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Cecil did not exist.
That was simply a fact.
He did not exist, never had, and never would. That was a fact, like how he was not tall, and not short, and not thin or fat. He was a smiling man wearing a tie and he was a conglomerate of microphones and the blinking red of recording like a city skyline.
He was so, so old, and he was younger than his own intern, he was younger than an intern who used to be younger than him.
Wasn’t time supposed to be back to normal?
Yes, but Cecil didn’t exist, see, that wasn’t how it worked for him.
He traced a hand lightly to the frame of a mirror with a sheet draped over it. He could feel the ridges of the ornate patterns on his fingertips, on hands he didn’t have. Perhaps he had died. He had seen himself die, other Cecils, and it always felt like it should have been him. That was what he was doing, where he was going. And then he wasn’t, and he was guiding a man in a dark jacket too big, and he was watching his reflection bleed in a thousand different reflections of silver, and he was trying to call out to a child who just wanted to work in radio but couldn’t stop looking where he wasn’t meant to. Dead, dead, and dead. There were more, he knew this. There were others he didn’t know. It hadn’t stopped after they had sewn reality back together, the careful craftsmanship of an artist running a thumb over broken pottery. They tut, shake their head, and pick out the correct shard and slide it back in. Piece by piece. Cecil, then, was like the dust of the broken ceramic that didn’t go back. It’d shattered, so small, so finite, that it was impossible to retrieve.
He gripped the sheet on the mirror, considered lowering it. Maybe this time it would be him, but then again there was one who would survive, continue the life he was living. It was more than the constant death one experiences by nature of existing in linear time, it was a replacement, a tearing and inserting of someone who shouldn’t have been allowed to stay.
No, that would only pass this reality onto him again, but with the knowledge of seeing himself die in another fashion. He let go of the fabric and continued his tracing, imagining what he might see if he lowered it. Sometimes he didn’t see his face at all. They would take pictures and there would just be a mark where his eyes should have been, spilled ink covering his features while with his Carlos or Esteban or Steve or anyone else more real than he.
How many times had he done this before? He knew it happened on the air sometimes. He would come home, and Carlos would give him one of those looks of faint concern and treat him just a bit more gently. It wasn’t something that went without appreciation, but he felt embarrassed nonetheless. He hoped Esteban didn’t notice, but he knew at some point he would. How some days his father didn’t quite look anyone in the eye, either rambled on and on like he was still on broadcast or static silent. Would forget trips they went on. Esteban kept asking to go to the woods again. Tugging Carlos’ lab coat, short phrases about trees and fun and bugs. They had never gone to the woods before, Cecil said once, laughing. Carlos gave him that look.
He knew Nightvale loved him. And he loved Nightvale. But he wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. He slid down to the ground and sat there, forehead against the bottom cabinets of his sink. He could hear Esteban giggling and babbling on as he played with a set of Sheriff's Secret Police and Vague-Yet-Menacing-Government-Agency branded toy cars. He loved his son.
And Carlos, perfectly imperfect Carlos, just at the other end of that room, taking his turn tonight cooking dinner. He loved Carlos too, of course. He had meant to just go to the bathroom and wash his hands–it was almost ready, after all–but got a bit… distracted. He should get up. He should stop this and go back out, stop feeling so cold and lightheaded.
“Carlos,” he said another night in the car (which was parked outside the house, but they hadn’t gotten out of it just yet), “You’re a scientist.”
“Well, yes honey,” he replied, a light grin to his tone. “I am a scientist, that’s the idea. What about it?”
“You did science on that house, the one that didn’t exist. But it was next to two houses that existed, so it would make more sense if it did. You proved, empirically, that it was not real and not actually there at all.”
“That I did.” He shifted, unbuckling and reaching a hand to Cecil’s knee. He studied his expression, eyebrows furrowed in that way where he was almost sure he had the answer to something but didn’t have conclusive evidence yet.
“Carlos.”
“Love?”
“If you know that,” he said, “then how have you not noticed that I’m not either? Why do you love someone who isn’t real?”
Carlos laughed softly, sounding more concerned than amused. “Darling, you’re right here. Investigative instruments beep and make other important and factual sounds when I hold them up to you, you take up space and have mass. You’re my husband . What could be more real than that?” He brushed a hand up to his cheek, cupping him gently.
“But–” He shook his head slightly. “But I don’t exist. I don’t.”
Carlos looked at him for a long moment, his expression softening. “My sweet midnight hare, I love you because you’re you. We could debate whether or not you exist more or less than the rest of Nightvale, but no matter what answer we settled on, you’re still Cecil. You’re still real enough that I can hold you and talk to you and love you. And that might not be enough for you, right now, but that’s enough for me. I fell in love with Nightvale because it is the most scientifically interesting town in America, and you?”
He smiled, running a thumb over Cecil’s cheekbone as he continued, “You’re the most scientifically interesting person to me. You’re a mystery, you make no sense, your life contradicts itself. And it’s scary, of course it is, I’m here for you. But just like it does for our town, it makes you beautiful.”
Cecil smiled then. And it hadn't stopped being a comfort to him even now. Carlos was so, so good to him, and every day he was grateful to have met him. But knowing one is loved externally doesn’t manifest internal love or acceptance. That is something that must be dug up yourself with dirty fingernails and grass stained jeans, planted and laboured over. And he was trying. He was trying so hard.
He reached a hand up to his face, running his fingers down the features of it and trying to attach a visual. He wondered if that picture he had at the station was still accurate, it’d been there for… well, since before he was even dating Carlos. At least a decade. Did he look like his mother? He pressed his fingers into his eyelids until colour sparked and just a little longer before slumping down to lay on the floor with a shuddering breath.
There was no need for him to be upset. He wasn’t real, after all. He would get up later and he would walk out, and the world would play along with him a little longer.
And maybe if he was lucky, one day it wouldn’t.