need time. Maybe he just needs time.
Carlos told us that we are, by far, the most scientifically interesting community in the US…
Maybe after we settle into our fulfilled dreams and new lives, we’ll meet again as friends, maybe I’ll be able to tell him how I feel. Maybe my actual dream will come true, in full, finally. I just have to stay alive, no matter how much I feel like dying. It’s hard now. But it’s better than it was.
He grinned, and everything about him was perfect, and I fell in love instantly.
I looked at the speakers, hearing what he was saying but not comprehending any of it anymore.
What?
My face crinkled into something I couldn’t see but knew was hideous.
Excuse me, what?
o-o-o-o-o-o
The weather. Cecil played music during the weather because the weather was always the same. Back when Leonard was the host, he would describe the same conditions “hot and dry, hot and dry” with minor differences and most people tended to tune out because it was long, boring, and again, always the same.
But Cecil did things during the weather. Other things. Sometimes it would play and he’d come back from some job with more information on a story. For the most part, it meant Cecil was away from the mic during the weather. On break, so to speak. And for me, that meant accessible.
I was pleased when I arrived at the studio. Pleased to find Cecil, alone. He was packing equipment into a case, probably off to do an interview or look-in on a meeting or something or other.
It was dark, too. Who turned out all the lights?
He slung the bag over his shoulder. He looked like he was in a hurry. He took about four steps across the room toward a door different than the one I came in, and then stopped, and looked.
“Cecil.” I said, because I didn’t want him to not recognize me in the dark.
“Earl?” His head moved, and he sounded relieved. “Oh, hey… uh, What’s up?” He didn’t want me here. He was too busy. I could here it in his voice. He was like the king of sarcastically pretending to care or be interested. Such an asshole. Such an enormous asshole.
I knew he was busy, though. I knew that before I came but I didn’t care. There was something I had to do.
“I… just…” I started to walk toward him because I couldn’t make out his face in the dark. “Ah--- how are you?”
“Uuhh.” He paused, and sighed. “Look, I’m working…”
No. Nope. Shaking my head and not knowing why—maybe I was rejecting his attempt to escape or maybe I was subconsciously trying to convince myself to stop, to not do what I was about to do.
But before I knew it I’d crossed the space between us and my hand was on the back of his neck and my lips were on his.
Time froze, or at least for me it did. His hand landed on my upper arm, and I think it meant to push me away, so I pulled him closer and slanted my lips and the fingers on the hand curled into my sleeve.
I heard myself moan against his mouth because I couldn’t help it. Just having his hand there made me go crazy. I heard the bag he was holding thud against the floor, and then there was another hand on the back of my head. I felt fingers against my scalp, running through my hair and then---
He closed his fist, and pulled my head back until we disconnected and I was left breathless and lost.
“I said I’m working.” He mumbled, and gently let go of my hair. His hand fell from my head, and he turned away.
“Um. Right.” I felt myself stepping backwards. There was a small light coming from the sound booth. I didn’t feel comfortable until I’d backed out of it and back into shadows. “Sorry.”
“So that’s it?” I backed up, still trying to catch my breath.
“Why did you come here?”
I swallowed, and sighed. “I… don’t…” I wanted to sit down, collapse, cry… “I don’t know… you…”
He stayed there, and I was at very least grateful that he didn’t just walk away from my mumbling, bumbling self at that moment. “You said… you…”
“What?” He was getting impatient. My heart was beating fast, I felt rushed even though I was taking in so much, I didn’t even know why I came, not really. I just didn’t want to lose him, and then… At least he wasn’t surprised, or freaking out, he just seemed… a little irritated?
I lifted my head, slowly, and looked at his eyes as a realization set in. “You… already knew.”
“Already knew…?”
“You’re just been playing stupid this whole fucking time.”
The guilt on his face when I said that. The way he opened his mouth, closed it, and couldn’t look at me.
“You knew!” I barked. “Was it funny? Did it tickle your funny bone when you did things like use me as a pillow even though you KNEW how I felt?”
“Earl…” He tried.
“Fuck.”
“Language?” Cecil sighed.
“All this time I thought I was keeping a secret! You couldn’t have just… rejected me and told me to move on if you weren’t interested?” I said that, but I knew it would have killed me.
“I…” He kept sighing. I hated it. I should be the one sighing. “I didn’t want to lose you as a friend…”
This may have calmed me. If only slightly.
“I don’t feel like that about you, I feel like… you’re…"
“Like what, your cute little ginger brother?” I could hardly believe this. All this time… “And what’s this shit on the radio about you “falling in love instantly” …No!” I swung my arm at him for emphasis. “What is it with you and spontaneous love interest in random fucking people you don’t know? First some guy from… Loofcarp…”
“Luftknarp.” He corrected.
“You didn’t even go to Europe! Or college!” I shouted. “Anyway, and now this… and all this time, and I’ve been…”
“I have to go.” He said. He at least had the decency to sound sad, and look guilty. Not many things could make Cecil sound or look that way. But I could. This is how I was with him; always counting my points.
I sighed, and took a step back. “Am I ever even going to see you again?”
He looked away. “I’ve… been busy…” He swallowed awkwardly.
“Yeah, well.” I sighed. “So have I.”
Come to think of it, I had a meeting in two hours. James Flynn was supposed to bring his older sister along to try and convince her to join the girl scouts.
“I’ll call you.” He said, but I didn’t think that he would.
“Yeah, okay.” I nodded, and left with my mind in a blur and little remembrance of leaving the radio station or how I got home. I probably drove. That would make sense, so no need to over think it.
o-o-o
He didn’t call. He never called. It had been months since that day and I hadn’t seen his face nor heard his voice through a phone receiver. Over the radio speakers was a different story.
Something was wrong. Something was always wrong. Only a few months after I last saw him, he’d upset the station management and as I listened to him struggling just as everyone else in town did, I was sure he was going to die. I flipped out and got in my car and drove straight to the radio station, but when I got there, there were a bunch of men in suits by the entrance, and they assured me everything was fine. I didn’t believe them, but I couldn’t get by.
And the next day, Cecil was on air again. Didn’t even mention station management or if anything had happened.
I spent most days when I listened to the show since then, worrying. Worrying from a distance and ready to jump at any given moment to save him. Things had remained relatively safe as far as I knew, but it wasn’t only apparent danger from before that bothered me. It was just the way Cecil acted. The way he spoke, the things he said, I could tell he wasn’t always being entirely honest. Sometimes I was sure someone or something was going to hurt him but it was only based on his tone of voice or a tiny twinge of alert in the back of my neck. I couldn’t abandon my scouts just based on that, so I left it. And I kept leaving it, and eventually stopped expecting to have to go to the rescue all the time. But I never stopped worrying about Cecil.
Something was wrong. Something had been wrong since he was fifteen years old. Lots of things were wrong in Night Vale, but I couldn’t care less about Night Vale. I cared about the scouts, my duties to them, and it seemed inevitable that I’d never stop caring about Cecil.
That’s what love was though, wasn’t it? And mine had persevered more strongly than I ever would have wanted it to. Quite the opposite, I wanted it to end. But I’d long since accepted that it never would.
The worst part was the jealousy. It would have been one thing if I was just nobly watching his back from the shadows, waiting for a sign of danger. But it wasn’t just that. I hated that fucking self-righteous, know-it-all scientist that he was so obsessed with. I never met the guy, sure, but I don’t think I have to explain where these harsh feelings come from or whether or not they are rational.
I live to hear and loathe the moments when he is mentioned on the radio. As if he’s ever done anything for Cecil. As if he even cares about Cecil. The guy was not only muscling in (even if unintentionally) and what I called dibs on twenty years ago, but he was only going to hurt Cecil. Cecil’s obsession was odd, and baseless, but I know him, and I knew it was pure. Meanwhile this “perfect Carlos” seemed to do everything he could to ignore him and his feelings. He must’ve been a completely insensitive asshole.
Actually, that story sounded a little familiar.
Anyway, a few days after a massive sandstorm that cut off my power and access to Cecil’s broadcast halfway through it (and caused me to meet up with and attempt to destroy a disturbing copy of myself) I happened to run into Carlos the scientist.
I was off that day. It was mother’s day, so all of the scouts were at home with their parents, celebrating the woman who gave birth to them and reciting standard to advanced level chants (as we practiced) that would bring her good fortune and lots of fine pastries.
He was in front of me in the line at Green Market (it sells food now.). He wasn’t buying any food though, just some plastic and tin ware. He looked like he was in a hurry, and sort of distressed.
I recognized him from the newspaper articles. He had shorter hair now (to Cecil’s dismay) but it was definitely him. I’ll never forget coming home from rejection and looking up his picture just to stab holes in it with a ball-point pen. I could totally stab the real thing with a ball-point pen right now if I wanted to.
I wouldn’t want to make a mess that the employees of the Green Market would have to go out of their way to clean, though.
I felt the overwhelming need to say something, though. Just to engage him in some way, because this was a thing that Cecil made such a big deal about and Cecil himself was a big deal to me.
“What are those for?” I found myself saying, while looking at his purchase that was on the belt.
He looked at me, as if surprised, then at the items.
“Food storage.” He said it smoothly, but he wasn’t telling the truth. He probably just didn’t think I was worthy of hearing about whatever sciencey shit he was conducting with plastic and tin from the supermarket.
“Aren’t you that scientist?” I asked, less smoothly, because I already knew and I’m not good at pretending.
“I’m a scientist.” He replied. Oooh, so fucking modest.
“The one that’s all over the radio? What was his name again…?"
He cringed visibly and pushed back his small amount of hair. I could tell he was now getting impatient with the cashier and hoping to get away from me asap.
“I’m Carlos.” He murmured. Aw, was he shy? I grinned, ear to ear, because I never pegged shy for being Cecil’s type.
“Right, right.” I said, casually leaning against the grocery belt. “The one that radio host is like in love with.”
He scratched his head, and was pointedly not looking at me. Clearly the subject made him uncomfortable.
Good then. Maybe this would be easy.
I waited. I didn’t say anything else until it was his turn to be checked out, and until after he’d finished and paid. I noticed him looking at his watch a lot, and then at the clock on the wall behind the clerk. He looked overly concerned about the time. I wondered if he was late for something?
He thanked the clerk and she said nothing back. He didn’t seem bothered by that.
“Hey.” I said as he picked up his bag, taking both handles in one hand.
He stopped, and looked at me.
“Just…” How could I put this lightly. “Just stay away from Cecil.”
He blinked, his eyes narrowed slightly. Then his head cocked and he looked like he was realizing something.
“Look.” He said. “Whoever you are or whatever you want, don’t worry. I only contact him for non-personal reasons. I don’t give him the wrong idea, and frankly, the whole thing is too strange and I don’t like to think about it. So, don’t worry, I’ll stay away.” He nodded sharply, and then he was looking at his watch again.
I kept glaring. “You should reject him then.”
“What?"
“If you know how he feels and what he wants you need to make it clear that you don’t want the same thing. Now.”
“Why?” He grumbled. “It’s not my problem.” He scoffed.. “It doesn’t have anything to do with me or my work, and besides, whatever is going on it’s not real anyway.”
He didn’t sound that sure.
“Now please, leave me alone.” He held out his hand firmly, as if signaling me to keep my distance, and then warily turned and left. I think he was mildly afraid I was going to stab him with a ball-point pen.
I let him go. But I didn’t feel any better. Maybe this guy was a workaholic and an idiot but his repulsion was half-hearted and his confusion was obvious and he was uncertain and he probably wanted Cecil.
Outsiders were always like that. Distrusting of everything. It’s obvious when someone new comes here that the rest of the world is different from Night Vale. But as soon as they start to fit in and make their homes here, if they don’t die that is, and most do, they start accepting and understanding things.
I found myself glaring hard and frowning at the credit card scanner screen until the clerk gave me my total and I remembered where I was, and where I wasn’t.