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Sometimes, when Carlos thought he was beginning to finally understand Night Vale, just a little bit, the entire town seemed to throw him for a loop. There were buildings that didn’t exist and an entire town denying angels (which was a completely different level of weird) despite their obvious existence within the town. Even the simplest things seemed to be a bit off, Carlos realized when Cecil invited him over for the annual bought of spring cleaning.
Not that he wasn’t used to spring cleaning, but for him it had always been a phrase. It had never been a scheduled weekend of cleaning out any remnants of one’s life that a person was certain they could live without for the rest of time, lest the memories haunt them and drive them mad or to, at least, a bought of fond reminiscing. Even stranger was the fact that Spring Cleaning tended to happen sometime between August and November, depending on when the City Council scheduled it.
But, whatever, it wasn’t any big deal, Carlos told himself repeatedly as he helped Cecil sort through his belonging.
Holding up a mask that looked like it might be made from some kind of flesh that definitely wasn’t human, he looked over at where the radio host was organizing his various pairs of furry pants and shorts. “Are you planning on keeping this?” He asked nervously.
Staring at it long and hard, Cecil pursed his lips. “I feel like I should. I mean, it was a gift from my parents.”
“OK. What is it?”
“Ceremonial murder mask made from the skin of a hydra. Kind of a traditional sweet sixteen gift around here,” he explained happily.
Running his fingers along the skin of the mask, Carlos furrowed his brows. “Hydra?”
“You know, like Hiram McDaniels except it tended to reside in water.”
“Right. I got that, but the water came from where? Given that we’re in a desert?”
Finally catching onto the problem Carlos seemed to take with the mask, Cecil waved off the matter as he said, “Oh, it was no big deal. Just this freak rain storm one year. No clouds, just rain. It was a greyish color. Took weeks to get rid of.”
Which did nothing to explain how a hydra got there, but apparently one had and Cecil had gotten a traditional sweet sixteen mask out of it. Shaking his head as he placed it in the ‘keep pile’, Carlos pulled a box closer to him and began to sift through it.
If anything, it seemed to be the most normal of Cecil’s possessions. Nothing but old papers and photographs. Pulling out a few, he began to sift through them, ignorant of the smile spreading across his face as he did.
There were a number of photos of Cecil with people who could only be the family of the strange man and others who might have been friends. Examining one of a very young Cecil, smiling brightly as he held up the still bleeding skull of a megatherium, Carlos had to admit he was a bit amused. Sure, there was still the horror that Cecil and the man Carlos had to assume was his father had killed an extinct animal, but that did little to diminish how cute the boy in the picture was.
“You were a cute kid, you know that?”
Looking up from where he was painstakingly sniffing at a purple spot on his grey furry pants, Cecil frowned before his eyes bulged. “Oh God! Carlos…Don’t look at those.”
“Why? Is something wrong?” He asked nervously. Looking around the room for some sort of hidden camera or mysterious figure, he suddenly felt nervous. “I’m not going to get in trouble am I?”
“What? No.” Suddenly busying himself with a blood red cloak, Cecil muttered, “It’s just embarrassing. I mean, I had braces.”
Laughing suddenly, Carlos continued to look at the photos. “I think you look nice regardless.”
“Thanks, I guess. Just, don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t,” he promised as he picked up a new pile of photos.
They were a lot more recent as the Cecil in them looked a lot more like the man across from him. Even some of the faces, like Old Woman Josie, held a pleasant sort of familiarity. Shuffling through them, Carlos paused when he came across one of Cecil draped a bit too happily over the last person Carlos expected.
Blinking to make sure that he hadn’t been mistaken, Carlos was surprised to find that the Cecil of the photo still looked quite happy in a photo with Steve Carlsberg. Certain that it had to be a mistake, Carlos began to look through the rest of the pictures with a bit more urgency.
There were more than a few. Friendly ones of the two men at Big Rico’s sharing a slice of pizza or even just sitting outside the station. Goofy ones where the two of them had their tongue stuck out at the cameraman.
But, by far, the ones left a stinging feeling in his chest were the ones where Cecil looked as though he had never been happier. That far off dreamy look in his eyes was a familiar one, even if the sight of Cecil clinging to Steve wasn’t. He wasn’t stupid enough to believe that he had been the man’s first love, but something about knowing that Cecil had clearly felt that way about Steve Carlsberg made him feel sad, worried and a bit pleased when he compared it to how Cecil treated the man as of late.
“So,” Carlos said, voice cracking slightly under the strain. Clearing his throat, he did his best to continue on as he held up some rather sweet photo booth pictures of Cecil and his ex. “You and Steve Carlsberg?”
Heading whipping up quick as lightening, Cecil made his way across the room in record speed and took the picture from his hand. Tearing it up without even looking at it, he then pointed at the others and said, “Trash pile. Those go in the trash pile to be burned and forgotten forever, ok?”
“Cecil—“
“Yes? Yes! Thank you,” he said, leaving no real room for argument as he stood there watching Carlos carefully.
Sighing, he sifted through the photos, careful to remove only the ones that involved Steve, and threw them into the trash pile. With that done, he held up his hands in surrender to Cecil’s strange and demanding will.
“Good. We should take a break. I am just famished, you know?” And just like that he was all happy smiled again as he held out a hand to help Carlos up.
Taking it, he got to his feet and nodded. “Sounds great.”
“Awesome,” Cecil said, leading the way to the door.
Carlos followed along without complaint, only remembering that he had forgotten his pen and notepad inside. It was a necessity to have it with him at all times in Night Vale, a fact that Cecil didn’t question as he rushed back inside to retrieve them.
And if he retrieve a photo of Cecil and Steve from the trash pile, well that was his business. After all, one man’s trash was another’s source of scientific inquiry given that there had to be a reason behind Cecil’s hatred of the other man and rash behaviour. The photo was simply a starting point in what Carlos would privately deem ‘a study in what not to do’.