Archive of Our Own ^beta

If Cecil has ever been to Desert Bluffs before he doesn’t remember it, nor does he think it looked like this. It seems half the street corners are decorated with disconcertingly (and perhaps deceptively) realistic gold statues. And that’s without counting everything else that glitters as Cecil walks down the street to the radio station: metallic flowers in window boxes, store signs, even the lines on the roads seem to glimmer in the sunlight. It feels like he’s walking through an over-saturated film set.

He’s seen pictures of classical statues before: flowing togas, sandals, positions meant to inspire reflection or strength. Those are nothing like the ones dressed in t-shirts and sneakers, wide-eyed expressions of fear, or the girl in a flowing summer dress positioned like she’s poised to punch every passer-by. It’s a fury at odds with the softness apparent in the silhouette, and the unyielding nature of the material.

Any comfort he thinks he’ll take from the radio station is quickly diminished when it rises like a temple to the gaudy colour. Cecil can appreciate the aesthetics of kintsugi as much as the next person, but this has won gold in a pole vault from that into a city living inside gold leaf. 

He’s already starting to question his choice not to send an intern.

A Desert Bluffs one ushers him into the booth, and reassures him that Kevin will be there shortly. Suspicions surrounding ‘inter-town unity broadcasts’ settle into questions as he does into a chair. He’d received the missive a week ago, and it seemed harmless enough, but well, that was before walking down a street and feeling watched from every angle. There’s something decidedly unsettling about this city.

As promised, a few moments later, another man enters the booth. His first thought, observing at his double, is that he has yellow tattoos that move the same way as Cecil’s. As he sits across the desk from Cecil, the way they shift in the lights forces him to reconsider. They’re too shiny for that, more like gold paint than ink beneath the skin.

Tracing his eyes up Kevin’s form, Cecil notes other elements of his double’s appearance: the tentacles wrapped around his arms, glimpsed in the space between gloves and rolled-up shirt sleeves, further, up his neck to the tear tracks that are the same colour on his cheeks. They blend into a ring of what he thought, at first, was makeup, and now suspects is not. And, strange as all that is, it’s his eyes that are alarming . They’re too much . The pupil is nearly invisible against the iris, which is the same colour as everything else. “It’s lovely to meet you,” he says, and Cecil distracts himself from Kevin’s eyes to his mouth. If it were anyone else, Cecil would think it were lipstick, but this whole tableau sets off alarm bells in Cecil’s mind that make him discard the suggestion.

“You too,” he greets. “Thank you for the invitation,”

Kevin nods. “StrexCorp– our town’s parent company– is so invested in creating some more bridges between our communities. We figured to start with Night Vale, and then, provided this goes well, ask Red Mesa to join in!” It is, with a few aesthetic flourishes, reiterating what the letter said. What better way to get the ball rolling than for the two of them to speak on air, Cecil’s own reservations aside.

“Well, I’m glad to be here,” he says, instead of espousing his own doubts. “You have some… lovely statues around town.” Cecil says, pivoting the conversation. He watches as Kevin blinks, and then tilts his head back to laugh in a way too fake and too hollow to be anything resembling authentic. Gold plated like everything else in this god-forsaken city. Cecil thinks if he were to bite it, his teeth would bounce right off, contrary to the give of real gold.

“Oh, haven’t you realized yet? Those aren’t gilded stones— they used to be people.”

“What?” The sound comes out a little more strangled than he expects.

Kevin slides off a glove, and flicks a finger out to rest against a petal on the flowers in the vase on the table. As he watches, the petals colour turns dull, and then metallic, as the gold creeps across it. The organic pinks and greens don’t become coloured by it, so much as replaced entirely. All those statues… he can picture it happening to them too. The way that blood-flushed skin would ashen, a mute horror that comes from watching one's own body become stiff and inhuman just in time for it to reach their lungs, their heart. At least rigor mortis happens after someone’s dead. The very thought makes him shiver.

Kevin tugs the glove back on as the flower makes a full transition. He plucks it from the water and passes it to Cecil. “A gift,” he says, and Cecil accepts it blankly, running a finger over the texture. The petal-softness is gone, but it’s still so thin. He swears he could break it in his hands if he tried. “From our God to me, and now, from me to you,”

“Thanks,” he says, trying to smile. He doesn’t need to see it to tell it falls short of confident. “We should start the broadcast, right?”

Kevin’s eyes widen, and he snaps his fingers. “Right you are!”

This, at least, is something Cecil knows. The floor’s back under his feet with the microphone and a city listening over the airwaves.

“The candle melts, the wax encases, the mosquito trapped within is immortalized the same. Welcome to Desert Bluffs,” Kevin begins, as the jaunty music begins to play. The music compared to the picturesque nature of the day feels absurd.

“Good afternoon, listeners! We have an interesting broadcast today, so let’s begin, shall we? Starting with an update from last week: the man discovered by the chief of the Secret Police is dead. A reminder: no human laws can protect him– or you, listeners, should you follow his path of dissidence. There will be no more updates on this story. Moving onto the community classified ads,” 

The intensity that had momentarily seemed to possess Kevin leaves, as he lifts the first piece of paper. Cecil can’t tell if the announcement was just short or so unimportant as to not even be made a note of. Or which, of those two, Cecil finds more uncomfortable contemplating.

“The Daylight All-Day Diner is hiring. To apply, bury a cover letter in the sand, your resume under your neighbors mailbox, and next time you eat there, pay with your most prized piece of costume jewelry. Applications close in two weeks. The Desert Bluffs playhouse is hosting a bake sale to help raise funds for its upcoming production of On Golden Pond . I suggest everyone buy something, and your tickets at the same time! I’ve had mine for weeks already. My nibling is one of the stars, and really, who could say no to fresh cookies? Lastly, there’s a strange glowing phenomena at the Edge of Town development: it says her name is Prudence, and that she’s offering a glimpse of the future you could have had, had you not broken up with your middle school boyfriend, for five dollars. No returns if you are suddenly besieged by existential fears of ‘what if?’.”

Kevin looks up at Cecil again, with a smile. “And now for the part of the broadcast I’m sure at least some of you have been waiting for! Please welcome Cecil Palmer to the air, Voice of our very own sister town, Night Vale. Welcome to Desert Bluffs, how has your time with us been so far?”

Cecil leans forward, and takes a deep breath. “Good so far, I’ve not yet seen much, but I got some coffee on my way over that’s tasty,”

“I’m so glad,” Kevin says approvingly. “The cafe down the road is simply divine. Today’s broadcast is going to be loy-key listeners, a chance to hear Cecil talk, and to create some familiarity with him. StrexCorp is considering a new inter-city unification policy. So, Cecil, tell us all a bit about Night Vale,”

It’s easy to talk about his own home, to create a joking rapport with Kevin over shared strangeness. They talk about cats for a few minutes, and he catches the gesturing of the person in the production booth to move onto a new topic (a question, he thinks, to ask about at another time). Soon, he finds himself settling into the atmosphere, almost forgetting the earlier, creeping trepidation, lulled into a sense of false security. Enough gets compared to create a fairly decent picture of both town’s overlap and separation. They share cursory exclamations when things aren’t the same.

And soon enough, they seem to draw closer to the end of their time. “So, Kevin, you’re…” Cecil pauses for a moment, swiping his thumb over the golden flower again. “Pretty, but I feel like I have to ask about the golden elephant in the room,”

Kevin makes a sound, approximating an elephant’s roar. Cecil laughs, trying to stifle the smile. “You mean why am I all shades of gold instead of a whole bar?” Cecil nods. The dread comes tumbling back. “Strex is creating a vessel for our glorious God. When my heart is finally reached by the spread, then I shall be entombed in a casket with wings. There are only two of us in the city who can do it after all. Me and the preacher, and he’ll be the one to perform the ceremony.”

Cecil blinks, and swallows, reaching for his long cold coffee to try and moisten his throat that has suddenly decided to have become part of the landscape.

Kevin continues blithely. “Strex is trying to make a world that will exist forever and will immortalize itself, I simply get to be a part of this most stunning of transitions,”

For a few seconds they stare at one another. Dead air’s a faux pas, and right before Kevin can say something to get them back on track Cecil finds his innate radio professionalism abandoning him with aplomb. “What the fuck? That’s horrifying ,”

“And with that listeners, let’s go to the weather,” Kevin segues, instead of responding.

When it’s clear their microphones aren’t broadcasting anymore, Kevin looks at him and shakes his head. “It is an honour ,” but the words sound all wrong. Cecil can’t tell if it’s Kevin or his own trembling mind that makes it feel like that. Kevin pauses, and seems to debate something. “You have a hotel, right? Why don’t you stay the night with me?”

And considering Cecil just said that the local religion sounds like a horrorshow and knowing what he does about the statues… well, Cecil isn’t as certain as he’d prefer to be that Strex won’t try to kill him whilst he sleeps.

“Sure, that would be nice,” he answers. Kevin looks to breathe a little easier, and Cecil is fairly certain that isn’t his imagination.

His mother told him he would die because of a mirror. He’s starting to think she was right, or, perhaps, that some wires got crossed and she saw Kevin instead. Mirrors used to be backed in silver, not gold. Gold overpowers: what it reflects, it becomes– or maybe just consumes. Despite the circumstances, Kevin seems almost fond of him, and Cecil doesn’t think it’s an act, and that he actually wants to kill him. StrexCorp, however, probably wants both of them dead.

He thinks he understands it now, sort of.

When the weather ends, Kevin closes out the show quickly, and then, identically to his entrance to the radio station, Cecil is subsequently pushed out the door. 

They stop for a few minutes at a corner store to pick up some instant meals for dinner, and don’t stick around long enough for anyone to ask questions, or for Cecil to spend too long staring at the statues. They’re looking at him, he swears it. Their arms are outstretched like they’re pleading for help. He can’t save them.

Thankfully, Kevin’s apartment is some strange combination of deeply human and as much a gilt cage as the rest of Desert Bluffs, but there’s no statues. Half his cupboard handles seem to be transformed, some of the dishware and cutlery too, things that all feel as though they are mistakes Kevin grabbed by accident and made something new from. On the fridge are pieces of a child’s art– the nibling’s, if Cecil had to guess.

He puts his meal in the microwave, Kevin takes off his gloves to wash his hands. “Could you pass me a fork?” Cecil asks, and Kevin, still seemingly distracted, complies, grabbing a still-silver fork. 

For a split second, their fingers brush. Kevin pulls back with a jolt, a devastation-struck expression on his face. “No, no, I’m so sorry,” he exhales, a wetness to his voice that is out of place with his upbeat attitude, save a few instances, thus far. It makes Cecil blink down at his fork, now gold, and then at Kevin, who’s waiting for something terrible to happen. He saw this process earlier, to the flower he still has in his pocket, Cecil knows what to expect. He pulls his hand to his face to search for any minute signs he’s turning to gold. Not so much as a speck of discoloration.

Today, he has a lot of rings on: some cheap, fashion jewelry from surprise bags he and Janice opened when she was younger– one of which, which had been turning pink with age and tarnish, is now gold. A few he’s received as gifts over the years. The oldest among them is a simple silver band. His mother got it for him, in one of her last truly lucid moments and said it would protect him. It was the last thing she ever gave him, and understanding the warning or not, he’s always worn it.

A theory emerges. Carlos would argue for more rigorous scientific testing before he makes a move, but he’s always had his own impulsive streak in him. He grabs Kevin’s hand, preparing for his idiocy to lead first to a numb descent of feeling that would accompany his hands turning to gold. Nothing happens.

Kevin seems to be holding his breath, forgotten gloves clutched in his off hand.

“You’re…”

“I’m not turning to gold.” Cecil confirms.

“I don’t know how,”

And really, at this point, Cecil thinks he might as well go for broke. So far it’s proven him well. He slides his mother’s ring off, slipping it onto Kevin’s finger despite his double’s gasp of warning. Like before, there’s no gold, or numbness, just flesh meeting flesh.

Cecil lets go of his hand, and passes him a dirty cup. Kevin takes it with shaking hands, and like with Cecil, it stays inert. Kevin’s grip tightens, something that’s not quite a sob or a gasp escaping him. A tear– in the same unsettling metal shade of his tattoos and the figures standing watch outside, or the fork– escapes. It winds its way down the tear tracks on his face, extends it a little longer, and then another tear, this one pure water, runs off his cheek altogether.

It’s in that moment, that Cecil’s phone decides to ring, breaking the moment. Kevin, in his shock, drops the cup, still-porcelain, and it breaks on impact, the radius extending across the kitchen.

“Smiling God, I’ll clean this up, why don’t you take the call in my room?” Kevin offers, pointing to the door Cecil assumes must be it.

He nods, and steps past the shards on the floor. He closes the door between them and sits on the edge of the bed, pressing the ‘accept’ button and placing it to his ear.

“Hey, Ceec,” Carlos says. Cecil lets out a mildly hysterical laugh to hear it. Carlos, sweet, wonderful, sensible Carlos. “How is it?”

The laughter tapers off. “It’s… insane,” he answers, honestly. Not that ‘insane’ covers even half of what’s happened in the last ten minutes, much less the last day. The weight collapses on him all at once. Cecil lays back, settling towards the middle of the bed, his cheek pressed to the silken threads that make up the canacy-coloured comforter. He spares a thought to be awkward about taking up too much of Kevin's space, but he suspects his double could benefit from a few minutes to contend with the revelation.

“What sort?”

“Where do I even start?” Cecil asks, mostly rhetorical. Carlos can’t answer that though, disconnected from the delirium that’s infected Cecil since this morning, so he recounts everything. The statues, Kevin, the idea of Kevin’s own apparently god-granted powers leading him to eventually becoming a vessel, and lastly, the ring.

Carlos is silent throughout, and for a long moment afterwards. Not that Cecil can blame him.

“Are you going to stay?”

This time it’s Cecil’s moment to pause. “I can’t leave now,” There’s a resistance to leaving Kevin to handle the fallout of this alone, to have introduced it but not follow through. The cup in the kitchen broke on impact but it isn’t gold. Kevin is wearing his ring.

“Do you want me to come?”

“I don’t want to ask.” Cecil holds onto the comforter, sliding his thumb back and forth against the fabric to ground himself. It’s dangerous enough to be here, he doesn’t want to risk Carlos too.

“You’re not asking, I’m offering.”

“I don’t know how long it will be,” Or even what ‘it’ will entail.

Carlos laughs, and it’s heavy and real, and Cecil finds himself comforted to hear it. It wraps him up in something solid, as opposed to Desert Bluffs which feels excavated of anything deemed too unsightly or genuine. There’s too much real gold to feel corporatized– golds replaced for cheap yellows– but it’s not done with care either. The slapdash effect makes it feel like a funhouse version of the palace of Versailles.

“I love you, I’ll be there as soon as I can,”

“Love you too,”

Carlos arrives two days later. Kevin is afraid, Cecil knows, of touching Carlos. Of touching anything really, except for, increasingly, Cecil himself. Which, given the events that have transpired, is a logical result. He stays beside his double throughout.

The world opens before them, if only for a few days. The street corner surrounding the radio station is resplendent with statues, and they’re standing in front of one of them. Kevin’s hand is in his, gloveless, when he presses his palm to the chest of the figure. There’s no flicker of life, no fading of gold replaced by flesh tones, as if they were the flower in reverse. Cecil tries– it could make sense, for one to be able to undo the process. But the sun-kissed metal stays as still as it was before. It’s confirmation of the one-way nature of it. Gilding may fix what is broken and fill in the cracks, but there’s only so much that can be done when there’s nothing left but gold.

Everything seems to go too quickly after that. Somewhere in the middle, StrexCorp is labelled as the ‘fool’s golden cooperation’, and that night few enterprising students go through spray painting every company mural with the word ‘pyrite’ over Strex. A false immortality, a lie sold for more expensive and produced for cheap. It’s fitting; so is when the preacher makes Lauren into a statue of her own and they hear about it as the radio station becomes inundated with calls. There’s a joke, somewhere in the midst, as more people from Night Vale arrive to help, about inter-city cooperation. How StrexCorp truly did bring them together, even if it’s only being united in their downfall.

Because they cannot fix it, they find a new solution. The city bands together to move the statues. Trucks upon trailers, families, friends, a whole city mobilized to carry them all from their resting places to a cleared out spot outside the immediate city. A new sort of graveyard. There are no graves, no bodies, but the statues act as markers. They add names, dates. The city grieves. They attend the play. Cecil can’t call it equilibrium but it’s getting there.

After it’s all said and done, or at least, as all said and done as it can get in a city like this one, the three of them are sitting on a hill that overlooks the new field of monuments. “Gold is known to have a single stable isotope,” Carlos tells them. “All the others decay in a matter of days, at most, and milliseconds at worst. The fact they,” he nods towards the figures. “Haven’t broken down proves which they are,” He sets his hand on Kevin’s, as comfort, and he doesn’t flinch away. “Gold, when heat is applied, melts, it reshapes. Pyrite, when burned, turns into sulfur oxide,”

“Poison,” Kevin says quietly. He’s still a painted thing– his tattoos shine in the light, his eyes are no longer quite human, but the silver ring saves his heart, and he can touch the world now, without a layer between him and it. There’s an alchemical promise to it all, and Carlos has promised to study him once they have time. He’s excited, and his team is too.

Carlos nods. “You might not be able to undo the process, but they won’t break down either, they’ll all be remembered.”

“And Desert Bluffs will rebuild. Bending, not breaking” Cecil adds. Kevin leans his head against Carlos’s shoulder, his fingers intertwined with Cecil.

(This time, Cecil is the one to bring Kevin home).