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The first time that Carlos sees him, he can’t stop his heart from pounding. His body literally aches to the bone to see him standing there, as if nothing had happened. But Carlos knows, objectively, that nothing did happen to this man. Because this man is not Cecil. Carlos knows this.And yet...“This is the radio host of StrexCorp’s other station, Mr. Kevin Free. Kevin here has been a loyal employee of the company for years,” says the man in the suit beside him – Daniel, he thinks. Next to Daniel (David? Danny?) are a couple of other men in suits and ties and tie-clips with yellow “S”s. They’re all looking at Carlos expectantly, waiting. He suspects that this might be the reason he was so generously “invited” to this meeting. It’s obvious these men know. They know how much this man, this “Kevin”, looks like his Cecil. But Carlos doesn’t give them the satisfaction of a reaction. He keeps his expression pleasant and offers Kevin a hand in greeting and says with utmost neutrality, “Desert Bluffs, right? I hear it’s,” – terrifying, covered in blood, oh god Carlos it was horrible –“Quite the sight to see.”Kevin beams at him and says, in a voice wrong for his body, “It certainly is! Beautiful and splendid in all its sun-soaked glory. I really recommend you and everyone else here to visit our little town.” Carlos tries not to relate Kevin’s love for his town to Cecil’s love for Night Vale. Carlos forces a small, fleeting smile on his face and retracts his hand from Kevin’s, ignoring just how tight the grip was. “Maybe someday I will.”Something passes through Kevin’s expression, a small drop in his face, just so slight that Carlos would have missed it if he wasn’t already intimately familiar with that face. If he hadn’t spent restless nights kissing lips just like those, staring at that face when he had said something strange or “science-y”, touching cheekbones and chin in reassurance after an existential crisis. So Carlos notices. He notices that Kevin’s eyes grow a little wider and that his voice drops just a little in pitch when he replies, “You know, Desert Bluffs has an excellent scientific team, if you ever want to branch out your experiences.”Carlos isn’t sure what he just saw. He can see the expression, but he doesn’t know what Kevin means by it.So he politely tells him that he still has lots to do in Night Vale, but thank you, maybe another time. He also turns to the StrexCorp representatives next to them and excuses himself to the bathroom. Surprisingly, they let him go without another word.He doesn’t tell them that he won’t be returning.Passing through a crowd of interns and StrexCorp authorities, Carlos weaves his way to the station bathroom, locking the door behind him. Generally speaking, locking doors is always a bad idea, considering the fact that any number of things could be waiting inside. But Carlos doesn’t care. He only cares about what’s out there. He can only fake apathy for so long.The mirror he walks toward is uncovered, and it is a fact that is hard to ignore. Instead of acknowledging it, he grabs the sink with both hands and concentrates on just breathing.A breath in.A breath out.Carlos looks and stares at his face, at the red-rim around his eyes that he’s trying to fight. Something wrangled is pinned in his throat, and he knows if he lets it go, it’ll be a name. He wants so badly to say it, to whisper “Cecil”. To hold onto the image of his double in just beyond the bathroom door. To just pretend that everything is back to the way it was. He wants to cry, and Khoshekh next to him is making a demonic sound that somehow comes off as relatively comforting. Empathetic even.Carlos sees himself in the mirror, looks at his hair that had long ago spread its premature grey and lost its volume and splendor. He looks at the dark circles under his eyes from experiments that he can only do in the darkness of night in an unlit lab, just so cameras (not yet with night-vision, but that do come equipped with automatic vanilla scented spray) can’t prove his “resistance”. His fingers bear chemical burns and copious amounts of paper cuts from opening envelops marked “TF” far too quickly. But his eyes. They are red-rimmed, brown, exhausted, and yet shining. It’s been so long since Carlos has looked at himself and seen anything but resignation in his reflection.It’s foolish, he knows. That is not Cecil in the next room. He looks like him, but only mostly. The man’s eyes are wrong and his smile is unnerving—worse yet, he doesn’t look at Carlos like he’s the only person who matters. And his voice. That voice is wrong and wrong and wrong. That is not Cecil in the next room.It’s foolish, but even so, it eases some part of Carlos to pretend.The scientist hunches over the bathroom counter, his arms bracing his body from falling face-first into the sink, and finally allows himself to cry...Later that night, as he lies in bed, he’ll shake with the sudden realization of where he had seen that expression before, had heard that tone before. He knows now what Kevin meant.
And I fell in love instantly.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The second time Carlos sees him, he tries not to let his heart beat too frantically. This time they are at yet another town meeting, and the entire time Carlos can’t concentrate on the retiring Mayor Pamela Winchell’s words. Her words mattered very little anyway, which everyone knew but no one would admit. No one liked admitting that StrexCorp has invalidated even the Mayor and her ethereal council.Carlos mostly just focuses on his breathing. And on stopping himself from staring at Kevin, who is sitting in the front row reserved for the press. At first, he had tried not to look at him at all, but with Kevin so focused on the proceedings, Carlos could hardly resist watching him. Studying him. Comparing him. They’re so much alike, he thinks, and yet, not at all. Kevin leans forward with anticipation, as if he might miss something extraordinary if he didn’t clearly express his excitement. Cecil had always leaned back, certain in his uncertainty that something extraordinary was bound to happen and confident that his voice would herald its miracle or tragedy. Kevin taps his left foot as if the press conference was a song and the mayor’s words are a beat to tap along to. Cecil had a habit of playing with his definitely-not-a-pen-and-Cecil-please-tell-me-that’s-not-your-blood-but-just-red-ink in his right hand, without rhythm, like he forgot he was holding it or forgot he should be taking notes.The scientist turns his gaze away and focuses. Breathe. Keep your heart steady.
Heart beat.
Heart beat.
“Carlos, right?”Carlos blinks. Suddenly the man, who he knows too well but not at all, is in front of him and his smile is wide. Of course, that smile dies a little when Carlos doesn’t move – bones weak and mind blank.
Heart. Beat.
Beat.
But he shakes himself out of the sudden emptiness he had found himself in and gives a small smile back.“Yes, that’s right. And you’re Kevin, if I’m correct,” he replies, knowing of course he’s correct. He stands from his chair to accept Kevin’s handshake. The scientist notices belatedly that the press conference is now half-empty, presumably because the meeting was either over or half of the audience had corporeally vanquished. Either way, everyone seems to be on their way home.“You are correct! Of course, as the leader of this scientific community, I doubt someone like yourself is ever wrong.” His words should be light and jesting, but Carlos understands that there is something deeper in those words, like a warning. Especially if the way Kevin pulls himself closer to him, grip tightening, is anything to go by. He also understands that he doesn’t care too much.“Actually it is my job to prove myself wrong. It is the second thing a scientist is.” He doesn’t say that being wrong leaves the taste of guilt and sadness on his tongue, of missed opportunities and I love you’s that will now never be said. Because that isn’t for the enemy to know, and Carlos knows where Kevin lies.Kevin’s brow furrows in thought, steps back, and when he lets go of his hand, the radio host says, “Hmm, I never would have thought of it like that.” Then his eyes – wrong, less black than he remembered but still so wrong – look back to him, and he smiles. It’s both terrifying and yet a little less than the scientist remembers seeing. “You’re so smart!
Beat.
“Thank you,” Carlos says because he has nothing else to say. No compliment to give back. No kind wishes to give. Only an excuse for escape. “It was good to see you again, Kevin.”
Beat.
Kevin’s expression falters as Carlos tries to take a step back and away. He doesn’t want to see it, so he turns away. “Wait.”The word cripples him, and he stumbles in the steps already made painful by leaving. No, he tells himself, no, walk away. Just walk away. And he tries to. Carlos regains his balance and keeps walking. “Hold on a sec, Carlos,” he hears behind him, along with footsteps coming closer. “Please wait.”It’s the “please” that does it. The simple word weighs his steps until his feet can no longer resist gravity, making his body heavy with longing.
Please Carlos, I won’t get in the way! I just want to watch you do actual science.
Of all the corporeal disasters that have happened this week, of all the tangible echoes of destruction left over, would you really wish to deny me this pleasure, this one affirmation of my existence? C’mon, let me have the last piece of invisible pie. Please?
Oh Carlos, wonderful Carlos, please trust me on this.
'Always,' Carlos once said and will always say, 'whatever you want Cecil. Always.' Please. Carlos. Blood. Promise me. Static. Please. Promise. His body is stuffed full of things he doesn’t want to feel anymore, a density of mass that doesn’t fit in his body, and he fears he will spilt open. Suddenly Carlos feels like ten times gravity, and in accordance to the law of gravitational fields, it’s only natural that Kevin falls into orbit around a man made of leaden weight.Kevin looks relieved, and Carlos never could say no to that face.“Do you,” Kevin begins and hesitates. The man looks around him, gauging something, a guilty child checking for their parents before dipping their hand into the cookie jar. “Do you like tea?”Something breaks inside of Carlos.All his weight, all the dread and longing and panic and pain and yearning all fall together, and it is as if his heart can’t support his emotions. It bursts with unspoken sadness, and for reasons he can only hypothesize, he wants to scream. Coffee, not tea. Cecil liked coffee. Not tea.But he’s not Cecil, he reminds himself.“Why are you doing this to me?”There is silence.Carlos imagines Kevin’s look of surprise matches his own. “I don’t know what you mean,” Kevin says at length, and Carlos isn’t certain he knows either.“Never mind,” Carlos shrugs, forcing his emotions and doubts and aches back into himself. He tries again not to let his heart beat too frantically, because while Kevin looks lost and hopeful, the logical part of Carlos reminds him that Kevin is theirs. He is their voice, their puppet, and that makes him his enemy. He looks like Cecil, but Cecil refused to let them chain his voice in the end. This man in front of him is weak. Is theirs. And Carlos hates Kevin for that. He hates that Kevin could look so much like the man he loved and yet be nothing like him. But he is nothing if not a professional. “I’m not here for personal reasons,” he finally responds and walks away again, “If you’re doing news in Night Vale, then I suppose I’ll be seeing you around.”He leaves Kevin behind him and walks. To where, he’s not sure, but Night Vale has a habit of dumping citizens random places anway. All he knows is that it takes a great effort not to look behind him.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The third time Carlos sees him, he concentrates on keeping his heart beating. Literally.This can’t be happening, is what Carlos thinks even as he logically knows otherwise. This is happening. Right here, in his own lab after everyone else left for the day. Right here, before he had the chance to turn off the lights in order to work on Tamika’s projects. But then Kevin had knocked.And like a fool, he had opened the door. He had opened the Glow Cloud forsaken door. A scientist is supposed to think, and yet he hadn’t.Kevin’s fingers are around his throat, a maniacal smile on his face, blood unknown already on his clothes, and he’s speaking. Carlos can barely comprehend the words the other man’s saying, despite the clear articulation of “It’s good to see you again, friend” and “It’s so wonderful that we’re comfortable enough now to share hugs!”And then he remembers, once upon a radio show. A foul devil of a man, and he attacked me. Carlos’s hands touch Kevin’s, a distortion of intimacy, a perverse echo of memory.Carlos knows the average human body will pass out after two minutes or less without oxygen and an estimated minute’s worth of intentional action to the limbs. (Because of incident when he was mistakenly placed on the list for emergency gills and had to spend a week in a water tank until it was sorted out, he hypothesized he might have up to thirty seconds more than the average.) Without blood flow to the brain, however, he estimates that it would cut that time approximately in half. In theory, he has around forty-five seconds before his body reverts to instinctual responses, and Carlos already wasted precious seconds from denial and shock.Carlos also knows several courses of action. One, bring his hands up to his attacker’s hands, pull the weakest digit – the pinkie – from his neck and keep pulling until the finger breaks.To no avail.Two, kick sensitive areas on his attacker’s body, particularly the groin.To no avail.Three, fight back in any way possible.To no avail.Out of all possible courses of action, Carlos doesn’t know what to do when all these attempts fail. Carlos almost wants to make prayers to gods unknown, or to the bloodstone circle hidden in the lab cabinet under his desk eight feet away, but no. There is but one god to address, and it’s smiling in front of him. Kevin’s grip just tightens, broken pinkie and all, and his smile gets wider. And his eyes. They’re not just black anymore, they’re obsidian. Iris and sclera, nothing but darkness. There is black pin-pricking the edges of Carlos’s vision, as if the darkness in Kevin’s eyes were spreading, seeping into his own. Light flickers in his dying vision like distant dying stars. It is the tell-tale fading of his vision before unconsciousness, Carlos knows this, but he also thinks that it is the void coming to swallow him whole at long last. There is lightness in his head – like floating, like flight – that lifts the heavy burden of gravity and weight from his limbs.No gravity to weigh him down.No guilt.No sadness.In Kevin’s tightening hold, Carlos is being unmade from a mass of emotion, from the dark planet lit by no sun that he had become.And the void keeps swallowing the stars in his eyes.“I'm glad we don’t need words to express this moment,” Kevin says with that voice not deep enough, not sonorous enough, but somehow that makes it eerier. A voice that kind should not be capable of this sort of cruelty.The life he has, how little it seems to matter now. A mirror, a doppelganger, a double, it doesn’t matter now who it is that whispers nonsense in his ear and takes the life that Carlos has forfeited to him. Destroyed, discarded, Carlos will follow Cecil’s fate.Freedom promised in death. The relief. It tastes so sweet that he could almost forget about the blood in his mouth. And in this moment, he considers it. He considers joining Cecil and letting go of his promise. That one last phone call.
Carlos. Promise me. Please.
The words follow the heartbeat of a memory long since memorized and replayed. Logic dictates that a memory warps the more it is revisited, but time doesn’t work in Night Vale, logic holds little merit, and the memory only sharpens when Carlos hears it. The words are as carefully articulated and cutting as when he had first heard them on his cell phone. And cut it does with words sharp and meaning clear. Those words, that voice—none of it matches the words and lips in front of him. No. This is not the death Carlos wants. This is not the fate he must follow.
Promise that you won’t lose hope.
“I—“ Carlos tries to push the words in his throat passed the fingers, but the air is leaving him, leaving, leaving, almost gone.“—ful? Don’t you—?” like space, like void, a voice he can’t hear over the silence and vacuum of his dying senses.Something within him bursts, the distant dying stars in his eyes a supernova explosion, bright like understanding. And Carlos smiles, just as bright and yet bitter. Because now he understands Cecil. Now he understands the sound of a smile Cecil gave that very last time Carlos heard him alive. He understands so much, so close to death. So Carlos looks Kevin in those obsidian eyes, and he smiles. Kevin looks back at him. At his smile. And Kevin’s own guiltless laughter——falters.The look on the man’s face. It’s shock, it’s a grimace, it’s a receding of black into the iris, and Kevin looks stricken.The grip around his throat loosens only minutely, but it’s enough for a shallow breath. It’s enough for life, but not enough to keep the void of unconsciousness at bay.“Carlos,” the voice of StrexCorp says, but it’s hard to hear beneath the growing nothingness in Carlos’s head. But the scientist recognizes how his name looks on those lips. Across the street, through a sound-proof radio booth, in the darkness of the bedroom illuminated only by the occasional passing car—Carlos knows what his name looks like.He also knows what fear looks like. He recognizes both.But the lack of blood and air is too much.There is blackness. And then there is gravity.Shallow breaths turn greedy as Carlos’s body gasps, coughs, and drinks in the oxygen now available to him. Alive, still breathing, and alive. Each coughing breath weighs him down, no longer weightless, no longer empty by the void. But Carlos had been wrong; he was never empty after Cecil’s death, he had been too full. Before he had felt stuffed to the brim with everything, as if his flesh might split open if he held onto anything else, if he acknowledged new emotion instead of running from it.Death tastes just as enlightening the second time.He is a pile of limbs where he has landed, and Carlos doesn’t move. He wouldn’t move even if he were able to; Night Vale taught him long ago that sometimes it’s safer to pretend to be dead already. The illusion is ruined by his body that keeps gasping for air, and somewhere where his mind is awake enough to contemplate existential revelation, he also just hopes Kevin doesn’t notice.“Carlos!” cries a voice by his side, and he cringes. “Carlos, oh god, please be okay.”He feels hands on his body. Instinct closes his eyes and convinces him that if he doesn’t look, Kevin will leave him be. Don’t look at the monsters in the closet or the smiling gods in your face. Don’t look don’t look.“Dr. Carlos, answer me!” says that same voice, and he’s beginning to notice that it doesn’t match up with any radio host he knows. Hands turn his body to lie on his side, fingers press against his wrist, and as his hearing slowly comes back to him more and more, he hears a sigh of relief. Someone is taking his pulse, and he knows this someone. “Heart rate is slowed but acceleration indicates an approximate return to normal,” continues the voice, detaching from the situation with a familiar sense of objectivity. Fingers push the collar of his shirt down and Carlos can’t help but flinch when those fingers try to touch the flesh of his neck. The voice continues to speak, mumbled in a way that suggests that she is talking to herself, “Some trauma, though the severity and degree is unknown. Bruises already beginning to form, but no immediate sign of broken bone or abnormal amount of difficulty breathing.” And then louder, more articulate, “Dr. Carlos, can you hear me now?”He fears speaking, but he nods. Regret couples with pain at the motion from his abused neck.“Thank the Masters of Us All. Can you move?”He doesn’t want to try. Part of him wants to stay on the floor, curled on his side against the cold laboratory floor, and stay perpetually in that moment where he was existentially free. Out there was a battle. Out there was fear. Out there was a man.But the other part of him is finally – finally – ready for this war.“Wh-“ he begins, but it hurts. Speaking hurt. Breathing hurt. His body aches, and it is all he could do to close his eyes to stop the room from spiraling. Rooms don’t spiral now that the City Council can’t approve Headache Thursday anymore. But he tries again, “Wh-ere. Is. Kevin?““That son of a bitch? He’s right here; I hit him. He’s likely unconscious, but I haven’t checked his pulse. I don’t know what to do. If he’s not dead, he could wake up at any moment,” she’s panicking, and he doesn’t feel that his body is ready to get up, let alone to move to help her. But she pauses and in a small voice, asks, “Should I kill him?”At that, Carlos opens his eyes and with a voice hoarse and nearly broken, says, “No.”He brings his hand up to the ground near his shoulder and begins to push himself up, mentally cataloging his injuries. Breathing is difficult, as is speaking, which suggests possible damage to his larynx, but unlikely that it is irreversible. As he struggles to lift himself up to sit, the other scientist rushes to his side to aid him. The fact that he can move is promising in terms of head trauma, though he is not yet able to tell if the exhaustion he feels is temporary or otherwise.“Carlos, let me see you,” she says once he is sitting upright. The exhaustion worries him, but he waits for her examination. She is gentle as her hands touch his face, her dark skin highlighting the clinical concern of her equally dark eyes.“Asha,” he begins, but he doesn’t have to say anything more for her to understand that he wants to hear.“Your eyes are bloodshot, but on the upside, the pupil size of each eye is even. Your color is starting to even out, so soon any lightheadedness should fade. Can you move your legs?” Looking away from the short, blonde hair she always carefully maintained, he looks down at his body and is relieved when his limbs move as he wishes. “Good. Let’s test—““Dr. Carver.” She jumps at the sound. “Is Kevin alive?”The trepidation is clear on her expression as she turns to look behind her, and he follows her gaze.And there he is.The Voice of StrexCorp is prone on the laboratory floor, and it doesn’t even surprise Carlos anymore when he feels panicked that he cannot see if the other man is breathing. Despite the bruises on his neck, despite the traitorous face he wears, despite everything. Because he remembers before he opened the door just minutes ago; he remembers how wrong it was to hear Kevin’s voice on the other side. “Carlos. Oh Carlos, I’m sorry for coming so late. But I think this town… I mean, they given me more medicine to try and fix it, but something’s happening. Please let me in. I think I need your help.”He tries to stand, to walk over to the body, and though Dr. Carver helps him, it’s clear that she would rather run than have him get near Kevin again. He understands her disapproving silence, but he can’t acquiesce. “Is he,” he coughs and wheezes ever so slightly, “alive?”She frowns.“Please,” he continues, voice breathy but functioning, “Asha. I need to know.” Voice improving, Carlos checks off his mental list, damage to larynx is minimal. She doesn’t leave Carlos’s side to check until he proves he can stand fine without help. Approaching the prone body slowly, it’s clear that she finds him a threat by the cautious way she kneels beside him and presses her fingers against his throat rather than step in range of his hands. Carlos also notices the careful ways she avoids the shards of glass around Kevin that he hadn’t seen earlier. A broken Erlenmeyer flask by the looks of it.“He’s alive.”Carlos sighs, regardless of the pain it causes. Relief lifts some of the weight that lies within him once again, but only just. As soon as he thinks it, Asha is echoing his thoughts by saying, “He’s been unconscious for over a minute. Likelihood of a concussion is greatly increased. If it lasts, death could be a result if left untreated.”The woman stands and steps away from Kevin before looking back towards Carlos, expression lost as she asks, “What should we do?”And all Carlos can think about was when he let Kevin in. About when Kevin turned to look at him with an expression just like Asha wears now. Lost and uncertain as he said—
“I’m not happy.”
“The secret police,” he starts to say, but in the end, there’s not much more to say. They both look to the camera by the front door, and they know time is limited before StrexCorp employees come to retrieve their most precious asset.Carlos brings one hand to touch the delicate skin of his throat. He had come so close to death, so close to Cecil. He felt all of this, and he understood.‘Yes, Cecil,’ he thinks. ‘I won’t lose hope.’He looks down at Kevin’s body.‘I’ll continue the fight.’It’s only a matter of time before they come for Kevin. But luckily for the scientists, time isn’t real in Night Vale.“Dr. Carver,” he calls, voice raspy but unbroken, and she snaps out of whatever realm of thought had spirited her away. “Grab an empty rack of test tubes and turn off the lights. We have a new project.”It takes her no time to catch on, and there are no objections. She is a scientist after all. In fact, she pauses only for a moment before carrying out his order, but not out of hesitance. Carlos sees her reprieve, can see it as easily as he can feel it himself, and he can only fathom that she sees something in him that she hasn’t seen for a long time.He wonders what he looks like to her.“The syringes are in the cabinet behind you,” she says before turning around to fetch what he asked for in the various storage shelves along the back wall. Her steps are purposeful, her back is straight, her voice formal and no longer apprehensive, and for a moment, Carlos is struck by the thought that he hadn’t been the only one lost all this time. “Should I call the rest of the team, Dr. Carlos?” Asha calls out to him from across the room.His team. His team of scientists. How long had he not noticed that they all had been so lost without him?He looks down at Kevin’s prone body.“Not enough time.” Time never moved the way it should in Night Vale, so he was confident that they could get enough samples before StrexCorp came to collect. In all likelihood, they’d get the last of what they needed in the nick of time, because Night Vale enjoyed its bouts of dramatic intensity. But while he was confident that Night Vale would bend time enough for them in this instance, he knew calling for the team would be pushing his luck too far. He knows this like he knows something is wrong with Kevin.Something is very wrong with Kevin, with StrexCorp, with everything.And it is a scientist’s job to find explanations.Asha turns off the lights.