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Carlos wakes up in the middle of the night to feel Cecil clinging against him and the need to go to the bathroom. Neither of these is unusual, so he pushes himself up their mound of pillows and begins trying to extricate himself from Cecil's cuddle. Instead he gets a desperate whine and the grip tightening.
"Cecil, c'mon, I've got to get up," he says softly, trying to push Cecil's arm off his shoulder. They've always been cuddly, especially since Carlos got home, and Cecil really hates giving up his cuddle object even in sleep, so he knows what to do.
"Please don't leave," Cecil whimpers against his shoulder.
Oh. One of those nights. Carlos stops and adjusts his expectations accordingly.
"Ssh, no, I'm staying here, I just need to go to the bathroom, that's all. I'd be right back in a minute," he says, reaching up to pet Cecil's hair. Cecil does not seem calmed by this. "Have you been awake for a while?"
"Long enough," he says.
“Poor snuggle bun. I wish you’d woken me up."
“You’re too heavy a sleeper. Besides, it was enough to hold you. So you wouldn’t vanish.” It's a bit hard to hear Cecil's voice, but since his mouth is so close to Carlos's ear, he manages.
"Was it a dream? Or did you wake up and then suddenly get overwhelmed by existence?" He hugs Cecil extra-tight and sits them both up so it's easier to hear each other. Cecil rearranges himself so he's sitting on Carlos's lap, facing him, with his legs wrapped around Carlos's waist so he still won't leave.
"I don't... Maybe I woke up like this? It all feels so... much," he says, head in his hands. Carlos makes more comforting shushing noises and pets Cecil's hair again.
"That's okay, I know what that's like. Just relax, okay? I'm here, and I won't leave," Carlos says, resigning himself to the minor discomfort of a full bladder for the time being.
"You'll have to, eventually," Cecil says, still not looking up. "Everyone does. No matter how hard you try, everyone's alone in the end. Alone and scared and..." he trails off into a sob, and Carlos realizes Cecil's probably been crying for a while too.
"Oh, sweetie... Is this about the tapes again?" Cecil manages a little nod. “My poor darling,” he says, patting his back. Cecil takes this opportunity to clamp back onto him.
"I'm- remembering things again. Or maybe imagining them, I can't tell, but they feel so real... and the whole time - some of them are worse than the one in the bunker. It's all so much... the blood, and the destruction, and I'm always-" he buries himself into Carlos's chest rather than finishing, sniffling against Carlos's night shirt.
"It's alright. You're not alone right now, okay? I've got you," he whispers, cuddling the man who's shrunk into a little ball against him. "You aren't alone. Even if those tapes were your past, they're not your future, right? It's not 1983. The world did not end then. You have me." He kisses the top of Cecil's head, nuzzling his soft light green hair. “As long as I have, you’ll have me.”
“What if that’s not enough?” Cecil says, sniffling. “What if- we don’t know if I’m- What if I have longer than you, so much longer?”
There it is, Carlos thinks to himself. “If I keep aging and you don’t – and that’s an ‘if’, Cecil – then we’ll notice it long before it becomes crucial. And in that case, I’ll figure something out, something to get you aging again or stop mine. I’m a Scientist. There’s nothing I can’t figure out eventually.” He smiles at that, but Cecil’s still not looking up. “If nothing else works, I’m sure Station Management knows why you look so much younger than you are. They’ll help.”
Cecil stops to look Carlos right in the eyes at that. Carlos forces himself not to look away, to focus on Cecil’s nose and the little freckles between it and his lips and his eyes are a nice golden brown, really… finally Cecil blinks, which Carlos is pretty sure is a deliberate action, and he feels okay to look more at his hair instead which is much easier.
“I can’t ask you to do that,” Cecil says finally.
“You didn’t ask. I volunteered. Assuming it happens, anyway.”
“I can’t- Carlos, you’d be bargaining with an extradimensional entity or entities for a soul they have legally possessed since I was fifteen, and I don’t even know how long ago that WAS.” His hands have moved to Carlos’s forearms. “They won’t give that up easily. I’m not sure they EVER give them up.”
“Then I’d offer mine. The important thing is our lifespans are in sync, not how they are.”
Cecil looks at him like he’s finally crossed the line into Mad Scientist territory. “Carlos… it’s too- it hurts so much, losing people and knowing you can’t do anything but watch. Knowing you’ll lose everyone, eventually. It- you’d hate it, I know.”
He would, of course. Carlos knows that. But Carlos has been doing some thinking since they heard that broadcast on Cecil’s vacation, too, and he’s had more than enough time to decide. He knows it hurt Cecil, he didn’t want to bring it up before Cecil was okay with it.
“I would. But it… I find it easier to accept that I’ll lose everyone but you than to know you’ll be alone someday. If it comes to that,” he says, adding the last sentence very quickly because it’s still an ‘if’ and that’s still really important. “Besides, I was worried the rest of our lives wouldn’t be enough to express how much I love you. More time’s kind of a dream come true.”
“You could probably get a lot of science done with all that extra time,” Cecil says, and in spite of himself he’s almost smiling.
“Exactly. It’d be fine with me.” He presses their foreheads together. “As much as it hurts to lose people, it’s better than locking yourself away. You taught me that, Cecil. You’ve given me so much I never thought I could have. So if you need something I can give you- it’s an easy decision.”
“You owe me nothing,” Cecil says firmly, “and I don’t want any kind of repayment. Not this, not anything.”
“Oh- no, of course not. It isn’t- I don’t want to do this because I owe you, Cecil. I want to because I love you. And I want to be with you for as long as I possibly can, to help you when you’re hurting and make sure you’re not alone, ever again.” He reaches up to cup Cecil’s cheek. “You gave me a constant. I want to be that for you, too.”
There’s just enough light from the windows for Carlos to see Cecil’s blushing. He smiles encouragingly, and Cecil finally, genuinely smiles back. “Okay, then. If you’re sure that’s what you want.”
“I’m certain. If we end up having to choose over my relative mortality, anyway. Really I think I’d rather have us grow old together and die in our sleep, surrounded by loving family members.” He’s had a couple fantasies about that, actually. Night Vale sometimes affects your deepest fantasies like that. (Besides, his ones before were a lot lonelier. He thought not having friends meant you wouldn’t hurt anyone when you died, but he’d forgotten himself in that equation.)
“I think I’d like that,” Cecil says, sitting up to wipe his eyes. Carlos realizes his own are a bit wet and does the same. “We’ll have to save up, of course, you really have to earn a death like that, but I think our insurance provider has some really nice bundles. Mine does, anyway.”
“We’ll work on it later,” Carlos says, giving Cecil’s hair one last tousle. “For now, I need to go to the bathroom, and then we can cuddle until everything’s safe again. Okay?”
It’s still a moment until Cecil finally unhooks his legs and leans back into the pillows. “Just be quick.”
“Of course I will.” Carlos gets up and pulls the covers back over Cecil before he leaves. “I just said I wanted as much time with you as I could, didn’t I?”
He hears Cecil’s breathy laugh in the hall and knows he’s made the right decision.