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It had been just another day. Carlos had gotten up that morning and gone to work. Cecil had gotten up at the same time, eaten breakfast with Carlos before he’d gone to work, and then gotten his news stories – both written and unwritten – organized for the noon broadcast. Which he did from noon to twelve thirty, using the microphone from the station which still turned on and connected to Night Vale’s transmitter when he wanted it to even though it was trailing ten inches of ripped, snapped wire and had no known power source. At one Carlos came home for lunch, then went back to the lab an hour later. He’d come home for the night between five and six, he and Cecil would make dinner together, they would talk for a while, read for a while, and then Carlos would help Cecil take a shower before they went to bed.
Their days had fallen into a pattern, like an old married couple, and Cecil was loving every minute of it. He was bored and frustrated sometimes, yes, but that was mostly because he was still so mobility-challenged due to his broken leg.
Thinking about his leg being broken made it ache, and he shifted in bed, trying to find a comfortable position again. Which made Carlos shift in his sleep and wrap himself around Cecil in a different way, which created the newly-comfortable position without Cecil having to do anything else.
Cecil smiled. Carlos was a cuddler – only partly because he was always cold. Although he was always cold. He wore layers that were almost silly in the desert, layers that anyone else would have been sweating through within ten minutes of leaving their house. He had three blankets on the bed, and flannel sheets to go with them, and a space heater in one corner.
And they were living in the freaking desert. Even when it rained it didn’t get cold. Cecil himself only wore long sleeves to hide his tattoos, and his shirts had all been made of thin, light cotton. Alone in his apartment – back when he’d still had an apartment – he hadn’t worn anything but a t-shirt and boxers. And he hadn’t worn anything but a t-shirt and sweatpants since he’d started living with Carlos.
He’d been trying not to think about needing to get all new clothes and shoes. He currently owned five pairs of underwear, one pair of glasses, a tie, and the clothes he’d been wearing when the earthquake had hit and which he was pretty sure the bloodstains were not ever going to fully come out of. Minus the pants, of course, which hadn’t survived their encounter with the very necessary first aid for his broken leg which he quite happily didn’t remember much of at all. He’d been trying not to think about that either, actually, because although having his boyfriend risk his life to save him in a very dramatic although not entirely scientific rescue was thrillingly romantic…it was also really kind of embarrassing to know that Carlos had carried him out of the sinkhole like a hero rescuing a damsel in distress.
Carlos knew this, of course; Cecil hadn’t even had to say anything. The scientist had tried to minimize the damsel-carrying as much as possible since then, even though Cecil could tell he not only didn’t mind but also sort of enjoyed it. For a man who couldn’t…well, get physical, he was the most affectionate thing Cecil had ever seen. He cuddled and touched and kissed and hugged. He was so gentle it was almost heartbreaking.
And he was still so shy and ashamed of himself that Cecil wanted to kill Al a little more with each passing day. He wanted that almost as much as he wanted to know why. Why would you do that to a man you grew up with, who thought of you like a brother…
Of course, that made Cecil think of Teddy, which was one more thing he’d been trying not to think about. Teddy hadn’t been back to the house for over two weeks, not since the fifth day after the earthquake. He’d sent one of the nurses by with a bottle of calcium supplements and a little container of chocolate dipping sauce on the afternoon of the sixth day, but that had been the extent of his contact with his cousin since. Cecil wasn’t sure whether to be upset or relieved about that, honestly. He and Teddy had had this problem come up before, they had even fought about it before, but it had never been that bad. Teddy had never been that bad. And Cecil had never been that scared.
Not of Teddy, anyway. It was a new situation for him, being afraid of the cousin who had been his big brother in all but name growing up, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like having those kind of thoughts, those kind of doubts, about Teddy; it was like someone was yanking the ground out from under a rug he was standing on, leaving him feeling like he could fall into the devouring void at any minute.
Cecil was doing his best not to think and feel that way, but it was hard. Scott and Tim had dug up a wheelchair for him to use, and rearranged the bedroom so he could get in and out by himself, but there wasn’t a whole lot for him to do around the house. He did a little bit of cleaning, he did a little bit of cooking, he did a half-hour’s worth of news every day – and even more weirdly than having the disconnected microphone still working, he was also still getting paid via direct deposit at the bank even though the station was gone and Station Management had been eaten. For a couple of days after the faceless old woman incident he’d gotten to fuss over Carlos, until Tim had agreed to let Carlos go back to work. And he’d gone with Carlos to the fire station for the much-delayed après-sinkhole debriefing, because Scott had said Cecil had technically been working at the sinkhole with them which meant he was a volunteer and so he needed to be part of that meeting too. None of the other firefighters had had a problem with that, and it had felt really good to Cecil to be accepted for what he could do, to be part of a group.
Especially since Teddy had always told him he needed to hide, to stay under the radar, to not be noticed. Cecil had understood where his cousin was coming from, but he’d also come to the realization that he just couldn’t live like that. And he had tried, for a while, because that was what Teddy had wanted and Teddy had been all he had.
And then Carlos had shown up in town, and he’d been beautiful and perfect and Cecil had fallen in love instantly. Now that Carlos had started reciprocating his feelings, though, Teddy had apparently disowned him. Which made Cecil feel sort of sick when he thought about it, because he hadn’t done anything wrong. Just like he hadn’t five years before, when he’d gotten back from his road trip. Had it been so wrong to want to come home? And was it just so unforgivable of him to have come back different?
Maybe to Teddy, whose entire life was built on conformity and not rocking the boat, it had been. Maybe he secretly wished that Cecil had just never come back. Cecil was trying really hard not to think about that.
Carlos twitched in his sleep and made an unhappy whimpering noise, and Cecil ran comforting fingers through the wavy, silvering dark hair he loved so much. He frowned up into the darkness, though. It wasn’t a nightmare starting, because although Carlos sometimes had bad dreams he usually didn’t have nightmares – he’d told Cecil that science kept them at bay, only half joking. It wasn’t a bad dream either, because Carlos didn’t make noise when he had a bad dream, he just cried silently in his sleep. And Carlos couldn’t tell him what was going through his sleeping mind when it happened, because Carlos had no idea himself.
The little whimpering episodes were worrying Cecil, though. Because he’d been starting to notice that, on the morning after one of them, Carlos took longer than usually to get fully awake and seemed just a little off for a while even then. Forgetful, slower on the uptake than usual…and weirdly, more likely to stay cold longer
The whimper came again, and this time Cecil started rubbing Carlos’s scalp with the pads of his fingers. Which reminded him of something he’d learned…someplace else. He hadn’t done it in a really long time, but he still remembered how it was done. He could look into Carlos’s mind, just a quick peek, to see what the problem was. He could look at it and then tell Carlos about it in the morning, and once Carlos knew what it was that would most likely be the end of it because the human mind was funny that way – and, because it was Carlos, science would probably take care of that too. So he shifted his fingers around, finding better placement for them, making sure all ten of them were skin-to-skin. And then he concentrated, feeling his tattoos heat up, and slipped into his boyfriend’s mind to try to spot the problem.
Which turned out to be his problem, not Carlos’s, because once Cecil was in he almost immediately started losing his hold on the outside world – a connection he needed if he was going to get back out once he’d seen what he needed to see. He cursed himself, mentally scrabbling to get back out, but he just kept slipping and then with a pop he felt rather than heard he dropped all the way out of his own mind and into Carlos’s instead.
He found himself in a cave, narrow and cold and dark, which he vaguely remembered glimpsing before when he’d proved to Carlos that Al was…well, a rapist, basically, although Cecil knew better than to use that word when he was talking to Carlos. He frowned at the cave, puzzled by it. It wasn’t what he would have expected to find in the mind of a man with five PhDs, or in the mind of a man who felt things as deeply as he knew Carlos did. There should have been warmth and light and things, not bare stone lit only by the fitful reflected flickering of a fire somewhere in the distance.
Hmm, fire. Cecil took stock of himself. He was barefoot and still wearing his – or rather Carlos’s - pajamas, but the path under his feet was dry and worn smooth and his broken leg hadn’t followed him so he shouldn’t have a problem walking to wherever the fire was. And he’d lost his grip on the outside anyway, so he reasoned that going farther in wasn’t something he had a compelling reason not do at this point. If nothing else, he’d go on until he found Carlos and then figure out how to return to his own bodymind with Carlos’s help – in fact, just Carlos wanting him out would probably do it. So Cecil started walking.
He walked for quite a while, long enough to worry him. The narrow tunnel of bare stone seemed to snake on forever. A few times he passed places where it looked like the path had branched off, but rockfalls had blocked those passageways with dense, floor-to-ceiling piles of crumbled debris. Cecil was starting to wonder if the flickers of light were just his imagination when he saw that light get brighter around the bend up ahead of him. He walked faster, shivering. Hopefully it was warmer where the fire was.
The bend opened up into an area about the size of a large closet, really just a wider spot in the path rather than a separate cavern. There was a rock in the middle of the wide spot, though, and sitting on that rock was a person. An older woman with shoulder-length, gray-streaked dark hair, wearing a professional pantsuit and sensible little heels. She stood up, frowning, and Cecil stopped in his tracks. The family resemblance was unmistakable. “Mrs. Espinoza?”
“How did you get in here? What are you…” And then she saw his arms, and her frown became a scowl of pure anger. She planted herself directly in the middle of the path, holding out one dainty, manicured hand as though to hold him back. “No! You monster, you will not hurt my son again! You have done enough!”
Cecil took a step back but otherwise held his ground. “I’m not him, ma’am. I’m not Al.”
To his surprise, she rolled her eyes. “I know that, idiot. But you must have come from the same evil place he did!”
“I’ve been there,” Cecil admitted. “I’ve even met Al – and you’re right, he’s a monster. But I’m not like him, I promise. I would never…” He shuddered at the thought, and the memories that came up with it, then pushed all of it back down. “I couldn’t do the kinds of things he’s done. It’s not the tattoos that are bad, or the tribe, it’s just…it’s just Al.” He took a cautious step forward, cocking his head, puzzled. “If you’re a part of my Carlos’s mind, why don’t you know me? Carlos knows I would never hurt him, not ever. I’d die before I let anything bad happen to him. And I’d kill Al if I could get to the bastard, believe me.”
Now she looked confused, although she didn’t move out of the path. “I am not a part of my son’s mind; I stayed, to try to protect him. But until recently he could not see me, he could only see the lies Alphonso planted in him. I still cannot speak to him, he cannot hear me, but it is a start.” Her brown eyes widened with sudden realization. “Wait, was it you? Were you the one he finally trusted? The one he tried so hard not to love?”
Cecil couldn’t help it, he flinched. “Probably,” he admitted softly. “And he does trust me, but that night…that night he was hurting, and tired, and he slipped and said something he didn’t mean to and that was how I found out what was going on. I wouldn’t…I wouldn’t have pushed him, if I’d known.”
She walked up to him, looking up into his face; she was short, Mrs. Espinoza, but she radiated strength and intelligence even more strongly than her son did. And then to Cecil’s shock she pulled him into a hug. “If you hadn’t pushed him, no one would ever have known,” she said quietly. “The guilt that raping bastard left in him is so strong, he would never have broken his silence on his own – he would never have dared, his fear ran so deep.”
She was solid and warm, and Cecil couldn’t help but gingerly hug her back. “I made sure he knew it wasn’t his fault. I normally wouldn’t have done…that, I haven’t done it in years. I just couldn’t let him keep believing he was responsible for what happened, for what Al did to him. Carlos didn’t deserve that, nobody does.”
She drew back, giving him a very penetrating look. “Did he also hurt you?”
Cecil shook his head, pulling away; she let him go. “Not like he hurt Carlos, no. But he…he abused the power the tattoos gave him. I didn’t know what he was doing was…something he wasn’t supposed to be doing until I’d already called a halt to the rituals, told them I just couldn’t take any more.” He started to wrap his arms around himself, stopped, fists and jaw clenching. “You’re right to call him a bastard. He is one.” He lifted his head, looking at the flickers of firelight on the cave walls. “So the fire…?”
“That is my fault,” she admitted. “He was having trouble with his dissertation committee not taking him seriously, they kept turning him down. I told him he needed to tone it down, to show them only the reflection of his passion, the shadows cast by his fire – show them only what they could understand and accept, because their own passion for their science was so long dead and buried. Alphonso took advantage of that as well.”
Cecil nodded. “The training that comes with the tattoos…they teach you to look for meaningful symbolism and use it. Not like Al did, though. The gift wasn’t meant to be used for…” He swallowed hard and shuddered, pushing the memory back again; he didn’t dare let it fully surface, not where he was right now, not when it could possibly hurt Carlos even more. “Al probably hurt a lot of people. Like you said, he’s a monster.”
She patted his arm. “Maybe I will go find your mother, we can punish him together.”
He forced a chuckle. “My mother would probably love that, but she’s long gone.”
That got him another pat, then she stepped back, shaking her head. “We never go that far. You will see, someday. Now, did you come here to free Carlos?”
“I’d love to, but I came here pretty much by accident so I’m not really sure what I’m doing right now,” Cecil admitted. He waved a hand at the bare stone walls. “I didn’t expect…this, not in Carlos’s mind.”
“This is just the aftermath of what was done to him,” she corrected. “If you go around the next bend, into the cavern, you will see.” She cocked an eyebrow at him. “First, though, a reality check: My son may be pretty, and smart, but he is not perfect. He is stubborn like me, and messy like his father, and thoughtless when he is distracted by something – which is often.”
Cecil blushed, shaking his head. “I know, but…well, he’s still perfect to me, ma’am.”
She laughed. “You are in love – I loved his father the same way, but I eventually had to hire a maid to keep his messiness from driving me crazy and take over the calendar on his phone so it would remind him of important things. Loving an Espinoza man is work sometimes, remember that.” She stepped aside, waving at the next bend in the bare, dry walls, beyond which the fitful red-orange flickers were apparently coming from. “And remember that his fire will not hurt you...but what hurts him will. Try not to let it touch you.” She smiled at his confusion. “My son loves you; I am his mother. Now go, but be careful. Carlos would not want you hurt.”
Cecil shook his head again and started walking towards the flickering light. “Carlos doesn’t know I’m here.”
Carlos’s mother watched him go, then went back to the rock and sat down again. “He will soon enough.”
The final bend in the rocky bare walls rounded out into a massive cavern. It was so big, it reminded Cecil of pictures his mother had shown him, fantastical images of gigantic limestone-decorated caves in a place called Carlsbad. This cave, however, did not have any stalagmites rising from its floor or that many stalactites hanging from its ceiling, and the ones it did have were relatively small. It also had charred marks on the walls and floor, as though fires had raged there and scorched the rocks with their heat. And it had a round barred cage, almost like a birdcage, directly in the center of the floor, and in that cage was the large charred statue of a crouching man.
Cecil moved closer to the cage warily. There was a layer of something cold and slimy all over the floor, thin enough to be nearly invisible in most spots but thicker and whiter around the charred areas. He didn’t like the way it felt to walk on, but it evaporated under his feet so it really wasn’t that bad. He couldn’t help but notice that there was no flickering now, and no fire that he could see, and he stayed tense and ready to jump just in case fire were to suddenly shoot out from someplace unexpectedly. Which might not have been a bad thing, because the cave was freezing cold, even colder than the areas he’d already walked through had been. He circled around the cage at a safe distance, trying to figure it out. It was in the middle of the cavern, it had to be important. Was the statue supposed to be symbolic of how Al had ‘frozen’ Carlos, and ‘burned’ him? And if that was it, why was the statue also in a cage? Not to mention it was a really big statue, if it had been a man it would have been almost twice the size of Scott Thomas, so he didn’t think it could be a representation of Carlos.
The bars of the cage looked funny, and he moved closer. They almost looked like they were melting, or like limestone or slime had been dripping down them, coating them the way a dripping candle coats a candlestick with wax. Cecil didn’t see a door, or a lock, but he supposed it could be hidden under the drippy coating. Oddly, though, there wasn’t any of it inside the cage, or on the statue which was sitting on the bare grayish-brown rock. He walked around the cage again, looking harder, skirting the sickly yellowish gray-white puddles with their dull gelatinous shimmer. Still no door and no lock. Maybe he needed to knock the drippy parts off of the bars, try to find the door? It was an idea, and it wasn’t like he had any other ones, so he put out one cautious hand and grasped the nearest beslimed bar.
And immediately yanked his hand back, slime steaming off of it the same way it had steamed away under his feet. He hadn’t felt it with his feet, though. Cecil swallowed hard, wiping his hand on his pants, trying not to be sick. He knew what it was now, and it was disgusting. Not to mention, when he’d touched it he’d felt an icy-cold bolt of guilt and self-loathing stab through him like a back-alley mugger’s knife. “Oh my god…”
The statue’s head shot up, and he almost jumped backwards; it wasn’t a statue. At first he thought it had eyes made of fire, but then he realized that the fire was on the inside and the black ‘statue’ was just a shell. A shell that stood up and cocked its head, ‘looking’ at him, and the weak, flickering light bounced around the inside of the cave again. Alright, he’d found the fire, or at least what was left of it. Now why was it black and in a cage?
He couldn’t think of a reason that made sense, so he asked it. “What are you? Why are you in there?” It just looked at him. “You can’t break through the bars?” Cecil guessed. It shook its head. Hmm, so it could understand him, whatever it was. “Do you know where the door is?” It shook its head again. Crap. He bit his lip, looking at the slime-encrusted bars. He really, really did not want to touch that again, he really didn’t. And he never wanted to feel what he’d felt when he touched it again either, it had made him feel like he wanted to die…
And then he realized something that made him feel even sicker. What he’d felt…Carlos, his perfect, precious Carlos, had been feeling that every day for the past six years. He’d found what was hurting Carlos, and touching it had hurt him too. But Carlos’s mother had said the fire wouldn’t hurt him…hmm. Cecil determined that his arm would fit between two of the beslimed bars without touching them, and he very carefully stuck his hand into the cage through the gap, holding that hand out to the fire. “I want to help Carlos,” he told it. “Can you help me do that?”
The fire cocked its head, then extended its own large hand and engulfed his much smaller one. In fire, because the black charred coating crumbled away when it touched Cecil’s palm the same way the slime on the bars had evaporated. The fire didn’t burn him, although he could feel the heat, it just felt…curious. He got the feeling that it recognized him, which meant it was a part of Carlos, but it seemed to want to know more about him. Little tendrils of fire licked up his arm, tickling a little with a touch Cecil suddenly recognized. This fire…it was Carlos’s fire. His mother had told him to tuck it away, just let the reflections and the play of shadows show – Cecil had read Plato, he understood what she’d been trying to tell her son to do and it hadn’t been a bad idea. But then Al had seen it, the image given extra weight by grief, and he had used it. The coerced rape had just been the vehicle he’d used to build a cage logic and reason wouldn’t be able to break through.
The searching tendrils of fire found his tattoos and flared brighter, excitedly tracing the lines, mapping out the pattern. Cecil was entranced. And then a fat tendril of slime oozed down one of the bars and plopped onto Cecil’s arm, extending itself like a tentacle to make a grab for the fire. Cecil let out a startled yell and pulled back, almost throwing himself backwards, the slime stretching to keep its hold on him. It burned against his skin like dry ice as he tried frantically, again, to wipe it off. Inside the cage, the fire had jerked back as well, huddling in on itself again. Where the slime had touched it the black shell was flaking and smoking and red cracks had appeared like the cracks in the hardened crust of a lava bed. Cecil got the feeling it would have screamed, if it had been able to.
It literally couldn’t break out. It couldn’t touch the slime, or let the slime touch it.
Cecil could touch the slime, though. It dissolved when he touched it, vaporized into nothingness. He eyed the dry spot the fire was crouching in. Fire…heat. The cave was cold, the slime was cold. But the fire was warm, and maybe that had kept the slime at a distance. Maybe.
He looked down at his hands. His skin was warm too. The slime hurt him, yes…but he could hurt it back. He could make it disappear, maybe dissolve some of the bars…if he could hold on long enough. His jaw set. For Carlos, he could hold on. He would make himself hold on.
He stepped back up to the bars. “I’ll get you out,” he told the crouching fire, and then grabbed a bar in each hand. This time he was expecting the feeling, and he fought it. The slime hissed, steaming away under his grip. More slime slid down the bars, only to hiss away when it touched him.
And then a thicker tendril slid down, fat and white and solid-looking, and when it touched him it steamed for a second and then stopped, settled; too thick to dissolve immediately, it chilled his skin. More slime followed, spreading across that slime, and his hands started to get cold. The slime crept over his hands, rivulets of it running down onto his wrists, and he sank to his knees, still holding on. Tears started to leak down his face. He felt so dirty, completely wrong and worthless and disgusting…
A black hand came out of nowhere and shoved him away from the bars; it shoved so hard he actually fell back a couple of feet, just barely catching himself before he could land face-first in a puddle of slime. Which his hands sank through with a sickening squelching noise, his palms flattening out over the charred spot the slime had been puddled over. And an echo of fire flashed through his mind.
I pulled up to the edge of what had been Third and Baker in a spray of gravel, not intentionally but as a result of trying not to go shooting into the sinkhole that had swallowed the hospital and the radio station and everything in between. The entire block was gone, just…gone.
He was touching a spot where the fire, Carlos’s fire, had fought back, had fought to break free. And maybe it had for a little while, flaring brightly in the cold, dripping cave, vaporizing creeping slime, giving Carlos back some of the drive and passion that was supposed to be his all the time. Carlos had used that to rescue Cecil from the collapsed radio station, used the flickering remnants of it to rescue countless more people from the hospital until, on the fourth night after the earthquake, it had finally flickered out.
And the slime had pushed the cage back by what looked like a good two feet on all sides. The math needed to calculate how much floor space that was escaped Cecil at the moment, but it didn’t really matter. He was looking across the floor, seeing charred spots under smug puddles of slime, seeing now how the slime was actually slithering across the floor, almost invisibly, converging on the cage, strengthening it for the next time the fire was able to break through enough to push back.
Two precious feet on all sides sacrificed. To save him. He slid his hands down the charred spot.
We both knew how stupid it was. There was a really good chance that I’d get in there with Cecil and neither one of us would be able to get back out; I just didn’t care, so I wasn’t going to waste time thinking about that possibility.
Cecil’s eyes turned red. There was a little spot of char fading away towards the cage like a trailing tear – or like the fire had clung to the floor as it was being dragged back in. He traced it with his finger.
“He was like my brother, I didn’t…” I squeezed my eyes shut because even the wall was looking accusing, and felt liquid fire burn out of my tear ducts. “I still don’t know why it happened.”
Carlos had felt the fire leave him, felt the cage shrink. And Carlos was always cold…and getting colder, night after night, as the bars slowly closed in on him. The feeling Cecil usually got when his father’s half of his heritage was being stirred awake by his anger, the feeling that meant his eyes were turning red, came back a hundred times stronger in a wave of exquisite agony. It felt like every cell in his body was turning inside out. But it only lasted a few seconds, and then he was panting on his hands and knees, hearing the soft rustling of the slime as it slithered up and down the walls, spreading itself out. A tendril touched his hand and hissed, hurting him at the same time, and he opened his eyes.
Three of them. That was different. Cecil pushed himself to his feet, standing on the charred spot, the memory of the fire that had left the mark flowing up into him through his feet. He saw the battle which had gone on in this cave, the fire’s fight to keep even the slimmest trickle flowing through one of the cold, narrow stone tunnels for as long as it could. He saw it finally fail and be shoved back by the slime, imprisoned again.
He looked at the cage with new eyes and saw what it actually was, and understood exactly what Al had done if not why – it hadn’t been about sex, it had been about taking away everything Carlos was, slowly and cruelly isolating him from himself and the rest of the world. Cecil roared his rage to the ceiling and shook slime off of it with a thunderous snap of his wings and…ooh, look, he had claws. Just the way his fingers were shaped, apparently, and needle-sharp. He took stock of himself. He wasn’t as tall as the other angels in town, most likely because he was a halfie, but his wings still arched gracefully over his head and almost down to his feet like theirs did, and his smooth, hairless skin was a deep violet blue. And Cecil smiled. He was relatively sure he couldn’t keep it, but he kind of liked this body. And the color was really pretty.
He looked back at the fire, which had stood up again was staring at him almost hungrily. And he laughed, although it was a dark and dangerous sound. The fire was starving, literally starving – Carlos’s drive and passion and curiosity had been caged and choked by shame and guilt. By Al. Cecil’s fingers, which had been morphing down into something a little less deadly, sharpened again, and again his wings snapped thunderously in the cold air. Al could have just killed Carlos outright – hell, he could have tortured the man to death physically and it would have been more merciful than this slow, cold, creeping demise. Because once the cage closed in those final few feet, once the fire couldn’t curl in on itself any tighter…the slime was going to extinguish it and Carlos was going to die inside. He’d be an empty shell, and Cecil knew, knew, that Carlos couldn’t live like that for long.
Just like Cecil’s mother hadn’t been able to, after his Aunt Bea had died.
The slime actually hurt him physically now, even against the bottoms of his feet, but Cecil ignored it. He stalked over to the cage again and looked past it at the fire, which was still staring at him. He couldn’t break the bars, he knew that now. And there was no door, there never had been. But maybe he could feed the fire and make it stronger, which might push the bars back and buy them some time. Or maybe, if the slime sucked him in, he could shield the fire from the slime. He had wings, after all, and they were pretty big. And the fire could hurt him, but it couldn’t extinguish him. Not to mention that, thanks to Al, Cecil had a really high tolerance for pain.
It was another fairly bad idea, but again, it was the only one he had. Cecil took a deep breath and stuck his arm back through the gap between two bars. “Take my hand,” he told the fire, and then he did something he hadn’t done since the day he’d said goodbye to his mother for the last time: He used his mind to speak instead of his mouth. //You’re curious. Feed it. Grow stronger.//
The fire hesitantly took his hand, the black coating once again falling away. It felt different to the body of an angel; it felt like warmth and light and curiosity and passion…and it felt like it was devouring him, although not really in a bad way. More like in an orgasmic way, and Cecil was really, really happy right at that moment that Carlos’s mother was not in the cave with them. Because the fire had a thousand questions it wanted answered, all at once, and it was stretching out inside of him to get the answers. Which felt entirely too good. He was starting to really really like this body.
Out of the corner of one eye, Cecil saw the slime gathering to strike. He steeled himself and stuck his other hand into the cage too, and the fire latched onto it greedily with no hesitation this time. Maybe this was actually a new, better idea; maybe the fire could get out through him? Or maybe the heat would melt the bars that were between them, because Cecil definitely felt hot enough to melt something.
The slime attacked him from behind, hitting him right between his wings. He clenched his hands into the fire, hanging on even though his back arched from the pain that felt like he was being burned by dirty dry ice. He thrashed his wings, trying to shake the slime off with minimal success –he didn’t dare let go of the fire, he wouldn’t be able to get hold of it again, he knew he wouldn’t. Because even if he could reach in, after this…it wouldn’t dare touch him. Because Carlos wouldn’t want him hurt, and this fire was the essence of Carlos.
More slime came pattering down from the ceiling like icy, burning rain, and he choked on a scream when it ran down over sensitive membranes and dripped across one eye, burning it blind. The fire tried to pull back; he wouldn’t let it. “No! You have to get out or I have to get in, I won’t let you die!” He locked eyes with the fire, a little off-centeredly because one of the two he had left was in the center of his forehead. “I won’t let you die like she did. And if you have to, if we can’t win…I won’t let you die alone like she did, either.”
He felt the fire’s puzzlement; that was a story Carlos didn’t know, a story no one but Cecil knew. He felt the questions building, tried to decide how he would answer…and then the slime which had been hissingly gathering itself around his feet surged up his legs. Cecil choked again and dropped to his knees, red tears running down his face, now not only fighting the pain but also the fear-reaction to the memories the pain was bringing back for him. He didn’t dare freeze up, not here – they’d both die if he did. But he still didn’t let the fire go.
Unable to withdraw and needing to understand, the fire reached deeper inside of him and found the story of Cecil’s mother, examining every detail of it minutely, wrapping warmth around it in commiseration for the loss that had been bigger than anyone had known. And then it spotted the rising tide of fear and dug into that, puzzled…and behind the fear it found Al. It found Al torturing Cecil, over and over again. It found Al lying to Cecil, twisting the rules of the tattoo ritual to draw the torture out while Cecil believed he was helpless to fight back. And then behind, that, it found something else, something Cecil hadn’t realized he’d known.
It found the reason.
Cecil was completely blinded now, slumped against the beslimed bars and nearly covered with slime himself, but he felt the fire’s rage build and then explode. The bars vaporized and he dropped onto bare stone, too weak to catch himself. Instead the fire caught him, wrapping around him like a warm, curious blanket. Every hint of the slime burned away, even the memory of it combusting into the barest puff of smoke. Cecil still couldn’t see, but he could sense the fire filling the cave, shooting out into the labyrinth of tunnels, blowing open the blocked-off branching corridors. He could feel the stone warming, turning pink and red and in some places liquid and bubbly, and he wondered idly if the inside of a scientist’s mind was actually a volcano, constantly erupting.
The fire laughed, liking that analogy. It explored him, asking, probing, questioning. It examined his wings, determined that no, they weren’t big enough to fly with, and soothed his wordless disappointment. It examined his hands, drawing out the claws again, and noted how deadly they could potentially be; angels, at least Night Vale’s angels, were apparently predators as well as protectors. It even finished mapping his tattoos, speculating on what each part of the design meant and how it worked. And then it cradled him when the transformation reversed itself in another burst of now not-so-exquisite agony, cataloging the process of the change even as it painstakingly checked every part of him for damage. Cecil cracked open two human eyes, saw nothing but fire, and let them close again. The fire was warm and he was tired and he felt safer than he ever had in his life. He let the endless questions wash over him, happy to give up every answer and be known, losing himself in the fire and too tired and happy to care.
A hand patting his cheek brought him back, and he swatted at it ineffectively. And Carlos smiled – Cecil knew that even though his eyes were still closed because he felt it, although he didn’t know why and couldn’t bring himself to wonder about it too much. The fire that was holding him became strong arms and a broad chest and a feeling of love so intense that a tear dripped out of his eye and he trembled. “Shh, it’s okay,” the familiar – and yet somehow unfamiliar – voice assured him. Cecil turned the difference over in his sluggish, sated, aching mind, identified it as the presence of the fire where it hadn’t been before, and relaxed again. “That’s right, it’s okay. I’ll get you out of here, we’ll go home. I’ll yell at you tomorrow for trying to die for me.”
They were walking through the flowing, bubbling, loving fire, and then the air temperature dropped a few degrees. A hand that didn’t belong to Carlos touched his cheek with affection. “So adorable,” Carlos’s mother said. “And so very, very brave. You take good care of him, Carlos; he loves you more than he loves himself.”
“I love him enough for both of us,” Carlos told her, the new warmth and strength in his voice washing over Cecil and making him hum in pleasure. “Now go on, Mama, go find Pappi. He’s probably making a mess in Heaven right now because you aren’t there to stop him.”
Cecil heard her snort. "He's probably trying to redesign the Pearly Gates to be more efficient,” she countered. “And have faith, son. We will see you there eventually, and your Cecil too." Her hand caressed his cheek again. “Angels belong in Heaven, after all.”
And that was when the fire rushed out behind them like a tidal wave, and swept everything else away.
Cecil woke up with a gasp, flailing like a drowning man suddenly erupting into clear air out of smothering water. Strong hands pinned him down, and a familiar, reassuring voice in his ear told him it was all right, everything was fine. His eyes popped open. Carlos was there, on the bed next to him, one arm across his heaving chest and the other hand cupping his cheek. Carlos was giving him instructions in a calm, collected voice, repeating them over and over. “Breathe, sweetheart. Take a breath and hold it, then let it out. You’re hyperventilating. Take a breath and hold it, then let it out slowly.”
Cecil sucked in a breath and held it, his eyes closing again. His chest felt like it was going to explode, so did his head, but he held onto the lungful of air and let it leak out, feeling himself sink into the bed as it did. Some of the tightness in his chest loosened, and the next breath came easier. Carlos kissed his temple. “That’s right, just relax and keep your eyes closed. Everything is okay. Three eyes,” he explained when Cecil made a questioning noise. “Your brain is still human, I think it was probably just too much input to take. Just relax, I called Old Woman Josie and your uncle will be here soon and he should know how to fix it.”
Cecil turned his head blindly. “You…remember?”
Carlos, it seemed, had inherited his mother’s snort. “Of course I remember.” An appreciative if shaking hand stroked down his shoulder. “I prefer you like this, but you were beautiful the other way, too. And it was a really pretty color. Maybe we can dye a bedspread or something, would you like that?”
Cecil nodded, grimacing. Every inch of his body felt bruised. “I…slipped.”
“I know.” Carlos kept stroking his hair. “And we’ll discuss practicing and how much of it you’re going to be doing later.” A gentle finger against his lips stopped the protest that wanted to come out. “No, I understand why you couldn’t. I understand…a lot of things, now.”
He sounded sad, and for that Cecil opened his eyes again, squinting. Carlos looked sad, too. “What…”
“I know why he did it – all of it, to both of us. Al…well, he saw something, he misunderstood what he saw, and then instead of asking anyone about it he overreacted and tried to fix it. And then he saw you, realized he’d seen you too, and he hurt you because he’d seen you with me.” He stopped the protest again. “No, I know it wasn’t my fault, and it also wasn’t yours – it wasn’t even the tribe’s for giving him the tattoos. His own arrogance caused the problem and then he went nuts once he realized how badly he’d screwed up, that was all.” He moved his hands so they were cradling Cecil’s face. “I’ll explain it better later, but for now…thank you,” he said. “Even though it was an accident, you still saved me. Never again, though, okay? No more sacrifice plays.”
Cecil blinked at him, vision blurring and not just because of how much the light was hurting his eyes. “You started it.”
“Yeah, I know, but that was both of us together, this wasn’t. And nothing is worth losing you, Cecil, nothing.” And then he leaned in and initiated a kiss that was so deeply passionate Cecil almost forgot how to breathe. “Angels may belong in Heaven,” Carlos murmured, “but this one doesn’t get to go unless I go with him, got it?”
Cecil tangled his fingers in Carlos’s hair again, pulling his head back down for another kiss. “Got it.”