Work Text:
Cecil Palmer was tired of smiling. The holiday cheer wasn’t nearly as contagious as the previous years, but he still found himself surrounded by a festive crowd almost constantly. With the war over, everyone wanted to celebrate. Even worse, everyone wanted him to celebrate with them.
They took issue with his actions following his boyfriend’s disappearance. The drinking, specifically. He was well aware of that. In response, he would only point out that he wasn’t actually getting drunk that often - he wasn’t - and at least he hadn’t started smoking again. That habit had been hard enough to kick the first time around. Still, they kept demanding cheer. Cecil, come out with us, hang out with us, smile a bit, it’ll be okay, come on, he’ll be home soon.
He reflected on this as he leaned back in his chair and listened to a pre-recorded message play. His phone was sitting on the desk. On the screen, should he care to unlock it again, was yet another invite from yet another “friend” insisting that he try to have some fun. Whoever it was, he would say yes. That was what he always said. He wasn’t supposed to say no, that showed them that he wasn’t improving and they would take matters into their own hands eventually. Specifically, they would talk to the secret police. The only thing worse than the empty apartment was the idea of forgetting who was missing.
That was why he hauled out his box of green and red sweaters, throwing them with any number of outfits. An increasing number of those outfits were nothing other than dress clothes. Ties, white shirts, and carefully creased pants. Who was he trying to impress anyway?
“Ten seconds, Cecil,” one of the interns - Damien? Darrel? - announced through his headphones.
“Alright,” he replied, plastering a smile once again.
They watched through the window as he sat up straight. He followed the countdown of the intern’s fingers and picked his papers back up. The script gave his mind a break, at least. Coming up with the exact words on the spot might sound better, but he just didn’t feel like it anymore.
Before he had so much as opened his mouth, he heard a shout through the window. It was immediately repeated through the headset.
“Cecil, you need to take a look around! We have breaking news!” the intern running the boards yelled.
He perked up a bit at the idea of something more exciting than the community calendar and closed his eyes. His third eye, the one that marked him as the true Voice of Night Vale, opened almost immediately and gave him a god’s-eye view of the town.
“Listeners, I have just been informed that that we have some breaking news for you today,” Cecil said into the microphone, scanning the town to find anything that might be unusual enough to warrant his notice.
“Desert Creek housing development, check in Desert Creek,” the intern said through his headset.
Cecil turned his gaze to the rows of houses and found a familiar group of people in white coats crowding around a house that should not exist.
“Carlos’ team of scientists - without Carlos to complete their team - is gathered around the House That Doesn’t Exist,” he reported. “They are watching it not with the usual curiosity and mild fear, but a startled uncertainty that only occurs when things do not act how we expect them to.”
The group of scientists, still not including his boyfriend, all turned to the radio sitting to one side and began to glance around. One waved to the others, trying to draw their attention back to the house. They looked to it, scribbling notes and talking with each other.
“At first glance, there seems to be nothing different about the House That Doesn’t Exist, but something doesn’t seem quite... right. There is something wrong with the house, listeners, and I cannot put my finger on it.”
Cecil didn’t have a chance to take a closer look before the house’s old oak door was thrown open. A man in tattered clothing stumbled forward, looking around with wide eyes and falling to his knees on the paved sidewalk. The scientists lept forward with startled cries.
Cecil told his listeners none of this. He had already thrown his headset off and rushed down the hallway. The interns shouted after him, but he was already speeding out of the parking lot. His car radio played the weather, cued clumsily by an intern’s unsteady words and assurances that everything was alright. Not a single police officer gave him so much as a glance as he sped down the road at three times the speed limit.
His tires squealed as he came to a stop in front of the House That Doesn’t Exist. The scientists all jumped at the noise. One of them stumbled away from the group. All of the scientists followed him, arms out to catch him if he swayed enough to fall, but he was already collapsing into Cecil’s waiting arms. They hugged breathlessly.
“Carlos, oh beautiful Carlos, you’re home,” Cecil whispered to the man in his arms.
“You’re real, I can feel you, you’re here,” Carlos whispered back, resting his head against the smaller man’s shoulder. “I’m here.”
“You’re home,” Cecil said. “I’m taking you home now.”
“Wait,” Carlos said as Cecil started to pull him toward the car.
“No, no more science for now,” Cecil said firmly. “It has been seven and a half months, you are coming home. Carlos, please, I am so sick of science. I am your boyfriend and I have waited for science for months and I want you to be home.”
By the end of it, tears were welling up in the corner of Cecil’s eyes. One of his cheeks was indented slightly, no doubt due to being bitten. Carlos couldn’t find an argument, and he didn’t really want to. Work had been captivating in that desert, despite the distance from home. Home, which had somehow come to mean the little apartment he shared with Cecil in Night Vale. The phone calls had been enough for him, for the most part, but as the days went on he could hear the pain growing in Cecil’s voice.
It struck him at once how much he truly meant to the radio host. Music was still pouring from somebody’s radio. This was the middle of the show and Cecil, however mostly professional he managed to be, clearly had no intention of returning to the station. If Cecil was sacrificing work, then so could Carlos. He had been working for months, after all.
“I’ll be back in a while,” he called over his shoulder and walked with Cecil to the car.
Cecil’s face broke into the start of a watery grin. For the first time in months, Carlos rested his dusty form into the passenger seat. Neither of them said a word on the quick drive back to their apartment. They walked silently from the car and up the creaking stairs, entering their apartment together.
Carlos couldn’t believe the sight that faced him. Boxes of takeout were strewn around, scattered on the counter and occasionally spilling onto the floor. Clothes were tossed at the foot of the couch, which was piled with the blankets that belonged on the bed. The whole apartment was dark and held the distinctive smell of a place where nobody cares enough to do anything other than survive. That, and alcohol. The source of the alcohol smell was without a doubt the dozens of bottles and cans sitting across tables and on the floor.
The worst part was the ease with which Cecil moved through the mess. He had not only lived in it, he had thrived. It was not in any way new to him. As Carlos stared on in horror, Cecil pulled off his carefully tied necktie and tossed it onto the clothing pile. Only then did he cast a sheepish smile at Carlos.
“I might have gotten a little messy,” he admits, shrugging. “I’ll clean it up tomorrow, I promise.”
Carlos struggled for words to say to Cecil, to demand answers for the trash tossed around so carelessly. Evidence of despair, he realized. This was evidence of a Cecil who was in mourning, a side of Cecil he had never seen before. In that moment, he began to wonder who created the line “drink to forget,” City Council or Cecil himself. Instead of finding angry words or chastising him, Carlos shook his head and pulled Cecil into a tight hug.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly as Cecil’s arms settled around him.
For the first time, he found that he truly meant it. He had focused on his work, he had been so excited, and he had let Cecil mourn as if he was dead. The moment was on an edge. One push, a strategic placement of lips and hands, could flip it into a sexual one. Carlos shook his head to himself and leaned back from the hug.
“I forgive you. We should shower,” Cecil said.
Carlos nodded, “I think we could both use a quick one. However, I also think that if we both try to wash up at the same then we will both come out of that bathroom with too much dirt on us, don’t you?”
Cecil flushed lightly, “Why don’t you shower now and I’ll shower in the morning?”
“Sounds like a great idea.”
Carlos kissed Cecil’s cheek and left him for the promise of a warm shower. Cecil watched him, a small, honest smile stretching across his face for the first time in months. While the water ran, he began the slow process of shoving the piles of trash into plastic bags and changing the sheets on his bed. No... their bed. His smile grew at the thought.
By the time Carlos walked out of the steaming bathroom with a clean-shaven face and a fluffy towel wrapped around his waist, Cecil was curled up on fresh sheets in clean pajamas for the first time in far too long. He watched Carlos turn away and pull on some pajama pants with a light blush on his cheeks, but pushed the tingling away before Carlos slipped under the sheets with him.
They curled together as if they had only been apart for a night, maybe two. Carlos’s arm rested over Cecil’s waist. Their fingers wound together near his belly button. Against his ear, Cecil could feel Carlos’s warm breath. As they drifted silently to sleep, he sent a thankful prayer to whatever god or goddess was responsible for his boyfriend’s safe return. The world fell away just as he heard something whisper, ”You’re welcome.”