Carlos is going to pretend that he pulls back quickly so he can write down his notes and observations before they go out of his head, not that that's really likely to happen, but he can pretend. It sure isn't because the tiny people below Lane Five spotted him or anything. He's not worried about that, not at all. Their fireworks won't go high enough to hit him, he assures himself. He just hopes they don't have long-range weaponry that can, but he's not worried about it, he tells himself. He just needs to make notes before he forgets.
He told Teddy Williams and everyone else he encountered to stay back this time—he wasn't going to antagonize the tiny people and he didn't want anyone else to either—so he expects to be alone when he turns around. He doesn't expect anyone else to be there. He certainly doesn't expect to see Cecil.
“Is your show over already?” he asks, surprised. How long was he down there? Carlos takes a quick glance at the clock on the wall by the snack bar, but no, Cecil should still be on the air. Even allowing for the fact that time doesn't really work in Night Vale, he should still be in the studio wrapping up his broadcast.
Cecil swallows. “It is today,” he says simply. “I put the farm noises back on, until the next show starts. I just needed to be here to—to give you moral support.”
Carlos ought to scold him, he knows. Their jobs are important—Cecil's job is important—it's one of the things they've understood and even loved about each other since the beginning, their dedication to their work, even if it risks their lives. Even if it can be a little exasperating sometimes. And Carlos doesn't think Cecil has ever abandoned a show before it's supposed to be over. He ought to remind Cecil that he's got a job to do, that Night Vale needs him. He ought to reassure him with that line he's used so many times over the years: A scientist is usually fine. He ought to make light of the situation and order him to hightail it back to the station and at least sign off properly, maybe report on what Carlos saw.
Instead, he steps forward and gathers Cecil into a hug.
It's been a rough year for Cecil. Not that it's really been a picnic for the rest of Night Vale either, all things considered, but the town is fairly resilient as a whole; it's Cecil who seems to have taken most of the knocks, at least in Carlos' totally impersonal and absolutely scientific observation. The murder of Hiram McDaniels' violet head, followed so closely by Old Woman Josie's rapid decline and eventual death, probably hit Cecil harder than anyone else in town, even Hiram's sister or Josie's daughter. But it went further back than that. The whole thing with the silent strangers and the beagle that was almost certainly Satan himself shook Cecil to his core. Not just because of the situation itself, which was deeply unsettling and overall creepy to begin with and then just slid straight into outright terrifying. Because, deep down, Cecil blamed himself. Blames himself, still.
It doesn't matter how many times Carlos tells him that he didn't do anything wrong, that he was right to send his intern to investigate a story—that was their job—or that Maureen didn't actually finish her internship with the station, that someone would have led the army of strangers and might not have slowed things down as much if it hadn't been Maureen. There's a part of Cecil that's still convinced—that may always be convinced—that there's something he could have done to head it off before it began.
And Cecil is under a lot of stress. A lot of stress. A year ago, Carlos would have said he was under a hell of a lot of stress, but now Carlos has seen hell, or at least heard about it, and he's trying to take that word out of his vocabulary because he does not ever want Cecil to end up there, even temporarily, even metaphorically. But Cecil is stressed nevertheless. He's strained from years of denial, years of avoidance, years—a lifetime—of forcing himself to follow laws he doesn't agree with because he's a public figure and can't afford to flagrantly, publicly acknowledge things the City Council has decreed are not to be acknowledged. There are deep-rooted fears Carlos has no idea how to alleviate, especially since they're somewhat well-founded. There'd been that moment, a few days after the grand re-opening of the New Old Night Vale Opera House, when Carlos accidentally broke a taboo he'd forgotten about in his excitement and the sheriff's Secret Police burst through their door. He remembers Cecil standing in their living room, physically putting his body between Carlos and the officers, pleading for leniency and invoking everything from Carlos having saved the town (something Carlos still doesn't feel he had as much to do with as Cecil likes to give him credit for) to his renewed friendship with Mayor Cardinal. The Secret Police let Carlos off with a warning and Cecil trembled in his arms all night.
Just like he's trembling now.
Cecil is one of the bravest people Carlos knows, maybe even the bravest. He's looked into the face of danger that sent everyone else running for safety and not only reported on it but at least made the effort to interview it. No matter how frightened he is, he never lets anyone see it. Anyone but Carlos. They've held each other after so many crises now, clung to one another when the danger is past and let themselves be afraid for one another, knowing it is safe not to be.
How many nights? Carlos wonders. How many nights has Cecil whispered his fears into Carlos' shoulder while Carlos tried to smooth them away from his forehead? How many nights has Carlos pressed his ear to Cecil's chest to listen to his heartbeat while Cecil talks in that rumbling, soothing baritone that vibrates through both of them? How many nights have they pressed themselves together from forehead to toenail, passing air back and forth as they inhale and exhale and think about how much of a relief it is that they're both able to do this?
But this—this is different. This isn't a vague yet terrifying unknown. This is a specific and terrifying known. Carlos knowingly re-entered a space where, as Cecil has mentioned several times, he almost died. (He hasn't ever told Cecil that he's pretty sure he did actually die, and that the “Apache Tracker” somehow brought him back to life, and he's not ever planning on telling him that. Some knowledge is too great a burden to bear, or to lay on your loved ones.) He probably should have waited until after he did it to tell Cecil…but that would've been kind of dishonest, and also unfair, to both of them. And, really, all things considered, he's grateful Cecil is here with him. He's glad to know Cecil had his back, even if he didn't know it when he looked.
“I'm okay,” he whispers in Cecil's ear, as much to reassure himself as Cecil. “I'm okay. We're okay. It's okay.”
“It's not okay, Carlos.” Cecil's voice is so quiet Carlos almost feels it more than he hears it. “It's bad out there. It's very bad. This is just part of it. And I can't—” He chokes and pulls Carlos tighter, and now it's not Cecil being protected, but Carlos, or maybe they're trying to shelter each other. “I can't lose you again.”
So…okay. Maybe he does know. Or maybe he's talking about the year Carlos spent in the otherworldly desert that's now home to the community Kevin insists on calling Desert Bluffs II, to say nothing of the several weeks before that where Carlos was not only there but unable to get in touch with him because he didn't know his cell would actually work. It doesn't matter. Because Carlos is thinking, too, about all the close calls and brushes with disaster, all the times he's almost lost Cecil to his stubbornness and dogged determination to do his job and, well, whatever the disaster of the day, week, or month may have been. And if Cecil is admitting out loud that this is bad, before it's over, and if Cecil left the station early…
Well. Maybe this is the end.
Carlos pulls back enough that he can press his forehead against Cecil's. He thinks back to all the moments they've had together: their quiet moment on the trunk of his car in the Arby's parking lot, their first official date, their extended “stay-cation” in his apartment in the otherworldly desert. The first kiss, the first time they said “I love you”, the first night they spent together. Saying their vows in front of all their friends and family, slow-dancing in the December twilight, cutting the cake, toasting one another with champagne. The daylights, the sunsets, the midnights, the cups of coffee, the inches and miles and laughter and strife, just like the song says. Carlos is a scientist, not a mathematician, but he's done the math on this one, and counting from that first moment he got the courage to step past his own shyness and reach out for the man he already knew he was going to love for the rest of his life, it has been, assuming time has behaved properly, exactly one thousand four hundred and sixteen days. Thirty-three thousand nine hundred and eighty-four hours. Two million thirty-nine thousand and forty minutes. One hundred twenty-two million three hundred forty-two thousand four hundred seconds. Six weeks shy of four years.
None of it enough.
“Let's go home,” he says hoarsely. He can write up his notes later, when Cecil falls into his restless slumber at Carlos' side. Or while they're curled up against one another, because it's entirely possible Cecil won't sleep tonight. It's entirely possible neither of them will. It doesn't matter, as long as they're together.
“Yes.” Cecil's voice is barely audible. “If the world has to end, I want to spend as much time with you as I can.” He tilts his head and kisses Carlos, a gentle, tender kiss, sweet and sincere and warm, just like Cecil. “I love you, honey.”
“I love you, too, babe,” Carlos says against Cecil's lips. They kiss again, and then they slowly walk out of the tunnel under Lane Five, their arms around each other. It's awkward to walk this way, but not impossible. Nothing's impossible, Carlos thinks, not when they're together. Not even surviving.
But just in case, if the world does end in the next few hours or days or weeks, he can't think of a better way to go out than safe and secure in Cecil's arms.