Chapter Text
Cecil locks the radio station door behind him as he leaves, looking forward to the nice night he’s going to have with his family.
He’s expecting the parking lot to be empty, everyone else having already gone home, and for his trip home to be uneventful.
Instead, as he turns away to get into his car, he’s knocked to the sandy ground.
“The fuck-” Cecil starts, trying to push himself off the ground, his words cut off as he sees who’s looming above him.
Kevin stands, smiling down at him, his lips pulled back to reveal more teeth than Cecil thought to be in a human mouth, his tarpit-like eyes boring into him, red staining his shirt and dripping down his face.
It’s like looking into a funhouse mirror, in a way, since the man has been said to look so similar to him.
Except it isn’t fun, it's terrifying.
“Kevin, what the hell are you doing here?” Cecil asks, opting to push himself away instead of stand up.
“Get up.” Kevin replies, his horrid smile not faltering.
“...What?” He responds, not following the order he had been giving.
“Get up.” The other Radio Host repeats. “It’s more fun if you put up a fight.”
“Listen, I know we’ve had our differences, but I just want to go home.” The Voice of Night Vale pleads. “Can’t we just, I don’t know, do this a different day?”
Instead of responding, the Voice of Desert Bluffs steps forward, grabs his hair, and yanks him upwards.
“Blood Stone Circles, what is wrong with you?!” Cecil yelps, pushing him away as he stumbles to his feet.
Although he knows the question is ridiculous, since he’s seen that there are a lot of things wrong with the man.
Kevin waits a moment, and for a brief second Cecil thinks that he’s finally regained some sense, before the fellow Radio Host pounces on him once again.
Cecil gets his arm in front of his throat just in time for the man’s razor-like teeth to dig into the flesh of his forearm, ripping into his skin.
He screams in pain, shoving Kevin as hard as he can in his chest, feeling the teeth tearing at his arm as he’s forced away.
His breath is ragged as he tries to back away, Kevin’s obsidian eyes following him, hunting him down.
“Where are you going Cecil?” Kevin asks, his vicious grin not faltering, even as tension rises in his voice. “Isn’t this fun? Aren’t we having fun?”
Cecil falls into the concrete wall of the radio station, using it as support as he continues to back away, unable to break his gaze away from the maniac trying to fight him.
“I don’t know if this is what’s considered fun in your fucked up cult of a town,” Cecil hisses, the pain from the bite flaring. “But I can say I am not enjoying this.”
“You really think this is about Desert Bluffs? Or that I’m here on behalf of ‘the Smiling God’?” Kevin asks, a bitter laugh escaping those impossibly sharp teeth.
He’s expecting for the man to continue, for him to actually explain why he’s here.
Which is why he’s caught off guard when Kevin leaps forward once more, grabbing the collar to his shirt, and pushing him to the ground.
Cecil tries to gather his legs up and kick Kevin in the chest or stomach to get him away, but his attention is too divided as his attacker’s jaws snap by his face, narrowly missing their intended mark, but still causing cuts on his cheek.
“Just leave me alone!” Cecil shouts, doing his best to push his face away with his free hand.
Kevin’s only response is a low growl, and to aim another bite at Cecil’s throat.
The Night Valian switches tactics, opting instead to use the Desert Bluffs Too’s resident’s own move against him, pulling his hair back to avoid the most likely lethal blow.
Kevin gnashes his teeth, his almost perpetual smile now gone, but is unable to get to Cecil’s neck.
“What do you want?!” Cecil shouts, his panic clear even to his own ears.
“I want to be you!” Kevin screams back, shaking Cecil by his grip on his shirt.
The Voice of Night Vale lets go of his hair in surprise, and the Voice of Desert Bluffs lurches forward, sinking his teeth into his shoulder.
Cecil cries out in pain once more, but this time gets enough leverage to push Kevin over, pinning his arms with his knees, and holding his head down by his neck, like with a snake, his arm and shoulder screaming in blinding pain as he does so.
“Sorry to break it to you, but my life is mine, and you can't have it.” Cecil growls, the hurt amplifying his anger.
“Were you not listening you fucking idiot?!” Kevin asks, thrashing around as he tries to get free. “I don't want what you have, I want to be who you are!”
Cecil stares at him, the words not making sense, as Kevin switches tactics, now scratching at his arms, torso, and face.
“Why?!” Cecil asks. “What do I have that you don’t?!”
Kevin snorts, his dark eyes dangerous as they glare at him.
“I don't know, maybe you have the ability to find actual happiness!” Kevin yells at him. “You can love something without it being having to be useful to you, you don't have to fight for control only to have it repeatedly stripped away from you, you weren't raised for one specific purpose, to worship one specific thing, only for your faith in and love for it to die like the corporation who brainwashed you, and you aren't trapped repeating the cycle of your own miserable life!”
“You literally have the perfect opportunity to change who you are!” Cecil shouts back at him. “You are actually, genuinely, getting a do over! You have the chance to guide yourself to something better, to be someone better!”
“I can't!” Kevin screams, giving up on trying to bite him, black tears streaming down his face, although Cecil isn't sure if that's from eyeliner or how his tears normally are. “I have tried over and over again, but I’m stuck! I want to be better than my father was to me, but everything I do is the same! I don’t even worship a Smiling God anymore, and yet I force him to be the perfect follower! I was supposed to be chosen and special, but I don’t even control what I do! I’m not a leader, I’m a puppet!”
Slowly, Cecil lets go of his neck, before backing off of him completely.
Kevin doesn’t lunge at him again, instead curling in on himself, clawing at his own abdomen, shaking uncontrollably, and sobbing violently.
Cecil hesitates, the blood still leaking from his arm, pouring out of his shoulder, dripping and pooling onto the dusty ground.
“I wasn’t supposed to end up like this!” Kevin shouts between wails. “I used to be happy! I was supposed to feel joy! They took that away! I’m a soulless vessel, Cecil! I tried to exalt the Smiling God, and I got shown that it will always choose someone else! I tried to escape it’s wretched grasp, and the horrid light burned through me! I can’t win! I can’t change! I can’t be anything anymore!”
Cecil looks down at himself, now disheveled, clothes stained with a dark burgundy, and then looks back at the broken man lying on the concrete.
With a sigh, he scouts himself over, and gently grabs Kevin, pulling him off the ground, pain flaring up with the effort.
He wraps his arms around the trembling Radio Host, knowing that, even if he really doesn’t like him, and even if they were just in an incredibly nasty fight, he needs him right now.
“Maybe you’re right.” Cecil says, his voice lower now, hoping it’s somewhat of a comfort, as he rubs Kevin’s back. “Maybe it would have been better if you were me. Maybe you can’t change. Maybe everything really does suck, and your life isn’t your own.”
“You’re not helping.” Kevin grumbles, although he stays put.
“But you still have to keep going. Find happiness in the little things.” He continues. “You may be stuck in a cult, but hey, at least the sky is still pretty. You may not be happy with how you are as a father, although I think we all look back and wish to have done things better, fix our mistakes, but at least the sand still glitters like stars. You might be a mess, but you still get to enjoy a coffee in the morning. Maybe your life really didn’t turn out how you wanted it to, but you still have radio. There will always be some good, even if it’s small. You just need to look out for it.”
“You’re hopelessly optimistic.” Kevin mutters, leaning his head against Cecil’s chest, the tears seeming to have subsided, and his breath to have slowed.
“That may be true,” Cecil replies, his voice light. “But it’s worked out well for me so far.”
They sit for a few minutes, until finally Cecil deems that Kevin’s stable enough, and won’t attack him when he lets go, or start breaking down again.
“Can you drive?” He asks.
“Yeah?” Kevin responds, sounding confused by the question.
“Great.” Cecil replies, releasing the fellow Radio Host from his grasp. “Because I’m in no state to drive home, and, well,”
He gestures as well as he can to his wounds with the other man still in his lap.
“Ah, right.” Kevin says, standing up and dusting himself off. “I forget how fragile you are.”
“You literally bit me.” Cecil retorts.
“Well, you know what they say,” Kevin replies, offering a hand to him, smiling once more, this time, though, one that’s less horrific. “All’s well once life itself ends.”
Cecil takes his hand, pulling himself off the ground.
“Still, I don’t appreciate being bitten.” He grumbles.
“You didn’t taste good anyways.” Kevin responds.
Cecil just sighs, rolling his eyes, as he tosses the other Voice his keys.