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1. angels
Carlos knows, because Cecil keeps reminding everyone, that angels do not exist, by mandate of the City Council. He still has to tilt his head back quite a ways to meet the most traditional pair of eyes of the entity in Old Woman Josie's parlor.
Erika isn't quite a pillar of fire, but se does put out the radiance of at least a hundred-watt bulb and gives off a cheery warmth that reminds Carlos of sitting at the table in his grandmother's kitchen, the oven full and the whole house smelling like fresh bread. Hir hundred eyes open and close completely at random, no pair quite in sync with each other, even the two that sit precisely where he would expect a pair of eyes to sit. He wonders if angels have even a rudimentary concept of peripheral vision. He's not sure they even have names.
All the angels go by Erika. He'd thought they were having Old Woman Josie on until he looked up the meaning. Now he suspects they're using it as a noun; just not a proper one.
"You're sure?" Carlos asks, biting his lower lip nervously. He's not sure why he's nervous; it was Erika's idea. It just seems...not sacrilegious, actually. Maybe just suicidally impertinent. "I mean, I can teach you, that's not a problem, but--"
Erika nods, wings ruffling complacently. They remind him of the jets of matter ejected from the poles of a quasar, sheets and streams of plasma that warp and drift like smoke. They're beautiful, but he certainly wouldn't want to bump into them by accident.
"All right," he says, gathering his courage and reaching for Erika's hands. One he places on his shoulder; the other he clasps within his. "But this first time, I'll lead."
2. earthquakes
Cecil knows, because Carlos keeps reminding him, that Science is not an appropriate theme for a date and that Cecil shouldn't keep letting him get away with it. Maybe if Carlos stops looking so adorably hangdog when he says it, Cecil will quit promising to put his foot down next time.
The truth is, he enjoys watching Carlos at work. The way his face goes intense, the stern angle of his brows, the way his mouth draws tight with determination, and his eyes--Cecil could look at Carlos doing science all day. It's even better when Carlos starts explaining his theories to Cecil, or possibly thinking to himself aloud. It's a joy to listen to Carlos wax passionate either way, and Cecil doesn't mind being a sounding board. For some reason Carlos always attributes the breakthroughs he comes to while rambling at Cecil to Cecil himself, and that means grateful, soul-devouring kisses that leave him weak-kneed and giddy.
But none of those are quite his favorite thing about Carlos the Scientist in action.
Sitting on the trunk of an all-terrain black sedan Carlos has rented for the day, Cecil leans his elbows on his knees and props his chin on his fists, watching avidly as Carlos opens up the outer casing of a malfunctioning seismic monitor. It's part of the vast array that circles Night Vale, purposefully far from any road; hence the need for a more sturdy vehicle than either of theirs, and Carlos is sweet enough to credit Cecil and his show for helping him settle on the vaguely menacing sedan, which practically glides even off-road. They're just at the edge of the sand wastes, no different from any other stretch of barren sand and rock and scrub that Cecil can tell, but something has Carlos muttering under his breath as he takes the machine apart.
Carlos' hands are broad-palmed and strong, his long fingers so dexterous the employees at Dark Owl Records keep begging him to join their band. As big as they are, Carlos' hands dance lightly over his work, navigating delicate machinery with utter certainty. Cecil has never seen him glance at a schematic or reach for the wrong tool or hesitate over which wire to cut. He's just quietly and brilliantly competent, his genius never more apparent.
Poking around between the outer casing and the guts of the device, Carlos freezes, sighs, and works his fingers in deeper. What he tweezes out of the machine snaps its palps at him resentfully, but Carlos is no longer intimidated by Night Vale's delinquent tarantulas. Weighing the creature on his palm, he stares right into its glaring, beady eyes and says, "If you want to know how something works, just ask. I'd be happy to show you. But squeezing your way into other people's equipment is rude."
Cecil sighs dreamily as the spider gives a rebellious shrug then slouches its way up Carlos' arm, settling in on Carlos' shoulder like it's doing him a favor. Carlos has such a way with inquiring young minds.
"I guess that explains the localized 'earthquakes,'" Carlos says as he starts putting the sensor back together. "Well, the ones local to this station, anyway."
The idea of a spider causing an earthquake makes Cecil grin. Carlos is such a comedian. "Well," he says, trying to be serious without ruining Carlos' fun, "if it wasn't the spider, I guess it could've been the star."
Carlos goes still again, his eyes slowly widening. "The star."
Oops. Cecil wasn't supposed to mention that, not to outsiders anyway, but it's nearly impossible to think of Carlos that way anymore. Still, it's supposed to be privileged information--if word got out, every town would want one--and all he can hope is that Carlos won't ask too many questions.
"The neutron star," Carlos surprises him by saying; it really isn't a question, so in a way his hopes have been realized. "The four mile wide neutron star you said they were going to bury under the sands to power the football stadium."
"When, ah...when did I say that?" Cecil asks with a nervous little laugh.
"On your show. Last November."
Oh, dear. He had made an announcement then, hadn't he? He suspects someone in Public Utilities had been thumbing his nose at his counterpart in Desert Bluffs at the time, but Cecil just reads what they hand him; he doesn't make the news. Most of the time, anyway.
Carlos comes closer, gliding over the ground like their rented black sedan and just as vaguely menacing. It's a very good look on him, which isn't quite fair. How is he supposed to keep community secrets when Carlos is stepping between his knees, hands cupping his face for a moment then sliding around to lace at the back of his neck, their foreheads resting together?
"I want to see it," Carlos murmurs, eyes full of love and science but mostly love, all of it laid bare. Cecil shudders because it's not a demand. He's a highly public figure; he's gone through all the training on resisting torture, even the sort of torture you hope to get a phone number out of for a repeat performance. Carlos asks a million questions, but he asks for very little. He merely states his desires, and if anything comes of them, it's always a happy surprise.
"I...I have a few contacts," he admits, and now he remembers why he hasn't said anything before this. It has nothing to do with civic loyalty; it's because after five minutes with Carlos, the municipal scientists are probably going to want to kidnap Carlos and make him their chief. The old chief's nubile daughter would just love that, he thinks resentfully...and then Carlos grins and drops to his knees, hands settling on Cecil's hips to pull him to the edge of the trunk.
The tarantula on Carlos' shoulders jerks in horror and goes diving into the right breast pocket of Carlos' lab coat, which bulges around the poor, embarrassed thing. Cecil nearly reminds Carlos of their young audience, but Carlos is already working at his belt, his zip, and Cecil slips off the car entirely to lean back against it, feet planted to either side of Carlos as his hands scrabble for purchase on sun-heated metal.
They can worry about arranging therapy for impressionable young minds later, he supposes.
3. his (once-)creepy stalker
As the alarm goes off, Carlos blinks awake to the certainty that he's not alone in his bedroom. That would have panicked him once, but now he wonders if there's something wrong with his Wi-Fi as he knuckles the sleep from his eyes. The faceless old woman who lives in his house--she'd written 'Mary' on his shower-fogged bathroom mirror when he'd asked her name--doesn't usually bother him for anything else, though she does check his experiments from time to time if Cecil has him...busy. He'd worried about that at first, but she's a meticulous observer, and it isn't as if she hasn't watched him enough times to know the procedure.
When he manages to focus after fumbling the alarm silent, he realizes it's Cecil sitting in the chair by his bed.
Carlos stills with a jerk of surprise. Not because Cecil is inside his house; Carlos gave him a key two months ago. He's merely surprised that Cecil is...there. Just sitting there, in his boxers and a somewhat threadbare Night Vale Radio T-shirt, eyes red and dry-looking, as if he hasn't been blinking much.
"Have you been watching me sleep?" Carlos asks, voice still gruff and thick. He winces, hoping Cecil won't mistake it for anger; mostly he's confused.
"Had to," Cecil says, his own voice scratchy. "An umber alert went out last night, and I know you're not on the local network, but you really should consider switching your plan over, and I know it's a little more expensive, but--"
"Cecil," Carlos interrupts him, torn between amusement and concern. Umber alert?
"That spot on the ceiling you stare at when you can't bring yourself to get out of bed has started stealing people's lovers unobserved in their sleep." Cecil points, and Carlos, against his better judgment, looks up.
The very spot on the ceiling he'd been known to stare at on his worst days that first year--The Year Without Cecil, he thinks of it now--is the center of a writhing mass of off-white tentacles in need of a good repainting. Carlos swallows hard and replays Cecil's warning in his head. Lovers unobserved in their sleep. He doesn't hear a single comma in that anywhere.
"So you watched me sleep because...it couldn't get me while you were watching?" he hazards a guess.
Cecil smiles exhaustedly. "You were muttering about someone named Penrose. Should I be jealous?"
"Never," Carlos promises. Pushing himself to sit up against the headboard with a wary glance to the sulkily-twining tentacles, he looks Cecil over more carefully, not liking what he sees. "You were up all night? Don't you have the show in five hours?" Cecil shrugs. Guilt settles like a rock in the middle of Carlos' stomach. "Why didn't you wake me?"
Cecil smiles in that nervous way he still has when he thinks Carlos won't appreciate what he has to say. "I liked it," he admits, ducking his head.
Carlos doesn't ask for clarification: what he liked about it or why, or to what degree. He just smiles and scoots over, holding out an arm so Cecil won't get the wrong idea. "Come here," he says, holding up the sheet with his other hand. Cecil blinks at him like he's speaking a foreign tongue, so Carlos keeps his voice gentle. "You can at least get a few hours before you have to do the show."
Cecil looks irrationally charmed and hopeful considering that Carlos is merely returning the favor. "You mean you'll...?"
"I won't take my eyes off you," he promises, smile growing as Cecil kicks off his shoes and creeps hesitantly into bed. They haven't done this often, just crawl under the sheets with one another without sex to negate any awkwardness that might arise, but Carlos likes it. There are few enough things in his life that make him want to slow down enough to appreciate what he has, and Cecil is the biggest of those.
Turned on his side to face Carlos, Cecil nuzzles into Carlos' pillow as one of his hands slips into the leg of Carlos' boxers and curls into a fist, gripping the material tightly. If Cecil weren't so obviously exhausted, Carlos would run his favorite experiment: calculating by hands-on observation how many kisses it takes to cover every inch of Cecil's skin. For some reason he keeps losing count.
Instead he threads his fingers into Cecil's hair, down to his scalp, and drags them free again in a long, soothing slide. Cecil moans softly, content, so he does it again. Cecil's out cold before Carlos can comb through his hair a third time, so he leaves his hand right where it is.
In four and a half hours, he's going to be desperate to move for all sorts of reasons, but it's a small price to pay for all this.
4. very special days
Cecil jogs closer, heart in his mouth, as Carlos steps back with a satisfied nod and shouts, "Fire!"
Cecil expects to hear the boom of a cannon's report, but there's nothing but a muffled whump as Carlos' team flies into action. Morris pulls a lever that looks like it may have been a gear shift at one point, which releases the tension on a giant coiled spring that sends a reinforced plywood arm swinging up so hard the entire contraption bucks when the arm stops with a jerk. Something goes flying out of the bowl shape at its end, arcing up and up and right over the walls of the dog park. Cecil doesn't hear it land, but he's sure it must. Somewhere.
Carlos and his team of scientists have assembled a catapult out of what looks like a successful trip to the landfill. There are double-banded crates stacked up beside them, and the team grins hugely as they scramble to prime the catapult again. Cecil desperately wants to crack every last one of their heads together.
"Carlos!" he cries as he sprints to close the gap between them, ignoring the instinct that tells him to distance himself from this madness in every way possible. "What are you--you can't--the dog park is forbidden!" he babbles in a rush.
He knows he's too late when he hears the stern cough at his back.
"Sir," a member of the Sheriff's Secret Police says flatly, "I'm going to have to ask you to come with--"
"Relax," Carlos says, turning to them with a smile. "Annual Crime Day," he adds, "remember?"
"You're a Taurus?" Cecil says weakly and groans at his own ridiculousness. Of course Carlos is. Cecil has just forgotten the implications of that; they hadn't seemed important or even likely the year before.
"That may excuse you," the deputy says gruffly, "but not these people with you." He doesn't really want to arrest Carlos, Cecil realizes, or Carlos' team; they've done a lot for Night Vale, and no one has yet forgotten their energetic defense at the Valentine barricades when rational obsession and the spirit of exploration took on winged flights of baseless romance and won.
Carlos looks surprised. "Well, I can't see why not," he says. "I'm threatening them with utter annihilation, after all."
The team pauses long enough in their reloading to look suitably terrified, but the twist of the deputy's mouth is unconvinced.
"That's--"
"Illegal?" Carlos offers helpfully.
"Only if you can back it up," the deputy warns as the low chug of a helicopter draws closer.
Carlos reaches into his pocket, saying, "Funny you should mention that."
Cecil nearly groans aloud when he sees what Carlos pulls out. It's just the clicker to the garage door, and though the deputy looks wary, it's a bluff that can't stand for long. The chopper hovering just overhead is a familiar, friendly blue, but they carry mindscan equipment just as good as what the black helicopters have--better, even. It won't take but a moment for them to realize Carlos is lying, and then--
Carlos' smile widens, slow and deliciously ominous.
"EVACUATE THE AREA," the hovering chopper's PA system blares so suddenly it makes Cecil jump. Beside him, the deputy pales. "REPEAT: EVACUATE THE AREA. GRAB WHATEVER IS MOST PRECIOUS TO YOU AND RUN. DO NOT DISTURB THE SCIENTISTS. AND DO NOT LOOK AT THE DOG PARK."
Cecil stares as the deputy sprints for his car and the helicopter goes thundering away at top speed. "What...what have you done?" he stammers, heart racing.
Carlos' smile is gentle, his voice reassuring as he explains, and Cecil blushes for making Carlos think he needs to be either. "Er, well...I had a really interesting conversation with one of the Erikas about that 'head of a pin' thing, and it turns out they have conscious manipulation and amazingly fine control of their--well, they can make themselves be whatever size they like. There's one under this button right now, in fact, and se's incredibly ticklish."
Oh. Oh, dear.
"Did you know that an exploding angel looks just like a neutron star?" Carlos asks softly, dark eyes brilliant with the light of discovery. There's something in Carlos' words that he thinks might be important, but he's a little distracted by how lovely his personal evil genius is in the midmorning sunlight, brandishing a weapon of planetary destruction while his minions scurry to do his bidding. They haven't actually brought up roleplay yet, but if Carlos is willing--
The gibbering of Cecil's phone alerts him of an incoming text, and he pulls it out on autopilot, thoroughly preoccupied by the many scenarios they could be exploring. Would Cecil be the terrified journalist Carlos has to woo with his tender care and his brilliant, brilliant hair? Or would Cecil have to sacrifice himself sexually, over and over again, to appease the cruel genius who could end the world if Cecil doesn't perform to his satisfaction? Maybe he'll ask Dana's opinion while he's--oh!
The text is from Dana.
"OMG," he reads aloud, "kiss ur BF 4 me, plz! POP TARTS. <3!"
"I thought she might like those, and they keep just about forever," Carlos says, unfazed by Cecil's recital though his team are giving Cecil science-y looks. Oooh, maybe Carlos can be the kind researcher who saves Cecil from--but no. Something tells him Carlos wouldn't like that game at all.
Still, you'd think his team had never heard netspeak before.
"You're...airlifting supplies to Dana?" Cecil asks, something warm building up in the middle of his chest.
"Well, you keep talking about her, so clearly she's still alive in there," Carlos says, ducking his head bashfully as he slips the deadly clicker back into his pocket. "So I thought, well, I have this crime day. I ought to use it for something--"
Cecil kisses Carlos once for Dana, and then once because Dana asked him to.
The third time is just for Cecil himself.
5. utter normality
They're nowhere special, just on the corner waiting for the light to change. It's well after dusk--Cecil's show has been over for an hour--and though they've just had dinner, there's no special occasion. There's no reason for Carlos to turn to Cecil and kiss him, light and fast; he just does.
Everything inside him just stops when he hears the screech of tires, the bass thud of a stereo turned up way too loud, the jumbled shouts of raised male voices. He looks up and there's a jacked-up, shiny red truck idling at the light, filled with boys from the community college: three in the cab and four in the back, their right fists all raised. For a moment he wants to shove Cecil behind him, tell him to run.
Then he blinks and slowly smiles back at the enormous grins he's looking at, raising his own fist in reply. "Hey!" he shouts back obligingly.
The boys erupt with blatantly unsubtle wolf-howls, laying on the horn and waving cheerfully as they take off in a squeal of tires as the light changes. Carlos laughs shakily as he waits for his heart to slow. He keeps forgetting that the town at large refers to them as their 'power couple,' that they've been invited to more bloodstone circles and grand opening ceremonies than he really wants to think about.
Cecil looks confused, which tells Carlos he hasn't kept his cool nearly as well as he might have hoped, but he doesn't really want to explain. If Cecil has no idea, then just this once, Carlos is fine with him not knowing. "It's not much like home," is all he says, which has Cecil looking worried until Carlos kisses him again.
"I like that," he adds without really pulling back, his words brushing lightly against Cecil's lips. So does his smile.