Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first time Carlos takes a pill in front of Cecil, he’s justifiably nervous—they’re only about twelve dates in, so it’s not like they’re committed yet. He has to take it, though; he’s not going to get in the habit of hiding it, and Cecil’s going to notice eventually if they persist with these cozy post-date mornings. Which, to be truthful, Carlos would prefer.

Cecil frowns as Carlos pops the top off the pill bottle, and Carlos feels his shoulders set as he reaches for his coffee cup. Almost universally, people have this tendency, this reflexive curiosity that evades social filters. The little orange cylinder, pharmacy-issued, practically emits some sort of pheromone, attracting inquiry like drosophilidae to rotting fruit. And it’s not like Carlos is ashamed or anything, because he’s not—but then, that makes it sound like Viagra or something.

It’s decidedly not Viagra or something.

Cecil watches as Carlos taps a pill into his palm, gives a short sound as Carlos swallows. He hesitates, then bites his lip. Carlos braces himself for the question.

“That’s not from the pharmacy in town, is it, Carlos?”

Carlos opens his mouth then snaps it shut, squinting one eye behind his glasses. That was not the question he’d expected. But then, he supposes that’s what he gets for expecting Night Vale to do anything at all. “Uh, no? No. My prescription’s at WalMart.”

“Oh, good,” says Cecil, leaning back in his seat. He sips his coffee and wrinkles his nose, then plops something gelatinous into his cup. Carlos curves his fingers around his own mug, waiting.

The waiting stretches beyond his estimates.

“…Was that all?” Carlos asks, when it becomes obvious that Cecil’s immediate intentions do not include disrupting the quiet.

“Mm,” says Cecil, all three eyes shut. The steam from his coffee curves around his cheekbones. “Just wanted to make sure. That pharmacy isn’t always advisable, you know?”

“Advisable?”

“Uh-huh. There have been incidents.”

“Oh,” says Carlos. “Noted. Thank you.”

Cecil trills, a sound that equates to no problem, and lapses back into soft, sleepy silence. He’s only on his first cup of coffee; scientifically speaking, any communication whatsoever is anomalous. Full thoughts and sentences in a language they both speak could almost be classified as a miracle. Carlos slurps his coffee, one finger on the pill bottle.

He supposes it isn’t that unexpected. Cecil’s surprised him since the day they first met.

-

“Hey,” says Carlos, leaning back on the sink.

“Good evening,” Cecil beams from behind the shower curtain. Carlos can’t see it, but he recognizes its sound, Cecil’s luminous smile twitching syllables upward. Cecil’s voice through the steam recalls his Voice through static, which triggers Carlos’ neural pathways to light like crescent moons. Hello, listeners, thinks Carlos, and he grins like an idiot.

Cecil continues, his words muted by the spray. “I thought you said you’d be late tonight.”

“I was supposed to be,” Carlos says, hopping up to perch on the counter. He bumps a few bottles and winces when they clatter. “Something escaped from the kitchen at Rico’s, so we had to shut down the lab for a while. The Sheriff’s Secret Police set up a perimeter.”

“Ah,” says Cecil, then quiets a moment. Carlos counts the seconds as he replaces the bottles. Around sixteen-point-five, Cecil verbally winces. “Oof. That…might take them a while.”

“It looked that way when they cleared us out.”

“I don’t think you’re going to work tomorrow, Carlos. The SSP are hunkering down.”

“Well, at least it gives you something to report.” Carlos aims a winning smile at the curtain, then adds a cheesy finger-gun for effect. “I can stop in at the station for an interview, if you’d like.”

“Yes,” Cecil yelps, and Carlos laughs at the octave, shakes his head in a state of near-concussed awe. Cecil loves him with such boundless enthusiasm; it almost makes Carlos feel like vomiting butterflies. He chuckles anew—words are not his forte—and retrieves the last fallen object from the sink. It’s his bottle of pills. He considers the label.

“Hey, Cecil?” says Carlos, his wonder still lingering. He’s far less nervous than he thought he’d be. The butterflies are reserved for special occasions.

“Yes, dearest Carlos?”

“You know I’m being treated for depression, right?”

There’s a miniscule pause, but a casual one, unmarked by anything resembling discomfort. Cecil’s voice, when he speaks, runs distilled-water clear. “I didn’t, actually.”

“The pills I take, that’s what they’re for.”

Cecil’s hum of acknowledgment bounces softly from the tiles. “I admit, I was curious. But I figured you’d tell me if it were contagious, and I never noticed you, like, molting or anything. So I wanted to respect your privacy.”

Carlos the Scientist hijacks the response before the rest of Carlos realizes it’s happened. “Do people in Night Vale commonly molt? A significant percentage of the population?”

Cecil shuts off the water and gropes for a towel, his voice caressing the perceived naiveté. “Sweet, innocent Carlos. Didn’t you ever take ninth grade biology?”

“Fascinating,” says Carlos. “I’ll have to look into that.”

“Good luck finding volunteers.”

Carlos chuckles as Cecil pulls back the curtain, the fluffy towel around his waist. At the stage to which they’ve advanced in the relationship, the towel seems a little ridiculous—in fact, to be honest, the towel seems pretty ridiculous, anyway. “You look like you’re wearing a sheep as a skirt.”

“I will thank you not to mock my bath linens, Mister I-Own-One-Towel-Half-Eaten-By-Acid.”

“Cecil Gershwin. That towel was wounded in action.”

“That towel provides a great view of your butt.”

Carlos rolls his eyes but grins nonetheless, tossing the pill bottle between his hands. Its rattling nudges his brain back on-course; his voice drops in volume, ever so slightly. “So, uh. About this. Did you have any questions?” He flicks his wrist; the orange plastic gleams. “Or…comments, I guess? Or anything, really?”

Cecil steps toward the counter, his skin still steaming, and brushes his lips against Carlos’ cheek. “I always want to know about you. But only if you feel comfortable telling me.”

Carlos traces a line of Cecil’s tattoos, fingertips running from shoulder to elbow. He considers the qualifier. “I actually do.”

“Then yes,” Cecil says. “So, you have depression?”

-

Carlos ends up telling Cecil in pieces, letting their conversations meander. Curled up in bed, he outlines the basics. “I was diagnosed when I was twenty-two, but most of my life, it’s been a factor.”

Cecil frowns like a question and snuggles closer, snaking an arm across Carlos’ chest. Carlos touches the indent between Cecil’s eyes, smoothing it with the pad of his thumb. “I don’t think people knew. I didn’t want to talk to a doctor.”

“Why not?” Cecil murmurs.

“The stigma, I guess. The treatment costs. Plus, the condition kind of kills your motivation.”

“But it didn’t kill you,” Cecil says, barely audible.

“Almost,” says Carlos. “But no. No, it didn’t.”

He pretends not to notice the unspoken question, and Cecil—sweet, perceptive Cecil—does not push the subject further.

-

Over gluten-free waffles at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner, Carlos describes his months of awkward counseling and the therapist who suggested he find himself a girlfriend.

“What?” Cecil yelps. “That is sooo unprofessional!”

“I thought so, too. That’s why I stopped going.”

Beneath their favorite tree in Mission Grove Park, Cecil weaves flower crowns, and Carlos recalls the friends from college who never spoke of it, never acknowledged the behavioral changes. The cousin who tried to logic him out of it, then called him selfish for wanting to die. “She’s the one who dragged me to therapy. She went through a lot, trying to keep me alive.”

“Still,” says Cecil.

“Still,” says Carlos.

As they browse Netflix, he explains his fear of self-diagnosing, his stubborn refusal of the word “depression.” His hesitance to see a doctor and have his condition dismissed or diminished. The days when he spent hours on the floor, staring at the ceiling, mind blank, eyes burning.

“Can I ask…I don’t know…how did it feel?”

Carlos pauses, scraping the edges of his vocabulary. He is not Cecil; his descriptions lack color. “It’s…heavy. Oppressive. I lost days just staring at nothing, crying; it took so much energy to move, I couldn’t… I just didn’t have it. I stopped listening to music or seeing friends. I meant to take a year between undergrad and my master’s, and it turned into four. I was…” He rakes his fingers through his hair. “It felt like weights tied all over my body. Nothing mattered. I was nonfunctional.”

Cecil scoots closer, sliding his arms around Carlos’ chest. Carlos shifts to accommodate him. He wraps one arm around Cecil’s shoulders, drops a kiss atop Cecil’s head.

“I love you,” says Cecil.

Carlos breathes Cecil’s lavender, butterscotch scent. “I love you, too.”

-

Carlos stumbles and stutters his way through some stories, trying desperately for casual where casual won’t fit. His eyes seek anything that doesn’t stare back, anything specifically that is not Cecil. He isn’t embarrassed—it’s a medical issue; it’s a problem of chemistry—but he’s wary of pity, ill-equipped to address it. Ill-equipped to offer comfort or apology, to play the villain of his own disease.

Cecil listens when Carlos speaks, but he makes no attempt to catch Carlos’ eyes. Just listens, both of his hands on the steering wheel, nodding to show that he’s paying attention.

One suicide attempt, intermittent self-harm. Carlos rolls up the sleeve of his weekend lab coat and lets Cecil touch the remnants of scars.

“Scissors,” he mutters. “Razorblade. Glass.”

“But not anymore.”

“No, not anymore.”

Cecil’s hand creeps down his arm to nudge at his fist; Carlos opens his palm and lets their fingers lace together. Cecil is adept at driving one-handed. Carlos finds himself smiling as the desert zips past.

-

“There was this day,” Carlos says. “I just laid on the floor for hours, holding this kitchen knife; my eyes were leaking tears down my temples—not crying, not actively, I was just, just leaking. I remember the wetness trailing into my ears, how it was this, this background annoyance, but I didn’t have the energy to do something about it. So I just stayed there, ears wet, this huge knife in my hands, and these abstract thoughts kept bouncing back and forth, about how easy it would be, how fragile a human body is, how I knew just where to slide the knife for maximum efficiency. It was nothing, like clouds in my brain. So simple, and messy, so much blood to clean up, but it didn’t matter, because I knew I couldn’t. I didn’t have the energy to move one hand; I couldn’t dry the tear-trails running raw over my skin. There was nothing in my limbs to carry out the thought. So I just stayed there, holding the knife, barely thinking, the light changing and turning into night. Eventually I got up. I unlocked the door. My cousin took the knife away. And when I made my one attempt on record, I chose a much more passive method. I cinched a plastic bag around my head, and I let my body breathe.”

-

Cecil’s affection has always been tactile, small touches like the rippling vibrations of his Voice. It is calming to be held by Cecil; it makes Carlos feel safe and loved and wanted. Cecil touches him often in the following days, not with pity, but with care. His hands express gratitude and support. His fingers, cool against Carlos’ jaw, articulate the subtle, powerful presence of the man who speaks each night on the radio.

Carlos swallows a pill each morning, and Cecil sleepily traces his hands. Sometimes, Cecil’s fingers drift further, finding the silken threads of old scars. Carlos feels no impulse to flinch, no urge to shake his sleeves over flesh. Cecil’s touch carries no hidden motive. It merely wanders and accepts.

Carlos leans in to draw Cecil closer. His responding soliloquy dusts across their kiss.

-

“Hey,” Carlos says one night over pizza.

Cecil glances up from his mushroom slice, onto which he’s been painstakingly dribbling hot sauce. His expression lifts in a slow, easy smile. “Hey yourself, my dearest Carlos.”

“I was just thinking,” Carlos says, toying with his slice of fennel-broccoli. He pokes a bubble in the crust, then catches Cecil’s gaze for an instant. “I just want to tell you how grateful I am.”

Cecil crinkles the corners of his eyes—cautious, curious. “Grateful? For what?”

“Well, I mean, for a lot of things. For more things than I could recount over dinner. But, specifically, in this moment…” Carlos exhales, trying to verbalize the thought; words thrum through his mind on hummingbird wings. In the end, it is something simple that escapes him. “For not thinking that you should fix me, Cecil.”

Confusion etches between Cecil’s brows, and Carlos holds his hand out, an offering. Cecil tangles their fingers together. “I…don’t understand. Fix you how?”

“My depression,” Carlos attempts to elaborate. “There’s this…this highly romanticized bullshit, where love becomes some magic cure-all. And I’ve dated people—scientists, even—who thought that they should be enough, regardless of understanding the chemistry. They wanted to fix me. So I wouldn’t need the pills.” He tries to meet Cecil’s eyes, he does, but he finds himself staring just over his shoulder. Cecil tightens his grasp on Carlos’ hand.

“That’s silly,” says Cecil, his voice even. A fact.

“I know,” says Carlos, “but every one, without fail.” He drags his gaze from the wall to the table, to their hands pressed together, to the curve of Cecil’s ear. And then, with monumental effort, to the solemn, trembling understanding that dawns in Cecil’s eyes. “So thank you,” says Carlos, thumb brushing Cecil’s knuckles. “Thank you for never asking—never wondering—why you weren’t enough.”

Cecil presses a kiss to Carlos’ palm, then stands and stalks around the table, sliding onto Carlos’ lap. Carlos shifts to make room, arms circling Cecil’s middle.

“I,” says Cecil, “make you happy. I know I make you happy. You make me happy, too.” One of his hands leaves Carlos’ shoulder, alighting instead atop Carlos’ head. “But my brain is naturally able to be happy. Yours just needs a little help.” The hand moves, stroking Carlos’ hair, and Cecil leans forward to lightly bump their foreheads. “I’m not a scientist or a doctor. I can’t give your brain what it needs to do that. Your medicine can, so that I can make you happy. That much, I can understand.”

Carlos touches the small of Cecil’s back, tilting his head into Cecil’s hand. Cecil sighs a whispery, coffee-scented sound.

“I would never presume to pass judgment on your illness. You are my Carlos. You’re alive, and I love you.”

Carlos feels something rise within his chest, intense and expanding, a pressure of tears. He is so, so glad for the presence of Cecil, for the brilliant, perceptive mind behind the voice.

Carlos breathes between them. “I love you, too.”