Chapter Text
There's a bell ringing across the town. As it clangs life stops, people stay inside, lock the doors and shut the blinds. The bell rings on and the people sit in silence and listen. All but one. One lone man runs through the streets toward the radio station.
Cecil looks up from his position on the floor as the door opens, and the command to leave dies on his lips. A hand is offered, calloused and familiar, and he takes it. He heaves himself to his feet, unsteady, and stands for a second. He looks at his hands, his palms turning this way and that, and takes a moment to straighten his clothes. He looks up, uncertain for only a moment, then throws himself into the arms of Carlos, patient, beautiful Carlos. The ringing stops outside but neither of them care, and together they stand swaying steadily. Cecil breathes for what feel like the first time. He is Night Vale and always will be, but Home? That's encompassed entirely in this moment.
They stay like that for another infinite moment. Eternity has nothing on this moment which is seconds and minutes and centuries all rolled into one. It is far from perfect, Cecil is stooped to tuck his head under the shorter's chin and Carols hadn't been prepared for the force of Cecil's embrace. Still, the ringing in his ears stops and the fear subsides, and it's incredible.
And so, together, they leave the radio station in the questionably capable hands of the interns. They go to Carlos' apartment, the click of the door behind them as they enter comforting. Cecil talks about everything and nothing, about the aching Loneliness of the Void that Carlos understands all too well. Tells him of the origins of Night Vale, of his Words that brought it into being and his Voice which has guided it without thanks for millennia. He has remembered what he saw in the mirror on the edge of the universe, be he is no longer afraid, because Carlos sees him and finds beauty in what brought Cecil so much fear. How can it, he, be bad if Carlos can only see good?
There are no secrets, no lies, and while there is an ocean of stories between them, they will all be told one day. There is no reason to hide when you've seen the darkest parts of another's soul because if they will bare themself to you, they will hold no judgement when you do the same. There is only Cecil in Carlos' eyes, no Voice no Power no Night Vale. In turn Cecil only sees Carlos, not his Loneliness or the Fears he's always let himself be defined by.
Nothing is perfect, nothing can ever be Perfect. There are still days where Cecil's skin feels stretched thin as though the millennia he has seen cannot fit within his fragile mortal form. Still times when Carlos would rather throw himself into his work and his Science, data and fact to replace thought and feeling, avoiding everyone and everything for days on end. Cecil still wants to pull away sometimes, is still afraid because what has been seen cannot be unseen and what has been thought cannot be forgotten. The interns still die and Cecil blames himself because he has a Voice he cannot use; he now remembers his Rules in their entirety and he Understands now, but it still breaks him apart that he has all this Power and can do Nothing. They work together, work through it, there will always be things only you can conquer for yourself, but that doesn't mean you can’t have help. You can always have help. Dear reader, you can always ask for help, it is the strongest thing you can do.
Cecil and Carlos do not complete one another, there is no divine string or fated meeting. No force has brought them together. They are just two beings walking through the vastness of infinite possibilities, who's paths have crossed, and who fit together. Each choice, each day, each loss, each joy, has led to the life they now lead; while they may wish they could change things, make new choices, walk a different path, this is where their steps have taken them and all in all it's been worth it to meet each other. Dear reader, let me ask you this, is it not more beautiful that there is no destiny that brings them together, just pure chance, and still they can be so very very happy?
The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. But as one door closes another opens, so is anything ever truly the same? We will never be the same again as we are in this moment but what would be the fun in that anyway?