Fic: Run Like Sand
27/9/13 08:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
neveralarchI wrote this during my first week without computer, scribbling it on loose notebook paper and trying to pretend that I knew what I was doing with the style. I think it turned out okay! Even though it was surprisingly hard to code! This fic fills the hair kink square on my idfic bingo. Sort of.
Run Like Sand
Welcome to Night Vale
Rating: teen
(character injury and reeducation, hair kink, canon-typical weirdness. Let me know if you need details.)
Characters: Carlos/Cecil, Night Vale ensemble
Wordcount: 4,000ish
Summary: "Today the City Council announced that all citizens will be taxed progressively, based on the number of times they utter the word 'cheesecake.' In related news, the Chamber of Commerce has announced that five new Cheesecake Factories are being opened in Night Vale. Attendance at the grand openings is mandatory. You will be expected to make a speech."
A/N: beta thanks tonarwhale_callin , my awesome Night Vale buddy.
"Today the City Council announced that all citizens will be taxed progressively, based on the number of times they utter the word 'cheesecake.' In related news, the Chamber of Commerce has announced that five new Cheesecake Factories are being opened in Night Vale. Attendance at the grand openings is mandatory. You will be expected to make a speech."
You are sitting in your laboratory, listening to the radio. It's a little distracting - you're supposed to be imaging some gravel samples, but instead you're just sitting and listening. You promised Cecil that you would catch his show, tonight and most every night. You told him that you loved and supported community radio in all its forms, which was an...exaggeration. You love and support community radio solely in the form of Cecil. You hope that's enough.
You think the gravel is disintegrating.
"Listeners, I have a letter here from - ugh - Steve Carlsberg. It's about the cheesecake tax, which Steve insists on calling the 'c-word tax.' Steve says that the tax is an unjustifiable intrusion, blah blah blah, founded upon an ungainly surveillance state and government entrapment, blah blah blah, ninth amendment rights, blah. He also wants me to stop saying 'cheesecake,' for my own good. Well, I think Carlsberg is being paranoid. I trust our municipal government, and I know the Council will make allowances for the necessities of journalism. They're a reasonable eldritch hive-mind, aren't they?"
The gravel is definitely turning into sand. You try imaging that, but your electron microscope begins to shriek in French, a language that you only recognize from high school classes that you skipped and foreign films that you slept through. You turn off the microscope, but the shrieking does not stop. You sigh and turn on your tape recorder in order to collect scream data. It is becoming difficult to hear the radio.
"Intern Cheryl is handing me a note. It says - excuse me - it says I now owe seven thousand dollars in taxes."
The shrieking is spreading among your equipment - to the seismology graph, the particle detector, the Ouija board you brought to Night Vale as a joke and which has since proved invaluable for obtaining accurate weather reports that actually involve temperatures and air quality and no obscure bands at all. Your colleagues glare at the equipment and then glare at you. You ask if anyone speaks French.
"This is absurd! How am I supposed to pay seven thousand in taxes? Not to get personal, dear listeners, but my salary is very meager. I am mostly paid in powdered coyote horn, rather than currency. The conversion rate, as you might imagine, is not favorable."
One of the biologists took French in undergrad. She listens to the shrieking for a while, and then announces that it is Quebecois. You do not know what this means. She says this means it's the wrong sort of French and also that accents are hard. The shrieking fills your ears as the biologist goes on about slang and idioms and loan-words. You notice that your nose is bleeding.
"And, look, I was just reporting the news. How am I supposed to talk about the new cheesecake tax without saying the word 'cheesecake?' How many times did I even say 'cheesecake?' Like, four times? That costs me seven thousand dollars? Where is this money going? I don't like to question government - I don't like to question most things - but I can't help but wonder."
The blood is matting your luxurious moustache and dripping into your neatly-trimmed beard. You suggest evacuation, but your colleagues are already leaving. You pick up your portable radio and follow. You still cannot hear Cecil above the din, but even holding the radio is comforting. Compared to most people in Night Vale, Cecil is almost unaffected by the vagaries of the city. He has a few scars, a few missing toes, and a limp, but he still has his life. He's reliable, and even when your ears are ringing from the noise of your lab equipment, your fingers can still feel his voice thrumming through the speakers.
"Anyway, I apologize for that little digression. Let’s move on to the community calendar- oh. I'm being handed another note. It says I now owe fifteen thousand in taxes. Payable immediately, in cash or the equivalent portion of my eternal devotion. And it says that I wasn't supposed to read that last bit on the radio. Whoops."
You are standing outside your laboratory. The Quebecois screams are muffled by the walls, and your nose is drying up. You feel light-headed and fuzzy from relief and blood loss. Your colleagues are smiling at each other, and a botanist suggests taking some time off, just until the lab is habitable again. A geologist agrees, saying you could all use some rest. Look at Carlos, he says. Look at those rings under his eyes. You grimace and rub at your face. You always have rings under your eyes. Maybe it's because you always work too much, the geologist says.
"Night Vale, I will not stand for this. Exorbitant levies on speech amount to censorship, and the radio cannot and should not be silenced. I am not prone to drastic action, but I will not pay these ridiculous taxes. I will not stop saying 'cheesecake,' either. I never thought I would say this in reality, never outside of my nightmares, but Steve Carlsberg was right. The City Council has gone too far."
You walk down the street with your colleagues bunched around you and the radio under your arm. It makes you recall your youth - the radio is smaller than it used to be, and the people are older and have better-fitting clothing, but it's still somehow the same. A physicist thinks you should all go bowling. You think the bowling alley isn't safe, since there's a tiny war-mongering city underneath it. The physicist says that she'd forgotten all about that.
"I am not advocating anything rash. I won't ask for free and fair elections, or a public budget, or any transparency in government at all! I merely and humbly ask that the Council reconsider this new tax. I merely, uh, merely- um. Hello. Listeners, a member of the Sheriff's Secret Police has entered the recording booth and is indicating that I must report for reeducation. Sir, may I finish my show? I see. Listeners, I must leave you in the capable hands of Intern Cheryl. Good luck, Cheryl! It's your big break!"
Your colleagues chatter, but you cannot parse the sounds into words. You are listening to the radio. You should, you think, have been listening to the radio all along. A woman's voice is broadcasting now, stuttering her way through the community calendar. You are swearing to yourself. You aren't consciously aware of it, but filthy Spanish and English tumbles past your lips and doesn't make you feel any better. A meteorologist asks you if you are okay. You cannot answer except in swear words and frantic shakes of your head. A linguist explains that your boyfriend is being reeducated. A zoologist gasps, and your colleagues murmur together, pat your back and whisper about the abandoned mineshaft. A sociologist asks about how long you have been dating Cecil - she can never keep track of these things.
You drop the radio, and it smashes on the green/purple concrete of the sidewalk. Your colleagues yelp in surprise. You begin to run.
It is a long way from the laboratory to the mineshaft, and you aren't in running shape. You are not in any kind of shape - or if you are, it is a vaguely pear-shape that makes you stop running after five blocks, bend over and draw wheezing breaths. You wish you had your inhaler.
A car pulls up next to you, a tan Corolla with a missing hubcap. Steve Carlsberg leans out of the window and asks if you need a ride.
Cecil would not want you to get in the Corolla, but Cecil isn't here. You get in. The radio is off, and you think it is the first time you've seen someone in Night Vale with their radio turned off. Steve drives ten miles over the speed limit, kicking up dust from his tires.
There is already a crowd around the mineshaft entrance when you arrive. You know every person here. Even people you've never met are recognizable because Cecil talks about everyone, every person in Night Vale. Here is Old Woman Josie, surrounded by angels; here is John Peters, you know, the farmer; here is Susan Wilman, waving a copy of Freakonomics at the mineshaft guards, shouting something about the necessity of incentives as well as disincentives.
You are shaking. I tried to warn him, says Steve Carlsberg. He's been getting more subversive, says one of Tamika Flynn's three mothers. Just have to wait until he comes out, says Frank Williams. If he comes out.
You take a step toward the guards. You are not a violent man, but your hand curls into a fist without consulting your brain. You need Cecil back, and you will take him back. The guards are not looking at you, but you feel Old Woman Josie's sharp eyes on the back of your head. You take another step, and Erika grabs your arm. You try to jerk free, and Erika steps in front of you while Erika touches a soothing hand to your cheek. You flinch away, teeth bared. You do not want to be soothed.
A figure emerges from the mineshaft. It is wearing a cloak, a silver star, and a miter. You think it is the Sheriff. He tells the crowd to disperse. The crowd steps back, wary, not dispersing. The Sheriff waves his miter in the air, and the crowd takes another step back. The flapping of his hat in the thin desert breeze seems to make them more anxious. You have not moved, and now you are standing alone in front of the Sheriff. You cannot see his eyes - you do not know if he has any eyes - but you can tell that he is staring at you.
You ask for Cecil. Your voice is hoarse.
The Sheriff replies, but it is difficult to hear him over the blood pounding in your ears. Something about routine procedures, the need for patience, the need for calm.
You ask for Cecil again. You are not calm.
The crowd shifts behind you, echoing your mood. You're not sure what they would do, if you rushed forward now, if you attacked the Sheriff. Night Vale seems tolerant of totalitarianism - or, at least, they rate it pretty low on their list of problems. You want to bump it up the list.
The Sheriff flaps his hat at the guards, and one of them mumbles into a walkie-talkie. More people emerge from the mineshaft - balaclava-clad secret police, carrying tasers and blackjacks and pointed sticks. And, following behind, a hunched and limping figure.
They have taken Cecil's cane. Absurdly, this outrages you more than anything else. You run forward to take Cecil's arm, help support him. The police do not react. Cecil leans on you, heavily enough that you stagger before regaining your balance. Cecil's eyes are glassy, pupils blown wide, and he smiles at you, looks puzzled.
Cecil, you say. Cecil. Cecil.
He takes a shaky step forward and does not say anything.
You walk together, away from the police and into the crowd. Night Vale closes around you with a murmur of concern: Old Woman Josie's clucking tongue, Big Rico's soothing hum, Steve Carlsberg's rant about due process. You glance back to see the police retreating into the mineshaft, led by the Sheriff. He has put his miter back on his head.
Cecil, you say, and Cecil rubs at his forehead. There is a bruise at his right temple.
You try to put him in Steve's car, but Cecil shies away and his fingers clutch painfully tight on your arm. Steve says something about aversion treatment. He sounds sad and deflated, minus all of the passion he had when talking about due process a few moments ago. John Peters helps you put Cecil in the back of his pickup truck instead, and you climb up to join him, shuffling aside a few ears of invisible corn to make a clear place to sit.
Steve tells you to take Cecil home. That Cecil needs familiar surroundings. To try to keep him calm until the drugs are out of his system. You look at Cecil. He's curled in on himself, slumped against the side of the truck. There are track marks on his left arm, winding their way from the inside of his elbow up to his shoulder. The highest one is still bleeding, red drops sliding down golden-brown skin.
You thank Steve, and John Peters drives off. You pull Cecil close to you, trying to cushion him from the bumps and jolts of the dirt road.
You say Cecil's name again, and Cecil looks up at your face. He makes a pained noise and you startle, moving your hands away from his body to make sure you aren't pressing against some hidden injury. Cecil raises an unsteady hand to your beard, keening gently. You realize that it is still matted with your own blood. The incident at the lab seems like a long time ago, weeks and weeks. Time doesn't work properly in Night Vale.
You brush ineffectually at the dried blood. You tell Cecil that you'll wash up when you get to his apartment. That you're fine. That you're going to his apartment, you're both going. Is he fine? Talk to me, Cecil, please talk to me.
Cecil says nothing, but he presses his face into the join of your neck and shoulder. You can feel him breathing, slow and shallow. Tension bleeds away from you like smoke; you are still angry, but it is a comfortable, familiar anger. You have never trusted the Night Vale government.
John Peters drives through the desert and back into town. He double-parks outside of Cecil's apartment building, daring the secret traffic cops to say anything. You clamber out of the truck, then help Cecil down. He is still uncertain on his feet, looks dizzy and off-balance. Cecil lives on the fourth floor and you'll have to take the stairs - you remember how he complained last week when the elevator broke down. You want to carry Cecil up to his apartment, but you're not sure if you're strong enough. You do not want to drop him.
John Peters gets out of his truck and takes Cecil's other arm. You thank him, but ask if he should stay with his truck, if he hasn't done enough already, if he should minimize his involvement as much as possible. John Peters shrugs. You take Cecil up the stairs together, glad that the staircase is almost wide enough for three.
John Peters leaves you at Cecil's door, as you fish in Cecil's pockets for his keys. You ask Cecil which key is for his apartment - there are so many, and several seem to exist on a different plane, flickering in and out of existence. Cecil focuses with great effort and taps a bit of metal that you had taken for a bottle opener. It slides into the keyhole easily, and you push the door open, help Cecil to the couch. His spare cane is in the umbrella stand, and you bring it to him. Cecil grasps it, white-knuckled, lays it across his lap. He looks over at the window - you follow his gaze, catch the shine off a binocular lens. You close the blinds. You know it will not stop the surveillance, only inconvenience it. You want to inconvenience it.
You go to the bathroom and wash your face. There is no mirror, so you comb your fingers through your beard as the water runs red, then pink, then subtly grey. You think that's the color it's meant to be.
Cecil is still sitting on his couch. You are worried by his shaking hands, by his ashy face, by his silence. You want to take him to the lab and test him for everything, but your lab is probably still screaming. You pat down your pockets instead and produce a pen light, a Geiger counter, and a broken stopwatch. The stopwatch returns to your pocket, and a quick check of the Geiger counter reveals that it is reading at 120 CPM - much too high, but about normal for Cecil. You kneel down in front of Cecil and present the penlight.
You ask to look at his eyes. Cecil widens them, obligingly. He doesn't blink, but stares directly into the light. You look in his ears next, just for something to do, something to think about. You ask Cecil to open his mouth, dreading a cut tongue and bloody teeth. His mouth is fine. His tongue is fine. You click off the penlight.
You ask Cecil to say something. You grip his knees. He's scaring you. You tell him this, that you're worried and frightened and angry - not at him, never at him, but you're angry.
"Can we turn on the radio?" asks Cecil. His voice is ragged, but recognizably his own. You stand, and turn on the radio.
"-is coming for you. It is behind you. It is in front of you. You cannot escape. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
"Good news, Listeners! I have been informed that our regular host, Cecil Baldwin, has completed his reeducation and is recuperating at home with Carlos. He should be back at work tomorrow!"
Cheryl's voice is a little too quiet, like she's sitting back from the microphone. Cecil is smiling. You sit down on the couch next to him, and he turns toward you, easing his way into your lap. His cane thumps to the floor, and Cecil presses his face into your neck again. You hug him close.
"Thank you so much for bearing with me, listeners. Let me leave you with this. Sometimes we do what we are told. Sometimes we do what we are not told. Sometimes we scream in agony as the needles enter our skin. Sometimes there is ice cream! Try to make that ice cream last as long as possible. It may be the last thing you ever eat."
You ask Cecil if he wrote that. He nods, nose bumping against the join of your jaw. You think about this. Then you ask if he wants ice cream, but Cecil shakes his head. Finally you ask if he's okay, even though he's obviously not, just because you're desperate for Cecil's voice again. Cecil shrugs.
"Next on NVCR: twenty-six commercial-free minutes of a broken metronome ticking. Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight."
The ticking begins, each beat subtly out of rhythm, each rest slightly too long or too short. You groan and try to get up to turn off the radio, but Cecil won't budge. He burrows closer to you, and you give up and surrender to the off-kilter ticks.
"Ticktick tick tick tick tick ticktick tick"
There is a crunching noise near your ear and a dampness at your neck. You flinch before you realize what must be happening, then flinch again. You ask Cecil if he is chewing on your hair, and he glances up at you, guilty. He still has a strand in his mouth. You tell him that it's all right. To take whatever he needs.
"Tick tick tick tick tick tick"
Cecil winds his long, thin fingers in your hair, rubs his cheek against your curls. You hear the wet crunching again, and he tugs your head up, not gentle. It hurts, but you stifle a grunt, put your hands on Cecil's waist to steady him. He sighs and presses forward, closer, closer, until there's nothing between you except the grating ticking of the radio.
"Tick tick tick"
"I don't like being reeducated," says Cecil, into your hair. You don't know what to say in reply. You are so glad to hear his voice.
"Ticktickticktick tick "
"It never really takes." Cecil sounds sad, apologetic, annoyed. "I try to be a model citizen. I pay strict attention to the reeducational videos, I work through the word problems, I don't fight against the injections all that much. But after a few days I start to question the will of the City Council again. Like, when is the mayoral election? Why don't I remember the last mayoral election? Why- sorry. There I go already." There is another sensation of damp against your neck. You think Cecil might be crying.
"Tick titick tick tititick tick"
You try to tell Cecil that there's nothing wrong with him. That there is something wrong, monstrously wrong with his government. With Night Vale. You tell him that a 25-45% yearly death toll isn't normal, that the US government only occasionally openly assaults and drugs free citizens, that the cheesecake tax is absurd. "Don't say that word," says Cecil. He curls his arm, pulling your head down by the hair, hiding the track marks.
Tickticktickticktick tickticktick ticktickti"
You ask Cecil to leave Night Vale with you. Before it's too late. Before anything bad- no, before anything worse happens to him. You love the way he speaks his mind, the passion he pours into the radio, his strength. You don't want him to be broken. Please, Cecil, come away.
" Tick "
Cecil straightens up, drying his eyes on the back of his hand. They're clear now, his pupils still large but fixed on your face. "What about the listeners?" he asks. "I can't leave them alone. I can't leave Night Vale with no one to speak for it."
" "
Let someone else speak, you don't say. Fuck Night Vale, you don't say. Then let's start a revolution, you do say. "He's joking," says Cecil, very loudly. "Haha, Carlos. You're so funny."
" "
You lean into him, whisper into his ear that you mean it. That you want to save Night Vale from any threat, every threat. Even from the Secret Police, from the City Council, from the Sheriff himself. Cecil shudders, fingers clenching and unclenching in your hair. You kiss him.
"Tick "
"What happened to scientific detachment?" murmurs Cecil, when you break. The pads of his fingers massage against your scalp. You tell him where scientific detachment can go, what it can do. Please, you tell him. Let me help. You feel like a caricature of a revolutionary, Che Guevara with darker skin, a Tejano accent, even wilder hair. You have no idea what you're doing, what you're offering. Let me help. You mean every word.
" Tick"
"Perfect, caring, thoughtful Carlos." Cecil kisses you, just a brush of lips. Then he stands up, fumbling for his cane. You pick it up from the floor and hand it to him, watch his fingers curl around the handle. "I have to get some sleep," he says. "I have a broadcast tomorrow."
"Tick "
You get up, brushing off your lab coat. You ask if you should go. Maybe Cecil needs space. Maybe he needs time to recover.
" Tick"
"Please stay," he says. "Come- come to bed with me? Just to, um, sleep." Cecil is blushing. You are blushing. Your lab is screaming and Secret Police dragged Cecil to reeducation, and you are blushing because your boyfriend asked you to sleep over. Of course, you say. Of course.
" "
Cecil brushes his hand against your cheek, just where Erika touched you. He looks up at you through his lashes, and his lips quirk. "We can talk about this later," he says, "in the morning." He leans in close, whispers. "The guy who does third shift surveillance always takes a nap at sunrise." Your smile feels tiny, tired, and awkward, but Cecil's smile is as bright and genuine as ever. You think that maybe everything will be okay. For now.
" Tick ."
You turn the radio off before you follow him to bed.
Run Like Sand
Welcome to Night Vale
Rating: teen
(character injury and reeducation, hair kink, canon-typical weirdness. Let me know if you need details.)
Characters: Carlos/Cecil, Night Vale ensemble
Wordcount: 4,000ish
Summary: "Today the City Council announced that all citizens will be taxed progressively, based on the number of times they utter the word 'cheesecake.' In related news, the Chamber of Commerce has announced that five new Cheesecake Factories are being opened in Night Vale. Attendance at the grand openings is mandatory. You will be expected to make a speech."
A/N: beta thanks to
narwhale_callin , my awesome Night Vale buddy. "Today the City Council announced that all citizens will be taxed progressively, based on the number of times they utter the word 'cheesecake.' In related news, the Chamber of Commerce has announced that five new Cheesecake Factories are being opened in Night Vale. Attendance at the grand openings is mandatory. You will be expected to make a speech."
You are sitting in your laboratory, listening to the radio. It's a little distracting - you're supposed to be imaging some gravel samples, but instead you're just sitting and listening. You promised Cecil that you would catch his show, tonight and most every night. You told him that you loved and supported community radio in all its forms, which was an...exaggeration. You love and support community radio solely in the form of Cecil. You hope that's enough.
You think the gravel is disintegrating.
"Listeners, I have a letter here from - ugh - Steve Carlsberg. It's about the cheesecake tax, which Steve insists on calling the 'c-word tax.' Steve says that the tax is an unjustifiable intrusion, blah blah blah, founded upon an ungainly surveillance state and government entrapment, blah blah blah, ninth amendment rights, blah. He also wants me to stop saying 'cheesecake,' for my own good. Well, I think Carlsberg is being paranoid. I trust our municipal government, and I know the Council will make allowances for the necessities of journalism. They're a reasonable eldritch hive-mind, aren't they?"
The gravel is definitely turning into sand. You try imaging that, but your electron microscope begins to shriek in French, a language that you only recognize from high school classes that you skipped and foreign films that you slept through. You turn off the microscope, but the shrieking does not stop. You sigh and turn on your tape recorder in order to collect scream data. It is becoming difficult to hear the radio.
"Intern Cheryl is handing me a note. It says - excuse me - it says I now owe seven thousand dollars in taxes."
The shrieking is spreading among your equipment - to the seismology graph, the particle detector, the Ouija board you brought to Night Vale as a joke and which has since proved invaluable for obtaining accurate weather reports that actually involve temperatures and air quality and no obscure bands at all. Your colleagues glare at the equipment and then glare at you. You ask if anyone speaks French.
"This is absurd! How am I supposed to pay seven thousand in taxes? Not to get personal, dear listeners, but my salary is very meager. I am mostly paid in powdered coyote horn, rather than currency. The conversion rate, as you might imagine, is not favorable."
One of the biologists took French in undergrad. She listens to the shrieking for a while, and then announces that it is Quebecois. You do not know what this means. She says this means it's the wrong sort of French and also that accents are hard. The shrieking fills your ears as the biologist goes on about slang and idioms and loan-words. You notice that your nose is bleeding.
"And, look, I was just reporting the news. How am I supposed to talk about the new cheesecake tax without saying the word 'cheesecake?' How many times did I even say 'cheesecake?' Like, four times? That costs me seven thousand dollars? Where is this money going? I don't like to question government - I don't like to question most things - but I can't help but wonder."
The blood is matting your luxurious moustache and dripping into your neatly-trimmed beard. You suggest evacuation, but your colleagues are already leaving. You pick up your portable radio and follow. You still cannot hear Cecil above the din, but even holding the radio is comforting. Compared to most people in Night Vale, Cecil is almost unaffected by the vagaries of the city. He has a few scars, a few missing toes, and a limp, but he still has his life. He's reliable, and even when your ears are ringing from the noise of your lab equipment, your fingers can still feel his voice thrumming through the speakers.
"Anyway, I apologize for that little digression. Let’s move on to the community calendar- oh. I'm being handed another note. It says I now owe fifteen thousand in taxes. Payable immediately, in cash or the equivalent portion of my eternal devotion. And it says that I wasn't supposed to read that last bit on the radio. Whoops."
You are standing outside your laboratory. The Quebecois screams are muffled by the walls, and your nose is drying up. You feel light-headed and fuzzy from relief and blood loss. Your colleagues are smiling at each other, and a botanist suggests taking some time off, just until the lab is habitable again. A geologist agrees, saying you could all use some rest. Look at Carlos, he says. Look at those rings under his eyes. You grimace and rub at your face. You always have rings under your eyes. Maybe it's because you always work too much, the geologist says.
"Night Vale, I will not stand for this. Exorbitant levies on speech amount to censorship, and the radio cannot and should not be silenced. I am not prone to drastic action, but I will not pay these ridiculous taxes. I will not stop saying 'cheesecake,' either. I never thought I would say this in reality, never outside of my nightmares, but Steve Carlsberg was right. The City Council has gone too far."
You walk down the street with your colleagues bunched around you and the radio under your arm. It makes you recall your youth - the radio is smaller than it used to be, and the people are older and have better-fitting clothing, but it's still somehow the same. A physicist thinks you should all go bowling. You think the bowling alley isn't safe, since there's a tiny war-mongering city underneath it. The physicist says that she'd forgotten all about that.
"I am not advocating anything rash. I won't ask for free and fair elections, or a public budget, or any transparency in government at all! I merely and humbly ask that the Council reconsider this new tax. I merely, uh, merely- um. Hello. Listeners, a member of the Sheriff's Secret Police has entered the recording booth and is indicating that I must report for reeducation. Sir, may I finish my show? I see. Listeners, I must leave you in the capable hands of Intern Cheryl. Good luck, Cheryl! It's your big break!"
Your colleagues chatter, but you cannot parse the sounds into words. You are listening to the radio. You should, you think, have been listening to the radio all along. A woman's voice is broadcasting now, stuttering her way through the community calendar. You are swearing to yourself. You aren't consciously aware of it, but filthy Spanish and English tumbles past your lips and doesn't make you feel any better. A meteorologist asks you if you are okay. You cannot answer except in swear words and frantic shakes of your head. A linguist explains that your boyfriend is being reeducated. A zoologist gasps, and your colleagues murmur together, pat your back and whisper about the abandoned mineshaft. A sociologist asks about how long you have been dating Cecil - she can never keep track of these things.
You drop the radio, and it smashes on the green/purple concrete of the sidewalk. Your colleagues yelp in surprise. You begin to run.
It is a long way from the laboratory to the mineshaft, and you aren't in running shape. You are not in any kind of shape - or if you are, it is a vaguely pear-shape that makes you stop running after five blocks, bend over and draw wheezing breaths. You wish you had your inhaler.
A car pulls up next to you, a tan Corolla with a missing hubcap. Steve Carlsberg leans out of the window and asks if you need a ride.
Cecil would not want you to get in the Corolla, but Cecil isn't here. You get in. The radio is off, and you think it is the first time you've seen someone in Night Vale with their radio turned off. Steve drives ten miles over the speed limit, kicking up dust from his tires.
There is already a crowd around the mineshaft entrance when you arrive. You know every person here. Even people you've never met are recognizable because Cecil talks about everyone, every person in Night Vale. Here is Old Woman Josie, surrounded by angels; here is John Peters, you know, the farmer; here is Susan Wilman, waving a copy of Freakonomics at the mineshaft guards, shouting something about the necessity of incentives as well as disincentives.
You are shaking. I tried to warn him, says Steve Carlsberg. He's been getting more subversive, says one of Tamika Flynn's three mothers. Just have to wait until he comes out, says Frank Williams. If he comes out.
You take a step toward the guards. You are not a violent man, but your hand curls into a fist without consulting your brain. You need Cecil back, and you will take him back. The guards are not looking at you, but you feel Old Woman Josie's sharp eyes on the back of your head. You take another step, and Erika grabs your arm. You try to jerk free, and Erika steps in front of you while Erika touches a soothing hand to your cheek. You flinch away, teeth bared. You do not want to be soothed.
A figure emerges from the mineshaft. It is wearing a cloak, a silver star, and a miter. You think it is the Sheriff. He tells the crowd to disperse. The crowd steps back, wary, not dispersing. The Sheriff waves his miter in the air, and the crowd takes another step back. The flapping of his hat in the thin desert breeze seems to make them more anxious. You have not moved, and now you are standing alone in front of the Sheriff. You cannot see his eyes - you do not know if he has any eyes - but you can tell that he is staring at you.
You ask for Cecil. Your voice is hoarse.
The Sheriff replies, but it is difficult to hear him over the blood pounding in your ears. Something about routine procedures, the need for patience, the need for calm.
You ask for Cecil again. You are not calm.
The crowd shifts behind you, echoing your mood. You're not sure what they would do, if you rushed forward now, if you attacked the Sheriff. Night Vale seems tolerant of totalitarianism - or, at least, they rate it pretty low on their list of problems. You want to bump it up the list.
The Sheriff flaps his hat at the guards, and one of them mumbles into a walkie-talkie. More people emerge from the mineshaft - balaclava-clad secret police, carrying tasers and blackjacks and pointed sticks. And, following behind, a hunched and limping figure.
They have taken Cecil's cane. Absurdly, this outrages you more than anything else. You run forward to take Cecil's arm, help support him. The police do not react. Cecil leans on you, heavily enough that you stagger before regaining your balance. Cecil's eyes are glassy, pupils blown wide, and he smiles at you, looks puzzled.
Cecil, you say. Cecil. Cecil.
He takes a shaky step forward and does not say anything.
You walk together, away from the police and into the crowd. Night Vale closes around you with a murmur of concern: Old Woman Josie's clucking tongue, Big Rico's soothing hum, Steve Carlsberg's rant about due process. You glance back to see the police retreating into the mineshaft, led by the Sheriff. He has put his miter back on his head.
Cecil, you say, and Cecil rubs at his forehead. There is a bruise at his right temple.
You try to put him in Steve's car, but Cecil shies away and his fingers clutch painfully tight on your arm. Steve says something about aversion treatment. He sounds sad and deflated, minus all of the passion he had when talking about due process a few moments ago. John Peters helps you put Cecil in the back of his pickup truck instead, and you climb up to join him, shuffling aside a few ears of invisible corn to make a clear place to sit.
Steve tells you to take Cecil home. That Cecil needs familiar surroundings. To try to keep him calm until the drugs are out of his system. You look at Cecil. He's curled in on himself, slumped against the side of the truck. There are track marks on his left arm, winding their way from the inside of his elbow up to his shoulder. The highest one is still bleeding, red drops sliding down golden-brown skin.
You thank Steve, and John Peters drives off. You pull Cecil close to you, trying to cushion him from the bumps and jolts of the dirt road.
You say Cecil's name again, and Cecil looks up at your face. He makes a pained noise and you startle, moving your hands away from his body to make sure you aren't pressing against some hidden injury. Cecil raises an unsteady hand to your beard, keening gently. You realize that it is still matted with your own blood. The incident at the lab seems like a long time ago, weeks and weeks. Time doesn't work properly in Night Vale.
You brush ineffectually at the dried blood. You tell Cecil that you'll wash up when you get to his apartment. That you're fine. That you're going to his apartment, you're both going. Is he fine? Talk to me, Cecil, please talk to me.
Cecil says nothing, but he presses his face into the join of your neck and shoulder. You can feel him breathing, slow and shallow. Tension bleeds away from you like smoke; you are still angry, but it is a comfortable, familiar anger. You have never trusted the Night Vale government.
John Peters drives through the desert and back into town. He double-parks outside of Cecil's apartment building, daring the secret traffic cops to say anything. You clamber out of the truck, then help Cecil down. He is still uncertain on his feet, looks dizzy and off-balance. Cecil lives on the fourth floor and you'll have to take the stairs - you remember how he complained last week when the elevator broke down. You want to carry Cecil up to his apartment, but you're not sure if you're strong enough. You do not want to drop him.
John Peters gets out of his truck and takes Cecil's other arm. You thank him, but ask if he should stay with his truck, if he hasn't done enough already, if he should minimize his involvement as much as possible. John Peters shrugs. You take Cecil up the stairs together, glad that the staircase is almost wide enough for three.
John Peters leaves you at Cecil's door, as you fish in Cecil's pockets for his keys. You ask Cecil which key is for his apartment - there are so many, and several seem to exist on a different plane, flickering in and out of existence. Cecil focuses with great effort and taps a bit of metal that you had taken for a bottle opener. It slides into the keyhole easily, and you push the door open, help Cecil to the couch. His spare cane is in the umbrella stand, and you bring it to him. Cecil grasps it, white-knuckled, lays it across his lap. He looks over at the window - you follow his gaze, catch the shine off a binocular lens. You close the blinds. You know it will not stop the surveillance, only inconvenience it. You want to inconvenience it.
You go to the bathroom and wash your face. There is no mirror, so you comb your fingers through your beard as the water runs red, then pink, then subtly grey. You think that's the color it's meant to be.
Cecil is still sitting on his couch. You are worried by his shaking hands, by his ashy face, by his silence. You want to take him to the lab and test him for everything, but your lab is probably still screaming. You pat down your pockets instead and produce a pen light, a Geiger counter, and a broken stopwatch. The stopwatch returns to your pocket, and a quick check of the Geiger counter reveals that it is reading at 120 CPM - much too high, but about normal for Cecil. You kneel down in front of Cecil and present the penlight.
You ask to look at his eyes. Cecil widens them, obligingly. He doesn't blink, but stares directly into the light. You look in his ears next, just for something to do, something to think about. You ask Cecil to open his mouth, dreading a cut tongue and bloody teeth. His mouth is fine. His tongue is fine. You click off the penlight.
You ask Cecil to say something. You grip his knees. He's scaring you. You tell him this, that you're worried and frightened and angry - not at him, never at him, but you're angry.
"Can we turn on the radio?" asks Cecil. His voice is ragged, but recognizably his own. You stand, and turn on the radio.
"-is coming for you. It is behind you. It is in front of you. You cannot escape. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
"Good news, Listeners! I have been informed that our regular host, Cecil Baldwin, has completed his reeducation and is recuperating at home with Carlos. He should be back at work tomorrow!"
Cheryl's voice is a little too quiet, like she's sitting back from the microphone. Cecil is smiling. You sit down on the couch next to him, and he turns toward you, easing his way into your lap. His cane thumps to the floor, and Cecil presses his face into your neck again. You hug him close.
"Thank you so much for bearing with me, listeners. Let me leave you with this. Sometimes we do what we are told. Sometimes we do what we are not told. Sometimes we scream in agony as the needles enter our skin. Sometimes there is ice cream! Try to make that ice cream last as long as possible. It may be the last thing you ever eat."
You ask Cecil if he wrote that. He nods, nose bumping against the join of your jaw. You think about this. Then you ask if he wants ice cream, but Cecil shakes his head. Finally you ask if he's okay, even though he's obviously not, just because you're desperate for Cecil's voice again. Cecil shrugs.
"Next on NVCR: twenty-six commercial-free minutes of a broken metronome ticking. Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight."
The ticking begins, each beat subtly out of rhythm, each rest slightly too long or too short. You groan and try to get up to turn off the radio, but Cecil won't budge. He burrows closer to you, and you give up and surrender to the off-kilter ticks.
"Ticktick tick tick tick tick ticktick tick"
There is a crunching noise near your ear and a dampness at your neck. You flinch before you realize what must be happening, then flinch again. You ask Cecil if he is chewing on your hair, and he glances up at you, guilty. He still has a strand in his mouth. You tell him that it's all right. To take whatever he needs.
"Tick tick tick tick tick tick"
Cecil winds his long, thin fingers in your hair, rubs his cheek against your curls. You hear the wet crunching again, and he tugs your head up, not gentle. It hurts, but you stifle a grunt, put your hands on Cecil's waist to steady him. He sighs and presses forward, closer, closer, until there's nothing between you except the grating ticking of the radio.
"Tick tick tick"
"I don't like being reeducated," says Cecil, into your hair. You don't know what to say in reply. You are so glad to hear his voice.
"Ticktickticktick tick "
"It never really takes." Cecil sounds sad, apologetic, annoyed. "I try to be a model citizen. I pay strict attention to the reeducational videos, I work through the word problems, I don't fight against the injections all that much. But after a few days I start to question the will of the City Council again. Like, when is the mayoral election? Why don't I remember the last mayoral election? Why- sorry. There I go already." There is another sensation of damp against your neck. You think Cecil might be crying.
"Tick titick tick tititick tick"
You try to tell Cecil that there's nothing wrong with him. That there is something wrong, monstrously wrong with his government. With Night Vale. You tell him that a 25-45% yearly death toll isn't normal, that the US government only occasionally openly assaults and drugs free citizens, that the cheesecake tax is absurd. "Don't say that word," says Cecil. He curls his arm, pulling your head down by the hair, hiding the track marks.
Tickticktickticktick tickticktick ticktickti"
You ask Cecil to leave Night Vale with you. Before it's too late. Before anything bad- no, before anything worse happens to him. You love the way he speaks his mind, the passion he pours into the radio, his strength. You don't want him to be broken. Please, Cecil, come away.
" Tick "
Cecil straightens up, drying his eyes on the back of his hand. They're clear now, his pupils still large but fixed on your face. "What about the listeners?" he asks. "I can't leave them alone. I can't leave Night Vale with no one to speak for it."
" "
Let someone else speak, you don't say. Fuck Night Vale, you don't say. Then let's start a revolution, you do say. "He's joking," says Cecil, very loudly. "Haha, Carlos. You're so funny."
" "
You lean into him, whisper into his ear that you mean it. That you want to save Night Vale from any threat, every threat. Even from the Secret Police, from the City Council, from the Sheriff himself. Cecil shudders, fingers clenching and unclenching in your hair. You kiss him.
"Tick "
"What happened to scientific detachment?" murmurs Cecil, when you break. The pads of his fingers massage against your scalp. You tell him where scientific detachment can go, what it can do. Please, you tell him. Let me help. You feel like a caricature of a revolutionary, Che Guevara with darker skin, a Tejano accent, even wilder hair. You have no idea what you're doing, what you're offering. Let me help. You mean every word.
" Tick"
"Perfect, caring, thoughtful Carlos." Cecil kisses you, just a brush of lips. Then he stands up, fumbling for his cane. You pick it up from the floor and hand it to him, watch his fingers curl around the handle. "I have to get some sleep," he says. "I have a broadcast tomorrow."
"Tick "
You get up, brushing off your lab coat. You ask if you should go. Maybe Cecil needs space. Maybe he needs time to recover.
" Tick"
"Please stay," he says. "Come- come to bed with me? Just to, um, sleep." Cecil is blushing. You are blushing. Your lab is screaming and Secret Police dragged Cecil to reeducation, and you are blushing because your boyfriend asked you to sleep over. Of course, you say. Of course.
" "
Cecil brushes his hand against your cheek, just where Erika touched you. He looks up at you through his lashes, and his lips quirk. "We can talk about this later," he says, "in the morning." He leans in close, whispers. "The guy who does third shift surveillance always takes a nap at sunrise." Your smile feels tiny, tired, and awkward, but Cecil's smile is as bright and genuine as ever. You think that maybe everything will be okay. For now.
" Tick ."
You turn the radio off before you follow him to bed.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-29 01:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-29 08:32 pm (UTC)