Not Quite Perfect (So You Say)
He doesn’t mean for it to happen.
He wants to reiterate: It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
And that’s as far as Carlos lets himself go, in his head, because any farther starts to sound like forced and wasn’t ready and that’s just...no. Technically, maybe, but truthfully? No.
Being in Night Vale has made his logic go all sideways and it is the worst .
But the point: Carlos and Cecil’s fifteenth date does not go according to plan.
^^^^^^^^^^
Calling it a date, actually, is a bit generous. Cecil comes to Carlos’s house to look at some data from his experiments, because the rest of the team is very busy with something Carlos is not and does not want to be part of that involves at least two kinds of toxins, and that’s a good enough excuse to invite Cecil to his place, alone. It is just supposed to be science, though. Just...intimate, friendly science, and maybe a long kiss goodbye.
By the time Carlos’s chest starts hurting it’s already been far too long. He shifts uncomfortably on his couch and quickly pretends to be engrossed in data when Cecil glances over at him.
Now that he’s noticed he can’t stop noticing. As surreptitiously as he can, which isn’t much, he coughs, which doesn’t help anything except make him feel even more acutely trapped than before.
Nononono don’t think that word—dammit.
Now it’s floating in his brain, trapped and hurts and stop , and he can feel himself starting to panic, silently, while he takes careful measured breaths and does not look at anything but the blur of numbers on his laptop screen. It’s fine. What time is it? Cecil will leave eventually and he will be fine.
(Bruised ribs and skin damage and overheating, but he’ll be fine, a scientist is always fine , ha, right?)
“-so what I’m thinking,” Cecil is saying, gesturing at a smudge Carlos can no longer decipher, “is that this is connected to the incident in 2003 at the—Carlos? Carlos, are you listening?”
Carlos straightens and nods. “Uh-huh, yeah, go on, 2003.”
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Cecil squints at him.
“I’m fine ,” Carlos says with far too much bite. It has the exact opposite effect he wanted it to. Cecil sits back and crosses his arms, waiting.
“I am fine, Cecil, okay? I’m just a little tired.”
“Do you want to take a break?”
Tell him he’d better just go home. You can do this another time. Kick him out.
“Carlos?”
His heart is pounding and he is hot all over and his chest hurts and he wants...he needs to...he can’t think , can’t get his thoughts to sit down long enough to sort them out. His breathing sounds loud and harsh in his own ears.
“Carlos, you’re worrying me-“
“I’m sorry,” he blurts, and bolts from the room.
Thank God he’s in his own apartment; he ducks into his bedroom and rips off his shirt, then starts trying to wrestle his way out of the binder. It’s sticking to him with sweat and it’s a nightmare on the best days anyway, let alone when his hands are shaking and he can’t think long enough to use any kind of technique. It doesn’t help the trapped feeling, oh God, he’s stuck, he’s going to be stuck forever and if it wasn’t so embarrassing it would be terrifying.
A knock, very softly, on his door. “Carlos? Are you okay in there?”
It has to come out eventually, right? The secret. And also Carlos. Mostly Carlos. He stops struggling and attempts to smooth out the binder.
“No,” he admits, pulling open the door. “I could use your help.”
Cecil’s eyes go straight to his chest and his whole face dawns with understanding. “Oh, Carlos, why didn’t you just say so? Is it being difficult?”
“I—yes—you—how do you know what this is?” Carlos stammers.
Cecil flaps a hand. “Who doesn’t? I don’t live under a rock, you know.”
“And you’re not...mad?”
“How long have you been binding?”
Carlos winces. “Well, I left the house at seven...”
Cecil looks shocked. “It’s almost nine at night .”
“Night Vale time is weird! Also, I took a break at lunch.”
“Not that weird, and also that’s not doing a lot to help your case, though I appreciate your self-awareness. Let’s pause here, and get you out of this, and then we’ll go back to the mad thing because I definitely want to discuss that.”
So he’s mad, is what Carlos is hearing. Cecil reaches for his binder and he steps back automatically, grabbing for it protectively.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “Sorry, I just, I don’t want you to-“
“Turn around.”
Carlos turns around, and Cecil helps him from behind in working the stubborn binder past his shoulders. As soon as he’s done Cecil hands him his shirt from earlier, face turned politely away, and Carlos tugs it on before clearing his throat awkwardly. He’s not even wearing a bra. Cotton feels horribly thin and exposed; he folds his arms over his chest to protect it, then drops them to stop drawing attention to his suddenly-present...yeah.
“Do you want to put on a sweatshirt and take a minute?” Cecil offers gently.
Carlos nods and, blessfully, Cecil ducks out of his room without another word. It’s barely even cool, but he puts on a sports bra—carefully avoiding the mirror—and his heaviest sweatshirt, and sits cross-legged on the floor, gathering himself. Cecil didn’t freak out, didn’t leave him, wasn’t even awkward . Of course, he could always have a delayed reaction or just be holding it out of some weird respect until Carlos comes out to talk. That’s a terrible idea; if Carlos is going to be insulted and broken up with he’d prefer to just roll it in with his dysphoria and moment of embarrassment/panic and get everything done at once. At the very, very least, he knows this probably won’t end in violence. Cecil isn’t violent, generally, and that’s not a response you hold back, in Carlos’s experience.
He didn’t expect to feel like this. He drags his knees into his chest and presses his forehead into them, breathing raggedly. It’s been a long time since he had to come out; come to think of it, no one in Night Vale knows. Going stealth wasn’t ever something Carlos set out to do, but all his paperwork is legal and matching and he passes perfectly fine and he never knew how anyone would react so he just sort of...watched. Waited for the right moment. And of course it hasn’t come. But no one’s called him anything since he got here and no one’s been transphobic at all . And still. All the old fear comes rushing back, the anxiety of locker rooms and bathrooms and new names on the door.
Breathe, Carlos. Breathe.
If Night Vale had a problem with him he would have noticed, right? Cecil waxes poetic about him all the time and no one’s gotten angry as far as he knows. Weirder things have happened than people changing gender. But. People are fallible and logic doesn’t always come into the equation. And his being gay and his being a man are two different issues. Connected, but...yeah.
(He’s never heard anything about a hate crime. He’s never heard anything , period. Is no news good or bad in this context?)
Just go talk to him and stop torturing yourself. At least when he leaves you it’ll be over.
“He won’t,” Carlos whispers to himself, but even his own voice sounds uncertain.
He stands, stretching carefully and taking a minute to check for damage. In his emotional turmoil he forgot most of the protocol. Without his chest being compressed he can stretch properly, cough, breathe in counts of eleven without a problem. His ribs still hurt a little, but as best he can tell they aren’t permanently damaged. If it’s still bad tomorrow...he’ll probably have to get it checked. He shoves the thought away, brushes imaginary dirt off of him, and goes back to the living room. Cecil is sitting on the couch, frowning at one of the scientific journals Carlos is perpetually leaving around.
“Hey,” he says quietly, and Cecil actually checks his page number before closing the journal—was he actually reading?
“Hi,” Cecil says, patting the couch next to him. “Sit?”
Carlos sits. The sweatshirt is a little too big, the sleeves sliding over his hands. He tugs at them to avoid looking at Cecil.
“I’m sorry,” he says at last, and it opens the floodgates. “I’m sorry, I should have told you sooner but I was scared and then I couldn’t figure out how and then tonight and I didn’t know what to do-“
Cecil raises a hand and Carlos flinches, badly.
Look, before we go any farther...you should know I’m trans.
What the fuck?
I—I’m sorry, what..?
I’m not a lesbian .
Good, neither am I, because I’m a guy-
No, no, oh my God, you were just trying to get into my pants, weren’t you, because you couldn’t as a girl, what the fuck -
It’s flattering you think this is about you.
(He used to be witty, in the beginning.)
(Heels, when angry college women throw them, are actually pretty dangerous. If he looks close he can still find the small scar under his left eye.)
(She wasn’t the worst. She was just the first.)
Cecil freezes, lowering his hand to interlace their fingers. “Carlos,” he says quietly, “are you hurt?”
Carlos trembles for no good reason, trying to separate the past from the present and only mostly succeeding. He blinks at the question for a few seconds. “What?”
“You were binding for a while, are your ribs and everything okay?” Cecil’s eyes are boring into him, concerned.
Carlos is so, so confused. “They hurt a little, but I think I’m fine? I was going to, um, get it checked out tomorrow if they weren’t better.”
Cecil nods, once. “Good. I’m glad.”
Something about I’m glad makes Carlos shiver, not in a bad way.
“You seemed really upset,” he adds. “Were you—was it me, did you have a bad day, were you just uncomfortable..?”
Carlos shrugs because he can’t find the words to justify the panic he felt before. Now that it’s gone he doesn’t have enough data to pick a new response to any of this, so he’s just sort of buzzing radio static. He picks at the cuffs of his sleeves.
Cecil shifts closer, so their knees touch. “You asked me if I was angry, before. Have...have people been angry with you for this?”
“Yeah,” Carlos whispers, the admittance cracking like a gunshot.
“But it’s not your fault,” Cecil says, frowning.
“It kinda is. At least the not telling part.”
“But if it wasn’t relevant then why would it matter?”
Carlos can’t do this. He can’t, he can’t hold Cecil’s hand and bump their knees together and listen to him talk in that voice. Not like that, not so calm and reasonable and innocent . What is he supposed to do wit that? He lurches to his feet, suddenly angry for no reason at all. His hands shake.
Don’t be angry don’t be loud just let him do what he’s going to do don’t give him a reason to get angry back.
Dangerdangerdanger fight or flight?
Cecil is in his apartment. The thought hits Carlos like a brick to his sternum and he is angrier (he is angrier because his other option is fear and that is...he is angrier) because he can’t leave, and he can’t make Cecil leave, and he’s being so reasonable when Carlos isn’t. When no one else ever has been.
“Carlos?” Cecil asks, obviously concerned, but he doesn’t stand. Carlos is grateful for that, he thinks.
“No,” he spits, nonsensically. “Stop it, you don’t understand, it matters -“
“Why?”
“Because people care! Because people—no one thinks when we start—no one wants-“
“Carlos.” The firm, steady voice cuts through everything. “Who made you feel that way?”
“What?”
“Was it someone in Night Vale?” There’s a dangerous edge to Cecil’s voice now.
Carlos shakes his head. “No. No it was...before.”
“Who?”
“ Everyone .” It’s meant to be exasperated, but it comes out hurting. Cecil looks so, so devastated by that that Carlos rushes to correct himself. “I mean, I had a few good friends, I had some good teachers and, and coworkers, and my parents were okay with it eventually. It was just. A lot.”
“I’m sorry,” Cecil says.
And Carlos deflates. He’s not even angry anymore. Maybe he never was. He can’t tell if he’s scared or relieved or something else entirely.
“I don’t know what to do,” he admits quietly, because Cecil is painfully honest at all times and it’s catching.
“You can sit with me and I can give you a hug?” Cecil offers.
That’s...yeah, okay. That’s a good idea. Carlos sits and Cecil hugs him and it’s okay .
“What are you thinking?” Cecil murmurs in his ear.
Carlos winces. “I’m thinking I overreacted. It’s just-“
“You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“But I owe myself one. And I’m better at thinking out loud. So.”
He hesitates a beat, but Cecil doesn’t protest, just waits for him to continue. He takes a deep breath.
“It’s been a while since I had to...tell someone. Since I moved here at least. And I was worried about my binder. And I’ve been worried about telling you, you know?”
Cecil pulls back. “Why?”
And that’s...that’s a genuine question. Huh. Carlos plucks at a loose thread on his jeans.
I didn’t know how you would react, he wants to say. It’s a big secret to have kept, he almost says.
“I’m not exactly perfect ,” is what actually comes out, startling both of them.
“What do you mean? Carlos, of course you’re perfect.”
“But I’m not...I wasn’t...”
“Carlos. Somewhere in this town is a young girl who is actually an adult man’s hand. Well, not anymore, since the body transplant, but a huge Russian stranger isn’t that much better of a match, so I think the point stands.”
Carlos shakes his head, not sure if he wants to laugh or...well, he doesn’t know what his other options are, but something .
“What? What are you thinking?”
“It’s stupid. It sounds stupid in my head , I can’t say it out loud.”
“Well, you aren’t stupid, so regardless of how it sounds it doesn’t matter,” Cecil says, like it’s that simple. Maybe it is.
“There’s a...difference. Between absurd and, and weird. You know?” Cecil is looking at him like he’s puzzling out ancient Sumerian. “Like, Megan. Someone gave birth to an adult man’s detached hand and it’s a girl named Megan who goes to elementary school. That’s just absurd, or at least it is where I’m from. Absolutely none of those facts make any sense together, but they still make sense because it’s Night Vale. The only reliable thing about this place is that it’s nonsensical. But there’s still that...that divide.” He gestures, frustrated, drawing lines in front of him and Cecil. “No man’s land.”
“Desert,” Cecil says, and yes , exactly, somehow.
“There’s normal and there’s absurd and everything is on one side or the other, and absurd is normal, because Night Vale. But if you’re just a little bit off, not quite normal and not quite into absurdity, you’re in the space in the middle. In the desert. Alone.” He drops his hands and makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “Does that make any sense?”
“No,” Cecil says, “but I know what you were trying to say. Megan is a false equivalence?”
“Exactly,” Carlos says.
“I don’t really see how, but I’ll accept that. Stop me if I get any of the rest wrong, you think a lot faster than me. You didn’t want to tell me because you were afraid I would react...poorly. Because of people in your past who have. And that anxiety compounded with your binder compounded with me actually finding out meant...”
“I freaked,” Carlos finishes. He can’t help but add, “Sorry.”
“You do not need to apologize. Other people probably owe you an apology.”
“I’m not entitled to other people wanting to date me.”
“True,” Cecil concedes with a tip of his head. “But you are entitled to safety, to being your full self, and to respect. So on behalf of other people, I’m sorry you didn’t always get it.”
Carlos’s eyes sting. He scrubs at them and flops back on the couch. “How are you so nice. How are you so wonderful and good about everything even when I’m just...a mess.”
“You’re perfect,” Cecil insists. “I’m confused as to what I did to earn praise.”
“You know and you didn’t-“ Carlos presses his mouth together in a thin line. “You know.”
“What was I supposed to have done?”
“I dunno.” He flings an arm over his eyes, hiding. “Be mad. Yell. Break up with me. Throw things, maybe, but that’s not really how you are.”
Cecil is quiet. Carlos doesn’t want to risk looking at him.
“This is so not how I wanted this to go,” he groans.
“What, coming out?”
Carlos swallows, hard. The words are right, obviously, but they make it too real. Half the time he still catches himself lowering his voice to say trans , quavering on Carlos when he introduces himself, ashamed and uncertain.
“Yeah,” he says, instead of trying to unpack any of his very complex feelings re: that. Transness and cisness and joy and pain. He drops his arm but keeps staring at the ceiling.
“How did you want to do it?”
“I didn’t?” he says, and then shakes his head. “No. That’s not...I’m sorry. No. If I could have done it, I would have had to tell someone else first. Emilia down at the lab, probably, I’m closest with her, she’s got a girlfriend, she seems nice.”
“And then?” Cecil prompts, gently.
“I would’ve asked you somewhere. Public, neutral, somewhere we haven’t gone before. Not a restaurant, like a park.” He feels shaky again, and gropes for Cecil’s hand, catching it and holding tight. If he thinks of it like this, clear, logical, strategic, it doesn’t sound like he’s accusing Cecil of anything.
(One of his boyfriends was smart enough to figure it out, when Carlos told him, and he was fine , or so he said, but he was mad that Carlos hadn’t trusted him, they’d been friends for six months and dating for one and wasn’t that enough?)
“I would’ve told you fast, before you had the chance to...I don’t know. Before we kissed or anything. Emilia would be there, not there there, but nearby, within earshot or maybe I’d be calling her with my phone in my pocket and she’d be a block away. I didn’t actually tell her yet, so we didn’t work out the details.”
He can feel Cecil’s confusion. “You...it’s not a battle? It’s barely dinner conversation, unless you’re interested in that sort of thing. I’ve had many a long conversation about gender over Big Rico’s.”
Carlos’s head is spinning. “You have? But...but you’re not?” He risks a glance at Cecil.
“You can say trans. It’s not a dirty word. It’s barely even a word, more like a prefix, or the first syllable of transportation.”
“You’re not...trans.”
Cecil grins, lopsided. “Aren’t I?”
“Fuck,” Carlos whispers. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-“
“It’s fine , darling. I don’t talk about it. It doesn’t matter much to me. Man, he, it all fits , mostly, and I usually don’t present any different. Sometimes a dress is neat, but you know. It’s mostly an internal thing. I don’t like to quantify it.”
“Right.” Carlos takes a second to process that. “Do you...do you call yourself trans, then?”
“I don’t really call myself either one.” Cecil shrugs with one shoulder. “But that wasn’t the point. The point was that when you talked about having a special plan to come out, I thought of a date. Something romantic. Maybe science, because it’s you. And you thought about, apparently, potentially being mauled by a wild dog. Not that wild dogs have ever been a problem in Night Vale,” he adds with a suspicious look at the lamp in the corner.
Carlos swallows, struck by the knowledge that the secret police are always watching. That by coming out to Cecil he’s just come out to the whole government. They already knew, he’s sure, what with the cameras everywhere, but it’s still uncomfortable. Thinking about it at all is uncomfortable, so he stops and tunes back in to what Cecil is saying.
“Did someone do something to you, to make you feel that way?” Cecil asks. “Scared?”
“No.” He raises an eyebrow. “Well, yes. Both?”
“Elaborate.”
Carlos lets his head drop onto his chest with a heavy sigh. “No one I’ve been with romantically—which is about three people, four depending how you count, so not a large sample size—has ever taken it well . My first girlfriend threw a shoe at me.” He touches the scar gently, watches Cecil’s gaze follow the movement and harden. “No one else ever actually hurt me. One boyfriend got mad, but I, uh, threatened to call the cops. I wouldn’t’ve, but he thought I would. So. The other two just broke up with me.”
“I don’t understand how you’re getting no from that?” Cecil tipped his head like a curious puppy.
“Well, they didn’t make me think that. They just reinforced what I already knew. If you, um, if you run in trans circles, you sort of learn that...? You learn the safety protocols.”
“What circles are those ?” Cecil asks, eyes wide. “I never found them.”
“I guess it’s different in Night Vale,” Carlos says slowly. “You’ve really never, I don’t know, had anything bad happen to you because you’re qu—because you’re queer?”
“Well, I fell in love with you and then you almost died and that was awful ,” Cecil says earnestly, “but I don’t think that’s what you mean.”
“It’s just...normal, in Night Vale.”
“Yeah. What’s that you were saying about absurd and weird? I guess you were wrong.”
Carlos doesn’t even remember what he said anymore. He’s processing the fact that, apparently, homophobia and transphobia don’t exist in Night Vale. At all .
Maybe that’s why there’s so many cosmic horrors. Maybe that’s the price you pay.
He’s not mad about it.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “So what happens now? Angsting aside.”
Cecil shrugs and plays with his fingers. “We could go out for ice cream?”
“Mmph,” Carlos says, very eloquently. “I’m a little...I don’t know if I want to go anywhere. Sorry. I’ve gone through way too many emotions in the past half hour.” He leans back, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I hate it. It’s so...it’s so illogical.”
“Maybe,” Cecil hums, “but it’s also science. Chemical reactions, right? Dopamine and, uh, serotonin? I can’t think of the others.” He nudges Carlos’s shoulder. “You taught me that. You should like emotions, they’re very science-y.”
Carlos lets his head drop onto Cecil’s shoulder. “Let’s just stay here and watch a terrible movie. I actually might have ice cream in my freezer.”
Cecil immediately leaps up and, after a minute of rummaging through Carlos’s freezer, returns triumphantly holding a carton of vanilla and two spoons.
“I could’ve gotten bowls and things, but I was impatient,” he says. “I missed you.”
“You were gone for two minutes.”
“Yes, and it was horrible!” Cecil passes him a spoon and nestles the carton of ice cream between their thighs. “It’s terrible enough missing you when I can’t see you.” He pauses. “That’s not me being too much, is it?”
It probably wouldn’t do much to stop him if Carlos did say yes—Cecil would always stop if he was really upset, like when he agreed to give every text and email a once-over before reading it on the air, but he’s very... enthusiastic when it comes to Carlos—so it’s a good thing the answer is no.
He shakes his head. “I miss you when you’re gone, too. Even just to the next room.”
“Aww!” Cecil coos, as if he’s surprised. “What else did you say? Terrible movie? Any suggestions?”
Carlos shrugs and leans on Cecil’s shoulder. He’s tired . It was a long day even before the whole...coming out thing. “You pick.”
He’s asleep before the title card even comes up.