quite unbelievably, i want someone to be sweet to me

On Sunday mornings in Night Vale, the birds chirp outside and the sound of church chimes hangs heavy and sweet on the air. Which is all the more troubling because they’ve never been able to find a single bird or, indeed, bell. (They also chime on Tuesday afternoons and on Wednesdays, late late at night.) Carlos manages to shower without incident, and Cecil pads off to make breakfast; this arrangement of theirs is starting to feel more and more cozy, but no one’s complaining. They haven’t gone any further than some ardent necking, and what might have been copping a feel but might also have been an earnest attempt at maneuvering in the back of a pickup truck. Beyond that, not much. Cecil is so disarmingly wholesome, not to mention enthusiastic, that Carlos is reluctant to press the issue – besides, he likes the myriad other ways Cecil’s affection is expressed, nakedly weird though they might be. He’s not bad-looking, he’s pretty harmless, and he’s… well, never mind. He’s a good resource.

A few weeks ago, he ended up sleeping over for the first time; when a truck hit a telephone pole down on Wash Drive, its bioluminescent cargo was apparently important enough for the sheriff’s secret police to set up an armed perimeter until it could be cleared off. Cecil seemed to treat this as thoroughly matter of fact, as road closings went; though Carlos had been dying to head over with the team and try to snap some pictures or take some readings. All in all it hadn’t been so bad for the fallout of an incident in Night Vale, a long night sharing a few locally-brewed beers and watching the distant unearthly lights. And now it’s become a habit, as his own assigned quarters become increasingly unlivable (and, periodically, unlocatable) and he can feel himself getting closer and closer to the inscrutable secrets of this town. Cecil’s apartment consistently has the same number of entrances as exits, isn’t full of scorpions, and is generally better appointed. It also has a foldaway bed, which seems to be mandated by some shadowy city-council statute or other.

He shrugs into a clean tee shirt (for some reason Cecil seems to believe he wears a white coat all the time, or at least that he should) and runs a comb through his hair. Breakfast brings a few surprises.

 

Coffee is already brewing, just regular old normal-sounding, normal-smelling coffee. “Oh– oh, hello! You made it!” says Cecil, dazzled, turning from the coffeemaker to greet him; Carlos is about to remark on what exactly you made it is supposed to mean, but thinks better of it. “Here, I’ll get you down a cereal bowl. And you washed your hair…” Cecil takes a few unsteady steps and embraces him, mussing his hair in the process."

“Oh, I’m all right, I’ll grab something on the drive back,” he lies, and for a weird moment that seems to register – or something does, anyway. Something registers on Carlos as very wrong even by Night Vale standards. Cecil’s eyes are liquid with admiration but looking distinctly glassy, and overall he’s– kind of sweaty. Sweatier than usual before noon in Night Vale.

Carlos reaches for his shoulder, to steady him or to express affection he’s not sure, and his thumb sinks into something moist. Recoiling sharply is just a reflex, after those clocks.

 

“Jesus Christ–”

“Hmm?”

Carlos looks in alarm to his face. There’s no glowing or bleeding from the eyes, no speaking in tongues, no, but there’s… that, parked on his vulnerable neck. A roughly triangular patch, right between neck and shoulder, is glistening and raw, striped with red. It smells like rare hamburger. Cecil’s immaculate shirt collar is soggy and discolored with some kind of secretion – thin and oily on his fingertips.

“Oh, that.” Cecil laughs, almost apologetically, and Carlos quickly removes his hand. “That. That. That. Yes. I noticed it while I was shaving, but I couldn’t find an adhesive bandage, or a styptic pencil.”

“What is that?”

“I thought you might be able to tell me, but I didn’t want to trouble you over nothing. I know you’ve got reports to file today, and it’s…” He trails off, blinking and rubbing at the spot in a way that makes Carlos cringe.

“How long has that been there, are you aware? Did something sting you?”

“Not very long at all, and not that I remember, though of course, I might not. I should – wow, maybe I should go lie down. Turn on the overhead light, the switch’s by the garbage disposal there.”

Carlos does, and getting a better look doesn’t help. He sucks in a breath through his teeth.

“Oh… oh boy. Can I take a look at that? It seems to have developed, uh, rapidly–”

“Certainly. As my father used to say to me, there’s no remedy for an abrasion like judicious application of… god, I’m feeling a bit faint, I should really look after my blood sugar in the mornings, you know…”

Some kind of rash? A spider bite? A vampire bite? The good people of Night Vale are more than willing to accept the interference of angels on a concept level, at least, so some kind of enormous nocturnal bat rasping at the skin of a defenseless radio host doesn’t seem totally out of the question. The crystal-clear memory flashes in front of his eyes of the night before, of Cecil laid out beside him, his glasses knocked askew, his throat marked with the irregularly placed blotches of love bites. The other marks have faded away to the mere suggestions of burst capillaries, but is it possible somehow, is it possible that he’s done something…? At any rate, is there something inside of Cecil now, lurking in his too-accommodating body like something out of H.R. Giger’s concept art folder?

(He used to have an H.R. Giger poster once, in grad school, when faceless semi-mechanical genitalia monsters were edgy and boundary-pushing and not the content of Intern Eric’s previously unremarkable Google search history.)

“All right. Cecil? I’m going to examine you, but I need to go out to the car first. Stay here, and try not to touch anything.”

Cecil, well, God bless him, he stays put. Carlos pushes up his sleeves and scrubs his hands up to the elbow with dish soap. He comes back with measuring calipers from the glove compartment and an unshakeable feeling of nauseated anticipation.

---

Carlos, Man of Science, sets Cecil down by the edge of the sink, on top of the newspapers and next to last night’s clean dishes; he grabs his fully operational Amazon.com pocket tape recorder (very professional! 2-day delivery! almost no wasps!), gloves up, and gets to work.

The mark on his neck isn’t a mark at all, not a surface abrasion but a wound, strands of tissue stretched over some kind of – orifice underneath. Mercifully it’s “orifice”, singular; the little cords stretch over the pit in his flesh like the strings on a guitar, and it’s in his neck, his neck of all places, why couldn’t it be somewhere else less improbable? Carlos hesitantly nudges one strand with his thumb and forefinger, wishing desperately that Night Vale wasn’t so damn weird about writing utensils because a pen would come in much handier here for impromptu probing. A straw, even. The fleshy odor is sweet and strong.

He’s never seen anything like it in the whole world, and it is repulsive.

Cecil moans a little, and Carlos startles.

“Are you all right?”

“Am I all right! I must admit, Carlos, I’m a little surprised, but if you’d still like to take a look, you’re welcome to it.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, but I’d like to get to the bottom of this, if you don’t mind. Scientifically speaking.”

His hands are shaking, just a little, and he almost drops the tape recorder; the red light flares on, and he manages to get the button down and the cassette rolling.

“It’s 7:48 AM, and I’m at Cecil’s. I’m looking at some kind of– open abscess, or it looks like an abscess, anyway,” he narrates, and Cecil’s already going glassy-eyed again, but whether it’s from shock or the sound of Carlos’ voice, he’s not sure. “Possibly some kind of orifice. It’s situated in the area of the front right shoulder. It doesn’t appear to be opening into any other recognizable structure, or causing immediate discomfort–” (How deep is it? It’s hard to tell, and he’d kill to have a pen light. Cecil seems remarkably unshaken by this, but he’s, well, Cecil – he doesn’t even act like it hurts, which is frankly impossible to believe, holding in one’s mind’s eye the yawning pinkness of the site and the location of it, right at the junction of muscles and tendons and veins. ) “–and I am going to, uh, palpate it.”

“Interesting!” Cecil murmurs quietly, in a tone of voice more appropriate for someone examining a museum exhibit or a new recipe.

The gloves aren’t doing much to dampen how undeniably organic this feels – a portal to a parallel dimension, maybe they could deal with, another eye or a secondary mouth, and he keeps feeling around and expecting to hit teeth, or bone. This should really be hitting bone right about now, unless Cecil’s biological composition is substantially different from a non-Night Vale-ian’s, and isn’t that an interesting thought, as Cecil draws tight tense breaths and Carlos tries to narrate what he’s seeing and doing to an indifferent cassette tape.

(A digital file might be better, if they can get the equipment to stop converting those into .flac files of animal sounds. He’ll have to ask Cecil how they record at the station later. Definitely later.)

The sensation of probing into the hole is… interesting, but oh god, it sends a shudder skyrocketing through him anyway. ‘Revolting’ might be one word. Fascinating. Cecil squirms and chatters while Carlos prods around, making fervent and flattering apologies for the stuff that makes him suck his teeth and wince, but his speech has a broken quality, like someone just woken from sleep, and honestly it’s creeping him out more than the… biological stuff. Improbable biology is Carlos’ forte, he likes it, or at least used to like it before it was everywhere, in the food and beer and pillowcases here in Night Vale, and Cecil – flushed, disheveled, highly complimentary Cecil – seems to be liking it too. Maybe this is a warning sign – betraying some kind of brain fever, or the effect of some fast-acting venom. The flesh isn’t necrotic or unnaturally discolored, which is more than can be said for most raw meat in Night Vale; the edges are smoothed slightly, as if they’ve already begun to heal, but there’s no muscular control in the edges to dilate or contract.

“Is– are you feeling this? Is there something else in there? How’s this?”

“If I may–” Cecil blurts, glancing at him for approval with blazed, lashy eyes, and clasps his gloved hand to shove it in deeper.

Maybe “fingered” would be a better word than “palpated”; he starts cautiously working into the hole in his flesh with a forefinger and feeling Cecil shudder. He’s much warmer inside than outside, and the sides of the internal cavity are wet and firm. The strands of flesh forming the outer vestibule part readily for him, but even proceeding gently he’s afraid they might get torn – they have the slippery look of heartstrings or connective tissue, slick with the oily fluid that now coats his gloves and spots Cecil’s tie. There’s a lot of it, now, come to think of it–

(He tries to loosen the tie, to peel back the neck of Cecil’s shirt a little – Cecil wears an undershirt, which he’s noticed before but is treating kind of like a drop cloth now. This isn’t optimal procedure.)

Cecil shuts his eyes tightly and murmurs his name, calls him brave and beautiful. Matters… escalate.

He’s working two fingers inside the wound; he presses and explores with the plummeting pit-of-his-stomach feeling that he should be meeting some kind of obstacle – cartilage, bone, teeth, sharp teeth – and yet all that tightens and spasms against his hand with every moan is flesh, raw wet flesh. Cecil leans against the sink, rigid and gripping him to keep upright; this is the worst possible thing, but the degree to which he’s accessible, open, revealed, compliant is doing things to Carlos. Scientifically speaking. He’s not sure if he should hope the tape catches the sounds of this exploration – the sounds of wet delving in flesh and latex creaking, of their mutual ragged breath and Cecil’s fast hitches of pained or pleased whimpering. Call it involved, call it thorough, maybe it’s not as professional as it should be but oh well.

Cecil makes one more exclamation when Carlos withdraws his fingers finally, the orifice generating a disappointed moist pop. The way he hitches against him is more or less unmistakable.

“Well, that’ll never come out,” Cecil mutters, at sea and sinking against him breathlessly . But for a moment there’s a glimpse, a horrible suggestion of movement – a whip-lash loop of glistening black waving hello at him from inside the pit. Deep deep down, where nothing should be.