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Carlos, initially, didn’t notice the change. To be fair, not much was different. His office was still cluttered with his experiments- the frayed attempts of understanding what was going on in his beloved city. There was his desk, covered in liquids and beakers and old candy wrappers. There were his books stacked precariously against the wall. And there was the painting Cecil had made for him once. It was a small thing, made during the early stages of their relationship, when Carlos was still easing into the ocean of love he had for his future husband. The painting was abstract, and was meant to represent, according to Cecil, the feelings in his stomach the moment he first saw Carlos smile. Sometimes, when Carlos stared at it after a long period of intense scientific focus, he thought the painting looked like a purple poodle eating creme brulee with a spork. The thought made him smile.
So Carlos didn’t notice anything had changed, and thus had no idea that in his actual apartment, somewhere far from where he was, his husband was having a conversation with a man who was his brother but was not his brother, because his Cecil didn’t have a brother at all. It was only when a soft knock came to the door, and he, assuming it was Cecil, shouted for him to come in, that he realized the shift.
It was not Cecil who swung open the door, nor was it Cecil who gave a startled shout, diving for the umbrella stand in the hallway and producing a hot pink umbrella to defend themselves with. For one thing, the person was a woman.
Carlos jerked to his feet, terrified. Where was Cecil? Who was this woman? Had he finally stumbled into an alternative reality? Carlos had assumed only true residents of Night Vale were hopping dimensions. None of his scientists had had the experience. He assumed he was too much of an outsider for such things.
But here he was, clearly in the wrong apartment.
The woman was shouting at him, waving the umbrella wildly. Carlos held his hands up in surrender.
“I’m so sorry! I think I’m in the wrong dimension. I’m Carlos, I didn’t mean to invade your home.” He said, hoping his coffee stained lab coat and generally non threatening appearance would inform the woman she had nothing to fear.
The woman glared at him, and something about it reminded Carlos of someone.
“Where. Is. Carmen?” The woman asked, eyes fierce. There was real anger there, but also deep fear. Carlos could relate. He was beginning to worry Cecil might be in danger.
“I’m sorry, I don’t-“ Carlos began.
“Why are you in her office?” The woman interrupted, face blotchy with anger. Carlos blinked. Her office? But this was-
And then it hit him, like a magnificent epiphany, like the discovery of water displacement, like the mathematical equation to discover the circumference of the earth. The frown, the pink umbrella, the way her face got blotchy when she was upset, her outfit of bright yellow capris, green crocs, and a paisley shirt. “Oh my gosh, you’re Cecil!”
The woman rose an eyebrow. “Uh...no?”
Carlos smacked his forehead. “No! No, of course you’re not, just like I’m not Carmen. Gosh, my mom always said she would have called me Carmen if I were a girl but I never thought about whether she actually would have, like for real! This is amazing!”
The woman dropped the umbrella. The more Carlos looked at her, the more he knew he was right. Of course, genetics had done there job well, but there was Cecil’s thin mouth, his straight, dark hair, his deceptively average build. Of course, she was a woman, and Cecil was a man, Carlos’ man, but she was still Cecil. Carlos grinned.
“You’re...Carmen?” The woman asked, disbelieving. Distantly, Carlos wondered what Carmen looked like. But then, after a moment of staring, the woman’s shoulders relaxed, and she nodded with a smile. “Yeah, you’re Carmen.”
“How can you tell?”
The woman shrugged. “You have her smile. Also her perfect hair.”
~*~
And that was that. The woman offered him coffee, which Carlos gladly accepted, and they moved to the kitchen, which was both oddly familiar and startlingly different.
Everything in the kitchen was where it was meant to be. Has Carlos come in absentmindedly, as he usually did, he wouldn’t have noticed any difference whatsoever. There was still Cecil’s collection of nail polish by the coffee maker, still Carlos’ collection of lab coats hung over the kitchen chairs. But there were also paper cranes hanging from the ceiling, dozens of them, for reasons unknown to Carlos. And while Cecil always took his coffee as black and as bitter as possible, Carlos watched in shock as the woman who was Cecil piled spoonful after spoonful of sugar into her coffee.
“Uhm, what’s your name?” Carlos asked, realizing he kept calling her Cecil in his mind, and knowing that was a bad thing, that scientifically she was a completely different and individual person.
The woman took a giant sip of coffee. “Claudine.”
Carlos smiled. “Good to meet you, Claudine.”
Her brows furrowed, but Carlos didn’t know why. Embarrassed, he took a polite sip of coffee.
“So...you’re a scientist too?” Claudine finally asked.
Carlos nodded. “Yeah, I came to Night Vale about four years ago. I was supposed to stay for six months, but,” he shrugged, “it’s so interesting out here.”
“Four years?” Claudine asked. She looked shocked, but Carlos had no idea why. Perhaps time was ever more wonky here than it was in his Night Vale.
“Yeah...” Carlos muttered, rechecking his math. “Yeah, four. Why?”
Claudine rose to put her mug in the sink. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter, probably.”
She broke the mug, dropping it too hard against the steel basin, and swore. Carlos rose to help her, but hesitated.
Something was...unsettling. He didn’t feel threatened, of course not. While Claudine was not his wife, she was another Cecil, and no Cecil would ever hurt him, Carlos was certain. But...something was growing in the room. Not metaphorically either, something was literally growing. He felt it, surrounding him, staring at him from the shadows. He felt it breathing against his neck.
“Claudine...” he began to ask, but stopped. His breath fogged. In the warm kitchen, his breath fogged in the air.
“Stop it,” Claudine sighed, waving a hand behind her back. Immediately, the shadows dissipated and the kitchen felt normal again. Carols’ shoulders relaxed.
“What was-“
“Four years, you’re positive?” Claudine asked, spinning around to look at Carlos.
Carlos was struck by the normalcy of her in that moment. She didn’t look different, though she had just dispelled some wicked force from the kitchen. She didn’t even look ruffled. Her face was blotchy with fear and anger, just like his Cecil’s would have been, but nothing else was out of place. For a moment, he wondered what it would have been like, had Cecil been a woman. He wondered if he could have fallen in love with her. In the back of his mind, he already knew the answer. Of course he would have. There was never a moment when that would have dissuaded him.
“Yes. Four years. We got married a few months ago.” Carlos said, still standing by the kitchen table, watching Claudine standing with her white knuckles clutching the sink behind her.
As though defeated, Claudine slumped, dropping her head as though she couldn’t bear to hold it up anymore. Instinctively, Carlos stepped forward.
“I wish Carmen were here. It would be easier if she could explain it,” Claudine muttered to the white-tile floor.
“Explain what?” Carlos asked, although he was looking for the thing that had breathed down his neck, searching for it in the corners.
Claudine slid down to the floor, head in her hands, feet tucked inward.
Carlos had seen that motion before, on a very different body. It broke his heart every time. Cecil always had such a presence, such strong emotions and heightened being. He didn’t so much take up space, but accept the space the world seemed to give to him. When he curled up, it always felt so contrary to his nature. Carlos hated seeing someone so passionate sink so far inward.
Sinking to his knees before her, he asked her again, to explain whatever needed to be explained.
Claudine looked at him, her dark eyes watery. “Carmen never calls me Claudine. Few people do, actually, but Carmen never does. You can call me Didi if you like.”
“Didi.”
Didi nodded. “I...I’ve known Carmen for six years. We’ve been married for two,” she began, keeping her eyes fixed on her knees. “And...Carlos, something’s going to happen, I think that’s why you’re here, so you can understand and be ready. One day, your husband is going to look in the mirror and when he does...things are going to change. Or rather, he’s going to become what he’s always been, and what he forgot he was. But you have to be there for him. You have to remind him that nothing’s really different.”
Didi looked at him then, as Carlos prepared to open his mouth in protest, to declare that of course he would be there for Cecil, no matter what, for better or for worse. But Didi continued, desperately, as though they were running out of time. “Sometimes distance isn’t about space. Sometimes, it’s about time, or emotion, or memory. And sometimes a prince doesn’t have a kingdom. Sometimes a prince is one of smaller authority. The authority on an ice cream sundae, perhaps, or a set of pearl earrings. Or a friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and the voices are all really one Voice. One beloved Voice. There’s one thing that’s certain- authority comes from words.”
Carlos stared at her, bewildered. “The...the Distant Prince?”
Didi gave him a sad smile. “He’s not so distant are you’d think.”
And before Carlos could ask one of the dozens of questions racing through his head, a hole opened up in the sky and he was back in his office, right where he had left off.
~*~
“Carlos?” A wonderfully, perfectly familiar voice shouted from the other room.
Carlos was through the door in an instant, the dizziness of shifting worlds vanishing at the sound of Cecil’s terror.
“Ceece, are you ok?” He asked, dashing into the living room, colliding with his husband in the hallway.
Cecil looked wrecked, as though he’d lived a thousand lifetimes since Carlos had last seen him. Vaguely, Carlos wondered if he had.
Cecil buried his face in his husband’s neck. “For a second...Oh, Carlos, I’m glad you’re back.”
“I never left,” Carlos replied, attempting to soothe his husband with science. But Carlos soaked in the familiar smell and shape and weight of Cecil. He allowed himself to sink into the feeling of home, of comfort, of too much love. He didn’t know what was going to happen, what the presence in that other apartment meant. But, no matter what happened, he would protect Cecil. No matter what happened, he’d be there. That would have to do for now.