Chapter Text
I had a really good time last night.
It's from Cecil, of course. It's late afternoon, which means that he must be preparing for his radio show to start. Carlos wonders if Cecil had carefully calculated how long to wait before sending that text, if he'd decided on the optimal hour to ensure that it wasn't too soon, but wasn't yet overdue.
He looks at his own already-typed, unsent message, waiting at the bottom of the screen:
I had a nice time at dinner the other night.
He's glad Cecil texted first. Carlos had been the one to initiate the asking, after all, and if it hadn't gone well he wouldn't want to seem pushy. Still, if Cecil hadn't mentioned it over the next few days, he'd have been forced strike the conversation back up himself. Although if that had been the case, he felt it unlikely that his efforts would have proved terribly successful.
Too many variables; he's glad Cecil texted first.
He modifies his own message to read,
I had a good time, too.
He considers adding a smiley face to the end of the text. Should he add a smiley face? The words already convey approval. Right? But, wait. He reads the text again. Maybe not enough approval? How much approval, exactly, should they convey?
The phone vibrates in his hand and another series of text message appear below the first, nothing yet sent from Carlos to separate them in the conversation.
I took care of the paperwork with City Council.
I checked the box indicating intention for a future date.
Hope that wasn't too forward.
It feels as if the fluttering in his stomach is pushing upwards against his lungs, and he suddenly needs to take a deep breath to kickstart his thoughts.
Shit. Okay. Something else to reply to. It wasn't a question. But it clearly is a question. Just... in disguise.
Letters and words and symbols are all so slippery. That's why they're the placeholders for the unknown quantities or imaginary values in equations. They, in and of themselves, have only arbitrarily, socially-imbued meaning. He'd much rather ask Cecil a series of carefully curated questions, judged on a scale of 1 to 10. If only he had data, Carlos thinks, then he could make an informed and considered decision about this whole thing. He could make charts. If there is enough of an established basis to work off of, the extrapolation is easy. Charts would make this much easier, he was certain.
Also, paperwork? Weird. Night Vale is weird. Though the weirdness is quickly becoming a background hum to his universe these days, it still makes him uncomfortable that somebody else knows his business when he isn't sure of it himself.
Back to the text. An exclamation mark. That's enthusiastic. He adds on,
And, no, not too forward.
No, that's weird, the period at the end is weird. It seems stilted. Should he put a smiley face there? No, get rid of the period, but no smiley face. Not too stilted, but not too enthusiastic. Casual! He can do casual. He doesn't want to come off desperate or anything. Yeah, he can totally do casual.
I had a good time, too! And, no, not too forward
Yeah. That seems... okay. Yeah.
He hits send.
He totally can't do casual. But all things considered, he could probably propose marriage here and now and he'd still be playing it way cooler than Cecil has up to this point. Maybe Cecil likes that Carlos is a little bit aloof. Maybe it's a thrill-of-the-chase thing. But if it is, and if he's just agreed they should go out again, maybe that's not attractive? Like, maybe that negates the excitement of the whole thing? Maybe he should tone it down even more?
Self-reliant Carlos is; self-assured, he is not.
His phone vibrates again with another message. The screen hasn't even had time to go dark yet, and he marvels at how quickly Cecil seems to be able to make up his mind about how to say whatever it is that he wants to communicate.
In that case, are you free on Thursday?
At least this one has an actual question mark involved, clear and direct in its purpose.
Yes.
He wonders again about that period-or-not-or-altenative-punctuation dilemma, but it's too late now – he's already sent it.
Once again, the response is almost instant, but is, again, mercifully easy to glean the meaning of.
Dinner and a movie? 7 o'clock?
Yes.
He wipes his hand on his coat to wick away the nervous sweat that has suddenly developed on his palms. Somehow talking to Cecil in a parking lot after nearly being killed was easy – so easy – easy like the shedding of skin cells or the spin of electrons. Somehow talking to him over dinner was simple, too: slightly embarrassing, but ultimately the warm haze of the evening had bolstered his courage. But here, this... writing... these short, single-word replies via phone are wracking his nerves something fierce.
The animation of a reply being composed loops at the bottom of the screen as Cecil types something. It pauses. Nothing happens for a moment. It resumes. There is another pause, another burst of typing, and then a message comes through.
Great!
Carlos involuntarily barks out a laugh as a perfect and fully-formed image pops into his mind. He imagines Cecil typing, “Neat!” regretting it, deleting it, considering alternatives and then deciding on “Great!” He's not certain that's what's just happened, but it makes his insides warm to realize it probably is. It makes the rest of him warm, too, to think he might already know Cecil well enough to know that.
He types out a quick message. And, as a nod to the unknown quantity of the future, he adds a symbol, to stand for hopefulness in the face of uncertainty.
See you then :)
At the end of their second date, Carlos drives Cecil home. He puts the car in park and turns to face the man in the passenger seat.
Cecil unbuckles his seat belt and fidgets with it as he says, “Well. Thanks for the lovely time.”
“My pleasure,” Carlos says, warm and sincere and lingering just a little bit on that second word.
There's a pause, and Carlos doesn't seem to be filling it, so Cecil jumps right in. “The City Council will want to know how it... ended.”
“Well, I, um, suppose that depends. Do you want to– will you– I mean, can I see you again? Maybe this weekend?” Carlos asks, and the fluster in his voice is somehow, impossible though it may seem, just possibly even more wonderful and endearing than his perfect teeth or his square jaw or his beautiful hair or his brilliant mind.
“Of course!” Cecil says in a rush, and laughs at his own enthusiasm. Because it's funny that Carlos could ever seem uncertain about his desire to spend time with him. Or around him. Or under him.
That would be good, too.
“In that case...” Carlos trails off and leans across the center divider of the car to kiss Cecil once, twice, and a third, lingering time. “In that case,” he has to clear his throat to strengthen his voice, “I'll see you on Saturday?”
“Mm-hm,” Cecil hums happily, nearly tripping out of the car, too busy looking at the man still in it. “See you then.”
They stare at each other for another long moment before the dinging of the car reminds them that the door is open and that they are acting like idiots.
“Well, good night,” Carlos says.
“Drive safely,” Cecil says.
Neither of them stops grinning until hours later.
The buzzing of his phone pulls Carlos from sleep several Saturdays later.
Good morning, handsome!
He takes a brief moment to roll his face into his pillow, uncertain who he is trying to hide his smile from, but knowing that his happiness is something just for him, alone, to savor.
Good morning!
He stretches in bed, struck for a brief moment by the strange, wonderful intimacy of talking to – well, typing to – Cecil, all while still sleep-tousled and under the covers. He wonder if Cecil is in bed, too. He wonders what that looks like. It seems to take forever to get a response, although in reality it's probably only a matter of sixty seconds or so, but he chooses to blame time in Night Vale rather that his own giddy, teenage-like emotions.
Did you eat yet? I was thinking we could maybe go out for breakfast.
He's going to need about an hour to become properly presentable. As for the town's breakfast options, he's totally open for suggestions, and he says so.
To keep his baseless anxiety in check while he waits for a reply, he forces himself upright and out of bed. He shambles to the bathroom and squeezes out a line of toothpaste, shooting impatient sideways glances to the phone resting on the edge of the sink.
Okay! Eleven o'clock is perfect. Moonlite All-Nite Diner or Blue Mesa Grill?
Carlos considers the options but can't bring himself to commit when he doesn't have any prior experience or rational basis.
Either. You pick.
How about the Moonlite for breakfast today?
Sure, sounds good.
He's so engrossed in considering what to do with his hair that the vibration of the phone actually makes him jump. When he looks at the content of the message, he nearly chokes on his toothbrush.
And maybe Blue Mesa for breakfast tomorrow...?
He has to spit out his toothpaste and re-read the message a half-dozen times before he's sure it says what he thinks it says. It does say what he thinks it says, but he can't tell if it implies what he thinks it implies.
...Is this one date or two?
Either.
You pick.
He's not sure in that moment if he wants to applaud Cecil for delivering the option over text so that he's allowed to silently freak out in his bathroom instead of in front of another human being, or whether he wants to berate Cecil for making him choose via his phone when he can't judge the tenor and tone of the offer. Regardless of what emotional reaction he's having right now, it's pretty clear how his body has already decided to vote.
He's beginning to hope they skip this morning's breakfast all together, though he's in no hurry to fast forward to tomorrow's.
Forget showering or making coffee: he's going to need from now until eleven to remember how to breathe again. There are so many implications to that message and he has no clues as to how he is supposed to process them. Three words, and about fifteen questions he's being asked to respond to. Sneaky, sneaky words. He finally settles on a reply:
Blue Mesa is closer to my place than yours, so you should probably bring whatever you need.
Thankfully, Cecil seems to understand words and their malleable meanings without needing additional context.
Okay! I've got the paperwork, too.
See you soon!
Carlos types. He pauses.
Can't wait!
Well, as his Great Aunt Lupe used to say: in for a penny, in for a pound. He hits send.
;)